Guild Wars 2

In my personal opinion, which you may disagree with, I believe that Living Story and other temporary content are simply holiday content with no holiday tied to it.

So, with that in mind, if you are to make sure that all temporary content is permanent, why not just have Halloween and Wintersday all year round so that new players don’t miss out on those events, too?

Their living story concept is bold and unique, but the problem lies on resources vs. payoff. Temporary content needs to supplement permanent content, not the other way around. Doing temp stuff disproportionately frustrates more players than it appeases for the exact reasons you describe. Moreover, the game just gets further and further behind in terms of growth of content, which exacerbates the frustration players already feel.

Esplen.3940:

In my personal opinion, which you may disagree with, I believe that Living Story and other temporary content are simply holiday content with no holiday tied to it.

So, with that in mind, if you are to make sure that all temporary content is permanent, why not just have Halloween and Wintersday all year round so that new players don’t miss out on those events, too?

This is just… not a good argument. For one, holiday events are recurring, and that’s what makes them cool. For two, it’s good to have some event-type temporary content, it’s just not good for it to be the majority of content that’s introduced. Again, it needs to supplement permanent additions to the game.

Einlanzer.1627:

Esplen.3940:

In my personal opinion, which you may disagree with, I believe that Living Story and other temporary content are simply holiday content with no holiday tied to it.

So, with that in mind, if you are to make sure that all temporary content is permanent, why not just have Halloween and Wintersday all year round so that new players don’t miss out on those events, too?

This is just… not a good argument. For one, holiday events are recurring, and that’s what makes them cool. For two, it’s good to have some event-type temporary content, it’s just not good for it to be the majority of content that’s introduced. Again, it needs to supplement permanent additions to the game.

And Living Story is continuing. Also, Living Story has been adding permanent content. Most people are just too caught on the “OH GOD, THE MOLTEN ALLIANCE WAS HERE AND WE BEAT THEM BUT WHY CAN’T THEY STILL BE HERE?! AND THEN THERE’S THE KARKA, WE BEAT THEM, BUT WHY CAN’T THEY STILL BE HERE?! AND THEN THE AETHERBLADES, WE BEAT THEM, BUT WHY CAN’T THEY STILL BE HERE?!”

There have been new PoI’s, new NPC’s (in the actual PvE aspect of the game, not just Marjory and Kiel), new Area’s, a new jumping puzzle, and soon to be even more new things.

Additionally, there have been the introduction of Blooming Passiflora, the Karka Queen Meta event, along with Karka Potions (the +150 toughness potion isn’t that bad), new Recipes, new items, and new Gem Store items (with less and less RNG!)

I’m sorry, but, where does it say that everything in the game has to be permanent other than holidays that re-occur? Heck, who said that all holidays had to re-occur, anyways? My point still stands. I treat all these content patches as holiday patches, regardless of whether or not they re-occur. If you feel differently, that’s your choice.

You guys remember when everyone beat the game and complained for more zones/things to do? This was back before all the temporary content, before Southsun. They released Southsun, which was supposed to be a hard zone equivalent in difficulty to Orr. It was equivalent in difficulty to Orr but nobody went there because everyone wanted to farm solo (or, in Orr, in groups, ironically). So they moved onto other things because new zones clearly weren’t up to snuff for players.

They worked on content patches to give people things to ease them off of the fact that there aren’t any more zones and to encourage people to leave Lion’s Arch. It worked, people still stay in Lion’s Arch, but there’s incentive to go to WvW (even moreso, namely with dailies), there’s incentive to leave Lion’s Arch. But then people complained that this content was all temporary and that if you missed one little part of it, you can’t continue on with any of it.

Who said that you can’t continue with any of it? With that logic, everyone must have played GW1 because otherwise they miss a huge part of the story and can’t play without it.

Now give me some reasons as to why we need to have more new permanent content?
Is Southsun Shore giving you the chills after you’ve spent 500 hours in there? Have you spent 500 hours in Southsun Shores?

Esplen.3940:

In my personal opinion, which you may disagree with, I believe that Living Story and other temporary content are simply holiday content with no holiday tied to it.

So, with that in mind, if you are to make sure that all temporary content is permanent, why not just have Halloween and Wintersday all year round so that new players don’t miss out on those events, too?

That would be fine, holiday-like fluff content, if it wasn’t in place of real content, like the loads of new Dynamic Events Colin hyped last fall, (touted as doubling or tripling the number of DEs with in a year), which never materialized.

I think the entire Living Story strategy, based on what we’ve seen to date, has been a complete failure and absolute waste of development time. If they couldn’t produce meaningful monthly content, I don’t have much hope that twice monthly content updates will provide anything more than a cotton candy experience.

I can only say,im not so happy with these temporary content. U have no chance to get them when u A in Holiday B new player B u make a break D u work hard.

Fiontar.4695:

Esplen.3940:

In my personal opinion, which you may disagree with, I believe that Living Story and other temporary content are simply holiday content with no holiday tied to it.

So, with that in mind, if you are to make sure that all temporary content is permanent, why not just have Halloween and Wintersday all year round so that new players don’t miss out on those events, too?

That would be fine, holiday-like fluff content, if it wasn’t in place of real content, like the loads of new Dynamic Events Colin hyped last fall, (touted as doubling or tripling the number of DEs with in a year), which never materialized.

I think the entire Living Story strategy, based on what we’ve seen to date, has been a complete failure and absolute waste of development time. If they couldn’t produce meaningful monthly content, I don’t have much hope that twice monthly content updates will provide anything more than a cotton candy experience.

Well, it’s heading more towards a permanent direction. Bazaar of the Four Winds has a lot of permanent content as opposed to most other Living World/content patches.

To be completely fair, they are listening to their player-base, it’s just most people don’t realize that and just whine all day.

I don’t like the temporary content too. I like achievements and i hate that there are achievements for the temporary content i cannot make because I was on holiday or made a break from the game. I dont think I will come back to the game after a break because of all the achievements that are lost to me forever. Annual Content is really ok, because i can see it next year again.

So if Anet have to go on with temporary content like now, introduce only achievements for the permanent content.

I see a risk in temporary content but not at all for the reasons you cite.

- Content here today gone tomorrow: This is a good thing, it means the world is never constant. Events occur that you have to catch when they are there.

- Stuff changes: People know that if they leave and come back, it will be a different experience.

- Need to play catch up? This is the argument of ‘my kid was born in 2013, and so needs to read the patch notes back to 6 million B.C. or he’ll be left swinging in the trees with the other monkeys.’
- History is important, but not ALL of it needs to be read first.

My concerns are twofold:

First the pace appears to be outstripping quality control…

Second, an update every two weeks makes it harder to fit in the big updates like say, putting Elona or Cantha back in. Living Story almost precludes the potential of an Expansion. We’re missing major parts of the world right now, and its starting to show…
- The unraveling seams of ‘wait, what about Cantha and Elona’ are becoming visible.

Imagine a World of Warcraft that launched without Kalimdor (all of it) or StrangleThorn Vale. Elona and Cantha, because of how they were originally presented, were not ‘minor addons’ like Outlands or Northrend, but core parts of the world… and references to them keep popping up in current lore, that just leave us scratching out heads… sooner or later that itch will get unbearable.

But with constant small updates, where do they fit a huge update of the remaining 2/3rds of the core game?

I think they largely gave up on adding new DEs because they did it once (if I remember correctly they added about 100 across all the zones) and no one seemed to care. It was barely mentioned on the forum and no one seemed to make an effort to find them, or even knew which ones were new and which weren’t. And all the people who complained about a lack of new content were still complaining.

I think what you’ve got to bear in mind is that they’re trying to do something new and different with GW2 and, as with any time you do that, they’re not entirely sure what will work and what won’t until they try it. Early on they said they were going to do lots of 1 time only events too, but Lost Shores went so badly they changed their minds and said they’d never do that again.

So what we’re getting at the moment is a process of trial and error – they put something new and different in as a temporary update and see how it goes, tweak it, learn from it, if it’s popular they bring it back in one form or another (either like the Super Adventure Box which they’ve said will be coming back in it’s entirety with new levels, or like the Flame & Frost story developing gradually which was re-used for Dragon Bash/Sky Pirates).

Which might be annoying in some ways but IMO the important thing is that the base game is all still there so we’re not losing anything by having this going on. If you really wanted to you could ignore all the Living Story/temporary content and you’d still have the whole game you got originally.

But personally I really like that they’re doing this because all games, and especially MMOs make changes over time, whether it’s via updates or sequels or whatever. I’d rather have developers test ideas out first via temporary content in a kind of universal beta than just dump whatever they imagined would work on us as a permanent and irreversible update and then we’re all stuck with it even if it proves to be a terrible idea.

(For an example of the alternative look up The Matrix Online which also tried the one time only event idea, but built it into the core of the game from the start and then couldn’t get around it when they ran into the same problems Lost Shores had.)

Well, there are a lot of missing holes in the plot, such as the Great Collapse (originally the Cantha District, but removed and left with a giant plothole which actually ties directly into the personal storyline for Humans. Riot Alice makes a giant reference to it.)

If you run around in zones and listen to the NPC’s, they say a lot about story that doesn’t ever get finished, so there’s SO MUCH potential for storytelling that they can do. With Living Story, I’d rather it continued on with the current stories in the world than with introducing new ones, but I’m not going to say that I hate all living story because of it. I enjoy it and it keeps me distracted.

If it weren’t for Living Story, I’d be farming CoF all day.

Kichwas.7152:

Second, an update every two weeks makes it harder to fit in the big updates like say, putting Elona or Cantha back in. Living Story almost precludes the potential of an Expansion. We’re missing major parts of the world right now, and its starting to show…
- The unraveling seams of ‘wait, what about Cantha and Elona’ are becoming visible.

Imagine a World of Warcraft that launched without Kalimdor (all of it) or StrangleThorn Vale. Elona and Cantha, because of how they were originally presented, were not ‘minor addons’ like Outlands or Northrend, but core parts of the world… and references to them keep popping up in current lore, that just leave us scratching out heads… sooner or later that itch will get unbearable.

But with constant small updates, where do they fit a huge update of the remaining 2/3rds of the core game?

I think the importance of different regions is to some extent a matter of opinion.

GW1 did fine without Cantha or Elona in the game it’s first year, and from a lore perspective Outland (or Draenor) is far more important to WoW than Kalimdor. Draenor was introduced with WC1 and without it almost the entire story would never have happened. Whereas Kalimdor was only introduced in WC3 and felt very much like a ‘minor addon’ at the time – a way of adding new races and some new geography but most of the story could easily have taken place in Lordaeron.

When Prophecies first came out both Cantha and Elona got only minor mentions. And NPC here and there would say something about going there, or buying goods made there but I don’t think many people felt it was a big issue that we couldn’t visit these places. It’s only because people who played GW1 were so used to them, and had played through a storyline focused on each, that it seems like a loss to go without them.

But also Anet have said repeatedly that only a small part of their staff work on the Living Story updates, and they could probably shift people around if necessary when they start working on an expansion. Or possibly they could even bring in some new people to work on one or the other.

Yep… Leaving for summer vacation, so I’m missing that Four Winds update and maybe whatever comes after it.

Or I might grab myself a decent-enough laptop.

The real problem that I have with the living story is that if you miss it, you can never ever get the skins back, ever! imagine the dissatisfaction that new and returning players will feel when they learn that they missed so many skins that will never come back.

All they need to do is to let us grab those skins after the living story goes away, like they did with the ancient karka shell, for 1000 shells, you can get the accessory that gives +all stats.

What a lot of people aren’t realizing is that the living story approach appeals greatly to a more casual market. Sure, hardcore MMORPGers want some kind of endless gear treadmill to keep them occupied, but that just turns away people who have a life or don’t like that kind of thing.

Another thing I noticed with a lot of MMOs that add new zones is that, once a new zone is added, people just play that zone until they very quickly get bored of all the new gimmicks, then they go right back to grinding where they were previously. Repeat this for any new dungeon, new quest, new boss, or new whatever. I’ve seen it happen dozens of times in PSU, CoH, Runescape, and Adventurequest to go oldschool. The only time this doesn’t happen is when the new content is a better grinding spot than the previous content, in which case the previous content is abandoned.

So even if we kept Aetherblade’s retreat and Molten Facility, by a month people would’ve stopped doing those. Then, because they are story-based group content, no one else can do them because there’s no one else to form a team with. Then we get players complaining about useless content and dead content and abandoned content. “Oh Anet, why don’t you ever add anything useful?” they say while grinding CoF1 over and over again, not aware that they want Anet to make grinding easier and easier by adding places that are better for it than the last.

So, Anet has actually made a decent decision to make a lot of temporary content: people lose interest and don’t care anyway, so there’s no point in keeping it around. There’s already plenty of empty zones with the game akittens current size. Doubling the size of the map will just make twice as many empty zones, so if players want to experience something different they can just go somewhere else. By making temporary content, they make it so players have to log in and play regularly in order to experience the content, and the OCD people will hang around to get all the achievements. This also deals with a very old complaint about MMOs in general: players don’t have an effect on the world. Now we do: we beat the bad guys, and then the bad guys are dead, so there is no one left to fight.

My biggest complaints with the system are the RNG nature of things and that with players constantly chasing new shinies, the non-grinding spots in the game are emptier than they would normally be.

Kite.2510:

Please stop with the temporary content!

You might be thinking “We are keeping old players in the game.” but that way you are also “locking new players out” and “sending quitted players away”.

A player who left sometime near launch and is thinking of rejoining, will dreadfully realize that “not much content have been? added (besides pvp stuff), despite the gigantic patches”

A new player who is thinking of joining, will be told “There was a lot of story behind this the latest content, but you have to read about it on a wiki to catch up”.

In this forum we are all GW2 players, so it’s hard to get to that mindset…
…but the idea of Temporary content can actually be an obstacle for people in the process of deciding whether they should join/rejoin the game.

Also, its a big pain when for whatever reason you are in a situation that you can play for a long period of time. (exams, vacations away from home, job, being drafted for military service, being temporary occupied with a new other game).
I’m currently struggling to keep up with all the temporary stuff wille studding for my exams, getting ready for my 2 week travel in Germany and playing Dragons Dogma on my PS3, and if for whatever reason I have to stay away for some long period of time, getting back won’t be an easy choice for me, since I know there won’t be much new stuff to come back to…

Honestly, I couldn’t disagree more. Not only is the feature not meant for older players, IMHO, but rather for returning players, I think it actually works well for that. I’ve dipped into and out of GW2 several times now, and each time I come back there’s something fresh and interesting that keeps me hooked for a while.

I love MMOs, but I’ve never been able to play any MMO other than my first love (City of Heroes) for more than a month at a time – even when they were all subscription, I used to “MMO hop”, a month on this MMO, 2 months on that one, etc.

This game is, I believe, designed for that behaviour, as I think (though it’s just an opinion) that this is actually how the majority of people have always played MMOs, once they get over their love affair with their first (which is usually more than a year).

IOW, one’s first MMO is the one that one will spend most time in, where one first feels the “magic”. Thereafter, the “magic” can never be recaptured – or rather, it can be somewhat recaptured by “rediscovering” MMOs one has already played, after a suitable grace period, after one has forgotten a good deal about the game. (And of course by trying new ones – and this, I believe more than anything else, was the reason for large uptake and fast decline after a few months, as the general pattern of subscription MMOs before the current period. Discovering a new MMO, again, brings on the “magic” feeling for a while, but after a month or two, it’s the same old same old, and one might as well go back to another game one enjoyed previously, if not more.)

I think Anet have taken note of this phenomenon and have designed GW2 largely around such casual behaviour, because I have to say, for that kind of use, the game is absolutely perfect. I am currently in a head-over-heels-in-love period with the game again, which I anticipate will last several weeks, then I’ll drift to another MMO (I’ve been switching between GW2, EVE Online and TSW recently, with some SWTOR on the side.)

Put simply, I think most people (and by “most people” I mean the great unwashed who never visit forums but make up the bulk of the numbers) only spend a concentrated period of time with their first MMO, and thereafter they “MMO hop” – for that type of behaviour, GW2 really fits the bill as a great game on the “rota”, partly because of the temp content and “living world” content making the game a bit fresh each time you come back to it. I hope they continue and I hope Tyria keeps changing – just like a real place that you’d either live in or visit now and then.

Yes temp content is great once in a while, but when temp content is the majority of the content things go down hill…

Players will only tolerate these tedious and grindy achievement based content with very little rewards for so long, already so much of the populations have moved on partially due to these things adding zero to the game..

What Guildwars 2 needs is some very real permanent content that increases its longevity of play..

In terms of continuity:
This argument is lost the moment you defeat Zaitan for the 12th time with your 6th character.
Everything ales is frozen in time, except from the living story that simply has a time limit.
There is no reason it to be temporary. If they wanted it to be like a festival, or mark a period of the game to our hearts, the same thing could be accomplished by releasing permanent content normally, and just throw some temporary eyecandy on LA to celebrate it’s release.
An MMO needs to evolve! Not just change!

Kite.2510:

In terms of continuity:
This argument is lost the moment you defeat Zaitan for the 12th time with your 6th character.
Everything ales is frozen in time, except from the living story that simply has a time limit.
There is no reason it to be temporary. If they wanted it to be like a festival, or mark a period of the game to our hearts, the same thing could be accomplished by releasing permanent content normally, and just throw some temporary eyecandy on LA to celebrate it’s release.
An MMO needs to evolve! Not just change!

Uh, the living story mechanic is an evolution on MMO design… and your idea that the content such just “be made permanent with eye candy in LA” is exactly what we don’t need.

Living story is what an MMO should be. We defeated the Molten Alliance, Aetherblades, and Karka, but we didn’t eradicate them. They can all come back eventually under new conditions, and new players can earn previous rewards and players can maybe even earn new rewards. They have hinted that such a thing is very possible and probably will happen.

There is nothing wrong with temporary content, it is making the game better because it keeps people logging into a game that is free to play. It provides incentive and shakes up the game so that every two weeks there will be a new aspect of the game that gives you a reason to play. Great for players and awesome for Anet who needs to keep people logging on and giving people a reason to buy items and the game itself.

I enjoy the Living Story. Not to be confused with the Personal Story. There will always be new content to show your friends. We have permanent content, that people did once or twice or many times, and now sits abandoned. You like it one way, I like it another. New permanent content is coming, as well, so we can both be happy. =)

This keeps people logging in and playing the game at least once every 2 weeks. Which is good for the economy and the community. Permanent content will keep people logging in less since they know it will be there anytime and less people ingame is rarely a good thing.

Either way, why complain about free content? You missed it, there will be another one in 2 week…. and another in another 2 weeks… and another.

Zoldyck.6241:

This keeps people logging in and playing the game at least once every 2 weeks. Which is good for the economy and the community. Permanent content will keep people logging in less since they know it will be there anytime and less people ingame is rarely a good thing.

Either way, why complain about free content? You missed it, there will be another one in 2 week…. and another in another 2 weeks… and another.

It will not only attract people to come every two weeks it will also scare people away. Many MMO players are completionist. With so many temporary content they will at some point miss one event, meaning they have achivements they can never complete anymore and for many of them that is enough reason not to come anymore because they are not able to complete anything anymore anyway.

And the temporary skins means that if you make a char next week that would be great with an skin from a past event you will not be able to get it anymore so thats just to bad.

Temporary stuff in the form of events that do not really reward anything but slightly change the world (Remember the big karka event where you cut down tree’s) and cutscenes are fine. And are even good for a living story feeling.

Temporary content in the form of achievements or rewards / skins you will later not be able to get anymore is bad.

That does not mean that is is never possible then there is an item you can not get anymore. Like a reward for playing the first year or a CE or whatever, but that would then be maybe 10 items over 10 years. But having a lot of that like with monthly events is bad.

Devata.6589:

Zoldyck.6241:

This keeps people logging in and playing the game at least once every 2 weeks. Which is good for the economy and the community. Permanent content will keep people logging in less since they know it will be there anytime and less people ingame is rarely a good thing.

Either way, why complain about free content? You missed it, there will be another one in 2 week…. and another in another 2 weeks… and another.

It will not only attract people to come every two weeks it will also scare people away. Many MMO players are completionist. With so many temporary content they will at some point miss one event, meaning they have achivements they can never complete anymore and for many of them that is enough reason not to come anymore because they are not able to complete anything anymore anyway.

And the temporary skins means that if you make a char next week that would be great with an skin from a past event you will not be able to get it anymore so thats just to bad.

Temporary stuff in the form of events that do not really reward anything but slightly change the world (Remember the big karka event where you cut down tree’s) and cutscenes are fine. And are even good for a living story feeling.

Temporary content in the form of achievements or rewards / skins you will later not be able to get anymore is bad.

That does not mean that is is never possible then there is an item you can not get anymore. Like a reward for playing the first year or a CE or whatever, but that would then be maybe 10 items over 10 years. But having a lot of that like with monthly events is bad.

The question becomes will it scare away more people than it gets playing.

My guess is no. But since Anet has the numbers, and they KEEP doing it, I’ll go ahead and assume less people are being scared away than you might think.

Obviously if it wasn’t working for them, Anet would stop doing it.

Devata.6589:

It will not only attract people to come every two weeks it will also scare people away. Many MMO players are completionist. With so many temporary content they will at some point miss one event, meaning they have achivements they can never complete anymore and for many of them that is enough reason not to come anymore because they are not able to complete anything anymore anyway.

Can you provide me with actual data to back that up? I don’t know about what “many” people are but personally I don’t go around chasing after achievement points. People I know have different versions of fun (wvw, pvp, spvp, jp, etc) so I do agree some people are completionist.

Devata.6589:

And the temporary skins means that if you make a char next week that would be great with an skin from a past event you will not be able to get it anymore so thats just to bad.

And there will be more skins in the future which gives rise to individuality and variety. I don’t really see it as a bad thing but I do understand how frustrated the person is when he badly wants that specific skin.

Devata.6589:

Temporary content in the form of achievements or rewards / skins you will later not be able to get anymore is bad.

That is a personal opinion, not really a fact.

Devata.6589:

That does not mean that is is never possible then there is an item you can not get anymore. Like a reward for playing the first year or a CE or whatever, but that would then be maybe 10 items over 10 years. But having a lot of that like with monthly events is bad.

There is no guarantee that the same skin or event will not be repeated in the future, if I were to guess it will be repeated with modification/improvement of the same previous event.

To be honest, Temporary content is not bringing me back to GW2. I stopped playing because I was bored of the current content. It just feels pointless to come back to play some temporary event that will only last a short time and this is over and done with. After it’s over, I’ll be back to being bored.

You guys did it right when you made content for Guild Wars 1. Why aren’t you doing the same with Guild Wars 2?

This game was very fun to level up but sadly it didn’t keep my interest. Maybe if there was something added to the game that was actually a permanent part of the game, and it was added on a regular basis, I would come back.

As the game is right now, even if you release an expansion, I most likely will not buy it and most likely will not return to the game.

I’m not trying to bash GW2, just trying to provide some honest constructive criticism for the developers of the game.

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

To be honest, Temporary content is not bringing me back to GW2. I stopped playing because I was bored of the current content. It just feels pointless to come back to play some temporary event that will only last a short time and this is over and done with. After it’s over, I’ll be back to being bored.

You guys did it right when you made content for Guild Wars 1. Why aren’t you doing the same with Guild Wars 2?

This game was very fun to level up but sadly it didn’t keep my interest. Maybe if there was something added to the game that was actually a permanent part of the game, and it was added on a regular basis, I would come back.

As the game is right now, even if you release an expansion, I most likely will not buy it and most likely will not return to the game.

I’m not trying to bash GW2, just trying to provide some honest constructive criticism for the developers of the game.

Not really, you just said you’d like “permanent content” because playing “temporary content” seems pointless. New content is new content, whether or not it’s around forever or for 2 weeks.

What permanent content exactly are you referring to, and why wouldn’t it become boring after you completed it?

In your opinion. Some people like it just as it is! =)

(Warning, epic wall of text will crit you for 9000)
(This is merely my opinion, I acknowledge that. I welcome an opposing view, but do not come here to flame an opinion )

Hi,
So the thought of a story that changes every few weeks with new bits of content(however small and temporary) and mini games, etc…is definately innovative in the MMO space. I like the idea, I like the ambition to try something new(on arenanets part), even though my track record on these forums has been largely against a lot of the stuff they pump out. It is still refreshing to see a developer trying something new.

With that said, for months I couldn’t put my finger on what this game and what these patches were lacking. The elephant in the room has been perma content. Sure. We all say that regularly. But it wasn’t until I was viewing another game’s forum(a recently released game) and seeing what they are doing with their game, that I realized yes…it is Perma content that we need. Comparing one game to the other in terms of content updates and how they do it…

Neverwinter was in “open beta” for a month or two, and was recently released with that fail of a “raid” called gauntlgrym. But, in their first content expansion due this summer, they are giving another zone max level zone, new 5man dungeon, crafting professions, etc. All solid “tangible” updates.

I then compare that update with the stuff we’ve been getting in GW2. While some of it has been fun, innovative and unique, it just feels like a lot of fluff. Arenanet realizes this, that the content can no longer be only temporary. They need to give us more perma stuff. But, perma what? We want more zones, dungeons, maybe a new crafting profession. We want more classes, skills, a new race. We want more features to change up WvW(although, it seems they are headed in the right direction). Im not big into sPvP but those guys are clamoring for some attention(maps, different map mechanics, etc).

Simply giving us a two sentence note at the top of our screen saying that some pirates are causing trouble, and investigator kael is doing something about it…go get some achievements and run some events in existing zones..eh. It feels disjointed. Telling me in a few short sentences whats going on with this living story doesn’t enthrall me. Then telling me to go to some zone and run some events that don’t feel like they impact this story, doesn’t enthrall me.

Im my opinion, the living story is a great idea but is being executed poorly. Give me story-mode dungeons, story-mode solo dungeons…content much like the personal story we had while leveling. You KNEW what was going on in that living story, and you were involved! We need to bring that involvement back. Put this content in a variety of zones, not just one. For flame and frost, the majority was in two zones. For southsun, it was in one zone(all other zones were abandoned). For dragon bash, things are scattered throughout tyria, but most people are hanging out in LA. This week, everyone seems to be flocking to Gandarren Fields. You are funneling us to one or two zones. We need to be spread across more than that. I hate logging in after work, and trying to complete a jumping puzzle with 50 other people. I do like seeing ones populated, but funneling people into one or two makes all others abandoned.

I guess my thoughts on this are all over the place, but hopefully you get the jist. We need more perma content. We need more solid updates in the form of new zones(not just one, give us multiple in one patch so not everyone flocks to one zone). Give us new perma dungeons. New skills(we’ve been using the same skills since august…). Tease us with a new class. And weave in the living story in a more solid fashion, not with fluff narrative consisting of a few sentences and some DEs.

Basicly you want stuff that’s normally in complete expansions. For neverwinter they are just releasing things that did not make it in the full game, and make it look like free stuff. Nice for marketing but it does not say anything about the state of the game.

aspirine.6852:

Basicly you want stuff that’s normally in complete expansions. For neverwinter they are just releasing things that did not make it in the full game, and make it look like free stuff. Nice for marketing but it does not say anything about the state of the game.

You could be right, and that crossed my mind. But you don’t think that Arenanet/GW2 has done the same? Released in late Aug/Early sept… with Haloween event done, and then the massive november 15 update with southsun(new zone) fractals(new form of dungeon), and ascended gear. GW2 has done this as well. Ive noticed it in a few games that they hold things back and release it soon after to make it look like rapid support.

Either way, the issue in this thread isnt the frequency of updates. It is what developers add.

If ArenaNet were to create new maps, we saw this with southsun, they’d quickly be dead after a few weeks of the content update going live. We’ve had several dungeons now, and I don’t think they’d do well if they were permanent. If ANet were to create more crafting professions I don’t see at all how it’d impact the game in a positive way. Crafting is something you do to level your alts, not make things.

I do agree that we need more permanent content, and from Colin’s latest blog post that’s what they’re doing. Going with Neverwinter’s content updates would however be a step backwards in this game’s direction.

And also Fractals.

Zoldyck.6241:

This keeps people logging in and playing the game at least once every 2 weeks. Which is good for the economy and the community. Permanent content will keep people logging in less since they know it will be there anytime and less people ingame is rarely a good thing.

Either way, why complain about free content? You missed it, there will be another one in 2 week…. and another in another 2 weeks… and another.

^
Pretty much this.

Draven.7210:

Ok, let me say this again, since some people didn’t read it the first time…

“Smaller one time events should supplement content like what I just described, not stand in it’s place.”

In other words, I’m not saying we shouldn’t have one time event content, I’m saying that shouldn’t be our main source of new content.

Let’s be honest. Anet is doodling for us when they have the potential to do so much bigger and better paintings.

These short, shallow one time events are not HQ content compared to what they can do if they focus more on making longer, more epic events.

But bigger and better paintings take time. No one says they’re not working on that content. They can’t do that content every 2 weeks.

Anet is working on both.

Esplen.3940:

In my personal opinion, which you may disagree with, I believe that Living Story and other temporary content are simply holiday content with no holiday tied to it.

So, with that in mind, if you are to make sure that all temporary content is permanent, why not just have Halloween and Wintersday all year round so that new players don’t miss out on those events, too?

I agree with you and the OP.

I have been playing since closed beta all the way until the March update. Took two months off, missed SAB and some of Flame and Frost.

Came back for a month in May, caught up flame and frost, did the southsun story and achievements. But Dragonbash and the pirates events..just dont seem too appealing to me. Like you said, holiday stuff without the holiday. A lot of fluff stuff, which is what the holiday events were. Jumping puzzles that went away, mini games that went away, things scattered in the world that went away.

What we need are perma changes to the world. I want events and content that literally re-shape tyria. Something like a huge dragon that torches divinities reach and the outlying zones so when you visit those areas, you see burnt homes, burnt farms, scattered people. And its like that forever. The landscape literally re-shaped. THAT, my friends, is what the living story should be about. Changing tyria. All of these small story updates had what impact on the world? I run around Wayferer and see some signs and maybe some villagers sitting around? But all in all, the buildings, the structures near hearts…remain unphased, like they don’t care about flame and frost. Southsun? I could be in sparkfly, and none of the NPCs give a kitten about that island to the south. Nothing has changed.

We get all of this content and story for free, and most of it is taken away. Nothing changes. Even the stuff that does stick around, does not impact the world of tyria at all.

Example: When cataclysm was released for WoW, Deathwing came about and literally reshaped zones, caused elementals to rise up, torched stormwind and halfway destroyed it. Not saying something on that scale needs to be done, but thats the direction you need to head to.

I don’t see how it’s locking new players away. I’m pretty much always training 1 or 2 newbies from my family/ friends circle and later their family/friends circle. Some of them are complete nolifers. Hell some of them managed to get 27 characters to level 90 in WoW. Still didn’t hear any complains about this game having temporary content.

How can you say the new dungeons (temp dungeons) they’ve given us wouldnt do well when they have received such a positive response? Finally, boss mechanics that are somewhat interesting!!

Yes, southsun went dead after its initial launch, but thats because there was no reason to go back. No “farming” routes for DEs. Orr was a lot more profitable at the time to do the pent/shelt runs. So they have to just design these areas carefully. Crafting professions CAN impact the game in a positive way. Maybe an alchemy profession, so you can get small 20 second boosts of whatever stat when you consume a potion. Something like that…

It is all in the matter of execution. I think most people will agree: They want new CONTENT in the form of “quests”(dynamic events and hearts), map completion, dungeons, jumping puzzles..i.e. everything we’ve been doing while leveling. Id love to have new renown hearts to complete in new zones, while doing some DEs in between.

cesmode.4257:

-snip-

I think we need to give it time before we see big changes like that, as that kind of content would take a ton of design and testing time. I wouldn’t be surprised if that scale of event is already in the pipeline.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Zoldyck.6241:

This keeps people logging in and playing the game at least once every 2 weeks. Which is good for the economy and the community. Permanent content will keep people logging in less since they know it will be there anytime and less people ingame is rarely a good thing.

Either way, why complain about free content? You missed it, there will be another one in 2 week…. and another in another 2 weeks… and another.

It will not only attract people to come every two weeks it will also scare people away. Many MMO players are completionist. With so many temporary content they will at some point miss one event, meaning they have achivements they can never complete anymore and for many of them that is enough reason not to come anymore because they are not able to complete anything anymore anyway.

And the temporary skins means that if you make a char next week that would be great with an skin from a past event you will not be able to get it anymore so thats just to bad.

Temporary stuff in the form of events that do not really reward anything but slightly change the world (Remember the big karka event where you cut down tree’s) and cutscenes are fine. And are even good for a living story feeling.

Temporary content in the form of achievements or rewards / skins you will later not be able to get anymore is bad.

That does not mean that is is never possible then there is an item you can not get anymore. Like a reward for playing the first year or a CE or whatever, but that would then be maybe 10 items over 10 years. But having a lot of that like with monthly events is bad.

The question becomes will it scare away more people than it gets playing.

My guess is no. But since Anet has the numbers, and they KEEP doing it, I’ll go ahead and assume less people are being scared away than you might think.

Obviously if it wasn’t working for them, Anet would stop doing it.

Seems like you have not been following the news. ArenaNet did say they would do less temporary content and more content that stays. So they are changing it, the problem however might be (I don’t know that until we see those patches) that just ‘less’ is not enough when it still involves achivements that can’t be done later and items that can’t be get later.

And why would temporary content keep people playing? You seem to mix stuff up. I don’t say.. do not come with new content in patches (Even do I would not mind if it where less patches but of higher quality) I say, do not make it temporary. New content will get people coming to the game but for that it’s not required to be temporary.. the only reason why that might work is for those same completionist I was talking about. They have to come to complete it but like I said there will be a point where they miss one and then it will also not work for those anymore. So new content might help people to stay playing but the temporary part it not required for it, however it might scare people away. So keep the content (that gets people) but don’t make it temporary.

Zoldyck.6241:

Devata.6589:

It will not only attract people to come every two weeks it will also scare people away. Many MMO players are completionist. With so many temporary content they will at some point miss one event, meaning they have achivements they can never complete anymore and for many of them that is enough reason not to come anymore because they are not able to complete anything anymore anyway.

Can you provide me with actual data to back that up? I don’t know about what “many” people are but personally I don’t go around chasing after achievement points. People I know have different versions of fun (wvw, pvp, spvp, jp, etc) so I do agree some people are completionist.

Devata.6589:

And the temporary skins means that if you make a char next week that would be great with an skin from a past event you will not be able to get it anymore so thats just to bad.

And there will be more skins in the future which gives rise to individuality and variety. I don’t really see it as a bad thing but I do understand how frustrated the person is when he badly wants that specific skin.

Devata.6589:

Temporary content in the form of achievements or rewards / skins you will later not be able to get anymore is bad.

That is a personal opinion, not really a fact.

Devata.6589:

That does not mean that is is never possible then there is an item you can not get anymore. Like a reward for playing the first year or a CE or whatever, but that would then be maybe 10 items over 10 years. But having a lot of that like with monthly events is bad.

There is no guarantee that the same skin or event will not be repeated in the future, if I were to guess it will be repeated with modification/improvement of the same previous event.

“Can you provide me with actual data to back that up? I don’t know about what "many”

It are so many that a big part of MMO’s are build around just that. Completing achivements, completing maps, completing mini-collections, completing armor-sets, completing skin-sets.

How many? The actual date around that number does not exist, but you might set up a poll on a MMO site asking how many consider themselves a completionist in any form. (there are many ways.. completing achievements, completing collections and so on)

So doing as if it would not be a big part and just asking for the exact number that you know nobody can gives seems like a bad way to try to prove somebody wrong.. I could ask you exactly the same.. how many are not (think PvPers and Rpers). Big pars of MMO mechanics are build around it and that should tell you enough.

“That is a personal opinion, not really a fact.”It’s not really an opinion it’s a conclusion based on the previous statement. The one you answered with “I do understand how frustrated the person is when he badly wants that specific skin.”. And there will be people frustrated about it.. having frustrated people will not be good for the game you might conclude so that leads to the conclusion “Temporary content in the form of achievements or rewards / skins you will later not be able to get anymore is bad.“ Or at leas thats the conclusion I make. But it’s not the same as an opinion.

Mackdose.6504:

cesmode.4257:

-snip-

I think we need to give it time before we see big changes like that, as that kind of content would take a ton of design and testing time. I wouldn’t be surprised if that scale of event is already in the pipeline.

Could be.

I think they could re-allocate their resources better to strive toward that sooner than later. 4 teams on 6 month rotations or whatever it is? It could be done. Instead of giving us a few sentences of a story each month(or 2 weeks), give us a few chapters instead. When these living story updates come out, you go after the achievements, and the RNG carrots. Once done, you look behind you and say “yah, and that two sentence story too..” I think they want our reactions to be a bit more than that. They have to give us more than thakittens

hard to put into words, and saying the content is fluff carries a negative conotation but its the only way i can describe it. Its like, they give us a new twist to the story, but only a few sentences. The plot of the story is stretched over weeks. They don’t give enough to us all at once. Im not talking about content here, but the story itself. On my screen I see something that says investigator kael is doing something about pirates, or investigating a murder. Great. Good to know. Now what? Then in two weeks, “she found the murderer!” Uh, I wanted two weeks for that?

This can be better accomplished in mini-story mode dungeons, solo dungeons, that take quite some time to complete. Take all of this living story stuff, throw it into dungeons as well…southsun was a small step, but take that x 10 and we have something.

cesmode.4257:

How can you say the new dungeons (temp dungeons) they’ve given us wouldnt do well when they have received such a positive response? Finally, boss mechanics that are somewhat interesting!!

They however wouldn’t fit in with the lore of the other dungeons. If you noticed all permanent dungeons in GW2 follow the main story line and are about uniting the main team. Living story stuff is about the little skirmishes that happen when the place finally beats the big baddie and reaches peace. The only way they could fit into the game perfectly is if they were made to be fractals.

cesmode.4257:

Crafting professions CAN impact the game in a positive way. Maybe an alchemy profession, so you can get small 20 second boosts of whatever stat when you consume a potion. Something like that…

You have weapon sharpening stones and foot for that. On top of that some professions can already make potions like “potion of inquest slaying”.

cesmode.4257:

It is all in the matter of execution. I think most people will agree: They want new CONTENT in the form of “quests”(dynamic events and hearts), map completion, dungeons, jumping puzzles..i.e. everything we’ve been doing while leveling.

Jumping puzzles? Yes. DEs? They added like a few hundred at one point and nobody noticed. Map completion? No. They are constantly adding poi’s in old maps and all they do is prevent people from getting 100% exploration achievement.

Devata.6589:

And why would temporary content keep people playing? You seem to mix stuff up. I don’t say..

There’s a different mentality when it comes to temporary and permanent:
“New temporary dungeon? Oh my god, I have to log in right now and complete it before it’s gone!”
“New permanent dungeon? Oh well, it’s not going anywhere, maybe I’ll log in in a year or so when more permanent dungeons pile up”.

Regarding the potions, Im talking about on-demand use..a 15 or 20 second temporary boost. When you’re in a burn phase of a bost and sitting in the mesmer “heroism”, use your potions to give you more dps for those few seconds. Strategic use.

I agree, those dungeons wouldnt fit lore wise. I wonder if after the corresponding living story has ended, if a small patch could slightly augment the dungeon to make it fit into the world a bit more seamless.

The DEs..yes Ive noticed this. But again, it all falls into the realm of impact and meaningfulness(is that a word?). You complete the DE, youre done. You fail, youre done. Where is the impact on the surrounding area/zone? When I bought the the game, I thought that if I didnt successfully complete a DE, it would have rippling effects in the zone until I do something about it. Thats sort of the company line that was sold to us. But outside of the starter zones, largely if you fail an event, who cares. It resets, and 20 minutes mobs come again. Yes there are events that take over the town and you have to retake it. Those are good, but few and far between.

That’s just the nature of game development, it takes a lot of time.

Draven.7210:

Maybe that’s your mentality, but that’s certainly not everyones mentality about it.

In every MMO I’ve ever played, when they add a long, multidungeon, multievent “expansion” type of add-on to a game with a nice loot at the end…know what most people I observed did? They jumped right in that like there was no tomorrow.

We saw this here in GW2. Fractals. Didn’t matter it was permanent, most people wanted it and they went for it hardcore. And that’s the kind of thing I mean. But not just a repeatable dungeon. Take everything we love about these one-time events, the story, the exploration, the new characters and battles, connect them so they are part of a bigger story, make it longer, and make it permanent with sweet loot a long the way. Wont’ matter if it’s permanent, people will be all over it. And I guarantee you it will bring players back in GW2.

The way that the living story is now? It just wouldn’t fit. It’s not a massive new quest to beat a dragon. It’s a small skirmish in the times of peace. It’s a living world. The world changes. A permanent story should be in an expansion, because it should be a big deal. Not a small skirmish.

Indeed it is. But in the mean time, they have 4 teams rotating to give us two-ish week content updates that mean..nothing. That feel like nothing. A mini game, sometimes temporary…do some achievements. It doesnt keep me in the game for longer than a day or two.

I am having a hard time staying interested in GW2 because the small content updates are largely temporary, fluff stuff that have no impact on the lore, on the world…zhaitan and the dragons, albeit he is defeated, are not even an afterthought after being such a cornerstone of the game for so long.

Its like..“Hey, lvl 1-80 zhaitan will destroy the world with undead, omg….Ok now he’s dead…lets finish off the undead in Orr.”…fast forward a few months “We got some karka, and we got some kitten ed off sylvari doing something, we’ve got the Hilton in Southsun with some new investigator looking into trouble makers and murders. And now some pirates are stirring things up”. Is this a drama? Or a fantasy game?

Maybe its just the story itself that has people irked, and they don’t even know it. This is a fantasy game. I dont want to be shirlock holmes investigating things for an NPC I know absolutely nothing about for 80 levels and several months of playing after lvl cap…This isn’t “days of our lives” soap operas. This isn’t CSI miami. I want to fight Dragons. I want to fight undead. I want to fight more elementals. I want to fight insane Asuras. I want to fight ghosts. I want to fight mythical gods.

But no, temporary content that has us investigating things for an NPC that was just announced to us. (And if she was in the game previously, I hadn’t realized it after 5 lvl 80 characters. Thats how impactful she is.)

Edit: I know the game and story and lore must all progress. But do it in a fantasy setting, and you need to tie in the previous parts a bit better. Going from Zhaitain and undead to beach resorts, large spiders, and shirlock holmes isnt really ebb and flow, is it?

The thing is, Living Story and permanent content aren’t necessarily going the opposite direction. Month after month of “press f” achievements will get boring, I’ll give you that, but we don’t know yet what are their specific plans for the near future.

I’d wait for the mid-july blog post before opening these threads, but I believe that the Living Story could be an awesome mean to introduce and give context to bigger, more “meaningful” patches.

As an example, the next patch screams Tengu to me and who knows, it may be the start of a story that leads us to the Dominion of Winds and one day, maybe, add Tengu as a playable race?

The only thing that I really didn’t like about Living Story is that it seems they don’t mean to tell an overarcing, big story but rather do separated stories. That sucks imho

I agree we need permanent content. On the other hand, Neverwinter is an example of the other type of game. Sure they can add stuff fast…because there’s not much there to start with. Rift did the same thing.

I have people in my guild who got to max level in Neverwinter and they were pretty much done with it at that point. There isn’t a huge amount of content. There’s actually far more content in Guild Wars 2.

The permanent content will come. I keep say it (and I don’t think most people believe me), but it will. All it is is a matter of time.

The temporary content isn’t here in place of permanent content, but in addition to permanent content.

I agree, I suppose. And definately agree with your last sentence. They feel disjointed. I want something to pull me in quickly and and for a longer period of time. Smaller updates where they are unable to cram all that story and content just isnt cutting it…for me at least.