Guild Wars 2

Let me start by saying this is not a complaint thread about temporary content.

There are many people who believe that temporary content is:

Ruining the game
A waste of time
Pointless

I’d like to discuss these beliefs in a constructive manner directly and see how others feel after reading my thoughts on the subject.

The first point “Ruining the game”-

Temporary content brings new players and veteran players alike back to the game. Many threads suggest this, and show that the content-although short, has caused a lot of people to play when perhaps they might have remained away. This content was released and many players did have fun with it. The Flame and Frost content was a nice touch, and although its beginnings were a bit slow and simple, it has gradually improved. The SAB event was widely loved and adored by the community as can be seen from in game and the SAB forums. This content didn’t even start out as something functional, and yet turned into something amazing. So I do not believe they are ruining the game. This brings me to my next point.

Point number two “A waste of time”-

Many people think temporary content was a waste of time, but they fail to realize the content as a whole. A temporary dungeon provides 2 very important things:

1. A chance to try out new dungeon mechanics
2. A way to not add to troubled dungeons if it is not a success

Designers use these tools to try out a new way to go about dungeons. In doing so they get a free testing audience-you! So when the majority of players enjoyed the dungeon or instance, they know they are doing it right. Many dungeons need revamping, and perhaps they find ways to do that through the temporary content. Instead of tweaking this and that in every dungeon and guess, they have a clean slate to start anew. This is a great tool to find ways to fix core parts of the game and to better improve player experience. Now if that content was widely disliked, they have less to lose because luckily it will be gone soon and they can move on. So instead of spending a bunch of time on a new core dungeon which could get a large amount of hate, they create dungeons using other designers ideas and feedback about current dungeons. It is a win-win for all of us. The bonus for this is that we get new skins, mining tools, dyes, and more. So you could even think of it as if the devs were saying:

“Hey, here is our new idea. We would love for you to try it. If you like it, love it, buy the skins off the gem store and show you enjoyed the content, or go and try to get this item free by doing __.

Just for trying we will give you XP, drops, new items, new characters in the living story, and best of all FUN!"

So we are play testing their ideas and given rewards for doing so. Love it? Great! They will do more that follows what works. And less of what doesn’t. I see this as a grand strategy at defining the game, and expanding it into many features we will enjoy in the future.

Finally the last point “Pointless”-

I pretty much summed up how I believe this type of content is anything but pointless above. But for those who don’t enjoy the content, you don’t have to do it. Which, if you think about it, works out for everyone. You didn’t like it? Well it will be gone soon, and they will try something different next time that may suite you even better. If you did love it, then all the more reason to come back and do the next arc!

A final note on items. I realize there is much frustration over temporary content and RNG rewards. As I mentioned above I believe they will learn from the feedback we provided in these cases and hopefully manage there release better next run. As for the limited time items, we can see these as prestige items. Those who were here get to show off the content they were a part of. And I think that is something all players can understand. I don’t expect to get the prizes people got for pre-order, or for the beginning of the games release. I missed out and I can accept that, but here I am enjoying the new content. And those after me may miss out on these great things. So consider it a privilege to be a part of the history of the game, that in itself is an amazing reward.

The thing for me is that their recent temporary content, such as the Flame and Frost stuff, is very dull and boring. Sure, it’s content, but who cares what content is involved if it’s utterly boring to do.

The Eternal Grace.3157:

The thing for me is that their recent temporary content, such as the Flame and Frost stuff, is very dull and boring. Sure, it’s content, but who cares what content is involved if it’s utterly boring to do.

I think a lot of people felt this and voiced it on forums. Those who did so constructively and not so rudely, I’m sure Arenanet took into consideration. The finale is coming up soon, and then it is very possible that soon we will see the next arc. I doubt they will just ignore the complaints and issues with this run in their next attempt. Perhaps they can better build up the content next time, or even go all out the entire arc. They have plenty of suggestions from us, and I hope we all can make a difference by showing our support whether that be supporting what we liked or supporting others who disliked some content. Because that is the only way they can truly create content that we all can enjoy.

Temp content doesn’t ruin the game generally, but it does feel like its a wasted effort to me, what i mean by that is while they spend so much time coding content that is temporary their main content becomes stagnant and never gets overhauls and fixes it needs, which is bad because that’s the main part of the game..

Game mechanics and large portions of the world is dead or hardly played while everyone is on this temporary content..when it goes away its back to bad unused content again which upsets and bores players into leaving..

Pointless content depends on the player, i personally liked SAB but feel spvp is pointless, so i guess each player is different in opinions..

I’d much rather see the game getting overhauls and balancing than some more flame and frost, with some temp dungeon, but that’s me..
Some temp content does feel a waste of time, but i guess that’s personal opinion..

Just to kinda go in line with the OP and give some examples of Temp Content that was used as a testing enviroment, was the Halloween event, which the JP led to the creation of the SAB (watch the dev interview)

The Karka Event, pretty much gave birth to the living story stuff, with all the complaints and suggestions which how it should had been handled, we say from an open world event, to multiple open world events with the impacting events happening in instances…

to the LS complainers – keep in mind this is the FIRST arc of the living story stuff…the Karka event was bad because it was one time and if you missed it you were SOL…the first event of each type is GOING to be bad/have negative marks simply because it was new and untested. Give them time and they will make it shine.

I believe that with each return of Temp Content, they will either add on to it, or if they don’t, you can view it as time that is being spent on something more important. Is that the plus side? Yep, but we know the SAB is only going to get better, and I wouldn’t mind doing the SAME Halloween event atleast for 2 more years…(that freakin’ JP man…so good)

Dante.1508:

Temp content doesn’t ruin the game generally, but it does feel like its a wasted effort to me, what i mean by that is while they spend so much time coding content that is temporary their main content becomes stagnant and never gets overhauls and fixes it needs, which is bad because that’s the main part of the game..

Game mechanics and large portions of the world is dead or hardly played while everyone is on this temporary content..when it goes away its back to bad unused content again which upsets and bores players into leaving..

Pointless content depends on the player, i personally liked SAB but feel spvp is pointless, so i guess each player is different in opinions..

I’d much rather see the game getting overhauls and balancing than some more flame and frost, with some temp dungeon, but that’s me..
Some temp content does feel a waste of time, but i guess that’s personal opinion..

Keep in mind that the Dev team isn’t just working on one thing at a time, while yes a LITTLE development time is spend working on a project, there are (I would guess) atleast 5 different Content updates being worked on in some way at all time at ANET (Removing the last temp Content, Fixing bugs from the Current one, final touches for the next one, working on the one after that, and storyboarding the one after that) they can Multitask, ANET has proven they can do that quite well imo.

Temporary content is fine in my book, and usually enhances the game experience/story instead of “ruining the game”. It also provides more meaningful, intense events compared to the cycled ones that dull over time. An intense war for one month would be awesome. A war that goes on for all eternity (cough orr cough) becomes stale and ponderous.

Remember your first time you ran into a veteran pineheart / oak heart? Whoa. They were scary, yet cool. Now there are months I grind 100 of them just to get the monthly vet slayer category done, and I fight them on half-asleep autopilot. They’ve just become a nuisance I have to get through. A background. A stepping stone to reach another stepping stone that ultimately leads nowhere (one of those forever staircases).

It certainly comes down to the players perspective when deciding if it is “pointless” and “a waste of time” though. I mean in the overall scheme of things this is just a game so it’s entirety is a pointless waste of time right? Not that there’s anything wrong with that! :P

I can definitely say that temporary content doesn’t kickstart my interest in guild wars when I’m not currently playing it. I took a long break and whenever something new came out I didn’t want to get back into the game and relearn how to play just so I could blow through some temporary stuff in an hour. It’s very difficult to get my friends to come back to this, because when they ask what’s new I don’t have much to offer. GW2 is almost exactly the same as it was the day it came out, content-wise.

Fractals were a good addition. I spent a lot of time on them and still do. Anyone who just joins the game now can still get as much out of fractals as I have. But there isn’t much else.