Guild Wars 2

To me the Living Story is currently starting to feel like a form of maintenance. I like having new content in the game, but I don’t want to miss out on anything. I hate to feel obligated to play, just so that I don’t miss out on temporary rewards and achievements. Same with the gem store btw, why constantly make limited time items? That annoys me.

Devata.6589:

Mirta.5029:

Krosslite.1950:

Mirta.5029:

cesmode.4257:

Im casual..in that I have only 2-3 hours to play per night, but take my toon, gear, class, experience serious enough where I want to do well.

And i hate living story. Innovative but its doing squat to further this game. Very stagnat right now.

would it be better if instead we had none of the living story and ended up waiting for an expansion for over a year? Expansions content will come any way, whether living story is there or not.

Please refer to this thread for that debate

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/GW2-unlikely-to-get-expansions-Interview/page/10#post2375418

I did not say that expansion will come, I said that the expansions content will come. As in we’re going to get the continuation of the main story for free.

Is NCSOFT a non-commercial company? Is ArenaNet a non-commercial company? Are the employee’s all working for free? No so there is no such thing as free. It has to come from some place and if it’s not coming from expansions it’s coming from gems and if it comes from gems they need to some how get people to buy gems and there we see the main reason for temporary content.. Create a sense of urgency to get people to buy things. First rule in every marketing book.

The thing is though if the conent is good the sence to get into it as soon as it is availble feeds itself. that’s exactly why I used the HBO Game of Thrones scenario. There’s a reason it’s the most pirated show around. Because not everybody can afford or wants a subscription to HBO but they REALLY WANT TO WATCH THE NEWSET EPISODE RIGHT NOW!
And there’s always the middleground of leaving the content but taking the limited time rewards.

Krosslite.1950:

Devata.6589:

So then the questions is what the average player would pay +- per year for gems and what they make on an expansion. Personally I think it will be close with the difference that the expansion option is better for the game and so may result in more players so that it in the long run may be even result in more money.

This is not something they just flew off the handle and stated this is the way we are going to do it.

Most likely they have several meetings on the issue. Had several graphs up showing the how other MMOs are trending and how they are handling bring income into the game. The very method that Vayne listed earlier.

So for them to adopt this method to Anet meant they felt they could make the most money doing it with bi-weekly updates instead of the traditional expansions method.

You must also realize they stated that expansion packs are not off the table just something they will not do for the next year or more.

Pure business sense always deals with the bottom line first the customer second. This is how Anet feels they can make the most income so that is why they are doing it this way.

Yeah sure they had meetings about it, but that does not mean it’s good for the game and from my point of view I want what is best for the game while also understanding they need to make money.. Maybe at some point they will change it and turn to making money with expansions but for now this is what they are going with and temporary content is part of the result of that decision and I, and with me other players, do not like that.

Besides.. Those meetings and graphs don’t mean anything to me.

The people behind LofR Online, Rift, TerA, Tabula Rasa, Warhammer Online, The Secret World, SW: TOR and many other MMO’s had a lot of meetings about there payment model and most likely had many graphs that showed them that subscription based was the best way to make money. But then again.. all those games failed as subscription based games.

The problem is that the people that talk about the money usually don’t play the games. Most decisions by management that are bad (turned out to be bad) are taken because they don’t really know what is going at the buyer level besides some graphs they see and there focus on the money. And there is nothing wrong with wanting to make a load of money. But that does not mean they are making the correct decisions.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We’ve said it a few times before, but I want to just re-iterate we’ve heard folks feedback on this and will be doing a much larger mix of permanent, recurring (content that can occur again in the future), and more world impacting releases as it relates to living world in the second half of the year. There will still absolutely be some amount of temporary, in particular story-driven moments to help drive the narrative forward. You’ll also see some of the content previously noted as “temporary” return permanently to the game in the 2nd half of the year.

Three additional notes ->

• As we recently announced, we’re up to four living world teams now, which means they will have a much longer development cycle later this year to build more polished content, and content that can be more impactful.

• The Living World teams are only a small chunk of the total developers at ArenaNet, we’ll be going into details on what many of those other teams will be doing in a blog later this month.

• We also have teams working on much longer term projects, which we will discuss when they are closer to arrival.

We’ve said all of this before, but I think it’s good to just put that message out more frequently so everyone understands where we’re going. Thanks very much for all the feedback folks, as always we continue to listen to your feedback and course correct as we try new things in the live MMO space.

This sounds awesome. Temporary content for those who like things to change. Perm for those who don’t. Returning temp content that shows to be popular (SAB will be back). Idk how you could ask for more.

Mirta.5029:

Kaaboose.3897:

No, The system I propose, WHICH ALREADY EXISTS IN THE GAME, works around that.

and like I said – YOU WOULD BE PLAYING WITH LESS PEOPLE THEN

Re-read what you just typed. “How long do you think an expansion will last?” It will last as long as I take to finish it.
How long do you think temporary content will last? “Until Anet takes it away”
I COULD take it/ leave it/ enjoy it as I saw fit but I can’t because they ARE TAKING IT AWAY. You are defending regular content updates (Which have plenty of positives vs negativea) not temporary content.

I didn’t ask how much it will last for you, I asked for how long will it hold the other players interested. Normally it’s a week or two. That’s all. Then the world is empty again. At least this way I see players.

I don’t know the exact numbers of how many people are activly playing GW2 but if the servers were merged and we had a LFG system theat helped bring players together this would be less of a problem. Also Having too much content will seperate the playerbase? All that means is players will go for the content that is fun and engauging and NOT do the content that isn’t.
The system you are defending is “All players will play all of the content, reguardless of quality. And this is a good thing.” Really? This is your defence to temporary content? It’s okay because everyone is playing the new content reguardless of it’s quality? How can that be benificial to any player? It’s like thoese guys that rabidly defend WarZ! It’s crap, but they want everyone to play it with them, weather they’ll enjoy it or not.
And I’m curious. Why don’t I count as “Other players?” Am I sepcial or something?

Kaaboose.3897:

Devata.6589:

Mirta.5029:

Krosslite.1950:

Mirta.5029:

cesmode.4257:

Im casual..in that I have only 2-3 hours to play per night, but take my toon, gear, class, experience serious enough where I want to do well.

And i hate living story. Innovative but its doing squat to further this game. Very stagnat right now.

would it be better if instead we had none of the living story and ended up waiting for an expansion for over a year? Expansions content will come any way, whether living story is there or not.

Please refer to this thread for that debate

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/GW2-unlikely-to-get-expansions-Interview/page/10#post2375418

I did not say that expansion will come, I said that the expansions content will come. As in we’re going to get the continuation of the main story for free.

Is NCSOFT a non-commercial company? Is ArenaNet a non-commercial company? Are the employee’s all working for free? No so there is no such thing as free. It has to come from some place and if it’s not coming from expansions it’s coming from gems and if it comes from gems they need to some how get people to buy gems and there we see the main reason for temporary content.. Create a sense of urgency to get people to buy things. First rule in every marketing book.

The thing is though if the conent is good the sence to get into it as soon as it is availble feeds itself. that’s exactly why I used the HBO Game of Thrones scenario. There’s a reason it’s the most pirated show around. Because not everybody can afford or wants a subscription to HBO but they REALLY WANT TO WATCH THE NEWSET EPISODE RIGHT NOW!
And there’s always the middleground of leaving the content but taking the limited time rewards.

But when they leave the content but take the limited time rewards you would still have the complains as thats exactly the part many people don’t like about the temporary stuff. BTW that post was not to disagree with you mean idea as I support it. It was only to explain why they do it this way. And if they would focus more on expansions there would be less need to do it this way.

mbridg.4069:

OP, I disagree with you. I missed a good portion of the Aetherblade content, but I still disagree. It’s because, I know that there will be more NEW content right behind it. I think it’s GREAT that all this NEW content is continually being put out. If this content were temporary, and then we had NOTHING to replace it, it would be a problem.

For every opinion about something being wrong or bad for the game, there are just as many other ppl who enjoy it and think it’s great.

But would a problem exist if this coentent was permenet AND you still got regular updates? I still fail to see the purpose of remving conent, espcially if it’s good.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Krosslite.1950:

Jewel.1457:

This is the same point I’ve been thinking for a while now. Most of what is being implemented feels like the same sort of time filler pieces in subscription game, collect 100vs of that, kill thousands of those. Just because you can create more of it is no reason to be applauded. There is no altruistic motive behind it either, it’s the same methods to keep people play but instead of a subscription it’s lockboxes.

Now they have done some amazing pieces of content, Halloween was amazing, the new dungeons and jumping puzzles great, and the Southsun cove changes were perfect but there is just too much meaningless filler as an addendum to it.

Be thankful there is a cash shop. Anet has made it clear that the cash shop is making it possible for them to start giving us this “Living World” experience. I for one thoroughly am enjoying the ride and plan on staying on the ride till they kick me out the door as they shut down the last server.

Partly true. They need to make the money.. but if you need to be thankful there is a cash shop? They could also make the money with yearly expansions and personally I think the ingame decisions that resulted out of that are much better then those that result out of cash shops.
It’s not like cash shops are the only solution, nor that it is the best solution.

I don’t think that selling expansions is enough to support any real kind of content generation. Maybe it was 8 years ago when Guild Wars 1 launched, but the landscape has changed. As the simplest example, Guild Wars 2 has a staff that’s at least 6 times the size of Guild Wars 1, which required a move to a newer (and probably more expensive) office space. There’s for more competition for players now as well.

Games either have box sales and a monthly fee or box sales and a cash shop or just a cash shop. Some have box sales, a monthly fee AND a cash shop. Many went free to play after a period of time where they had a monthly fee where they made a lot of money.

Anyone can say that box sales would be enough to allow content generation but that doesn’t make it true. I don’t think it would work today, where as many years back it might have. The industry is too competitive, player expecations are too high, and the overhead is much higher than it used to be.

You’re defending regular content updates Vs. expansion updates. We’re talking about temporary content here.

Aberrant.6749:

ColinJohanson.2394:

We’ve said it a few times before, but I want to just re-iterate we’ve heard folks feedback on this and will be doing a much larger mix of permanent, recurring (content that can occur again in the future), and more world impacting releases as it relates to living world in the second half of the year. There will still absolutely be some amount of temporary, in particular story-driven moments to help drive the narrative forward. You’ll also see some of the content previously noted as “temporary” return permanently to the game in the 2nd half of the year.

Three additional notes ->

• As we recently announced, we’re up to four living world teams now, which means they will have a much longer development cycle later this year to build more polished content, and content that can be more impactful.

• The Living World teams are only a small chunk of the total developers at ArenaNet, we’ll be going into details on what many of those other teams will be doing in a blog later this month.

• We also have teams working on much longer term projects, which we will discuss when they are closer to arrival.

We’ve said all of this before, but I think it’s good to just put that message out more frequently so everyone understands where we’re going. Thanks very much for all the feedback folks, as always we continue to listen to your feedback and course correct as we try new things in the live MMO space.

This sounds awesome. Temporary content for those who like things to change. Perm for those who don’t. Returning temp content that shows to be popular (SAB will be back). Idk how you could ask for more.

The sort of temporary content the people who do not like the temporary part will still be in there. So it’s not good at all.

Devata.6589:

Kaaboose.3897:

Devata.6589:

Mirta.5029:

Krosslite.1950:

Mirta.5029:

cesmode.4257:

Im casual..in that I have only 2-3 hours to play per night, but take my toon, gear, class, experience serious enough where I want to do well.

And i hate living story. Innovative but its doing squat to further this game. Very stagnat right now.

would it be better if instead we had none of the living story and ended up waiting for an expansion for over a year? Expansions content will come any way, whether living story is there or not.

Please refer to this thread for that debate

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/GW2-unlikely-to-get-expansions-Interview/page/10#post2375418

I did not say that expansion will come, I said that the expansions content will come. As in we’re going to get the continuation of the main story for free.

Is NCSOFT a non-commercial company? Is ArenaNet a non-commercial company? Are the employee’s all working for free? No so there is no such thing as free. It has to come from some place and if it’s not coming from expansions it’s coming from gems and if it comes from gems they need to some how get people to buy gems and there we see the main reason for temporary content.. Create a sense of urgency to get people to buy things. First rule in every marketing book.

The thing is though if the conent is good the sence to get into it as soon as it is availble feeds itself. that’s exactly why I used the HBO Game of Thrones scenario. There’s a reason it’s the most pirated show around. Because not everybody can afford or wants a subscription to HBO but they REALLY WANT TO WATCH THE NEWSET EPISODE RIGHT NOW!
And there’s always the middleground of leaving the content but taking the limited time rewards.

But when they leave the content but take the limited time rewards you would still have the complains as thats exactly the part many people don’t like about the temporary stuff. BTW that post was not to disagree with you mean idea as I support it. It was only to explain why they do it this way. And if they would focus more on expansions there would be less need to do it this way.

I shouldn’t have used caps. I used them to demonstrate the rabidness I feel at learning there is a new Game of Thrones episode out. I just HAVE TO WATCH IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! I enjoy that show that much.
In reguards to leaving content but not the rewards, I’m not saying it’s a good thing, But it is middle ground. If the content was fun and engauging you’d still do it even with the only reward being that you exerpainced it. Yes you’re not likley to ever do it again but it is content that you did and took you X time to do. And Y amount of players did it as well. Even if it is only played through once, if it was enjoyable, players that tried it would recomend it to their freinds and you now have content in your game that can be enjoyed by new and old players alike. It might not be a lot on it’s own but as you build apon that with more small updates theat stay in game eventually you have an expansions worth of content for a new player coming into the game. Conent that an older player might want to do with them.
I’m not sold on the episodic nature of realses, but I can see them working. However temporary episodic reasles I just can’t see working.

Devata.6589:

The sort of temporary content the people who do not like the temporary part will still be in there. So it’s not good at all.

But how many people actually don’t like the temporary content? Do you know? Or is it only your personal dislike, shared by some people you know? Is a bit of rabble on the forums representative of the majority of players?

Speaking for myself, I’ve never felt any great urge to complete any of the temp content. I dip into it here and there as the mood takes me. If I get a reward, great, if not, no problem. Does that attitude define a lot of players or just a minority? I don’t know – but Anet probably knows.

I can appreciate that temporary content might be annoying for a completionist player or a hardcore Achiever, but MMORPGs no longer need be defined by playstyles that attract primarily that type of player. However, I do I hope Anet do introduce enough things to keep such players happy too.

gurugeorge.9857:

Devata.6589:

The sort of temporary content the people who do not like the temporary part will still be in there. So it’s not good at all.

But how many people actually don’t like the temporary content? Do you know? Or is it only your personal dislike, shared by some people you know? Is a bit of rabble on the forums representative of the majority of players?

Speaking for myself, I’ve never felt any great urge to complete any of the temp content. I dip into it here and there as the mood takes me. If I get a reward, great, if not, no problem. Does that attitude define a lot of players or just a minority? I don’t know – but Anet probably knows.

I can appreciate that temporary content might be annoying for a completionist player or a hardcore Achiever, but MMORPGs no longer need be defined by playstyles that attract primarily that type of player. However, I do I hope Anet do introduce enough things to keep such players happy too.

That’s one of the reasons posts like this are made. So we can find out. I’m guessing that’s why colin said “Let us know what you think.” So they can find out.
Seeing as the video ahs been out less then a day and the “Future of Guild Wars 2 video” has already recived 50+ new thumbs down and numerous comments reguarding temporary content we’re on our way to getting an idea of just how many.

ColinJohanson.2394:

[SNIP]…we’ve heard folks feedback on this and will be doing a much larger mix of permanent, recurring (content that can occur again in the future), and more world impacting releases as it relates to living world in the second half of the year. There will still absolutely be some amount of temporary, in particular story-driven moments to help drive the narrative forward.

Colin, I hear you saying that there will be more permanent content, but the impression I’ve been getting from the information flowing from you guys — and correct me if I’m wrong-- is that the main focus going forward is still going to be temporary content that we have to play when you guys want us to… or not at all.

When you say “some amount” of temporary content, are you saying that there will be occasional temporary stuff, or are you saying that every two-weeks we will still be getting temporary content despite the feedback you mentioned had been heard?

gurugeorge.9857:

Devata.6589:

The sort of temporary content the people who do not like the temporary part will still be in there. So it’s not good at all.

But how many people actually don’t like the temporary content? Do you know? Or is it only your personal dislike, shared by some people you know? Is a bit of rabble on the forums representative of the majority of players?

Speaking for myself, I’ve never felt any great urge to complete any of the temp content. I dip into it here and there as the mood takes me. If I get a reward, great, if not, no problem. Does that attitude define a lot of players or just a minority? I don’t know – but Anet probably knows.

I can appreciate that temporary content might be annoying for a completionist player or a hardcore Achiever, but MMORPGs no longer need be defined by playstyles that attract primarily that type of player. However, I do I hope Anet do introduce enough things to keep such players happy too.

Of course I do not have the numbers but I think with a little bid of common sense you can understand that there are more people who do not like that it gets removed then the number of players that do no like it if it would not be temporary anymore.

And I base myself on the number of topics about it in this forum, some other forums and what I hear by people for example in the guild.

ArenaNet also does not know.. how would they know.. But they might have indications (most likely also based on this forum) and it’s enough for them to try and do something about it (see Colin’s reaction). However you can also see how this statement (that has been made multiple times in the media) does not help to reduce the number of complains. You can basically also read that from Colin’s reaction in this thread

“We’ve said it a few times before, but I want to just re-iterate…. We’ve said all of this before, but I think it’s good to just put that message out more frequently so everyone understands where we’re going.”

The problem is that they have that dilemma of the need to have permanent items and stuff to create an feel of urgency to get stuff so they buy gems and people complaining about that temporary content.

Look at my first post in this thread. That could easily be implemented. It would not harm the living story in any way (so should not harm any players who likes it) and should remove the complains about temporary content. So why did they not do this already? Because it does not fit they strategy to make the money.

And thats also the reason I ended that comment with saying they should go for an expansion focus because the strategy to make the money and these in-game decision are entwined with each other.

Kaaboose.3897:

I shouldn’t have used caps. I used them to demonstrate the rabidness I feel at learning there is a new Game of Thrones episode out. I just HAVE TO WATCH IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! I enjoy that show that much.
In reguards to leaving content but not the rewards, I’m not saying it’s a good thing, But it is middle ground. If the content was fun and engauging you’d still do it even with the only reward being that you exerpainced it. Yes you’re not likley to ever do it again but it is content that you did and took you X time to do. And Y amount of players did it as well. Even if it is only played through once, if it was enjoyable, players that tried it would recomend it to their freinds and you now have content in your game that can be enjoyed by new and old players alike. It might not be a lot on it’s own but as you build apon that with more small updates theat stay in game eventually you have an expansions worth of content for a new player coming into the game. Conent that an older player might want to do with them.
I’m not sold on the episodic nature of realses, but I can see them working. However temporary episodic reasles I just can’t see working.

That’s the funny bit. I think most people enjoy and would regularly pay for episodic releases. Tsw has a great system for one, and then there are many other media types which thrive based on this type of release schedule.

I just don’t think a large population are sold on Arenanet’s model. There are other ways of financing updates that don’t include subscription, or cash shop lockboxes. Quite a few sell the content itself, and the model of outright selling cosmetics seems to be the model that appease the broadest section of the playerbase. The way they are doing it makes more money it seems but whether it’s good for the long term is still debatable.

Then there is the quality and consistency of these updates. Temporary is fine but not as a predominate update style, it only provides an artificial sense of world growth. Trying to simulate a world through constant short time events, no matter how well implemented just feels contrived. As someone else said earlier temporary content just doesn’t seem to have the same level of quality either as it invokes that throwaway mentality.

Episodic content can work, and temporary events are great, I’ve seen both if these work brilliantly for the genre I just don’t think Anet has found the right balance yet since there priorities and ideas have taken them in another direction. Sometimes I just think they do certain things to be different than WoW, whether that or not that’s a good or bad thing

We shall see how well it has really worked when a couple new releases give it some competition

Devata.6589:

Of course I do not have the numbers but I think with a little bid of common sense you can understand that there are more people who do not like that it gets removed then the number of players that do no like it if it would not be temporary anymore.

And I base myself on the number of topics about it in this forum, some other forums and what I hear by people for example in the guild.

ArenaNet also does not know.. how would they know.. But they might have indications (most likely also based on this forum) and it’s enough for them to try and do something about it (see Colin’s reaction). However you can also see how this statement (that has been made multiple times in the media) does not help to reduce the number of complains. You can basically also read that from Colin’s reaction in this thread

“We’ve said it a few times before, but I want to just re-iterate…. We’ve said all of this before, but I think it’s good to just put that message out more frequently so everyone understands where we’re going.”

The problem is that they have that dilemma of the need to have permanent items and stuff to create an feel of urgency to get stuff so they buy gems and people complaining about that temporary content.

Look at my first post in this thread. That could easily be implemented. It would not harm the living story in any way (so should not harm any players who likes it) and should remove the complains about temporary content. So why did they not do this already? Because it does not fit they strategy to make the money.

And thats also the reason I ended that comment with saying they should go for an expansion focus because the strategy to make the money and these in-game decision are entwined with each other.

The only thing that will stop threads like this one is when the content promised by Anet becomes a reality. People are too busy judging them on their past performance. A performance they themselves have stated was lack luster.
They have now promised better content but that content is not due to totally hit us until next month.
Will we see some of it now? Maybe.
Will we see more on the 23rd? I will not make an assumption and so will not comment.
Kaaboose was correct in one thing. They do need to get stories out that make us not want to wait two weeks till the next installment.
Personally I think they need to hire more writers to be able to achieve that goal. The staff writers they have now are fine for over a long period of time. That will not work in this scenario. You usually don’t see the same writers every week for a series.

Jewel.1457:

Episodic content can work, and temporary events are great, I’ve seen both if these work brilliantly for the genre I just don’t think Anet has found the right balance yet since there priorities and ideas have taken them in another direction. Sometimes I just think they do certain things to be different than WoW, whether that or not that’s a good or bad thing

We shall see how well it has really worked when a couple new releases give it some competition

Episodic content is already a proven model. That is how Star Trek: Online works. It is now F2P with a cash shop, but when it was first released it was P2P plus a cash shop. Also I may add they have never done an expansion pack but have added a race to the game.

STO does their updates every 6 months. GW2 now wishes to this is two weeks. See my above post for my opinion on the writing staff for Anet.

While temporary content is entertaining, it is by far not my favorite feature of GW2. The fact that Anet is continuing to release temp content is not troubling; it’s the fact that they’re devoting so many resources to it.
They’re going to be stretching 4 teams to throw out content as fast as they possibly can, basically. Why not stretch out the content over longer periods of time to cut down how much personnel they’re putting on the task? This would help limit the “I just came back to the game after three months and missed everything” factor, as well.
I LIKE the temporary content but… it’s temporary. It will go away in two weeks. I feel like I have to rushrushrush through the two weeks in order to get in all of the content, and that often makes me just flat-out not want to do most of it. Anet promised a living, changing world, and temporary content like this would be a GREAT way to do that- IF the temporary content had any lasting effects on the world. So far, it hasn’t.
Temp content would also seem a lot more worthwhile if we were getting any permanent content to go with it. We’re getting very little of that right now, which is really a drag for someone who devotes fairly little time to the living stories like myself. And yes, they’re promising permanent content, but that doesn’t matter much to me until I see it, seeing as Anet has a habit of not keeping promises.

mewmewmyoo.7809:

While temporary content is entertaining, it is by far not my favorite feature of GW2. The fact that Anet is continuing to release temp content is not troubling; it’s the fact that they’re devoting so many resources to it.
They’re going to be stretching 4 teams to throw out content as fast as they possibly can, basically. Why not stretch out the content over longer periods of time to cut down how much personnel they’re putting on the task? This would help limit the “I just came back to the game after three months and missed everything” factor, as well.
I LIKE the temporary content but… it’s temporary. It will go away in two weeks. I feel like I have to rushrushrush through the two weeks in order to get in all of the content, and that often makes me just flat-out not want to do most of it. Anet promised a living, changing world, and temporary content like this would be a GREAT way to do that- IF the temporary content had any lasting effects on the world. So far, it hasn’t.
Temp content would also seem a lot more worthwhile if we were getting any permanent content to go with it. We’re getting very little of that right now, which is really a drag for someone who devotes fairly little time to the living stories like myself.

per Colin in this very thread:

“will be doing a much larger mix of permanent, recurring (content that can occur again in the future), and more world impacting releases as it relates to living world in the second half of the year.”

mewmewmyoo.7809:

While temporary content is entertaining, it is by far not my favorite feature of GW2. The fact that Anet is continuing to release temp content is not troubling; it’s the fact that they’re devoting so many resources to it.
They’re going to be stretching 4 teams to throw out content as fast as they possibly can, basically. Why not stretch out the content over longer periods of time to cut down how much personnel they’re putting on the task? This would help limit the “I just came back to the game after three months and missed everything” factor, as well.
I LIKE the temporary content but… it’s temporary. It will go away in two weeks. I feel like I have to rushrushrush through the two weeks in order to get in all of the content, and that often makes me just flat-out not want to do most of it. Anet promised a living, changing world, and temporary content like this would be a GREAT way to do that- IF the temporary content had any lasting effects on the world. So far, it hasn’t.
Temp content would also seem a lot more worthwhile if we were getting any permanent content to go with it. We’re getting very little of that right now, which is really a drag for someone who devotes fairly little time to the living stories like myself. And yes, they’re promising permanent content, but that doesn’t matter much to me until I see it, seeing as Anet has a habit of not keeping promises.

You have a month for most of the achievements, not two weeks…at least that was true of last month and apparently this is going to be around for a month as well.

Wow the latest event is the worst yet , i mean seriously most people here did not buy gw2 expecting to do lots of jumping puzzles. This will be the second living story update i have no interest in.

Conclusion quality over quantity wins every time – I feel for your team having to stomp up new content every few weeks , and after a few events they are struggling already. God help us…..

SirusDibley.3716:

Wow the latest event is the worst yet , i mean seriously most people here did not buy gw2 expecting to do lots of jumping puzzles. This will be the second living story update i have no interest in.

Conclusion quality over quantity wins every time – I feel for your team having to stomp up new content every few weeks , and after a few events they are struggling already. God help us…..

I think you’re seriously underestimating how popular jumping puzzles are. There are a whole lot of people who enjoy jumping puzzles.

Vayne.8563:

SirusDibley.3716:

Wow the latest event is the worst yet , i mean seriously most people here did not buy gw2 expecting to do lots of jumping puzzles. This will be the second living story update i have no interest in.

Conclusion quality over quantity wins every time – I feel for your team having to stomp up new content every few weeks , and after a few events they are struggling already. God help us…..

I think you’re seriously underestimating how popular jumping puzzles are. There are a whole lot of people who enjoy jumping puzzles.

Not all , I think your overestimating how many like them. My guild of 400 + hates em and rather have good content to play , not this novlety mario type rubbish.

gw1 had no jumping and at no point in that brilliant game did i hear anyone say, i wish we could have jumping puzzles….

ColinJohanson.2394:

We’ve said it a few times before, but I want to just re-iterate we’ve heard folks feedback on this and will be doing a much larger mix of permanent, recurring (content that can occur again in the future), and more world impacting releases as it relates to living world in the second half of the year. There will still absolutely be some amount of temporary, in particular story-driven moments to help drive the narrative forward. You’ll also see some of the content previously noted as “temporary” return permanently to the game in the 2nd half of the year.

Three additional notes ->

• As we recently announced, we’re up to four living world teams now, which means they will have a much longer development cycle later this year to build more polished content, and content that can be more impactful.

• The Living World teams are only a small chunk of the total developers at ArenaNet, we’ll be going into details on what many of those other teams will be doing in a blog later this month.

• We also have teams working on much longer term projects, which we will discuss when they are closer to arrival.

We’ve said all of this before, but I think it’s good to just put that message out more frequently so everyone understands where we’re going. Thanks very much for all the feedback folks, as always we continue to listen to your feedback and course correct as we try new things in the live MMO space.

Well, I’m glad you are listening. I’m also happy to hear that the LS teams are only a small portion of Arenanet and that a large chunk of the studio is working on “Long Term Projects”. Your statement a few months ago that no one was working on an expansion and that the studio was focused on Living Story really set the stage for a lot of ire in the community.

IMO, with rare exception, the LS events have been a waste of development resources. I hope they will become something better in the future, but at least I have some hope knowing that only a portion of the studio has been wasting development resources, not the entire studio.

You were right when you originally announced continual roll outs of new DEs to the world would be the focus of free content development and that this would make the game world feel more alive. Too bad you nixxed that plan to do LS, which has done little to make the game world feel alive and delivered even less on story.

Let us all hope that the portion of the studio not working on LS will pull the game’s bacon out of the fire, as it’s pretty depressing to see how little has been accomplished on the world PvE front as we approach the 1 year anniversary of the launch of the game.

Krosslite.1950:

Devata.6589:

Of course I do not have the numbers but I think with a little bid of common sense you can understand that there are more people who do not like that it gets removed then the number of players that do no like it if it would not be temporary anymore.

And I base myself on the number of topics about it in this forum, some other forums and what I hear by people for example in the guild.

ArenaNet also does not know.. how would they know.. But they might have indications (most likely also based on this forum) and it’s enough for them to try and do something about it (see Colin’s reaction). However you can also see how this statement (that has been made multiple times in the media) does not help to reduce the number of complains. You can basically also read that from Colin’s reaction in this thread

“We’ve said it a few times before, but I want to just re-iterate…. We’ve said all of this before, but I think it’s good to just put that message out more frequently so everyone understands where we’re going.”

The problem is that they have that dilemma of the need to have permanent items and stuff to create an feel of urgency to get stuff so they buy gems and people complaining about that temporary content.

Look at my first post in this thread. That could easily be implemented. It would not harm the living story in any way (so should not harm any players who likes it) and should remove the complains about temporary content. So why did they not do this already? Because it does not fit they strategy to make the money.

And thats also the reason I ended that comment with saying they should go for an expansion focus because the strategy to make the money and these in-game decision are entwined with each other.

The only thing that will stop threads like this one is when the content promised by Anet becomes a reality. People are too busy judging them on their past performance. A performance they themselves have stated was lack luster.
They have now promised better content but that content is not due to totally hit us until next month.
Will we see some of it now? Maybe.
Will we see more on the 23rd? I will not make an assumption and so will not comment.
Kaaboose was correct in one thing. They do need to get stories out that make us not want to wait two weeks till the next installment.
Personally I think they need to hire more writers to be able to achieve that goal. The staff writers they have now are fine for over a long period of time. That will not work in this scenario. You usually don’t see the same writers every week for a series.

I’m actually in the process of writing a continued storyline for Guild Wars 2 right now. I got sick of waiting for Anet to write a comeplling story so i figured I’d try my luck at it. It’s not like the bar is set especially high right now. And GW2 has such rich lore. I’m quite happy with how it’s turning out. At worst I’ll be a bit of fan fiction and I’m enjoying it quite a lot.
Thing is I COULD realese what I’ve got episodically, but I’m bound to realise later on I elft a plothole somewhere, and on episodic release I wouldn’t be able to go back and correct that. I’m sure good enough writers could get around this, but do anet have such writers on staff?

mewmewmyoo.7809:

And yes, they’re promising permanent content, but that doesn’t matter much to me until I see it, seeing as Anet has a habit of not keeping promises.

Especially when it’s a side note on their video, and not the focus.

Kaaboose.3897:

TL:DR Section Below!
<clip>
TL:DR
Video Version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5SIPOg_sLQ
Temporary content, reguardless of the quality, would be better off being permentant so as not to alienate new and returning Guild Wars 2 players

I’m sorry to have to say this, but “new and returning GW2 players” should be second class to current, ACTIVELY PLAYING Guild Wars 2 players. Why? Because those are the people that are going to be spending $$ on the Quaggan mini-pack (guilty), the other Gem Store items, and play the content as it comes out.

Hypothetical-Situation:

Should someone playing their first day in WoW automatically get Blizzcon pets from every year for the past 5 years, as well as TCG items, tabards from the opening of BC? Or, should that person just see others who were there, who attended, who earned those by playing at that time, and envy them? Not only envy them, but make it a goal to strive for other event-based items that they can obtain to tout about in the future, knowing that others who see it won’t be able to get again.

So do you see my point? These one-time temporary events, which give a very interesting and lively story, are a reward to players who currently enjoy the game that A.Net continually produces for THEM, the ACTIVE CUSTOMERS. Those on the sidelines aren’t getting anything just as those not visiting Disneyland aren’t able to enjoy the rides, like those that didn’t attend a Y2K party won’t get the tee-shirt that everyone else did. Static games are single player games. MMO’s are living things. This one, GW2, is the liveliest of them all; so lively that events can be missed.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Colin was making a list of things we will see in the future:

-Permanent content
-Recurring content
-More world impacting releases

That was stated several times already. So far, it has always been followed by a mostly temporal content. Actions, not words.

SirusDibley.3716:

Vayne.8563:

SirusDibley.3716:

Wow the latest event is the worst yet , i mean seriously most people here did not buy gw2 expecting to do lots of jumping puzzles. This will be the second living story update i have no interest in.

Conclusion quality over quantity wins every time – I feel for your team having to stomp up new content every few weeks , and after a few events they are struggling already. God help us…..

I think you’re seriously underestimating how popular jumping puzzles are. There are a whole lot of people who enjoy jumping puzzles.

Not all , I think your overestimating how many like them. My guild of 400 + hates em and rather have good content to play , not this novlety mario type rubbish.

gw1 had no jumping and at no point in that brilliant game did i hear anyone say, i wish we could have jumping puzzles….

Guild Wars 1 had no jumping at all..and do you know how much of a problem that was for Guild Wars 1? Tons of people never played it in the first place, because it didn’t have jumping.

I saw a press conference early on, one of the first, when Colin was talking about Guild Wars 2, I’m pretty sure it was at the first Gamescon where Guild Wars 2 was shown. And during his introduction, he mentioned that in Guild Wars 2, you would have the ability to jump.

He got a standing ovation.

I seriously doubt your polled all 400 people in your guild, but even if you did, jumping puzzles are outrageously popular. Would you like to know how I know? Because if no one did them, Anet would stop putting them into the game.

The fact is, Anet well knows what people like and don’t like by who does what content. I have 103 people in my guild and I’d say a good 10% of them REALLY don’t like jumping puzzles. I’d say another 20% don’t particularly care about them one way or another. But a full third of my guild LOVES them. I mean really really loves them. And most of the others enjoy them to some degree, with the exception of that 10%.

And yes, I’m approximating numbers, because I didn’t go and poll each and every person in my guild.

But I do know the percentage of my guild that was in SAB every day, and how many loved the jumping puzzle in the last patch (except for the goggle part, which was pretty finicky).

Saying everyone in your guild of 400 hates jumping puzzles doesn’t instill me with confidence in the rest of what you’re saying. Sounds like an exaggeration to prove a point to me.

Siphaed.9235:

Kaaboose.3897:

TL:DR Section Below!
<clip>
TL:DR
Video Version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5SIPOg_sLQ
Temporary content, reguardless of the quality, would be better off being permentant so as not to alienate new and returning Guild Wars 2 players

I’m sorry to have to say this, but “new and returning GW2 players” should be second class to current, ACTIVELY PLAYING Guild Wars 2 players. Why? Because those are the people that are going to be spending $$ on the Quaggan mini-pack (guilty), the other Gem Store items, and play the content as it comes out.

Hypothetical-Situation:

Should someone playing their first day in WoW automatically get Blizzcon pets from every year for the past 5 years, as well as TCG items, tabards from the opening of BC? Or, should that person just see others who were there, who attended, who earned those by playing at that time, and envy them? Not only envy them, but make it a goal to strive for other event-based items that they can obtain to tout about in the future, knowing that others who see it won’t be able to get again.

---

So do you see my point? These one-time temporary events, which give a very interesting and lively story, are a reward to players who currently enjoy the game that A.Net continually produces for THEM, the ACTIVE CUSTOMERS. Those on the sidelines aren’t getting anything just as those not visiting Disneyland aren’t able to enjoy the rides, like those that didn’t attend a Y2K party won’t get the tee-shirt that everyone else did. Static games are single player games. MMO’s are living things. This one, GW2, is the liveliest of them all; so lively that events can be missed.

You miss one very important thing in that comparision. And that is that those types of events were not the FOCUS of WoW. I’m not saying temporary contnet is bad, But a focus on it, as in making it the bread and butter of your PvE, is commercial suicide.
I remember the temporary stuff before LK and CATA getting me pumped for the game. It was like blizz was saying “We know you’re already invested in the game and you’ve stuck around while waiting for the next EXP, so here’s some temporary stuff you get for sticking with us. Enjoy.”

Kaaboose.3897:

Siphaed.9235:

Kaaboose.3897:

TL:DR Section Below!
<clip>
TL:DR
Video Version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5SIPOg_sLQ
Temporary content, reguardless of the quality, would be better off being permentant so as not to alienate new and returning Guild Wars 2 players

I’m sorry to have to say this, but “new and returning GW2 players” should be second class to current, ACTIVELY PLAYING Guild Wars 2 players. Why? Because those are the people that are going to be spending $$ on the Quaggan mini-pack (guilty), the other Gem Store items, and play the content as it comes out.

Hypothetical-Situation:

Should someone playing their first day in WoW automatically get Blizzcon pets from every year for the past 5 years, as well as TCG items, tabards from the opening of BC? Or, should that person just see others who were there, who attended, who earned those by playing at that time, and envy them? Not only envy them, but make it a goal to strive for other event-based items that they can obtain to tout about in the future, knowing that others who see it won’t be able to get again.

---

So do you see my point? These one-time temporary events, which give a very interesting and lively story, are a reward to players who currently enjoy the game that A.Net continually produces for THEM, the ACTIVE CUSTOMERS. Those on the sidelines aren’t getting anything just as those not visiting Disneyland aren’t able to enjoy the rides, like those that didn’t attend a Y2K party won’t get the tee-shirt that everyone else did. Static games are single player games. MMO’s are living things. This one, GW2, is the liveliest of them all; so lively that events can be missed.

You miss one very important thing in that comparision. And that is that those types of events were not the FOCUS of WoW. I’m not saying temporary contnet is bad, But a focus on it, as in making it the bread and butter of your PvE, is commercial suicide.
I remember the temporary stuff before LK and CATA getting me pumped for the game. It was like blizz was saying “We know you’re already invested in the game and you’ve stuck around while waiting for the next EXP, so here’s some temporary stuff you get for sticking with us. Enjoy.”

At ten months in, how often did WoW actually come out with new content? You don’t even know what the focus of a new game is at ten months.

This is the beginning of the LS, not the end. It’s barely started. It’s already introduced a couple of temporary dungeons that people liked, some of which are probably going to eventually end up as fractals, which some people like.

But there’s a variety of experiences here, and there’ll be more moving forward.

The change with the design teams is a recent decision that we haven’t seen in effect yet.

At very least you could wait to see what comes of it, before prejudging.

Vayne.8563:

Kaaboose.3897:

Siphaed.9235:

Kaaboose.3897:

TL:DR Section Below!
<clip>
TL:DR
Video Version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5SIPOg_sLQ
Temporary content, reguardless of the quality, would be better off being permentant so as not to alienate new and returning Guild Wars 2 players

I’m sorry to have to say this, but “new and returning GW2 players” should be second class to current, ACTIVELY PLAYING Guild Wars 2 players. Why? Because those are the people that are going to be spending $$ on the Quaggan mini-pack (guilty), the other Gem Store items, and play the content as it comes out.

Hypothetical-Situation:

Should someone playing their first day in WoW automatically get Blizzcon pets from every year for the past 5 years, as well as TCG items, tabards from the opening of BC? Or, should that person just see others who were there, who attended, who earned those by playing at that time, and envy them? Not only envy them, but make it a goal to strive for other event-based items that they can obtain to tout about in the future, knowing that others who see it won’t be able to get again.

---

So do you see my point? These one-time temporary events, which give a very interesting and lively story, are a reward to players who currently enjoy the game that A.Net continually produces for THEM, the ACTIVE CUSTOMERS. Those on the sidelines aren’t getting anything just as those not visiting Disneyland aren’t able to enjoy the rides, like those that didn’t attend a Y2K party won’t get the tee-shirt that everyone else did. Static games are single player games. MMO’s are living things. This one, GW2, is the liveliest of them all; so lively that events can be missed.

You miss one very important thing in that comparision. And that is that those types of events were not the FOCUS of WoW. I’m not saying temporary contnet is bad, But a focus on it, as in making it the bread and butter of your PvE, is commercial suicide.
I remember the temporary stuff before LK and CATA getting me pumped for the game. It was like blizz was saying “We know you’re already invested in the game and you’ve stuck around while waiting for the next EXP, so here’s some temporary stuff you get for sticking with us. Enjoy.”

At ten months in, how often did WoW actually come out with new content? You don’t even know what the focus of a new game is at ten months.

This is the beginning of the LS, not the end. It’s barely started. It’s already introduced a couple of temporary dungeons that people liked, some of which are probably going to eventually end up as fractals, which some people like.

But there’s a variety of experiences here, and there’ll be more moving forward.

The change with the design teams is a recent decision that we haven’t seen in effect yet.

At very least you could wait to see what comes of it, before prejudging.

Anet themselves asked us for our opinion.

Kaaboose.3897:

Vayne.8563:

Kaaboose.3897:

Siphaed.9235:

Kaaboose.3897:

TL:DR Section Below!
<clip>
TL:DR
Video Version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5SIPOg_sLQ
Temporary content, reguardless of the quality, would be better off being permentant so as not to alienate new and returning Guild Wars 2 players

I’m sorry to have to say this, but “new and returning GW2 players” should be second class to current, ACTIVELY PLAYING Guild Wars 2 players. Why? Because those are the people that are going to be spending $$ on the Quaggan mini-pack (guilty), the other Gem Store items, and play the content as it comes out.

Hypothetical-Situation:

Should someone playing their first day in WoW automatically get Blizzcon pets from every year for the past 5 years, as well as TCG items, tabards from the opening of BC? Or, should that person just see others who were there, who attended, who earned those by playing at that time, and envy them? Not only envy them, but make it a goal to strive for other event-based items that they can obtain to tout about in the future, knowing that others who see it won’t be able to get again.

---

So do you see my point? These one-time temporary events, which give a very interesting and lively story, are a reward to players who currently enjoy the game that A.Net continually produces for THEM, the ACTIVE CUSTOMERS. Those on the sidelines aren’t getting anything just as those not visiting Disneyland aren’t able to enjoy the rides, like those that didn’t attend a Y2K party won’t get the tee-shirt that everyone else did. Static games are single player games. MMO’s are living things. This one, GW2, is the liveliest of them all; so lively that events can be missed.

You miss one very important thing in that comparision. And that is that those types of events were not the FOCUS of WoW. I’m not saying temporary contnet is bad, But a focus on it, as in making it the bread and butter of your PvE, is commercial suicide.
I remember the temporary stuff before LK and CATA getting me pumped for the game. It was like blizz was saying “We know you’re already invested in the game and you’ve stuck around while waiting for the next EXP, so here’s some temporary stuff you get for sticking with us. Enjoy.”

At ten months in, how often did WoW actually come out with new content? You don’t even know what the focus of a new game is at ten months.

This is the beginning of the LS, not the end. It’s barely started. It’s already introduced a couple of temporary dungeons that people liked, some of which are probably going to eventually end up as fractals, which some people like.

But there’s a variety of experiences here, and there’ll be more moving forward.

The change with the design teams is a recent decision that we haven’t seen in effect yet.

At very least you could wait to see what comes of it, before prejudging.

Anet themselves asked us for our opinion.

Sure. Anet didn’t ask you to compare a game that was many years old and has zero relevance here with a game that’s ten months old. It’s not a fair comparison and it makes that particular opinion all but unusable.

What can Anet do with this particular opinion. They can’t have 2, 3 or 4 years of content now. So this particular opinion gets wasted, which is fine.

In the mean time, other people read this opinion and think maybe this guy has a point…but I don’t think you have a point and since this is a forum for discussion, I can say that I feel you don’t.

Anet asked our opinions. This is my opinion of your opinion. It’s sort of how forums work.

Vayne.8563:

Kaaboose.3897:

Vayne.8563:

Kaaboose.3897:

Siphaed.9235:

Kaaboose.3897:

TL:DR Section Below!
<clip>
TL:DR
Video Version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5SIPOg_sLQ
Temporary content, reguardless of the quality, would be better off being permentant so as not to alienate new and returning Guild Wars 2 players

I’m sorry to have to say this, but “new and returning GW2 players” should be second class to current, ACTIVELY PLAYING Guild Wars 2 players. Why? Because those are the people that are going to be spending $$ on the Quaggan mini-pack (guilty), the other Gem Store items, and play the content as it comes out.

Hypothetical-Situation:

Should someone playing their first day in WoW automatically get Blizzcon pets from every year for the past 5 years, as well as TCG items, tabards from the opening of BC? Or, should that person just see others who were there, who attended, who earned those by playing at that time, and envy them? Not only envy them, but make it a goal to strive for other event-based items that they can obtain to tout about in the future, knowing that others who see it won’t be able to get again.

---

So do you see my point? These one-time temporary events, which give a very interesting and lively story, are a reward to players who currently enjoy the game that A.Net continually produces for THEM, the ACTIVE CUSTOMERS. Those on the sidelines aren’t getting anything just as those not visiting Disneyland aren’t able to enjoy the rides, like those that didn’t attend a Y2K party won’t get the tee-shirt that everyone else did. Static games are single player games. MMO’s are living things. This one, GW2, is the liveliest of them all; so lively that events can be missed.

You miss one very important thing in that comparision. And that is that those types of events were not the FOCUS of WoW. I’m not saying temporary contnet is bad, But a focus on it, as in making it the bread and butter of your PvE, is commercial suicide.
I remember the temporary stuff before LK and CATA getting me pumped for the game. It was like blizz was saying “We know you’re already invested in the game and you’ve stuck around while waiting for the next EXP, so here’s some temporary stuff you get for sticking with us. Enjoy.”

At ten months in, how often did WoW actually come out with new content? You don’t even know what the focus of a new game is at ten months.

This is the beginning of the LS, not the end. It’s barely started. It’s already introduced a couple of temporary dungeons that people liked, some of which are probably going to eventually end up as fractals, which some people like.

But there’s a variety of experiences here, and there’ll be more moving forward.

The change with the design teams is a recent decision that we haven’t seen in effect yet.

At very least you could wait to see what comes of it, before prejudging.

Anet themselves asked us for our opinion.

Sure. Anet didn’t ask you to compare a game that was many years old and has zero relevance here with a game that’s ten months old. It’s not a fair comparison and it makes that particular opinion all but unusable.

What can Anet do with this particular opinion. They can’t have 2, 3 or 4 years of content now. So this particular opinion gets wasted, which is fine.

In the mean time, other people read this opinion and think maybe this guy has a point…but I don’t think you have a point and since this is a forum for discussion, I can say that I feel you don’t.

Anet asked our opinions. This is my opinion of your opinion. It’s sort of how forums work.

Gods Vayne do NOT bring up that You can’t compare GW2 to X crap because of Y BS. It’s the worst kind of defence. See this: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/24/

Kaaboose.3897:

I don’t know the exact numbers of how many people are activly playing GW2 but if the servers were merged and we had a LFG system theat helped bring players together this would be less of a problem. Also Having too much content will seperate the playerbase? All that means is players will go for the content that is fun and engauging and NOT do the content that isn’t.
The system you are defending is “All players will play all of the content, reguardless of quality. And this is a good thing.” Really? This is your defence to temporary content? It’s okay because everyone is playing the new content reguardless of it’s quality? How can that be benificial to any player? It’s like thoese guys that rabidly defend WarZ! It’s crap, but they want everyone to play it with them, weather they’ll enjoy it or not.
And I’m curious. Why don’t I count as “Other players?” Am I sepcial or something?

No one knows the exact number of players but in the last couple of days on reddit people have been saying Anet disabled culling on the claw of jormag event. They’ve been posting screenshots from the different servers and today someone posted this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjr1jxMc8Fo

I’ve seen screenshots on reddit from different servers too and it looked like that on multiple servers.

There are most likely alot more players playing the game then people imagine but their already spread thin which is why some people claim the game is dying and its hard to find players to play with. This is probably because unlike other MMOs players arent being funneled into the same end game content, they could be playing anything and there is just a ton of stuff to do in Gw2 already as is.

Yet even so some people swear the game is nearly dead and you can seldom find players to do group events in midlevel zones anymore for example. I am sure I am not the only one coming across such posts.

I personally do not think its that simple. Novel will always be more compelling then good old content simply because we all like to try new things. As more and more content gets added the few people who dislike the new content and decide to play what they liked previously will be spreading out too thin. Like take the secret of southsun living story update more or less all the content that was introduced is still there in game today. (the dungeon isnt but it wasnt really that good so doubt that made all the difference) during the event it was every day overflow now its just a few players. Quality of the world didnt change, quality of the dynamic events released in that living story didnt change yet people found it good enough to play it enmass when it was released, chosen over all the other quality content in the game currently and moved on the moment new stuff was released.

Dont get me wrong, I am personally torn on this. I mean conceptually I would love if everything remains in the game and have a huge choice of content to play. Thats like the main reason Gw2 is my favorite MMO after all cause at max level I still get the whole world to play in. But if we had all content remain and if it gets to a point where people try to play say dragon ball but end up with being the only person there we’ll start hearing talk along the lines of no one is playing the game anymore and we’ll start seeing screenshots of solo/very few players in such instances. Sure people will explain its because players were playing other stuff but such comments tend to become infectious. People will quit the game believing it has no future, people considering the game might be scared away by such comments etc..

I refer back to the video above… I do play all over the place and while I’ve never played at any time of the day in a zone without running into people its true that midlevel zones arent super populated. there were days when I only came across a handful of players. Yet based on that video its not because no one is playing the game, that 1 boss event has 100s of players playing it every single time and every single day for sure. That alone proves there are 1000s of people playing every day on every server imho so Its already an issue of players being spread too thin. Between minigames, jumping puzzles, instances and events we’re getting like 3 – 5 new activities every 2 weeks. thats 72 – 120 new activities every year in addition to all the content thats already in game! Servers can handle so many people, considering these super populated events already lag I dont think we can afford joining in more people on the same servers so this could grow to be a real problem.

100% agree with the video in the op, there is a frustration there and he said it well. I’m glad someone else sees it too. Temporary content is a barrier for new and returning players. Living story does feels a chore, and if you miss it, too bad.

Kaaboose.3897:

Devata.6589:

Mirta.5029:

Krosslite.1950:

Mirta.5029:

cesmode.4257:

Im casual..in that I have only 2-3 hours to play per night, but take my toon, gear, class, experience serious enough where I want to do well.

And i hate living story. Innovative but its doing squat to further this game. Very stagnat right now.

would it be better if instead we had none of the living story and ended up waiting for an expansion for over a year? Expansions content will come any way, whether living story is there or not.

Please refer to this thread for that debate

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/GW2-unlikely-to-get-expansions-Interview/page/10#post2375418

I did not say that expansion will come, I said that the expansions content will come. As in we’re going to get the continuation of the main story for free.

Is NCSOFT a non-commercial company? Is ArenaNet a non-commercial company? Are the employee’s all working for free? No so there is no such thing as free. It has to come from some place and if it’s not coming from expansions it’s coming from gems and if it comes from gems they need to some how get people to buy gems and there we see the main reason for temporary content.. Create a sense of urgency to get people to buy things. First rule in every marketing book.

The thing is though if the conent is good the sence to get into it as soon as it is availble feeds itself. that’s exactly why I used the HBO Game of Thrones scenario. There’s a reason it’s the most pirated show around. Because not everybody can afford or wants a subscription to HBO but they REALLY WANT TO WATCH THE NEWSET EPISODE RIGHT NOW!
And there’s always the middleground of leaving the content but taking the limited time rewards.

Well technically once HBO release an episode its gone, they dont show it anymore (not sure if HBO has on demand streaming not in the us here…) But thing is if it was possible for people to just view Game of thrones on demand on HBO, how many people would opt to view episode number 10 at the same time that episode number 100 comes out just because they really like episode 10? In case of game of thrones its not a problem because you can enjoy the episode solo but in case of say crab toss its totally boring if you’re the only one playing it.

Kaaboose.3897:

Vayne.8563:

Kaaboose.3897:

Vayne.8563:

Kaaboose.3897:

Siphaed.9235:

Kaaboose.3897:

TL:DR Section Below!
<clip>
TL:DR
Video Version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5SIPOg_sLQ
Temporary content, reguardless of the quality, would be better off being permentant so as not to alienate new and returning Guild Wars 2 players

I’m sorry to have to say this, but “new and returning GW2 players” should be second class to current, ACTIVELY PLAYING Guild Wars 2 players. Why? Because those are the people that are going to be spending $$ on the Quaggan mini-pack (guilty), the other Gem Store items, and play the content as it comes out.

Hypothetical-Situation:

Should someone playing their first day in WoW automatically get Blizzcon pets from every year for the past 5 years, as well as TCG items, tabards from the opening of BC? Or, should that person just see others who were there, who attended, who earned those by playing at that time, and envy them? Not only envy them, but make it a goal to strive for other event-based items that they can obtain to tout about in the future, knowing that others who see it won’t be able to get again.

---

So do you see my point? These one-time temporary events, which give a very interesting and lively story, are a reward to players who currently enjoy the game that A.Net continually produces for THEM, the ACTIVE CUSTOMERS. Those on the sidelines aren’t getting anything just as those not visiting Disneyland aren’t able to enjoy the rides, like those that didn’t attend a Y2K party won’t get the tee-shirt that everyone else did. Static games are single player games. MMO’s are living things. This one, GW2, is the liveliest of them all; so lively that events can be missed.

You miss one very important thing in that comparision. And that is that those types of events were not the FOCUS of WoW. I’m not saying temporary contnet is bad, But a focus on it, as in making it the bread and butter of your PvE, is commercial suicide.
I remember the temporary stuff before LK and CATA getting me pumped for the game. It was like blizz was saying “We know you’re already invested in the game and you’ve stuck around while waiting for the next EXP, so here’s some temporary stuff you get for sticking with us. Enjoy.”

At ten months in, how often did WoW actually come out with new content? You don’t even know what the focus of a new game is at ten months.

This is the beginning of the LS, not the end. It’s barely started. It’s already introduced a couple of temporary dungeons that people liked, some of which are probably going to eventually end up as fractals, which some people like.

But there’s a variety of experiences here, and there’ll be more moving forward.

The change with the design teams is a recent decision that we haven’t seen in effect yet.

At very least you could wait to see what comes of it, before prejudging.

Anet themselves asked us for our opinion.

Sure. Anet didn’t ask you to compare a game that was many years old and has zero relevance here with a game that’s ten months old. It’s not a fair comparison and it makes that particular opinion all but unusable.

What can Anet do with this particular opinion. They can’t have 2, 3 or 4 years of content now. So this particular opinion gets wasted, which is fine.

In the mean time, other people read this opinion and think maybe this guy has a point…but I don’t think you have a point and since this is a forum for discussion, I can say that I feel you don’t.

Anet asked our opinions. This is my opinion of your opinion. It’s sort of how forums work.

Gods Vayne do NOT bring up that You can’t compare GW2 to X crap because of Y BS. It’s the worst kind of defence. See this: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/24/

It’s not the worst kind of defense…and yes, I’ve read the penny arcade thing.

Realistic expectations of a game and a genre are realistic. Every single MMO forums is a cesspool of complaints. Some of the complaints are completely legit and some are based on unreasonable ideas on what can and can’t be accomplished. The reasonable stuff is fine. The stuff that’s based on comparing two different games at two different stages of its life is simply ridiculous.

Particularly in terms of how much content is available, how many bugs there are and that sort of thing. I don’t know if you were around for WoW’s launch but it wasn’t pretty. It took a couple of years for them to really get going. Logically,. games have more competition, cost more and have higher overheads today. Therefore it should take at least that long for games today to get up to speed.

This is a simple and logical argument. Penny arcade isn’t exactly an expert witness. It’s just another person’s opinion.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We’ve said it a few times before, but I want to just re-iterate we’ve heard folks feedback on this and will be doing a much larger mix of permanent, recurring (content that can occur again in the future), and more world impacting releases as it relates to living world in the second half of the year. There will still absolutely be some amount of temporary, in particular story-driven moments to help drive the narrative forward. You’ll also see some of the content previously noted as “temporary” return permanently to the game in the 2nd half of the year.

Three additional notes ->

• As we recently announced, we’re up to four living world teams now, which means they will have a much longer development cycle later this year to build more polished content, and content that can be more impactful.

• The Living World teams are only a small chunk of the total developers at ArenaNet, we’ll be going into details on what many of those other teams will be doing in a blog later this month.

• We also have teams working on much longer term projects, which we will discuss when they are closer to arrival.

We’ve said all of this before, but I think it’s good to just put that message out more frequently so everyone understands where we’re going. Thanks very much for all the feedback folks, as always we continue to listen to your feedback and course correct as we try new things in the live MMO space.

I Hope the majority of your Dev are fixing bugs?

Krosslite.1950:

The only thing that will stop threads like this one is when the content promised by Anet becomes a reality. People are too busy judging them on their past performance. A performance they themselves have stated was lack luster.
They have now promised better content but that content is not due to totally hit us until next month.
Will we see some of it now? Maybe.
Will we see more on the 23rd? I will not make an assumption and so will not comment.
Kaaboose was correct in one thing. They do need to get stories out that make us not want to wait two weeks till the next installment.
Personally I think they need to hire more writers to be able to achieve that goal. The staff writers they have now are fine for over a long period of time. That will not work in this scenario. You usually don’t see the same writers every week for a series.

Wooden potatoes just did a video on this subject. I dont agree with all his points but I do agree with the point he makes on the subject you just brought up. Temporary content makes it tricky to deliver compelling story. Imagine if the personal storyline was delivered through temporary content, what would happen if you miss the episode were you join the fight against Zhaitan and pick it up at a point when you’re already in Orr. A lot of things will not make sense because you’d have lots all the events leading to it. So I wouldnt really blame the writers, its just with temporary content they need to be careful that if you miss one part you’re not totally clueless and can still understand whats going on and that probably involves keeping stuff simple.

That being said I am sure they can tune temporary vs permanent in such a way to have a narrative going. Wooden potatoes himself had a really good suggestion, have an interface for the story just like we get for the personal story. That way if you miss part of it you can still refer back and understand what’s happened. There are other options too I dont know we could have narattive move forward through instances like the personal story and perhaps we could also get a sort of historian in the fractal of the mists and have those all instances that have come and gone replayable, just like the bonus mission pack in gw1 for those that played it. That way content can be temporary and drive narrative forward but it can still be replaced on demand by those who missed it and it would fit the lore / immersion too. There are answers to this for sure.

SirusDibley.3716:

Vayne.8563:

SirusDibley.3716:

Wow the latest event is the worst yet , i mean seriously most people here did not buy gw2 expecting to do lots of jumping puzzles. This will be the second living story update i have no interest in.

Conclusion quality over quantity wins every time – I feel for your team having to stomp up new content every few weeks , and after a few events they are struggling already. God help us…..

I think you’re seriously underestimating how popular jumping puzzles are. There are a whole lot of people who enjoy jumping puzzles.

Not all , I think your overestimating how many like them. My guild of 400 + hates em and rather have good content to play , not this novlety mario type rubbish.

gw1 had no jumping and at no point in that brilliant game did i hear anyone say, i wish we could have jumping puzzles….

I am sure its not everyone who likes jp, no doubt there. But Vayne is right, many people like them too. Just look at how many people loved the clock tower and asked for harder jp to keep on releasing. Guilds tend to be made up of like minded individuals. So if say you’re in a dungeon running guild its obvious your whole guild will love dungeons and not be very trilled about other type of content like jumping puzzles or sPvP maps. Some might like both but I would assume the majority wouldnt.

It would have been funny if people said we wish to have jumping puzzles in gw1 considering you couldnt even jump

Astralporing.1957:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Colin was making a list of things we will see in the future:

-Permanent content
-Recurring content
-More world impacting releases

That was stated several times already. So far, it has always been followed by a mostly temporal content. Actions, not words.

You do realise that content is not create in a day right? they stated that what? 2 months ago? it takes 2 months just to finish the backlog of stuff they were working on and probably another 2 months to finish the new content they’d start working on. So its still too early to say they’re all talk and no actions.

Galen Grey.4709:

Astralporing.1957:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Colin was making a list of things we will see in the future:

-Permanent content
-Recurring content
-More world impacting releases

That was stated several times already. So far, it has always been followed by a mostly temporal content. Actions, not words.

You do realise that content is not create in a day right? they stated that what? 2 months ago? it takes 2 months just to finish the backlog of stuff they were working on and probably another 2 months to finish the new content they’d start working on. So its still too early to say they’re all talk and no actions.

Oh, i wasn’t talking purely about this. Anet in general promises a lot, but delivers much less (and often in a form that while true to the letter of the promise, tends to break its spirit)

Colin your view for temp content is flawed, temp content is horrible, period. You can’t go back and experience that content/story after its time limit is up. How is that remotely good in an MMO? Imagine if WoW had all temporary content and quests, dungeons, raids were just removed after a couple weeks no one would know wth is going on or that they even existed before.

Terrible design. Your attempt at being different is just ridiculous to a point that you guys had to go backwards in MMO development like removing heal, support, etc. You want to be “different” so bad that you are willing to REFUSE adequate content in your so called full fledged MMO?

Amazing. I never had a dev team make my blood boil so bad, I really think you guys are clueless. Where is 2006 ANet… please come back, please.

Astralporing.1957:

Galen Grey.4709:

Astralporing.1957:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Colin was making a list of things we will see in the future:

-Permanent content
-Recurring content
-More world impacting releases

That was stated several times already. So far, it has always been followed by a mostly temporal content. Actions, not words.

You do realise that content is not create in a day right? they stated that what? 2 months ago? it takes 2 months just to finish the backlog of stuff they were working on and probably another 2 months to finish the new content they’d start working on. So its still too early to say they’re all talk and no actions.

Oh, i wasn’t talking purely about this. Anet in general promises a lot, but delivers much less (and often in a form that while true to the letter of the promise, tends to break its spirit)

Or people have unrealistic expectations, I mean if they deliver what they promise but break its “spirit” does it not mean they delivered what they promised but what the players where expecting? Which brings us to is what the players are expecting reasonable?

I mean its obvious they’re trying hard to deliver what people would like and genuinely listening to feed back. Just look at how this thing evolved.

Lost shores had 1 shot events. they didnt repeat for a whole month it was either you were there or you just missed it for ever. People wanted a longer duration to get a chance to play the events and Anet listen now events repeat for a whole month more or less.

Then people wanted crafting materials accessible directly from the bank rather then having to go through moving stuff around all the time, again anet listened and implemented that.

People wanted a bigger FOV, anet were pretty resistant on that for a while but again the crowed roared loudly and once again Anet listened and implemented.

More recently with the dragon coffers people complained that they felt its unfair to be at the mercy of rng and that opening a certain amount of coffers should be good enough to get you the reward you want. Once again anet listened and this update its not just getting the ticket that earns you the reward but you also get scraps that if you collect enough of you can use to buy the reward with directly thus ensuring no one gets unlucky to the point of opening some 5000 chests without getting a single ticket.

I mean come on its not like Anet are a company that never listens and never deliver what players want. I would imagine they have enough history by now of making such changes that people would give them the benefit of the doubt even if they didnt promise to do it. Yet they did promise and people are still like its not good enough we dont believe they’re going to change anything based on past experience? past experience that shows exactly the opposite? really?

Mathias.9657:

… snip
Amazing. I never had a dev team make my blood boil so bad, I really think you guys are clueless. Where is 2006 ANet… please come back, please.

Actually WoW is essentially all temporary content in a way. Once you finish a quest its done. You cant repeat it at all. Once you outlevel a zone, its done, you cant play there anymore. Once finish a certain tier and move to the next that content is done no reason to replay it again.

Sure if you create an alt its there for you to do again fair enough but again its do once and thats it just as good as one. In Gw2 the whole game remains relevant (with the exception of hearts of course)

As for knowing whats going on, living story so far has been contained episodes. If you miss one update, talking to npcs will fill you in and if you miss a whole living story arch the next so far has been independent enough that it will be no problem to pick up whats going on now.

What do you mean by “you are willing to REFUSE adequate content in your so called full fledged MMO?”

which adequate content are you talk about that was put just in the temporary content taken away with no alternative in the permanent content that is already in the game?

Bottom line you cannot compare WoW with Gw2, they have a totally different approach to game play and story telling.

In WoW with the expection of Cataclysm as far as I know nothing ever changes. Even catacylsm was just a one way change that remained permanent for the rest of the game. (now disclaimer I dont play wow so I might be wrong on some things, feel free to correct me if so) What guild wars 2 is trying to do is entirely different. Instead of having static zones that never change you have dynamic zones that change all the time. Their first attempt was having cyclic changes through dynamic events. Village A is attacked by whatevers B that can result in a victory for the villagers or a defeat so Village A can have 4 states. Peace and calm, Village A under attack, Village A being occupied by Whatevers B, Vallage A being liberated from whatevers B .. people argued that wasnt good enough because nothing really changed since it was a repeat cycle so now Arenanet Are trying to drive story forward through dynamic Events. The molten alliance invaded, created refugess, we attacked them and destoryed them. Each of those stages had their effects on the world. Some effects where permanent (the refugees, camps etc..) Some effects where temporary as dictated by the progress of the story. The molten alliance invasion build an HQ, we destroyed that HQ thus that HQ is gone.

Further more because WoW’s approach to content is constant progression temporary content wouldn’t work there. Like you said if a new raid was introduced for 2 weeks and then removed it would be disastrous for the game, why ? because there would be nothing left to play for the next 6 months, but Gw2 is a different story. For one thing in the next 2 weeks you’re going to have something new to play. And for a second all the game is replayable and you can choose to play whatever you want out of that too.

Simply speaking you cant compare the two games because they have a radically different approach to content. As someone who hates repeating the same content over and over again for months WoW isnt exactly the game for me because I’d have to wait 2 years more or less before I get something new to play. Gw2 on the other hand has the perfect idea because I get new stuff all the time. That being said There also need to be long meaningful storylines the same stuff you’d expect from an expansion. I am hoping some of those long term teams are working on stuff like that. In WoW you would get that before 2 years time anyway and thats without them constatly releasing stuff why do we suddenly expect the same from Arenanet in less then 10 months? Is it really that hard to give them some time to develop stuff before calling them clueless?

If this was WoW at release what would you have gotten in the first 10 months?
1x 5 man dungeon 2x battle grounds 1x raid and an event

You feel you’ve gotten less permanent stuff in Gw2? cause really since launch counting just the stuff that remained permanently in the game we got 3 mini dungeons, 50 new events, the Fractal of the mists (9 small dungeons) , 3 new jumping puzzles, PvP Tournaments, 3x New pvp Maps, a new zone, Improved Achievement system WvW progression, guild missions, Custom Arenas, more guild missions,new mini game, achievement rewards. Seems to me we still got a lot more permanent stuff then WoW did in its first 10 months.

Can we stop behaving like we just got temporary content and nothing that is permanent cause really we got plenty of both this past 10 months and thats still not considering the long term stuff they’re working on behind the scenes!

@Astralporing

ohh and nearly forgot. If that wasnt enough permanent stuff they’re already said most likely they’re going to make the old dungeons accessible through FoTM in the future too. The holiday events will come again when the holiday reoccurs and stuff like SAB and this new zone are recurring content as they get improved. So event the temporary content we got so far isnt entirely temporary really.

First of all, Colin, thank you very much for replying in this topic. It’s incredibly brave, considering the heated discussions that I’ve seen happen on this forum since I started lurking on it (a few weeks). Your post was great and I’m eagerly awaiting the mix of permanent and temporary additions.

So now my opinion. I won’t say a crapload of temporary content can ~only~ harm the game. But it’s not universally good either in my opinion; more specifically the way it’s being implemented sometimes rubs me the wrong way.
Story wise I’m mostly neutral on it, but it gets a big plus for introducing the lovely Marjory.
Gameplay wise, it pretty much depends on what you prefer. I love the dungeons’ tendencies to use the area against the player, even though it annihilated my pet time and again. I love the new jumping puzzle additions, because I’m a major fan of them.

I think my biggest issue with the Living Story at this point in time is the rate at which new content is introduced. If I remember correctly, every ‘chapter’ currently lasts about 2-4 weeks (correct me if I’m wrong), and we’re getting new content every 2 weeks.

My issue is that it’s a cascade of content. Recently we’ve seen different chapters overlap and it was all a bit of a jumbled mess to me (thankfully that has now cleared up). There was so much going on! I feel like if the release of new content was slower, say once every month, it would give me some peace of mind. I’m honestly saying that I wouldn’t mind a week of downtime between Living Story events. Sure, it’s not like I don’t have time to do anything else – my moderate pace of playing is compensated by the hours I log – but people are flocking to it and are leaving the rest of the world a little empty. Obviously this last bit depends on server population.

I’ve also seen a comment along the lines of, “They don’t want to divide the player base by adding a lot of new layers of content” and while I can understand this point of view, that’s essentially what the Living Story is doing to the game right now. Many players flock to the new content of course, players which would otherwise be available for DE’s and dungeons. And with the speed of the releases this just seems to keep happening lately.

Hope this helps.

Galen Grey.4709:

@Astralporing

ohh and nearly forgot. If that wasnt enough permanent stuff they’re already said most likely they’re going to make the old dungeons accessible through FoTM in the future too.

Yeah, as i mentioned. Lot of words. Not so much action so far.
When they’ll start fulfilling it, i may change my attitude.

[quote=2382721;Vayne.8563:]