(edited by Nev.5316)
Too Much Temporary Content Can Only Harm GW2
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
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.
You know I’ve heard people use that argument for years now for poor business decisions and it gets very old quickly. Plenty of other well planned great games have been developed for a long long time now all using the non-sub free to play gaming options that don’t charge for cosmetics and that actually provide solo experience for their past content.
I would name one that just recently went F2P to offer a great example where the devs there implemented while a sub and now while a F2P game systems in the game that don’t require a credit/gem purchase for every single patch like we’re seeing here in this game and they’ve been highly successful and have doubled their sales overnight.
So saying that it’s a great business plan to exploit the playerbase like they are doing by creating 1 time content that one will later only have the option of playing with a forced group in a fractal just to see the content or seeing cosmetics only in the game once forcing the sense of urgency to login much like the sub only games used to do with reputation grinds is definitely not the right way to go and will not endear the public to you as a developer.
Time and time again when the developers have been the most successful in this model of billing is when they’ve given the players what they want to earn for free just by non-grind gameplay while simultaneously offering items for store purchase that can otherwise be obtained thru a very small amount of work. (say 1 months time) History speaks for itself on this.
Balance Team: Please Fix Mine Toolbelt Positioning!
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
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.
You know I’ve heard people use that argument for years now for poor business decisions and it gets very old quickly. Plenty of other well planned great games have been developed for a long long time now all using the non-sub free to play gaming options that don’t charge for cosmetics and that actually provide solo experience for their past content.
I would name one that just recently went F2P to offer a great example where the devs there implemented while a sub and now while a F2P game systems in the game that don’t require a credit/gem purchase for every single patch like we’re seeing here in this game and they’ve been highly successful and have doubled their sales overnight.
So saying that it’s a great business plan to exploit the playerbase like they are doing by creating 1 time content that one will later only have the option of playing with a forced group in a fractal just to see the content or seeing cosmetics only in the game once forcing the sense of urgency to login much like the sub only games used to do with reputation grinds is definitely not the right way to go and will not endear the public to you as a developer.
Time and time again when the developers have been the most successful in this model of billing is when they’ve given the players what they want to earn for free just by non-grind gameplay while simultaneously offering items for store purchase that can otherwise be obtained thru a very small amount of work. (say 1 months time) History speaks for itself on this.
I’m curious what game you are referencing, because some of what you are saying could make for a good argument unless the game(s) you are talking about have never proven to be successful in the long term.
I honestly can’t think of any F2P/B2P game (that was F2P/B2P from the get-go) that doesn’t have RMT that has made it passed 5 years so to say other games have done different things with a F2P/B2P and have been successful in the long run is a hard claim for me to believe, simply because how the heck would they make any money! I’ll admit I don’t know everything.
…..Not yet, anyway…..
I won’t stop because I can’t stop.
It’s a medical condition, they say its terminal….
It’s a medical condition, they say its terminal….
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.
This argument is SO flawed.
Zero relevance? They’re in the same genre for crying out loud! I’d say that was pretty relevant. If Kaaboose was trying to compare GW2 to Team Fortress 2, then there would be little if no relevance.
Also, you’ve effectively said that if a game is older, you can’t compare it with a new one. That is most certainly not true. Try comparing something like Battlefield 3 with Call of Duty 2 (two games in the same genre, both made by different companies, one older than the other… same as what’s going on here).
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.
This argument is SO flawed.
Zero relevance? They’re in the same genre for crying out loud! I’d say that was pretty relevant. If Kaaboose was trying to compare GW2 to Team Fortress 2, then there would be little if no relevance.
Also, you’ve effectively said that if a game is older, you can’t compare it with a new one. That is most certainly not true. Try comparing something like Battlefield 3 with Call of Duty 2 (two games in the same genre, both made by different companies, one older than the other… same as what’s going on here).
There are things that can be compared that’s obvious. But the amount of content one game has over another shouldn’t be. At least not be anyone who has any amount of common sense.
Sure you can compare combat systems. It’s sort of a weird comparison because they’re completely different and have nothing to do with each other, but you could.
But a lot of the people comparing stuff, are looking for a game with three or four years of polish and no game so far in three or four years has been able to deliver what people are asking for.
Is this is the industry’s fault? Is it the expectation of the players?
Yes, I’m saying that any game that’s eight years old better kitten well have more content than a game that’s 10 months old. If it didn’t it would be a failed game. A travesty. Something that isn’t worth your time getting into.
WoW is, arguably, the most successful MMO of all time. It’s had numerous expansions. It rode the coat tails of Warcraft, a popular RTS game. The company already had money. Guild Wars 1 was a first attempt by Anet, from a smaller company that almost didn’t make the game. They ended up going to NCsoft when they ran out of money.
Guild Wars 2, though a sequel, is still new territory for Anet. The company is way smaller than Blizzard, doesn’t have the advertising dollars, has a smaller staff, and on top of that, doesn’t have a monthly fee.
Can you compare them? Sure. Go for it. Does it HELP to compare them…maybe not so much. WoW has had years to polish their game. The launch was a disaster. No one wants to remember that. I wonder why?
If people continue to hold new MMOs to the standards of a rich company that has been working their game for years, people will continue to be disappointed. It doesn’t even matter what the MMO is.
You’ll see the same things in every MMO forum. And it’s not because WoW is a better game. But it’s certainly got more content. How could it not?
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.
This argument is SO flawed.
Zero relevance? They’re in the same genre for crying out loud! I’d say that was pretty relevant. If Kaaboose was trying to compare GW2 to Team Fortress 2, then there would be little if no relevance.
Also, you’ve effectively said that if a game is older, you can’t compare it with a new one. That is most certainly not true. Try comparing something like Battlefield 3 with Call of Duty 2 (two games in the same genre, both made by different companies, one older than the other… same as what’s going on here).
Genre alone means nothing. For Example Dark messiah of might and magic is not only in the same genre (fantasy) as heroes of might and magic they’re in the same universe and are totally incomparable.
If by genre you mean MMORPG rather then fantasy. Uncharted waters is also an MMORPG would you say its comparable in any way to WoW or GW2?
I agree with Vayne on this. WoW and Gw2 have radically different and opposing design decisions.
In WoW once you do a quest once it becomes irellevant so 90% of the game content is ment to be played once per character. In Gw2 Dynamic events are meant to be repeatable.
WoW has competitive PvE (Tag mobs before others do, harvest node before others do, open world PvP etc..) Gw2 is co-operative PvE, players work with each other not against each other. WoW is all about vertical progression, getting better equipment to tackle the next harder content. Gw2 is not like that, there is little vertical progression its more about playing what you feel like playing.
In WoW temporary content like Gw2 is doing would not make sense because in WoW content is released at the end game intended to move progression forward, if you remove it the moment you removed it you left players with nothing to do. What I mean is lets assume WoW is currently at Tier 13 (no Idea what it really is as I dont play it, just an example) and they release a new raid with Tier 14 which they remove after a month. What would players have to do ? they cant go back to do the tier 13 raid, its pointless now they have tier 14 equipment. But in guild wars 2 there is no such issue, Content can be released at any level. Last update had a level 30 jumping puzzle for example. The one before that had a level 80 dungeon (though technically its all levels since it had auto leveling to lvl 80) but once that’s removed players can still play ascalon catacombs meaningfully even though that’s a level 25/30 dungeon!
On the other hand I dont think Gw2 could afford to wait 2 years for a major update like WoW. Without progression / raiding and raiding lock a dungeon every few months would not keep people interested for 2 years until the next expansion.
Both games are totally different, what works on one will not work on the other because they have radically different game design.
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?
1. You’re not Anet staff, so it will only be fan fiction.
2. There are always ways to fix plotholes. Just requires some imagination. Or you could always go lazy and say that the main character “woke up” and a bunch of the stuff never happened at all.
I’m a casual player+ ( play some more than an normal casual player) and i agree with this post. Temp content can’t sucseed.
Be more like GW1 and make new and old stories replayable ( not the festivals).
And keep festivals like Halloween,Winterdays day, Dragon bash that comes back every year ( or multiple times like Wintersday in July).
Please listen to Kaaboose.3897 he’s got a good point.
I agree with Vayne on this. WoW and Gw2 have radically different and opposing design decisions.
Well yes, that’s true enough, but the way Vayne was putting it, he made it sound like that there was no way of comparing the two, despite the similarities.
sorry darn reply bug ..
I agree that having so much temp content, and so often, will ruin the game. Especially for casual players playing with other casual players. Every time new content is released, players want to rush to do it right away. With it having enough to do to keep busy, along with only being around for 2 weeks, it’s getting difficult to find groups for a lot of the permanent PvE stuff (and I’ve heard people thinking population on the servers has dropped because the zones are so empty now.)
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
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.
You know I’ve heard people use that argument for years now for poor business decisions and it gets very old quickly. Plenty of other well planned great games have been developed for a long long time now all using the non-sub free to play gaming options that don’t charge for cosmetics and that actually provide solo experience for their past content.
I would name one that just recently went F2P to offer a great example where the devs there implemented while a sub and now while a F2P game systems in the game that don’t require a credit/gem purchase for every single patch like we’re seeing here in this game and they’ve been highly successful and have doubled their sales overnight.
So saying that it’s a great business plan to exploit the playerbase like they are doing by creating 1 time content that one will later only have the option of playing with a forced group in a fractal just to see the content or seeing cosmetics only in the game once forcing the sense of urgency to login much like the sub only games used to do with reputation grinds is definitely not the right way to go and will not endear the public to you as a developer.
Time and time again when the developers have been the most successful in this model of billing is when they’ve given the players what they want to earn for free just by non-grind gameplay while simultaneously offering items for store purchase that can otherwise be obtained thru a very small amount of work. (say 1 months time) History speaks for itself on this.
Wait.. you think I am saying it’s a great business plan? Well then you are completely wrong. I say it’s extremely bad (for the game, and so in the long run also for the business), I just try to explain why they are doing it. And I explain that because thats also why I prefer a expansion focus in stead of a gem-store focus. To avoid this sort of behavior.
You say there are also good F2P solutions but personally I do not trust them so much because you almost always will see this sort of bad behavior.
With the exception if the world would be a modern world because you could then pay it with ingame adds just like you do also see them in the real world. But in this sort of games they need to make money and if they need the money with gems they will try to get people to buy gems and that will result in bas decisions. Being it creating a feel or urgency or making it P2W.. I personally do not trust them and even if it would be possible Anet showed how they do it (create feel or urgency) and I do not like there option.
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
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.
You know I’ve heard people use that argument for years now for poor business decisions and it gets very old quickly. Plenty of other well planned great games have been developed for a long long time now all using the non-sub free to play gaming options that don’t charge for cosmetics and that actually provide solo experience for their past content.
I would name one that just recently went F2P to offer a great example where the devs there implemented while a sub and now while a F2P game systems in the game that don’t require a credit/gem purchase for every single patch like we’re seeing here in this game and they’ve been highly successful and have doubled their sales overnight.
So saying that it’s a great business plan to exploit the playerbase like they are doing by creating 1 time content that one will later only have the option of playing with a forced group in a fractal just to see the content or seeing cosmetics only in the game once forcing the sense of urgency to login much like the sub only games used to do with reputation grinds is definitely not the right way to go and will not endear the public to you as a developer.
Time and time again when the developers have been the most successful in this model of billing is when they’ve given the players what they want to earn for free just by non-grind gameplay while simultaneously offering items for store purchase that can otherwise be obtained thru a very small amount of work. (say 1 months time) History speaks for itself on this.
I’m curious what game you are referencing, because some of what you are saying could make for a good argument unless the game(s) you are talking about have never proven to be successful in the long term.
I honestly can’t think of any F2P/B2P game (that was F2P/B2P from the get-go) that doesn’t have RMT that has made it passed 5 years so to say other games have done different things with a F2P/B2P and have been successful in the long run is a hard claim for me to believe, simply because how the heck would they make any money! I’ll admit I don’t know everything.
…..Not yet, anyway…..
There is a big difference between having RMT and focusing on it! Anet was not focusing on it (mainly the gem-store.. RMT being part of that) the first few months and if they would focus on expansions there was also no need to focus on it now.
The gem-store would be a nice side-income but no need to use aggressive marketing techniques to get people to buy stuff. But now that they have no expansion planned they are focusing on it and that focus is bad as that is a big reason for the temporary nature of a lot of the content / RNG boxes.
(edited by Devata.6589)
… 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)
Snip
Did not even bother reading any further. If that is your opening arguement no point. The fact that I can roll and alt and do it again is great. The fact that a new player can do it 1-2 years later is also great.
And everything in GW2 remains relevant? You have to remove content otherwise it will break immersion but the same events repeating endlessly is okay? I can see anet trying to spin that in a later patch note:
*To create a deeper sense of immersion we are removing all dynamic events from the game. They will now be played one more time each. Timetable is as follows…
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.
This argument is SO flawed.
Zero relevance? They’re in the same genre for crying out loud! I’d say that was pretty relevant. If Kaaboose was trying to compare GW2 to Team Fortress 2, then there would be little if no relevance.
Also, you’ve effectively said that if a game is older, you can’t compare it with a new one. That is most certainly not true. Try comparing something like Battlefield 3 with Call of Duty 2 (two games in the same genre, both made by different companies, one older than the other… same as what’s going on here).
There are things that can be compared that’s obvious. But the amount of content one game has over another shouldn’t be. At least not be anyone who has any amount of common sense.
Sure you can compare combat systems. It’s sort of a weird comparison because they’re completely different and have nothing to do with each other, but you could.
But a lot of the people comparing stuff, are looking for a game with three or four years of polish and no game so far in three or four years has been able to deliver what people are asking for.
Is this is the industry’s fault? Is it the expectation of the players?
Yes, I’m saying that any game that’s eight years old better kitten well have more content than a game that’s 10 months old. If it didn’t it would be a failed game. A travesty. Something that isn’t worth your time getting into.
WoW is, arguably, the most successful MMO of all time. It’s had numerous expansions. It rode the coat tails of Warcraft, a popular RTS game. The company already had money. Guild Wars 1 was a first attempt by Anet, from a smaller company that almost didn’t make the game. They ended up going to NCsoft when they ran out of money.
Guild Wars 2, though a sequel, is still new territory for Anet. The company is way smaller than Blizzard, doesn’t have the advertising dollars, has a smaller staff, and on top of that, doesn’t have a monthly fee.
Can you compare them? Sure. Go for it. Does it HELP to compare them…maybe not so much. WoW has had years to polish their game. The launch was a disaster. No one wants to remember that. I wonder why?
If people continue to hold new MMOs to the standards of a rich company that has been working their game for years, people will continue to be disappointed. It doesn’t even matter what the MMO is.
You’ll see the same things in every MMO forum. And it’s not because WoW is a better game. But it’s certainly got more content. How could it not?
We were comapring ratios of temporary to perment content, not the amount of content so yes, It is Very relevant. For arguments sake we could compare the amount of temp content WoW had in the first year to GW2. WoW had 2 holidays and the Silithid event. 2 annualy temporary events and a single one time event (that stayed for new servers for years to come.)
GW2… you know I’m not even going to clutter the page by listing it all here, you get the point. Let’s get back on track now, if you want more info on why comapring Gw2 and WoW makes sense watch the video there:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Make-GW-2-More-Like-World-of-Warcraft/
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?1. You’re not Anet staff, so it will only be fan fiction.
2. There are always ways to fix plotholes. Just requires some imagination. Or you could always go lazy and say that the main character “woke up” and a bunch of the stuff never happened at all.
…My favourite was Rocketman, and once it was a no breaks chapter. The bad guy stuck him in a car on a mountain road and knocked him out and welded the door shut and tore out the brakes and started him to his death, and he woke up and tried to steer and tried to get out but the car went off a cliff before he could escape! And it crashed and burned and I was so upset and excited, and the next week, you better believe I was first in line. And they always start with the end of the last week. And there was Rocketman, trying to get out, and here comes the cliff, and just before the car went off the cliff, he jumped free! And all the kids cheered! But I didn’t cheer. I stood right up and started shouting. This isn’t what happened last week! Have you all got amnesia? They just cheated us! This isn’t fair! HE DID’NT GET OUT OF THE kitten – A – DOODIE CAR!
…My favourite was Rocketman, and once it was a no breaks chapter. The bad guy stuck him in a car on a mountain road and knocked him out and welded the door shut and tore out the brakes and started him to his death, and he woke up and tried to steer and tried to get out but the car went off a cliff before he could escape! And it crashed and burned and I was so upset and excited, and the next week, you better believe I was first in line. And they always start with the end of the last week. And there was Rocketman, trying to get out, and here comes the cliff, and just before the car went off the cliff, he jumped free! And all the kids cheered! But I didn’t cheer. I stood right up and started shouting. This isn’t what happened last week! Have you all got amnesia? They just cheated us! This isn’t fair! HE DID’NT GET OUT OF THE kitten – A – DOODIE CAR!
LOL!
I weep for the Anet dev that falls into your hands Kaaboose!
Edited:
Or mine…what have we become? lol
I agree with Vayne on this. WoW and Gw2 have radically different and opposing design decisions.
Well yes, that’s true enough, but the way Vayne was putting it, he made it sound like that there was no way of comparing the two, despite the similarities.
What I said was that there’s no way to compare say the amount of content in an 8 year old game compared to the amount of content from a 10 month old game.
And to some degree it’s the same with variety and even balance. All these things take ages to achieve and even after 8 years, people STILL complain about balance in WoW.
Basically you can compare some things, like graphics style. You can compare some features, but for the most part, it’s not really good or useful to compare anyway…except for mechanics you like or dislike….like whether it has the trinity or not.
Keep in mind both Lord of the Rings and Narnia are fantasy novels series, but I wouldn’t bother spending too much time comparing them.
I think as time wears on….. and on, and on, more and more players are starting to see the negatives of the temporary content of the Living Story. And as time wears on Anet will see the faults in their design decisions, as it’s already starting now with the backpedaling we see from dev posts. If they want to keep the majority of their players, their mission statement will change.
Thank you op for your post and insight. Keep up the good fight.
I think as time wears on….. and on, and on, more and more players are starting to see the negatives of the temporary content of the Living Story. And as time wears on Anet will see the faults in their design decisions, as it’s already starting now with the backpedaling we see from dev posts. If they want to keep the majority of their players, their mission statement will change.
Thank you op for your post and insight. Keep up the good fight.
What backpeddling are you talking about?
http://www.guildwarsinsider.com/krewe-guild-wars-2-mmo-busy-adults/
GW2 has slowly become the opposite of that.
Iruwen Evillan, Human Mesmer on Drakkar Lake
I agree that having so much temp content, and so often, will ruin the game. Especially for casual players playing with other casual players. Every time new content is released, players want to rush to do it right away. With it having enough to do to keep busy, along with only being around for 2 weeks, it’s getting difficult to find groups for a lot of the permanent PvE stuff (and I’ve heard people thinking population on the servers has dropped because the zones are so empty now.)
But then wouldnt making it permanent actually compound that problem? Keep in mind Gw2 has a disadvantage over other MMOs. In essentially all of them once you’re done with a zone you’re done and will never go back meaning all players are being funneled into the same end game content. That’s got the advantage that you’re always concentrating players together and thus ensuring there are always players for group content. Start any MMO a year or two late (but not when it switches to free to play) and leveling up is nearly always a solo and mostly lonely experiance. Take swtor for example. I started on the 3rd month I think. Population then was still 1m – 1.5m so its not like no one was playing. An advantage on this is the game tells you how many players are playing on your same map (planet). The lowest I’ve seen it was just me, the highest I’ve seen it was 8. I kid you not… 8 players total on the whole planet. Thats what happens by the 3rd month everyone was at the endgame already no reason to come to the previous planets !
Back to Gw2, all content is still fair game which is great in a way but compounds the issue of player separation. Thus the more permanent content they add the more players will be fragment and the more it will be come harder to find people to group up with. Beyond that it will still not change the fact that the majority of people will swarm to play new stuff. Temporary or not will not change that, people like to experience new things.
In terms of your concern I think removing temporary content will make the situation worst.
There is a big difference between having RMT and focusing on it! Anet was not focusing on it the first few months and if they would focus on expansions there was also no need to focus on it now.
It would be a nice side-income but no need to use aggressive marketing techniques to get people to buy stuff. But now that they have no expansion planned they are focusing on it and that focus is bad as that is a big reason for the temporary nature of a lot of the content.
First off I wanna appologies for replying to you again. I was gonna skip cause I dont want to give you the impression that I am picking on you, seriously I am not its just I really need to ask you what gives you the impression that they started with no Gem store focus and gradually switch around.
I am asking cause honestly in my opinion its the other way round. They started heavily focused on the gem store and gradually got better with a few anomalies in between.
It all started with Halloween, the very first even 1 month after release. In that instances They had 4 really cool weapon skins that there was no way to get hold off apart from buying blc keys. This was also month 1 few people could afford change ingame gold to gems so essentially the only way was to buy gems with real money.
From there it just got better and better. Skins that can be purchased directly, RNG chests that you can get for free by playing the game, Even making sure that if you farm enough you could get the skin even if the rng gods dont smile upon you with the introduction of the scraps in this month’s update that after you collect enough off without getting a gold ticket you could use to get the skins anyway.
So what gives you the impression thakittens been getting worst from where you’re siting?
The biggest reason for permanent contents:
Casual gamers wouldn’t be forced to play in even’ts peroid, if they have time to explore it in their own speed.
“Do it now or never” is a hardcore style. I don’t get it…
Game Designer || iREVOLUTION.Design \\
“A man chooses; a slave obeys.” | “Want HardMode? Play Ranger!”
“A man chooses; a slave obeys.” | “Want HardMode? Play Ranger!”
The biggest reason for permanent contents:
Casual gamers wouldn’t be forced to play in even’ts peroid, if they have time to explore it in their own speed.“Do it now or never” is a hardcore style. I don’t get it…
Casual players would NEVER catch up. If Anet introduced content and left it there, and you were casual, you’d either do the current stuff or fall further and further behind.
And good luck in six months getting a group together for older dungeons.
… 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)
SnipDid not even bother reading any further. If that is your opening arguement no point. The fact that I can roll and alt and do it again is great. The fact that a new player can do it 1-2 years later is also great.
And everything in GW2 remains relevant? You have to remove content otherwise it will break immersion but the same events repeating endlessly is okay? I can see anet trying to spin that in a later patch note:
*To create a deeper sense of immersion we are removing all dynamic events from the game. They will now be played one more time each. Timetable is as follows…
I dont know if you ever did an event chain or if you’re one of those people who just runs away the moment a single event ends but all event chains are designed cyclic over an over all goal by the people involved. Example separatist steal cows, players get them back. Thus if the event chain is running you will either be defending the farm from having its cows stolen or you will be fighting to get the cows back. Its not perfect no doubt, Separatists are way too persistent, you’d expect they’d give up after loosing 1000s of people on the cow stealing activity but beyond that there is nothing that breaks continuity.
And like you said, talk like this is what caused the creation of temporary content I would bet on it. People complained that a village being attacked again after its been defended is not dynamic / doesnt create change etc.. even though in real life we have cities like Jerusalem which has been attacked 52 times and conquered 44 times. Not only that but various sources state that Palermo is the city thats been conquered the most even though I couldnt find any numbers to support that.
Anyhow back on subject. I’d love nothing else then more dynamic events but alas you cannot drive story forward with cyclic events. How would you do it? To have meaning full stories it has to be a narration that goes forward. The lord of the rings would be stupid if every time Frodo destroyed the ring Sauron would build another one and the whole thing repeats again endlessly (granted the concept works for Battlestar Galactica but anyhow). It works great for some stuff. If you got 2 factions sieging each other of course events will repeakittens not like any army gives up after one battle right? But not to drive story forward.
Also not sure where you get the idea by I am pretty sure arenanet are not trying to destroy the game and ergo they have no need to find a way to spin a reason in order to remove all content from the game.
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?1. You’re not Anet staff, so it will only be fan fiction.
2. There are always ways to fix plotholes. Just requires some imagination. Or you could always go lazy and say that the main character “woke up” and a bunch of the stuff never happened at all.…My favourite was Rocketman, and once it was a no breaks chapter. The bad guy stuck him in a car on a mountain road and knocked him out and welded the door shut and tore out the brakes and started him to his death, and he woke up and tried to steer and tried to get out but the car went off a cliff before he could escape! And it crashed and burned and I was so upset and excited, and the next week, you better believe I was first in line. And they always start with the end of the last week. And there was Rocketman, trying to get out, and here comes the cliff, and just before the car went off the cliff, he jumped free! And all the kids cheered! But I didn’t cheer. I stood right up and started shouting. This isn’t what happened last week! Have you all got amnesia? They just cheated us! This isn’t fair! HE DID’NT GET OUT OF THE kitten – A – DOODIE CAR!
OMG you’re Annie Wilkes?
I think as time wears on….. and on, and on, more and more players are starting to see the negatives of the temporary content of the Living Story. And as time wears on Anet will see the faults in their design decisions, as it’s already starting now with the backpedaling we see from dev posts. If they want to keep the majority of their players, their mission statement will change.
Thank you op for your post and insight. Keep up the good fight.
Thing is this is not a crusade Arenanet are not out to get anyone. They just want to make the best game possible and that means giving what most people want within reason. People wanted the world to change in meaningful ways and that meant temporary content. Now it turns out change isnt that important anymore and people would rather keep the content instead of seeing change so Anet will try to find a way to steer that way. have some temporary content to drive change and keep most content permanently in the game. We’ll see what they come up with.
The biggest reason for permanent contents:
Casual gamers wouldn’t be forced to play in even’ts peroid, if they have time to explore it in their own speed.“Do it now or never” is a hardcore style. I don’t get it…
If this were to actually happen the problem would be the casual player thinking with a hardcore mentality. I have to do absolutely everything this MMO has to offer is not a casual player way of thinking, its a hardcore player way of thinking. The casual player will log in and look around and see what there is to play today and play that not log in everyday to play everything.
Thing is missing out on flame and frost for example gave you 0 negative impact on sky pirates or this event. Its not like you’re not able to get your tier 1 armor set now that flame and frost is gone so sorry you’re doomed because we’re on the 3rd living story release now which requires tier 2 armor set and there is no longer any way to get tier 1 or 2 sets cause that content is gone.
The idea here is simply when ever you log there is something new to do. If you log in so sporadically that you can miss entire content (IE less then once every 2 weeks) what difference would it make if all the content was permanent. Every month there would be double the content you can play anyway. In fact you wouldnt even have the time to finish all the content of the content you find when you do log in so If you choose to play the old content you’ll still miss the new, if you play the new you miss the old, either way you’re missing something if you can play only at 1/2 the rate the content is being released and this will keep getting worst and worst. The problem you’re missing 1/2 the content is not because its temporary its because you can only afford to play at 1/2 the rate that content is released. The only difference between temporary and permanent content is with temporary the game is dictating what content you play, with permanent you can decide. Either way its your play style thats making you loose 1/2 the content not the game. (I dont mean this in a negative way, there is nothing wrong with only being able to play every two weeks or anything but thats not the games fault in anyway)
There is a big difference between having RMT and focusing on it! Anet was not focusing on it the first few months and if they would focus on expansions there was also no need to focus on it now.
It would be a nice side-income but no need to use aggressive marketing techniques to get people to buy stuff. But now that they have no expansion planned they are focusing on it and that focus is bad as that is a big reason for the temporary nature of a lot of the content.
First off I wanna appologies for replying to you again. I was gonna skip cause I dont want to give you the impression that I am picking on you, seriously I am not its just I really need to ask you what gives you the impression that they started with no Gem store focus and gradually switch around.
I am asking cause honestly in my opinion its the other way round. They started heavily focused on the gem store and gradually got better with a few anomalies in between.
It all started with Halloween, the very first even 1 month after release. In that instances They had 4 really cool weapon skins that there was no way to get hold off apart from buying blc keys. This was also month 1 few people could afford change ingame gold to gems so essentially the only way was to buy gems with real money.
From there it just got better and better. Skins that can be purchased directly, RNG chests that you can get for free by playing the game, Even making sure that if you farm enough you could get the skin even if the rng gods dont smile upon you with the introduction of the scraps in this month’s update that after you collect enough off without getting a gold ticket you could use to get the skins anyway.
So what gives you the impression thakittens been getting worst from where you’re siting?
The gold-driven part has always been there however at release they said it was possible to farm and really it was however, more and more ways to farm (and then I am talking about mats) have been reduced so gold became more and more important.
Sure, Halloween had the gem-store mini’s and skins but Halloween is a returning event so you should be able to still do it next year. No temporary stuff there. South Sun did bring us the chest but except for a mini there still was not a big focus on it and there still weren’t a lot of new items in the gem-store. Then Winters-day what is once again a yearly returning event so it’s not temporary. after that we begone to see more and more temporary stuff with ticket, mini’s, unlimited crafting items, RNG boxes and the temporary dungeons with achievements and rare drops.. Stuff you can never get anymore.. well you can buy it from trading-post costing you a lot of money what you can buy with gems.
By now it’s nearly impossible to far mats and there are maybe 2 ways to farm gold. CoF P1 and WvW mindless zerging. We already have a big list of items that you can not get anymore because they where temporary and they just announced they will start working on releasing new content every two weeks so they have every 2 week a new reason to put um temporary items.
Also have a look at news-screen when you start up guild-wars. How often do you not see “Special New Items in the Gem Store!”. I still remember post from the beginning where people ask for more items in the gem-store (Thats something else as asking for a gem-store focus btw)
Have a look here: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/page/30/ and go up checking the news about the gem-store. First 5 pages have almost nothing. After that there are additions but mostly all non-temporary (stuff that is also today still in) with the exception of the consortium box. Other news about the gem-store are sales and stuff like winters-day but like I said thats a returning event.
If you go to the last pages you will see it’s for a big part about temporary items.
The biggest reason for permanent contents:
Casual gamers wouldn’t be forced to play in even’ts peroid, if they have time to explore it in their own speed.“Do it now or never” is a hardcore style. I don’t get it…
Casual players would NEVER catch up. If Anet introduced content and left it there, and you were casual, you’d either do the current stuff or fall further and further behind.
And good luck in six months getting a group together for older dungeons.
It’s no problem to find a group and there is no need for casual players to “catch up” but if they like the MF dungeon or they like the MF mini, or they like the jet-pack they can still do that dungeon / try to get those items.
So there is the choice to go for what you like.
The biggest reason for permanent contents:
Casual gamers wouldn’t be forced to play in even’ts peroid, if they have time to explore it in their own speed.“Do it now or never” is a hardcore style. I don’t get it…
Casual players would NEVER catch up. If Anet introduced content and left it there, and you were casual, you’d either do the current stuff or fall further and further behind.
And good luck in six months getting a group together for older dungeons.
It’s no problem to find a group and there is no need for casual players to “catch up” but if they like the MF dungeon or they like the MF mini, or they like the jet-pack they can still do that dungeon / try to get those items.
So there is the choice to go for what you like.
This is really not quite true. In every MMO I’ve ever played it’s hard for people to find groups for old instances. There’s no exception I can think of.
Everyone is at level cap doing the new stuff and the old stuff sits neglected. The older the stuff, the more it’s neglected.
If you don’t think this would happen when a game has updates every couple of weeks, I don’t know how I can convince you.
I think as time wears on….. and on, and on, more and more players are starting to see the negatives of the temporary content of the Living Story. And as time wears on Anet will see the faults in their design decisions, as it’s already starting now with the backpedaling we see from dev posts. If they want to keep the majority of their players, their mission statement will change.
Thank you op for your post and insight. Keep up the good fight.
Thing is this is not a crusade Arenanet are not out to get anyone. They just want to make the best game possible ..
And they try to make money however the way they now try to make money is messing with the possibility to make the best game possible.
And that summarizes the whole issue really.
(edited by Devata.6589)
Anyway, Tyria meant to be grove…constantly…
We know “The cake is a lie”, but its like putting different fruits on top of a cake, eating it, then replacing with an another – instead of making new and new taste levels by the time.
I fear it will be a rotten, dry piece of …….. at the end.
Game Designer || iREVOLUTION.Design \\
“A man chooses; a slave obeys.” | “Want HardMode? Play Ranger!”
“A man chooses; a slave obeys.” | “Want HardMode? Play Ranger!”
I think as time wears on….. and on, and on, more and more players are starting to see the negatives of the temporary content of the Living Story. And as time wears on Anet will see the faults in their design decisions, as it’s already starting now with the backpedaling we see from dev posts. If they want to keep the majority of their players, their mission statement will change.
Thank you op for your post and insight. Keep up the good fight.
Hmm killcannon…. I just went through the Dev Tracker and also no new articles or blogs.
No one is seeing this “backpedaling” you are referring too. Everything is still pointing to the current direction they are taking this game at the present.
The “biggest flaw” most are agreeing upon is Anet needing the writers to present more compelling stories and/or more writers.
Warriors are those who choose to stand between their enemy and all that he loves or hold sacred
I think as time wears on….. and on, and on, more and more players are starting to see the negatives of the temporary content of the Living Story. And as time wears on Anet will see the faults in their design decisions, as it’s already starting now with the backpedaling we see from dev posts. If they want to keep the majority of their players, their mission statement will change.
Thank you op for your post and insight. Keep up the good fight.
Hmm killcannon…. I just went through the Dev Tracker and also no new articles or blogs.
No one is seeing this “backpedaling” you are referring too. Everything is still pointing to the current direction they are taking this game at the present.The “biggest flaw” most are agreeing upon is Anet needing the writers to present more compelling stories and/or more writers.
I think it’s not correct to blame the writers. I do understand how it looks that way but it has more to do with there task.
Anet is not working on an expansion so focuses on the gem-store. They do that buy putting stuff temporary in the gem-store / game, creating a feel of urgency so people will buy / play it. (Not because people like it, but because if they don’t do / buy it today it will be gone tomorrow (not literally tomorrow.. always seem to have do define such statements on the Internet))
That means that basically all the writes need to do, is create an excuse to put more temporary stuff in the gem-store /game and that is what they do. And they might try to make a bigger better story as a total but in the short run Anet just needs an excuse to put in more temporary stuff to get people to play and buy.
They just do there task.
(edited by Devata.6589)
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.
This argument is SO flawed.
Zero relevance? They’re in the same genre for crying out loud! I’d say that was pretty relevant. If Kaaboose was trying to compare GW2 to Team Fortress 2, then there would be little if no relevance.
Also, you’ve effectively said that if a game is older, you can’t compare it with a new one. That is most certainly not true. Try comparing something like Battlefield 3 with Call of Duty 2 (two games in the same genre, both made by different companies, one older than the other… same as what’s going on here).
I agree with you older games paved the way for GW2 to even be born as well as GW1. and every game must adapt to survive if Anet isn’t willing to adapt their game will most certainly lose alot of players when other more updated titles come out. Just look at Wildstar how many UI elements will be in that game at launch that we expected in GW2 but never saw even after a whole years worth of updates monthly?
Balance Team: Please Fix Mine Toolbelt Positioning!
Just look at Wildstar how many UI elements will be in that game at launch that we expected in GW2 but never saw even after a whole years worth of updates monthly?
Like what?
..snippings
If you go to the last pages you will see it’s for a big part about temporary items.
I think you’re being unfair. Farming like everything else should be balanced. In an ideal situation farming 1 hr in frostgorge for corrupted lodestones or 1 hr doing dungeons or 1 hr of doing dynamic events should net the same return (adjusted for risk / reward). CoF P1 isnt the only place you can farm, its a place that actually needs nerfing in my opinion because its just so unbalanced. DR did make it trickier to farm its true but as long as you’re not a bot, its not that big of a deal, just move to a different location every hour and it will not effect you. The problem here is probably that players expect to make more money faster. If that were to happen though It would drive inflation up and thats a very bad thing.
Holiday events might be returning but that doesnt mean the skin rewards we had in them will. They already said they’ll likely change the holiday events or at least add to them so I would be surprised if the skins we get will be exactly the once we got this year. Every event including lost shores had their own set of skins and those probably are gone forever.
Why is that a bad thing? why is it a problem they sell new stuff in the cash shop though? I honestly dont get it. This month its buying the same chests that drop in game, a set of minis and a small chance at an instant level up. Last update it was the never ending axe. The one before that was an armor set you can buy directly (no rng boxes) Why is it harmful to include these new things in the cash shop? As long as its optional stuff its all good imho. Those who want them / can afford them can buy them those who dont can pass. Isnt that good? the more successful the cash shop after all the better they can make the game.
I am afraid you’re mistaken here. since day one they added temporary stuff to the cash shop. This was the very first addition to the gem shop:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/new-items-usher-in-october-for-the-black-lion-trading-company/
Only 1 item added which was temporary. 2nd update to the cash shop was halloween where you had the skins and tonics which again were temporary.
Very few items where added to the cash shop permanently and its most definitely not a recent trend. it was like that from day one.
I agree with you older games paved the way for GW2 to even be born as well as GW1. and every game must adapt to survive if Anet isn’t willing to adapt their game will most certainly lose alot of players when other more updated titles come out. Just look at Wildstar how many UI elements will be in that game at launch that we expected in GW2 but never saw even after a whole years worth of updates monthly?
What UI elements do you think GW2 is missing that Wildstar has?
I think as time wears on….. and on, and on, more and more players are starting to see the negatives of the temporary content of the Living Story. And as time wears on Anet will see the faults in their design decisions, as it’s already starting now with the backpedaling we see from dev posts. If they want to keep the majority of their players, their mission statement will change.
Thank you op for your post and insight. Keep up the good fight.
Hmm killcannon…. I just went through the Dev Tracker and also no new articles or blogs.
No one is seeing this “backpedaling” you are referring too. Everything is still pointing to the current direction they are taking this game at the present.The “biggest flaw” most are agreeing upon is Anet needing the writers to present more compelling stories and/or more writers.
I think it’s not correct to blame the writers. I do understand how it looks that way but it has more to do with there task.
Anet is not working on an expansion so focuses on the gem-store. They do that buy putting stuff temporary in the gem-store / game, creating a feel of urgency so people will buy / play it. (Not because people like it, but because if they don’t do / buy it today it will be gone tomorrow (not literally tomorrow.. always seem to have do define such statements on the Internet))
That means that basically all the writes need to do, is create an excuse to put more temporary stuff in the gem-store /game and that is what they do. And they might try to make a bigger better story as a total but in the short run Anet just needs an excuse to put in more temporary stuff to get people to play and buy.
They just do there task.
I do agree writing is a bit weak so far and thats probably because of the temporary content. Its not really possible to have along story arch if players can miss a chunk cause they were on holiday. It is also true however that such long arch content isnt suited for the “small” living story updates. Its probably something the long term teams are working on that will be more permanent. At least I hope so.
I disagree that people play the content because they’re forced by the urgency. If you really dislike the content whats the problem with missing it?
I dont like MMO X that doesnt mean I force myself to play it just so I can experiance the content before it closes right?
Same here, if someone doesnt like an update fine, whats the problem with going to play some of the other mountain of content for the next 2 weeks?
The biggest reason for permanent contents:
Casual gamers wouldn’t be forced to play in even’ts peroid, if they have time to explore it in their own speed.“Do it now or never” is a hardcore style. I don’t get it…
Casual players would NEVER catch up. If Anet introduced content and left it there, and you were casual, you’d either do the current stuff or fall further and further behind.
And good luck in six months getting a group together for older dungeons.
It’s no problem to find a group and there is no need for casual players to “catch up” but if they like the MF dungeon or they like the MF mini, or they like the jet-pack they can still do that dungeon / try to get those items.
So there is the choice to go for what you like.
This is really not quite true. In every MMO I’ve ever played it’s hard for people to find groups for old instances. There’s no exception I can think of.
Everyone is at level cap doing the new stuff and the old stuff sits neglected. The older the stuff, the more it’s neglected.
If you don’t think this would happen when a game has updates every couple of weeks, I don’t know how I can convince you.
If there is a reason to farm it (like mini or skin drops) you will surely be able to find 4 other players that also like one of the drops in the dungeon.
I do agree writing is a bit weak so far and thats probably because of the temporary content. Its not really possible to have along story arch if players can miss a chunk cause they were on holiday. It is also true however that such long arch content isnt suited for the “small” living story updates. Its probably something the long term teams are working on that will be more permanent. At least I hope so.
I disagree that people play the content because they’re forced by the urgency. If you really dislike the content whats the problem with missing it?
I dont like MMO X that doesnt mean I force myself to play it just so I can experiance the content before it closes right?
Same here, if someone doesnt like an update fine, whats the problem with going to play some of the other mountain of content for the next 2 weeks?
I fully admit to skipping stories and I don’t even bother to make an attempt to get any achievement. So I agree with this assessment.
Warriors are those who choose to stand between their enemy and all that he loves or hold sacred
I think as time wears on….. and on, and on, more and more players are starting to see the negatives of the temporary content of the Living Story. And as time wears on Anet will see the faults in their design decisions, as it’s already starting now with the backpedaling we see from dev posts. If they want to keep the majority of their players, their mission statement will change.
Thank you op for your post and insight. Keep up the good fight.
Hmm killcannon…. I just went through the Dev Tracker and also no new articles or blogs.
No one is seeing this “backpedaling” you are referring too. Everything is still pointing to the current direction they are taking this game at the present.The “biggest flaw” most are agreeing upon is Anet needing the writers to present more compelling stories and/or more writers.
I think it’s not correct to blame the writers. I do understand how it looks that way but it has more to do with there task.
Anet is not working on an expansion so focuses on the gem-store. They do that buy putting stuff temporary in the gem-store / game, creating a feel of urgency so people will buy / play it. (Not because people like it, but because if they don’t do / buy it today it will be gone tomorrow (not literally tomorrow.. always seem to have do define such statements on the Internet))
That means that basically all the writes need to do, is create an excuse to put more temporary stuff in the gem-store /game and that is what they do. And they might try to make a bigger better story as a total but in the short run Anet just needs an excuse to put in more temporary stuff to get people to play and buy.
They just do there task.
Oh I understand what you are saying.
The thing is you can still deliver a compelling story in a short story format. You keep Ree and Jeff on the high end story arc placing their little seed of interest into it that is nice to know but not really required. Trust me; being a short story writer myself I know it can be done.
Warriors are those who choose to stand between their enemy and all that he loves or hold sacred
.
I am mainly taking about the fact you can’t really farm for mats.. Thats exactly why they want to farm for money. You say yourself “In an ideal situation farming 1 hr in frostgorge for corrupted lodestones or 1 hr doing dungeons or 1 hr of doing dynamic events should net the same return (adjusted for risk / reward)” but in reality it is very hard to farm for mats, you are better of farming for gold and then buying the mats.. But focusing on specific mats is hard.
How many people who have a precursor do you think that really farmed the mats and how many farmed gold to buy it? I don;t have the numbers but have the feeling that those that just farmed the mats are a few because it’s nearly impossible.. Thats what I mend with gold-driven system.
“Holiday events might be returning but that doesnt mean the skin rewards we had in them will.” maybe not.. but may I for now believe it does? I did then and most likely many people think that way. So if it is then maybe the focus has always been there but then it was less obvious. And they said they add stuff to them.. Thats what I expected also back then. That does not mean you are not able to get the same stuff. I really liked the mini you had to make in the mystic forge (required gem-store mini’s) but I decided to go for that next year. Multiple people in the guild have said that so it’s not so strange to think it;s not temporary.. well with the knowledge of then.. looking with the knowledge from now it might just as well have been temporary and then it’s just as bad as the other temporary stuff.
“Every event including lost shores had their own set of skins and those probably are gone forever. " and thats the problem and thats why temporary stuff is bad. It’s gone forever. They can still undo it but for how thats the intention and thats why I (and many other) are here complaining about it.
“Why is that a bad thing?”
Because it’s gone forever.. If I ever like it I can not get it anymore. Thats why it’s bad. You might not feel the same way about it so it may not be bad for you but for me it is and saying all the complains about it for many people that is bad.
“why is it a problem they sell new stuff in the cash shop though?” No problem with that. I never said (nor the subject of this topic) adding content was bad.. removing it is bad.
“I honestly dont get it.” Thats possible. I am sure there are things you dislike and the people who like that don’t get why you dislike that. Question is, would you dislike it if it was nor temporary, if not why complain about it when people don;t want that stuff temporary and if you do not like it when it is not temporary (something I would not get) then the question is, are there more people who dislike it not bing temporary or are there more people who dislike it being temporary. And I do think I know the answer. I think a big group does not care, another big group (smaller but still big) dislikes it to be temporary and a small group likes it temporary.
“Why is it harmful to include these new things in the cash shop? As long as its optional stuff its all good imho.” It’s not. adding stuff is no problem (in that case) but taking it out it. Even if you do not get it and for you it might not be a problem, as you can see for many it is.
“the more successful the cash shop after all the better they can make the game. " How about.. the more successful the game the more cash they can make…?
I prefer that last one.
And it’s exactly what you say now why I do not like it. The focus on the cash shop. Only what you (and the company) names successful is what I would call bad as it has a lot to do with the temporary stuff.
The green you mean? “Celebrate the fall” You know, it’s fall every year. But heey, maybe I was wrong about that. Maybe there gem-store focus has always been bad it has only now become more obvious. Maybe then I still trusted Anet enough that “Celebrate the fall” would mean it came back next year but people lost that trust after seeing many stuff that would not come back for sure.
Halloween is once a year.
“Very few items where added to the cash shop permanently and its most definitely not a recent trend. it was like that from day one.”
Still not sure if it was no recent trend as most of it they added in the beginning was a yearly thing like the color and the Halloween stuff. But the temporary stuff it what I do not like.. It’s the main reason I went for GW2 and not some F2P game because I hate this sort of cash-shop focus. No matter if it is B2W, Temporary or there lock stuff behind it, such a focus it is always bad.
GW2 was released as B2P, with GW1 they showed to manly focus on expansions like you may expect for B2P and that was the main reason I went for GW2.
I will not pay a single cent on gems (I might have but because of there gem-store focus I will not) but I am willing to buy expansions. And even the CE expansions.
I think as time wears on….. and on, and on, more and more players are starting to see the negatives of the temporary content of the Living Story. And as time wears on Anet will see the faults in their design decisions, as it’s already starting now with the backpedaling we see from dev posts. If they want to keep the majority of their players, their mission statement will change.
Thank you op for your post and insight. Keep up the good fight.
Hmm killcannon…. I just went through the Dev Tracker and also no new articles or blogs.
No one is seeing this “backpedaling” you are referring too. Everything is still pointing to the current direction they are taking this game at the present.The “biggest flaw” most are agreeing upon is Anet needing the writers to present more compelling stories and/or more writers.
I think it’s not correct to blame the writers. I do understand how it looks that way but it has more to do with there task.
Anet is not working on an expansion so focuses on the gem-store. They do that buy putting stuff temporary in the gem-store / game, creating a feel of urgency so people will buy / play it. (Not because people like it, but because if they don’t do / buy it today it will be gone tomorrow (not literally tomorrow.. always seem to have do define such statements on the Internet))
That means that basically all the writes need to do, is create an excuse to put more temporary stuff in the gem-store /game and that is what they do. And they might try to make a bigger better story as a total but in the short run Anet just needs an excuse to put in more temporary stuff to get people to play and buy.
They just do there task.
Oh I understand what you are saying.
The thing is you can still deliver a compelling story in a short story format. You keep Ree and Jeff on the high end story arc placing their little seed of interest into it that is nice to know but not really required. Trust me; being a short story writer myself I know it can be done.
Yeah but maybe they are working on a good story with this shallow stories in-between. Who knows? But for me thats not the only or the main problem.
I just say.. don’t blame the writes but the shallow stories we see now as thats just the task they need to do.
I’m a little perplexed. My understanding of the living world was they were introducing new content as a means of showing how the world was changing and evolving. But by removing that content after a short period of time aren’t we just reverting to what the game was before and showing how it is not changing or evolving?
Exactly. Certain annual events like the Dragon Festival and Wintersday are recurring so you will always have a chance to participate later if you missed anything.
Living story content is decent, and creating small, new content for long-time players who have done everything and played everything is not a bad idea in of itself.
However when it comes to opening up new environments (not dungeons, let’s leave that aside for now) taking away that content does indeed shrink the world again. Larger games such as WOW may suffer from empty areas after 3 expansions or so, but that older content is still accessible to anyone, new or old players who wish to play through it. GW2 is obviously superior in that level scaling keeps content challenging for high level characters, but that is somewhat besides the point.
TL;DR There should be both permanent and temporary content, but the percentage of permanent content should be higher then temporary, that way we can see actual effects on the world. Achievement rewards are an outstanding way of keeping players interested in running through the content that already exists. Mining nodes for home instances are also great additions.
There are great examples of permanent additions or alterations to the environment, npc’s and current storyline, but most of them are fairly subtle and are easy to miss. Maybe more blatantly permanent content is important for players to experience.
It sounds like Anet has a ton of great ideas for content over the next few months. While not everything has been perfect with the living story, their experimental efforts seem to be paying off if indeed the player base is growing.
Edit: I also agree that compelling stories are a must. That is probably a lot more difficult to achieve then it sounds though, especially in a short amount of time. Though the living stories are thematically different, aren’t we supposed to be connecting the threads here? Is the mastermind behind the molten alliance the same person who started the Aetherblades? So far the new factions have involved combining technology and magic in new ways. Does this have any significance to anything or are these foes just meant to be diversions? I think this will be revealed to us in time, but for now you could think of temporary content as being a kind of diversion to pass the time. That might be why there is uncertainty among the community regarding LS.
(edited by Zhaneel.9208)
Edit: I also agree that compelling stories are a must. That is probably a lot more difficult to achieve then it sounds though, especially in a short amount of time. Though the living stories are thematically different, aren’t we supposed to be connecting the threads here? Is the mastermind behind the molten alliance the same person who started the Aetherblades? So far the new factions have involved combining technology and magic in new ways. Does this have any significance to anything or are these foes just meant to be diversions? I think this will be revealed to us in time, but for now you could think of temporary content as being a kind of diversion to pass the time. That might be why there is uncertainty among the community regarding LS.
That is a very good point you have raised. Plus I may add in speculation. There are 3 major dragons that we are aware of.
We have Primordus who’s main lieutenant is the Great Destroyer. Jormag and his Lt. the Claw of Jormag. Zhaitan with his Lt. Tequatl.
Could there be another elder dragon about or is Primordus being more active?
Warriors are those who choose to stand between their enemy and all that he loves or hold sacred
I get the impression that many of the players branding temporary content as ‘amazing’ are the same players who do not have a tight schedule in the real world and thus can easily play as often as they like.
For the record, I’m not lacking in spare time myself – but I can appreciate how frustrating it can be to have to miss exclusive content. I do hope that we’ll be seeing more permanent content in the future.
The biggest reason for permanent contents:
Casual gamers wouldn’t be forced to play in even’ts peroid, if they have time to explore it in their own speed.“Do it now or never” is a hardcore style. I don’t get it…
Casual players would NEVER catch up. If Anet introduced content and left it there, and you were casual, you’d either do the current stuff or fall further and further behind.
And good luck in six months getting a group together for older dungeons.
But it’s about choice. A casual could STILL skip all that previous stuff and go right to where everybody is at. But say they start playing more, or they meet a character they really want to learn about. They then have the OPTION of going back and experiancing that content, even if it is solo or with a small group. As it stands a casual player most certianly can NEVER catch up. It’s not possible because the content is gone. However a casual player that doesn’t like the latest release might decide to go back and try some of the odler stuff that sounded interesting. Don’t forget about scaling events and levels in GW2. It’s far more accessable to go back and do previous content in GW2’s enviroment then in otehr MMOs.
Game are about freedom to the players and it’s something Anet stresses a lot in their manifesto. “The most important thing in any game should be the player. We have built a game for them.”