Guild Wars 2

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/06/26/guild-wars-2-planning-a-two-week-update-schedule/

Thoughts? I like it, and it could seem like a fix for the temporary dungeons. Only thing I hope is that the content does not suffer from being rushed.

Sounds great to me. Very ambitious. Keep up the good work, ArenaNet. =)

Its too much too often. I’d like a chance to just relax and do whatever in the game once in a while, rather than being shuffled from one event to another with little to no downtime in between.

I know some people are “tired of the normal game” because they’ve done everything and probably appreciate the constant barrage of new stuff, but for me there’s still plenty of the normal game I’ve yet to experience and would like to have time to do that now and then.

I have three problems with new content every two weeks. One, I’m afraid things will be rushed, leading to bugs slipping passed QA, shortcuts being taken regarding quality, or sloppily designed/implemented content.

Two, it’s such a frantic pace that it’s not going to give the more casual players, particularly those with full time job and familial obligations, much time to complete/enjoy the new temporary content before it’s removed.

Three, it’s becoming such a focus that I feel the rest of the game is falling by the wayside. Everyone is so busy scrambling to complete temporary dungeons, temporary achievements, and obtain temporarily available items that everything else has become an afterthought. These Living Story additions haven’t solved the obvious problem that many zones are all but abandoned. I know part of that is the nature of MMOs, but I’d like to see more permanent content implemented that gives players a reason to visit all zones, not just a select few.

Edit: A fourth reason I’m against such frequent updates is much of the content consists of little more than mindless busy work. Breaking 150 dragon pinatas isn’t a testament to skill, it’s a display that your F button works. I’d like to see more meat and less filler when it comes to the updates. But with the fast turnaround on the Living Story content and Anet’s desire to keep players active they’re having to rely on these lazy sorts of achievements to keep people logged on.

Yeah, given arenanets track record of kitten poor QA even with quasi-ample time to perform QA, Id suggest to them to not do this. One month updates are even too much, simply because all they do are new graphics to LA, RNG boxes, temporary content.

How about: Changing the face of tyria for good(an explosion leaving a crater in kessix hills or something), less RNG, keep these great dungeons you are taking out.

I want new zones with new renown hearts to complete, new DEs, and a living story within that zone. I want new mobs, I want a new perma dungeon. I want more solo mini-dungeons. I want to be able to craft ascended gear without 60 days of grinding materials via daily rewards.

As much as it sounds awesome in theory, it has been anything but great if they’re going to keep up as they are now.

Phase 1: Run to X spot, Kill X amount / Press F. Repeat with new spot.
Phase 2: Tiny instance. Run to X spot, Kill X amount / Press F. Repeat with new spot.
Phase 3: Awesome cool Dungeon that will disappear after ~2 weeks. Oh and ‘Run to X spot, Kill X amount / Press F. Repeat with new spot.’.

10 new achievements every 2 weeks which involves several hours of running to X spot, kill X Amount of something. I’m going to go insane.
This experience so far has been anything but fun.

Blackwyn.8127:

As much as it sounds awesome in theory, it has been anything but great if they’re going to keep up as they are now.

Phase 1: Run to X spot, Kill X amount / Press F. Repeat with new spot.
Phase 2: Tiny instance. Run to X spot, Kill X amount / Press F. Repeat with new spot.
Phase 3: Awesome cool Dungeon that will disappear after ~2 weeks. Oh and ‘Run to X spot, Kill X amount / Press F. Repeat with new spot.’.

10 new achievements every 2 weeks which involves several hours of running to X spot, kill X Amount of something. I’m going to go insane.
This experience so far has been anything but fun.

I disagree. I believe the content has been fun. As for too much content, I can see that. What they should do is have the current and previous chapters open (meaning each chapter would be around for a month). Overall, I think this is a good step in the right direction.

A complete waste.

I WvW a lot and I rarely like to do much else except for when my gf gets a chance to play (She’s always very busy). They compared their plan to TV shows but they have one absolutely major flaw…

I CAN RECORD TV SHOWS.

This new content train of irrelevant plot and temporary content is in no way an “end-game” or a “TV show” rip-off. I can go back and relax and watch TV shows at my own pace, at my own time and enjoy them whenever I see fit. With this GW2 schedule it goes from, “Hey, come enjoy this content as you wish.” to “Hey! Get you’re kitten on GW2 or you’re going to miss crap!”

That’s what you need to realize ANet and that’s why, although I admire your drive and ambition, you need to slow down. Stop and improve on your game for a couple months. Use all of those people to really test things like the Reward system, WvW (Squads, more diverse play roles, emphasizing smaller / tactical play styles instead of zergs could all use major improvements. See this thread for examples of the latter; https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Real-tools-for-the-WvW-player/first#post2179363 ), Profession balance, and I’m sure many, many more things.

You have the base of a really great product and if you were to focus on making it even better you’d be in an amazing place. Please, really reconsider your choices and make it a more friendly and satisfying game for everyone in the long run. Please.

Sincerely,
A very disappointed fan

I’m not really content with their content (hah!), so pushing out even more in a shorter timeframe just leads to more bugs and shallow grind to fill our schedules.

Quality > Quantity

I’m fine with 2 week updates as long as they take the initial several updates to fix current issues instead of introducing more and ignoring old ones. For Pete’s Sake there are numerous glaring issues that for god knows what reasons are continually ignored. It’s not like the players haven’t pointed said issues out time and time again only to be ignored. On rare occasion we get “we are aware of the issue and are working on it”, but if it doesn’t apply to the tp or the gem shop there’s a snowball’s chance in H…..E….double hockey sticks that it’ll be fixed. It’s getting increasingly hard to turn a blind eye to the happenings here on many levels.

I don’t agree with this. IMO, they should spend the time on fixing the multitude of glitches/bugs and broken content and creating future EXPANSIONS. The only thing spurts of temporary content does is break current content as evidenced by every update that has been done since release.

The living story content gives them an excuse to update the gem store multiple times a month…if they didn’t include it, it would be entirely too obvious to players that this game has entered its “milking” phase. The shallow content and recycled achievements are just fine for that purpose. It doesn’t have to be good. It doesn’t have to be unique. It doesn’t even have to make sense lore-wise. It just has to exist.

Maybe if the content was permanent, this would be fine. Other than the constant bugs each time (I can live with those), getting new temp content every two weeks is a bit much. Its forcing us to play by their schedule (which current setup is already doing) instead of at our own pace.

It’s certainly ambitious, but I’m not sure why they feel the need to.

If they can pull out a bit more depth to their content and more variation (eg some story would be good – we’ve almost nothing outside of F&F, only the incredibly short investigation bit which was over in a blink of the eye), then fab, all for it.

For me though, longer waits for decent content is preferable over rushed content thrown at us fortnightly. The Living STory, whilst containing some moments of real excellence (dungeons, skins design) is not living up to what it hypes – ie a changing Tyria. We’ve had a whirlwind of threats come and go which have had virtually no lasting impression on the world, yet the same diplomats are round the table negotiating over the Charr/Human treaty…

Quality over quantity if both can’t be obtained

Gamers are naturally spoiled, especially MMO players, so of course people won’t be happy about it.

As soon as patch day hits, you’ll hear complaints of “that’s it?” or “how come you didn’t introduce/fix X” or “WHEN IS THE SCAVENGER HUNT COMING?!!?”

What I fear is that they worry more about it and fail to carry out the most basic things such as balance and the enviroment itself (which is now happening a lot of discussion around effort[and time spent] Vs reward).

“It’s a marathon not a sprint and we’ve been getting better with each of our releases"

Erm. I don’t think this is true. Excepting the Aetherblade and Molten Facility dungeons every part of the living story has been short, uninspiring “whack-a-mole” or go kill 300 x, go hammer in 300y, go light 15 x etc etc.

I don’t think it’s getting better at all. Karka Invasion was an unmitigated disaster, Frost and Flame pt.1 was so boring it made my head spin, Frost and Flame part 2 was more of the same except for the facility (which was average), Dragon Bash was desperately uninspiring and Sky Pirates seems to be basically Dragon Bash part 2 with some requirement to go do JP’s again and a dungeon (can’t comment on it as haven’t run it yet).

I’d rather not have two weekly updates that keep me hammmering in fenceposts for two or three hours and have a decent sized content expansion with new mobs, new story elements and new weapons and armor every three months or so than instantly forgettable rubbish.

Edit: and the implementation? A few weeks ago there was barely a day I didnt log in and have to sit through a fixing patch. This content? Two already and it came out yesterday.

Further edit: Credit where credits due though, I think they have done a good “first shot” as a balancing patch. It clearly needs further refinement but for the most part I’m happy with the changes so far.