Guild Wars 2

Wait…..there’s temporary content?

Well hell. Just another thing I’ll never experience. This game is losing appeal quickly, and I just started playing recently.

“I just dont see how temporary is better than permanent? Can someone explain it to me because im kinda confused”

There are some advantages to this :
- People keep in the habit of logging in to see new content
- Rewards don’t have to be fully balanced since the new content cannot permanently replace end game content
- Limited availability cosmetics really are limited and players like rare cosmetics
- Temporary content can be very simple with no replay value
- It puts a sense of time into the living story, history is created month by month
- High population events like the Nightmare Tower will be pointless if permanent and empty
- Old zones can be used for new content without permanently losing the old content
- The designers don’t have to maintain the temporary content once it is gone. If the karka are changed, for example, the karka that invaded Lion’s Arch don’t need a historical rework too
- Characters can be written into and out of temporary content with no time line issues.

Aeonblade.8709:

Karizee.8076:

Aeonblade.8709:

Karizee.8076:

I think the people complaining about this really haven’t grasped the concept of this game yet. Look at it this way, if they left all the content permanent it would be the most confusing clusterbomb of a game ever created.

Just imagine, we would have a world where we are simultaneously building road signs for the refugees Wayfarer Hills while the refugees have already arrived and are camping in Lion’s Arch AND have already moved on to Southsun Cove where they are being exploited by the Consortium all the while Queen’s Pavilion balloons are taking players to the Jubilee while Molten Portals spawn everywhere and we have just started to open/build Southsun but the Ancient Karka has already been defeated but karka are still invading Lion’s Arch. Or how about Evon Gnashblade politicking for votes at the same time he’s bemoaning his loss while election banners are hanging everywhere and Ellen is already in the Council? Or how about Kessex Hills with the Tower of Nightmares both up yet blown up at the same time?

Those concepts work well within a linear game where you are working your way through the story via quests and such, but it simply doesn’t make sense here.

I do think the 2 week tempo feels a bit pressured and I’m happy they’ve moved towards letting the content overlap in one month chunks, but I simply don’t see how everything could be left in game within the freeform/nonlinear/multiple layers of content in zones way this game is designed.

Phasing.

Phasing was a failed experiment in other games. Couldn’t play with friends since they were on a different phase!

Um…Phasing was a huge success in WoW, dunno of any other game that used it though.

Actually it failed in WoW so badly they abandoned the concept.

Karizee.8076:

I think the people complaining about this really haven’t grasped the concept of this game yet. Look at it this way, if they left all the content permanent it would be the most confusing clusterbomb of a game ever created.

Just imagine, we would have a world where we are simultaneously building road signs for the refugees Wayfarer Hills while the refugees have already arrived and are camping in Lion’s Arch AND have already moved on to Southsun Cove where they are being exploited by the Consortium all the while Queen’s Pavilion balloons are taking players to the Jubilee while Molten Portals spawn everywhere and we have just started to open/build Southsun but the Ancient Karka has already been defeated but karka are still invading Lion’s Arch. Or how about Evon Gnashblade politicking for votes at the same time he’s bemoaning his loss while election banners are hanging everywhere and Ellen is already in the Council? Or how about Kessex Hills with the Tower of Nightmares both up yet blown up at the same time?

Those concepts work well within a linear game where you are working your way through the story via quests and such, but it simply doesn’t make sense here.

I do think the 2 week tempo feels a bit pressured and I’m happy they’ve moved towards letting the content overlap in one month chunks, but I simply don’t see how everything could be left in game within the freeform/nonlinear/multiple layers of content in zones way this game is designed.

-__-
……..

Do I really have to point out that if the development was done with permanent rather than temporary content in mind the updates would be different? I think you haven’t grasped the concept of the objections people have to temporary content-you’re saying if they created temporary content and made it permanent (see how ridiculous that sounds) then it would be bloated…everyone else is saying why make so much temporary content in the first place.

I like this game. But I don’t care or even participate all that much in the temp stuff. I’m old fashioned. I want to explore new areas . I’d much rather have a yearly or bi-yearly large content update / expansion. Even if they want $ for it.

In the meantime, wvw keeps me playing.

Stooperdale.3560:

“I just dont see how temporary is better than permanent? Can someone explain it to me because im kinda confused”

There are some advantages to this :
- People keep in the habit of logging in to see new content
- Rewards don’t have to be fully balanced since the new content cannot permanently replace end game content
- Limited availability cosmetics really are limited and players like rare cosmetics
- Temporary content can be very simple with no replay value
- It puts a sense of time into the living story, history is created month by month
- High population events like the Nightmare Tower will be pointless if permanent and empty
- Old zones can be used for new content without permanently losing the old content
- The designers don’t have to maintain the temporary content once it is gone. If the karka are changed, for example, the karka that invaded Lion’s Arch don’t need a historical rework too
- Characters can be written into and out of temporary content with no time line issues.

No offense, but none of those points holds up to much scrutiny. There may be some small advantages (namely the ability to create a semi-dynamic world), but nothing that isn’t completely outdone by the disadvantages. Temporary content actually all but killed year one of this game. Here’s the reality behind it-

Nonstop temporary events (along with achievements and unique rewards) prioritized over permanent additions create a sense of urgency bordering on stress while playing game. Most players don’t like feeling this so they end up abandoning the game. On top of that, they are actively discouraged from returning to the point of completely checking out of the game because they know they won’t ever maintain the ability to participate in the expanding story.

Temporary content (outside of recurring holiday events or very small-scale side-plots) is really just a waste of development resources that would be much better spent adding to the game world and making it deeper and richer with ever more to explore, which would do a better job of bringing back lapsed players.

The fact that so much content is temporary also means the content tends to be rushed and under-tested, which has a negative impact on the apparent quality of the game and its content updates and further drives players away.

The “Living World” is conceptually at odds with the Personal Story. While I think the Living World is kind of a bad idea anyway (the only true Living World is a player-controlled one; see Ultima or Eve), it’s made much worse in execution by the fact that it has to remain inside the box created by the Personal Story. I think they realized they misfired a bit with the PS, then instead of putting effort into fixing it they did an about-face and created something else that’s not only at least as bad, but completely immersion-breaking by how it doesn’t at all jive with what the game launched with. So, now, the game suffers from a broken narrative.

Anet seems to think it’s really cool if the world is persistent and the story happens without you. Really, it only sounds cool on paper. In reality, to be engaging, the narrative needs to be focused and unfold from a player/character perspective and not from a world (development-driven) perspective. The PS was the right idea, it just had some execution flaws. The LW is not the right idea.

The best temporary content ANet ever had was the first Southsun Cove installment. Why? Because it gave us a permanent zone through the medium of a temporary storyline arc. If you’re gonna do a “Living Story” or whatever, do it in such a way that gradually, and persistently, expands the map of Tyria. The “temporary” stuff should be the story(and perhaps a few instanced areas) as a vehicle to deliver new zones and continents.

Additionally, the “story” that delivers those zones should have the option of being done after the cycle is over. This idea that a player has to log in within a relatively tiny window of opportunity or forever miss out on content is ridiculous. The amount of hubris it takes to assume the temporary content is so good that players wouldn’t fathom missing it is incredible.

Sure there are things that are better, or more precious, that you shouldn’t repeat. Something like winning your high school football state championship would fall into that category. It’s an epic moment for anyone that you can never go back to, nor should you. A video game story arc is no where near that, unless it is just so friggin’ awesomely done that it stays with you forever. Does the LS do that? Absolutely not. Not even close to being close.

I simply cannot fathom how ANet still thinks that what we have now is working and a “good thing.” God forbid no one ever has any RL issue that would keep you away from the game for over two weeks. But I guess we all paid our $$$ already so we should be supremely grateful for every single scrap of content they toss to us under the table right? /rollseyes

People are acting like this game was the first MMO to ever introduce temporary content. Almost all games have it to some degree.

When I played Rift, we had content that we played for a month and then it went away. Some kind of invasion. Some kind of currency. Rewards specific to that content. No one in Rift called it temporary content, even though that’s what it was. I didn’t see one complaint about it on the Rift forums and I pretty much lived on those forums.

All events in game that end are in fact temporary. But much of the temporary content people are complaining about here is in fact recurring content.

Holidays in Guild Wars 1, Halloween, the Dragon Festival, Wintersdays, is some of the most popular content in the game, but it only comes once a year. Do you really think if it was there all the time it would be so popular?

People wait for it and log in. It was successful. Anet is trying to recreate that success. So they come out with Dragon Bash, Bazaar of the Four Winds, SAB and the Queen’s Pavillion all of which can be reused. That content isn’t temporary, it’s recurring.

Which brings us to the other temporary content. For the most part, the big stuff has stayed. The Karka Queen is still here. I don’t see anyone complaining the stupid mini dungeon minigame from the Southsun update is gone. Are we complaining about banging in signs? Are we complaining about periscopes with knockback that people couldn’t wait to see the back of?

Because the Jumping puzzle added with the Scarlet Invasion patch is still here and so are the Scarlet invasions. In fact, when you look at the list, most of the big stuff is still here.

It makes absolutely no sense to have the portal invasions of molten alliance continue after we beat them, but the Tower event did change the zone. It left behind new champions, new events, changes to hearts, even deleted waypoints. This is the true strength of the living world.

The only two things people really can complain about not being there are the Aetherblade dungeon and the Molten Facility, both of which have made a return in Fractals. Not exactly the same, but no one will miss them.

And I guarantee you, if they were left in the game, no one would ever do them by now.

It’s like old dungeons in most games. They sit abandoned while people do new content.

Mainly, I think one of the biggest advantages is you don’t have to maintain temporary content. There are still periods where I have to guest to a different server when I run into a bugged skillpoint or quest, so with even more permanent content I’d imagine it’d be something out of their reach at this point. May seem a bit less of a “reason” and more of an “excuse”, though.

On top of that, it pretty much forces players into one part of the game, and I’d imagine it’s a lot easier to accommodate a zerg of players as opposed to each and every amount of players present.

If the content had thematically been designed to be permanent and allowed the content to be thoroughly enjoyed through any number of players, I’d see little to lose. And if they didn’t need to be throttled so hard into constantly releasing content, that could happen at some point.

The only sense of ‘stress’ and ‘urgency’ comes from certain players alone. There is no stress or urgency. If you are not playing the content for fun, then don’t do the content. The game doesn’t end if you don’t.

Guild Wars 2 was advertised as an ever-changing world. That is what I was given.

Instead of everyone rushing to level 80 to do the same raid over and over and over, you have new content every two weeks. There is no problem with this.

In before someone says ‘lol arah.’

“Nonstop temporary events (along with achievements and unique rewards) prioritized over permanent additions create a sense of urgency bordering on stress while playing game. Most players don’t like feeling this so they end up abandoning the game. "

Do they? I’m not stressed about completing Wintersday and I don’t really see many other people like my guild stressing about it either. Most players abandon games because they have too little content instead of too much, and anyone who abandons because they have too much is really just creating their own problems. You miss Winterday and can’t complete it? Big deal. There’s something new next month. Problem solved just through the right attitude. There’s no peer pressure to complete living story updates at all.

Stooperdale.3560:

“Nonstop temporary events (along with achievements and unique rewards) prioritized over permanent additions create a sense of urgency bordering on stress while playing game. Most players don’t like feeling this so they end up abandoning the game. "

Do they? I’m not stressed about completing Wintersday and I don’t really see many other people like my guild stressing about it either. Most players abandon games because they have too little content instead of too much, and anyone who abandons because they have too much is really just creating their own problems. You miss Winterday and can’t complete it? Big deal. There’s something new next month. Problem solved just through the right attitude. There’s no peer pressure to complete living story updates at all.

Well, in temporary content you can find some interesting parts you are willing to do. You will get some achievements out of it. But to get a prize you need to complete achievements you don’t like too (kill n monsters, unwrap n packages). I would eventually complete it, but definitely not during 2 weeks (for this you need to dedicate time to do the same activity over and over again – grind). As a result I’m not getting reward doing temporary content if I want to enjoy it. Which is frustrating.
As a result I stop caring about temporary content at all. I’m not going to grind to complete all achieves in time, so I will not be rewarded. No reason to look at it then. Simple logic. Even daily I usually complete by doing other activities.

More items you don’t need in the Gem Shop.

“What is the advantage of temporary content?”

What’s the advantage of having it permanent, really? There’s little in this living story that I’ve personally felt was “OMG, this is so amazing it needs to stay!” In truth, a lot of the things that posters here long for to be permanent (like SAB) would rapidly turn into everything else that isn’t Queensdale and Frostgorge; boring and forgotten by the player base.

It’s not something I find myself getting worked up over… the possibility that I won’t earn some back item that I’ll never use doesn’t hurt my feelings or upset me. The thrust of every living story can be gleaned in a matter of hours, much less in two weeks time.

Permanent content is great, and it’s great that players want more of it. But that stuff takes time, and I’m not wholly convinced that if you were to throw the 4 Living Story teams into the others supposedly building “expansion level content” (results remain to be seen, mind), that the big stuff would get done all that much more quickly anyway.

It’s much ado about nothing, neither good nor bad, in my opinion.

clint.5681:

Yup and if you miss a lot of it like i did then you have no pressing need to log on.

Pretty much. Back during flame and frost, it felt like I could still do what I wanted in the game while still enjoying this living world content. It quickly sped up and by the ellen kiel election I couldn’t keep up and failed the southsun survival achievment and a few others. Since then I’ve completely ignored all the living story content and I’m honestly just waiting for the day when I won’t have to read that scarlet’s minions are harassing some poor map.

Now I’m back to making my own goals (currently making ascended armor for my heavily neglected necromancer and getting my guardian volcanus) since anet can’t spark my drive to visit all their content anymore.