Guild Wars 2

I don’t know about you guys but I find shambling herds of walking dead much scarier than frenzied speedy undead. I would love to see Orr capture the feeling of Atlanta in ‘The Walking Dead’ or Romero’s Dawn of the Dead with herds of undead that shamble through the maps ‘quiet’ areas at regular intervals. Once the walkers catch the scent of the living the all start shambling toward them and all flock to the same area in the hope they get a feed. Currently I agree that the zones look fairly Structured mob placement fillig every gap they can find.

I do love the areas with farmers and nobles going about their daily tasks though. Nothing strikes more fear into the heart than undead poultry swarming over you.

I love this zone! My only complaint would be that mob HP varies to little. When you spend some time there it feels a little mechanical. There’s no high dmg/low hp, low dmg/high hp mobs or like the poster above me said, huge numbers with low hp. It’s all a little static.

When I came to Orr I was thrilled with the map in terms of difficulty but that was just because I had bad gear. Now that my gear is pretty decent I dont find it interesting anymore since I can kill pretty much anything even 3-4 at the time.

Orr should be even harder to move around but reward in terms of materials you can gather there and drops should be better. Problem with that however is that if you are in the group of even 2 people whole zone becomes a joke.

Would be great if we could get something like personal instance of Orr where you can only be alone make it very difficult like Orr is to fresh lvl 80. And then make it rewarding to spend time there.

I know its MMO and all that its just what I would like.

I would also like to see a lot of dead npcs which you can revive and escort them to a safe place.

undead………………………chickens…………..

….nuff said

“Every game needs “that” zone – the zone that gives you anxiety when you don’t want to be there”

But should it be the only max lvl zone with dynamic events? That’s what it is in GW2.

Orr… I hate it… Not because it’s bad or so but seriously… It’s creepy… Risen chickens, risen cows, risen bulls, risen fishes… o.o Risen farmers still working…

Also most of the Risen might not have their souls but some of them seem to possess parts of their soul or at least memories n personality from before their death.

Arena Net you’ve done an awesome job with Orr… Just one of those places where one really do not want to be… The only major problem I have with Orr tho is all the poison… So much poison…

It wouldn’t make the slightest it of sense lore-wise if you could stroll around Orr without the constant threat of death.

I’ve seen a lot of the undead farmers etc and the chickens are just awesome. I think the zone is very well done and the atmosphere is just right.

I think if the events could be tweaked to scale up some more it would be good though. Some of the smaller events (protect penitent camp etc) are being flattened by zergs of 50 people. With a ton of AOE going off constantly right outside the gates during the events then the waves of risen are dying in seconds.

Shostie.6435:

DusK.3849:

I think a bunch of zombies standing around in Orr makes sense, personally. It is their home territory, and they are a legion of the shambling undead.

Zombies standing around might make sense (depending on the ecology), but would they stand around in a grid-like pattern? That seems unlikely as nothing in our universe does so. Matter tends to clump together. Living things also tend to group together. And while I know this is fantasy, for the most part Tyria obeys the laws of our universe (it appears to have the same 4 fundamental forces, gravity, electromagnetism, weak and strong nuclear forces), magic not withstanding.

Foreplayz (troll), this is not the suggestion forum. If I was offering a solution, I would have posted the topic there. Instead, I am merely interested in discussing the matter.

Please to remember, you’re talking about the “living” universe————-which Orr doesn’t inhabit!!!! These are, after all, home to the “legions of undead”!!

I finished 100% map completion in all of Orr and I have never been so glad. Now I only have to go back to get mats and eventually finish my personal story “Victory or Death”.
I didn’t mind the look of Orr since it is supposed to be a land full of zombies. I found some of the ghost/zombies still doing their old chores.
I even laughed my kitten off when I solo’d the “Giant Undead Chicken” event (don’t remember the proper name or zone).
In my opinion it is the unease I felt in the areas that will keep me away until I have to go back. It is as if you have nowhere to appreciate the scenery or take a breather aside from the vistas. It felt as if no matter where you go you’re being chased down and as a Ranger prior to the speed boost, quickening zephyr didn’t recharge fast enough even with the extra mvmt speed skill.
My server was sparsely populated so most skill points had to be solo’d or I’d just come back each day in hopes of finishing the few I had left with another soul looking to do the same. I also had to wait a few weeks before I logged on when the waypoints weren’t contested.
Any one of these things contributed to the overall feel of “hurry up and finish this place so I never have to go back” .
Even now I need to get some omnom to make more bars but I don’t wan’t to go. I keep finding reasons to play in Frostgorge or even Southsun before I return to Orr.

Maybe if they threw in a few zombies fighting zombies it would feel a little more realistic. I find it hard to believe that that many zombies are just standing around next to each other without any interaction with each other (except in a few places where they are working). If they are acting as if they are still alive then a bit of squabbling would be expected in such a heavy populated zone.

RoRo.8270:

Lionhearted.7169:

The probably with Orr is everyone who is lvl80 is forced to play their, there is no other choice so if like me you don’t feel inspired playing in some gloom & doom final zone over and over what will you do? Surely they could of had different themed lvl80 content, surely.. and it has nothing to do racing to lvl80, at some point everyone will be faced with the same issue. If it’s to your fancy fine, personally it has put me off the game which is a real shame seeing what could of been.

Considering the main focus of the campaign seemed to be Zhaitan where did you expect the final zones to be in rainbow village? It was a sunken city that was risen by an undead dragon to be used as a factory for undead.

at some level yes.
As a creator it is entirely in your power to make anything into form.
It is a giant mistake I keep seeing mmo devs make for some reason.
They think, "end game zone should be the harshest environment, enemy territory "

So its ugly as sin, annoying to navigate, etc.

But what they NEED to be thinking is, how much time will the player spend here?
Having 20 amazingly crafted zones, with varied environments, etc that you spend 30 hours leveling through.
then having 2 HIDEOUS, and annoying zones that you will now spend 500 hours farming, is an incredibly poor design choice.

And honestly, nearly every mmo has done it.

Casia.4281:

But what they NEED to be thinking is, how much time will the player spend here?
Having 20 amazingly crafted zones, with varied environments, etc that you spend 30 hours leveling through.
then having 2 HIDEOUS, and annoying zones that you will now spend 500 hours farming, is an incredibly poor design choice.

And honestly, nearly every mmo has done it.

Any journey to hell is always a one-way ticket.

The zones are bad. That’s all there is to it. Mobs just standing around in an effort to make navigating the map harder, which it already is because of the atrocious design. It looks and plays like a pile of cow manure. Whoever designed this can make up all the lore he wants, it is still a complete failure.

Please for the love of this game, stop designing maps.

thb orr is a dead zone, its the worst zone in every MMO ever created….especially for an 80 zone….not only that mobs are pulling you everywhere if you are alone….

even when you are with a group of 5 its annoying …an 80 zone is supposed to be fun and challinging at the same time…its the same with the Arah dungeon….I feel like its been forced at the last second to just put it into the game….arah dungeon is the same as orr, all other dungeons are fine, at least it gives you some variety but arah is just orr where people tend to skip asap all mobs to get to lupicus at first, that is NOT to way to play a dungeon.

Im proud of what they did to the fractual dungeon but arah is just depressive for an end game dungeon, I did it before and Ill never going back there.

Kind regards

Darkdanjal

I love/hate Orr.. Love it on my warrior with a tanky type build as it is still a challenge to solo there, but not too flusterating, but I hate it on my ranger as I don’t have a good melee build. I prefer Cursed Shore over Malicors Leap though as it seems to have more “friendly” places to stop and rest.

I liked the feel of Orr when I got there. It gave a real sense that the undead issue was non trivial, and there were lots of undead. I seem to recall getting whopped up the side of the head by a farmer with a shovel, I’m Asura so it really did hit me in the head. To add to the unease, even the camps weren’t always a safe place to manage inventory.

Tass.2456:

I see more bugs in Orr than undeads

Well, it’s said that kittenroaches will be one of the only things to survive an apocalypse. Since that’s exactly what happened there, the bugs actually make sense ;P

My thief lol’s at Orr, it might as well be an empty clear blue beach with white sand and coconut trees and beautiful island girls bringing me gifts because I am the only male they have seen in yea- …but I disgress.

Doing Orr on my mesmer has been a completely different experience. Getting pulled is annoying but I have enough utilities to run through most areas without problems (including cursed shores) but if I get overly confident I can also get wiped. Hasn’t actually happened yet, but had a few close shaves.

On my warrior, well its a different story, been essentially a massive truck driving in a low speed zone, I can clear anything getting in my way but getting from A to Z takes a while because escaping aggro isn’t an easy thing at all.

I do love the map but on my third time there witha different character so it’s more familiar to me than good ol’ Queensdale (too much green and not enough death…DEATH!!!!……GOOD !!!!).

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

As someone who worked extremely hard on one of the Orrian maps, I can tell you that DusK has the most accurate comment.

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From a lore perspective, the risen continent was once a living nation full of all sorts sorts of people and creatures. Now corrupted by the undead dragon, most of them walk the land as monsters. But you’ll still see a lot of the sentient inhabitants mindlessly continuing on the tasks they performed in their old lives. Some of them farm and mine, others lie around and weep in agony.

The coral soldiers, on the other hand, are more direct servants of the elder dragon. They take a more active role in defending the continent, so you should see them patrolling, standing guard, attacking players, etc.

Weren’t there in Orr already corrupted undead, yet not so corrupted after Zhaitan came to seize and corrupt them of course, but yet definitely at least undead before the dragon came due the cataclysm happened in 1070AE?

Maybe before zhaitan they were just zombies and not ninja zombies like now… maybe Big Z only made chicken and dolyak zombies to add his personal touch of corruption to the already corrupted Orrian undead …

Back on track, i like the maps, a lot, but mobs are mainly hanging dead.

Even though it’s fantasy, everything is rather logical: magical zombies, speed, pulling skills, etc. Further, it’s good to do it with two or more people, rather than solo (much more enjoyable-problem is that some people got used to solo before these zones, which will come as a shock for new Orr visitors.) Lastly, even solo it’s not THAT hard, just annoying at times. I personally don’t see how Orr is “badly designed”, much less inexplicable from lore/game design’s standpoint (I use it as a PvE build tester=for instance, trying to solo the Veteran Risen giant with its grubs + accompanying zombies to test how survivable and/or damaging my build may be.)

My main is a Guardian, but I am sure other players find a way to dominate the zombie hordes as well, with time, good gear, and experience. I did use to hate the area, because I find it rather lifeless (duh) and super ugly-but why should have I expected otherwise?

Ironically, the cleanest area is Malchor’s Leap, it’s ocean being rather blue/clean looking. Straits of devastation has a beautiful inner cave jungle, but everything else, including that horrible zombie filled sea is horrible-it almost stinks through my computer screen.

I honestly believe that Orr gets old for most players since the storyline mainly focuses on it, and we start seeing hem more and more all over the later maps, where “everyone…come!” gets really annoying. Players at this point have been used to play solo for the most part. Then at the beginning, it is difficult even for heavy armor classes to solo the areas. Once you get experienced and properly geared, it’s just a nice challenge, but in no way insurmountable odds. Doing it in a group gets more fun the larger your party is-even for solo-play lovers, give it a try (imagine the other player is a more intelligent npc if you don’t want to group up?) While the zombie overdose can be grating on our nerves, getting used to it and trying to enjoy its challenges is probably the wisest choice, for there’s no reason these areas should be otherwise designed, IMHO.

“Death… good” Not really, but you’ll keep hearing it.

The design of the maps and the mob density, while it makes plenty sense from a lore standpoint, isn’t something I care for at all. In fact, endgame for me has consisted of: farming Frostgorge, playing the TP, helping out in the lowbie zones; Orr bored me away. The first used to be fine until the post Nov14 DR; the second wouldn’t be so gratingly… out of place… if it were merely a supplemental source of income rather than being the majority of my income lately (as a result of that DR), and the third is enjoyable (and not taxing). I poked around Orr a few times, but its just… not fun. It doesn’t even feel all that dangerous – if I want that, I can do an undermanned dungeon run. With Orr, simply getting through the map feels like a chore, a slog, more of a grind than even farming, probably due to the mobs having absurd amounts of CC in place of direct firepower (ie, young karka) and me having ridiculous defensive stats & full exotic gear. Also admittedly being a warrior probably has something to do with it – the ‘Massive truck in a low speed zone’ comment a few posts up sums it up really well. The fact pretty much all the enemies are risen doesn’t really help make it feel any less of a bore. I could party up and make it more bearable, but it can be hard getting people for that, especially since I usually play during the opposite of peak hours. Waypoints being perpetually contested and thus making that travel-slog mandatory makes the zones quite a bit worse. On top of that, the slog is… unrewarding, and probably dumps an enormous stack of DR on me to boot due to my slow speed through the zones.

Now, there’s probably other ways of actually making it feel dangerous and powerful; having roaming mob-zergs or roaming elites/champs or something like that. Just ideas off the top of my head, no idea how it would actually pan out. But try soloing around in enemy territory filled with zergs and scouting parties in WvW. You’re going to be looking over your shoulder a lot. Not something I’d spend my day doing, but that feeling can be nice for a bit of excitement, and definitely better imo than the current setup.

Also, I personally don’t like the animation & models they have when paired with their speed; otherwise it would be fine (but it would be nice if there were some other high speed mobs other than Risen, for variety’s sake – and the fact its rather odd that only the risen would have such a high speed). Many of them don’t look like they could maintain structural integrity traveling at even normal non-combat velocities, let alone 2-3x that. As it stands, I can’t but help feel it all looks rather silly.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

As someone who worked extremely hard on one of the Orrian maps…

Just to fanboy for a moment, I know there has been negative response to some of Orr’s content, and I think that – yes, those maps are often frustrating. But – a degree of frustration is good for a game.

It’s good that much of the area requires large-scale coordinated action among players to access.

It’s good that – in what’s supposed to be hotly contested territory under the control of an evil dragon – it isn’t easy to just traipse to and fro ignoring the enemies.

Anything that presents a challenge is inevitably going to annoy and hence get complaints from some players. And, yes, content that is actually bugged should of course be fixed. But I hope you don’t feel that these complaints reflect on the overall design of the areas – because I personally think that design was well-done.

Ganadorf.3460:

NC Soft only put any effort into the first 60 levels. 60-80 zones are pure laziness, and uninspired

Talking of laziness and uninspiring stuff, nice original name…

Avan, I do not play the TP at all-I DESPISE economics, and I rather be poor than doing seomthing I don’t like, even if it’s more effective or profittable (same reason I don’t do Fractals much-it’s the bet place for loot but I actually find Orr PvE map more fun.)

I actually prefer Orr to Frostgorge Sound because there’s always something to kill (or out to trying to kill you)-of COURSE, Frostgorge Sound is WAY more beautiful and inspiring as a game zone. I imagine if everything was Jormag Corrupted monsters lying around, you would feel the same way about Frostgorge Sound, but luckily Jormag’s influence in that zone isn’t as big as Zhaitan’s in Orr.

I do not find Orr that much of a bore, because I don’t see it really that difficult nor boring, but it’s to be expected since we are two different people. It’s also fun to help people fighting the zombie hordes, even if I don’t have to utter a word or party up with them. I find Orr gives a reason for people to join up as strangers, even if unofficcially (and even if they could solo the content as is the case most of the time.)

I love Orr, I find killing undead quite satisfying, I love having to fight my way into the heart of the enemy’s territory for justice and all that. If you want a game where you can hold the enemy’s hand and not have to fight for anything, go play Forsaken World or whatever it’s called.

As somewhat of a wannabe game designer myself, I can say that throwing around blanket statements like, ‘X is bad game design because I don’t like it’ is rubbish. Other people DO like it and more often then not I’d imagine the players that don’t are getting too caught up on being frustrated with something or other to even think about the actual design process that got it to that point and what it’s trying to achieve. I think Orr was an exceptionally well designed area. There’s a lot that can go wrong but they’re working on it still. Some bugs are more difficult to squash than others, I can’t imagine how hard it would be to fix some of the stuff with hundreds of players breaking it.

Game design and lore design wise, Orr is not supposed to be easy and it’s not supposed to be pretty. (A tip with the Putrifiers, a well placed blind/stability/dodge will avoid most if not all of those big pulls, it’s usually the first move they do)

Nobody is forced to grind there. Before you say exotics and legendaries, those are chosen by the player to obtain and are not forced on anyone. I play all over the world map, sure the rewards are not always on par with what I could get in Orr or Frostgorge Sound but you know what? They are still rewards and I play the game to have fun not to inflict myself with optional grinding chores, trying to min-max everything and then transfer the blame onto ArenaNet. I’m not actually forced to stay in the 75+ areas, I’ve even salvaged ecto from a drop in Queensdale.

Yeah I’m working on getting a legendary but I’m doing it in my own time when I feel like it, there’s no rush and I chose to do this myself, it was not forced upon me. If I don’t like that something that’s supposed to be incredibly rare and difficult to obtain is proving to be difficult to get, I don’t go running to cry on the forums looking for someone to blame because 100% of the blame in on me. If they handed these things out, they wouldn’t be special and there would be a portion of the player-base complaining that they aren’t rare enough or that they want something new.

If you don’t like something, chances are there are plenty of people who do.
Know that ArenaNet will probably not be able to please both sides, regardless of what the problem is. The least we can do is remain civil about our problems with certain things in the game rather than just throwing condemnation at them. Is angrily yelling at somebody who’s making you a burger going to get you the burger faster? Probably, it will also increase your odds of having a nice big loogie somewhere in there too. I’m not saying ArenaNet will spit on our content but treating them with respect is what I’m getting at, they are real people as well, after all and they ARE trying to give us the best game they can muster and I think they have done an incredible job!

Sorry about that, turned into quite the rant didn’t it? I’m not sure what I’m getting at anymore.

TL;DR: If you don’t like something you chose to do, suck it up or do something else.

Typical day in Orr.. Cripple, cripple, knockback, immobilize, cripple, knockback, stun, stun, immobilize, cripple, cripple. Even with all the waypoints, going from one point to another is no fun, especially in water.

Honestly right now my biggest beef with Orr is the unfinishedness of Malcors Leap . The fact that it has Scouts but no Hearts bugs me to no end .

increase the re-spawn timer ….
you barely kill a mob, the previous mob re-spawns and join the fight… you can kill endlesly three mobs on the same spot…

Am I really the only person that thinks Orr isn’t hard enough?

I understand that the “final” area of a game needs to be hard and unpleasant, but that final area could also be made in an interesting way. Placing a map full of undead isn’t an interesting way and I feel that the Anet people who did Orr either got lazy or are just incompetent. The least Orr could have is some breathing room between all those hordes of undead and some more enemy variety. Final areas should be fun too even if they’re hard. Now Orr is nothing more than a huge borefest and one of the worst designed final areas I’ve ever seen in any game.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

As someone who worked extremely hard on one of the Orrian maps, I can tell you that DusK has the most accurate comment.

Your explanation doesn’t make sense. The will of the risen is bound to Zhaitan, and Orr is his base of operations. There is no “continuing on the tasks they performed in their old lives”, they have no lives, they’re all Zhaitan’s troops, his fodder. And as far as the game tries to imply, Zhaitan is at war with Tyria.

I’ve never seen an army base in preparation for war have its troops just standing around, the commanders content to have their troops do whatever they like. Orr feels like a mishmash of half ideas. Like you wanted to create the sense of a world lost where sad beings dwell without purpose, while also forcing a sense of ominous war, and also creating a sense of an inhospitable looming threat, but the glue doesn’t hold.

As someone who worked extremely hard on Orr, you should reassess the place, really. The enemies are nothing more than a massive annoyance; I honestly don’t know who thought that a lot of enemies with movement hindering abilities equals a challenge. That person/team really needs to be schooled in gameplay.

Orr needs/begs to have better enemies with better abilities. They should pose an actual threat, where they have tricky abilities that pose a challenge. Just throwing different sorts of snares is just plain lazy. And people who think you need large coordinated groups make no sense, I can run through this place with my guardian and my engineer and never feel threatened, only annoyed.

There needs to be a stronger cohesive flow of ongoing events that constantly have enemies on the move, attacking and being active in the zone, which will make them far more believable and threatening than just having a whole lot of them standing around all the time.

The temples are the best part of Orr, but there could be some more large scale events. What about a lost keep that players need to capture, or a huge series of events culminating in a large scale battlefield right at the footsteps of Arah.

I’m not a game designer and already I feel as if I can have a better shot at making Orr more engaging, which just isn’t right. For some odd reason you guys at ANet see Orr as a major success, even though there’s been a lot of threads with good reasons as to why Orr just isn’t fun, and I really can’t comprehend why you don’t acknowledge that. In this game I do the three dragons, I do holiday events, and I tend to go back to the zones I really enjoy. Orr isn’t even in my top ten, and I haven’t been there in a month. To me it really is the weakest part of this game, and as someone who’ve anticipated it since launch, I really felt with Orr you dropped the ball.

Azjenco.9425:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

As someone who worked extremely hard on one of the Orrian maps, I can tell you that DusK has the most accurate comment.

Your explanation doesn’t make sense. The will of the risen is bound to Zhaitan, and Orr is his base of operations. There is no “continuing on the tasks they performed in their old lives”, they have no lives, they’re all Zhaitan’s troops, his fodder. And as far as the game tries to imply, Zhaitan is at war with Tyria.

I’ve never seen an army base in preparation for war have its troops just standing around, the commanders content to have their troops do whatever they like. Orr feels like a mishmash of half ideas. Like you wanted to create the sense of a world lost where sad beings dwell without purpose, while also forcing a sense of ominous war, and also creating a sense of an inhospitable looming threat, but the glue doesn’t hold.

As someone who worked extremely hard on Orr, you should reassess the place, really. The enemies are nothing more than a massive annoyance; I honestly don’t know who thought that a lot of enemies with movement hindering abilities equals a challenge. That person/team really needs to be schooled in gameplay.

Orr needs/begs to have better enemies with better abilities. They should pose an actual threat, where they have tricky abilities that pose a challenge. Just throwing different sorts of snares is just plain lazy. And people who think you need large coordinated groups make no sense, I can run through this place with my guardian and my engineer and never feel threatened, only annoyed.

There needs to be a stronger cohesive flow of ongoing events that constantly have enemies on the move, attacking and being active in the zone, which will make them far more believable and threatening than just having a whole lot of them standing around all the time.

The temples are the best part of Orr, but there could be some more large scale events. What about a lost keep that players need to capture, or a huge series of events culminating in a large scale battlefield right at the footsteps of Arah.

I’m not a game designer and already I feel as if I can have a better shot at making Orr more engaging, which just isn’t right. For some odd reason you guys at ANet see Orr as a major success, even though there’s been a lot of threads with good reasons as to why Orr just isn’t fun, and I really can’t comprehend why you don’t acknowledge that. In this game I do the three dragons, I do holiday events, and I tend to go back to the zones I really enjoy. Orr isn’t even in my top ten, and I haven’t been there in a month. To me it really is the weakest part of this game, and as someone who’ve anticipated it since launch, I really felt with Orr you dropped the ball.

It’s OK not to like Orr (I hate its atmosphere myself), but not liking something doesn’t equate with its designers “dropping the ball”. I don’t like Fractals, but I don’t believe they dropped the ball in them (I do not like Ascended gear, but that’s another issue.) It’s cool, just not for me. Note that I did use to dislike Orr, but now I am not even annoyed at it, and welcome its mechanics and “death… good” overdose. In all honesty, some Dungeons’ design are more “dropped the ball”-worthy due to some annoying mechanics that make some fights not fair/incredibly hard to play without being downed/outright killed-at least PvE Orr does give you a fighting chance, snares/pulls and all.

And even me disliking some Dungeons doesn’t make them bad-I just know they could have been done more carefully/better balanced (which is probably what you believe about Orr in any case.)

I do know the reasons why Orr is commonly seen as not fun, BTW, because I used to be in the same boat-I just don’t care enough to find it an issue, especially since it fits the lore and what’s the area is supposedto be, for better or worse. In short, it’s not supposed to be as beautiful as Frostgorge Sound (which is more beautiful and less of a hassle) because it isn’t Frostgorge Sound. I could see the same developers doing both zones, but trying to achieve different things in their final design. Whether we agree or not with some game design choices doesn’t necessarily mean what we would have done is indeed the right answer. Orr can be annoying, but why shouldn’t that be if that may have been their plan-whether we agree with it or not?

Xavier.2176:

I understand that the “final” area of a game needs to be hard and unpleasant, but that final area could also be made in an interesting way. Placing a map full of undead isn’t an interesting way and I feel that the Anet people who did Orr either got lazy or are just incompetent. The least Orr could have is some breathing room between all those hordes of undead and some more enemy variety. Final areas should be fun too even if they’re hard. Now Orr is nothing more than a huge borefest and one of the worst designed final areas I’ve ever seen in any game.

Yeap. let me make another point.
15 variety kill daily.
undead all count as 1 type.

And yeah, the constant undead does not make the area scary. you need to create places of perceived safety, and variety, which will make the bad areas even more effective.

I agree the mobs are just painful to play in, i stopped going there pretty much.

The fact there are no heart quests or much open world stuff friendly to small parties or solo play to do, (running in zergs to complete events doesn’t appeal to me, same as the zergs in WvW don’t appeal to me).

Much prefer a map like Bloodtide Coast (which has undead but much more game friendly amounts)..

I personally think Orr is fine as is BUT could use a really nice coat of polish gameplay wise. I mean, there really is nothing interesting there for players besides completing the maps and main story.

In my server, there is seldom any players there, so all the events cannot be done with only 2-3 players.

I think what Orr needs, is more interesting things to do there and have the rewards be equivalent to the time spent and/or difficulty. As it is now, after completing Orr, there really is no reason to go back.

I mean, you COULD get a group to farm nodes and items but then….that’s just plain boring.

I agree that Orr is over-the-top in monsters. However, like Anthony, I don’t think that’s the root problem. Unlike Anthony, I feel there’s a deeper problem: the respawn rate.

If I kill a zombie, I had to hack it into little pieces (judging by the number of swings it took), so there’s absolutely no way to rationalize that same monster standing right back up and fighting me again 10 seconds later.

I was in a place where I arguably over-aggroed (4 risen). But, that wouldn’ have been a huge problem without the 15 (that’s NOT an exaggeration) more coming back from the dead in the immediate area WHILE I WAS STILL FIGHTING. I had no choice but to run.

I’m sure the server considers them new entities, but what on earth justifies that kind of respawn rate?

Respawns should occur ONLY in one of three conditions:

• If there’s a reason in the story for it happening, and/or
• Another player enters the neighborhood (maybe within 2-3 aggro bubbles), and/or
• An event begins or becomes available.

Until one of those happens, clearing an area should CLEAR it, not merely make room for more spawns.

Well, from an immersion standpoint ….I completed my personal story a long time ago and have yet to see a place in Orr that reflects the shift/change that would be derived from the outcome

On the other topic I agree that the respawn rate of monsters in Orr is ridiculous, and honestly frustrating that I’m getting swarmed no matter where I go. Sure, it’s a continent of shambling undead wandering around aimlessly but I don’t think I’ve seen all that many that are trying to do what they did when they were alive, I’m sure they’re there but I guess it’s not an outstanding feature that many people seem to notice, and once again…I would like them to open a new spot in Orr that reflects what they say will happen at the end of the personal story.

Having lots of Risen in Orr certainly makes sense. The problem is that the fast respawn rate, the extrasensory aggro, and continuous major CC makes for combat that is not fun. When I log in, I will look for any excuse to do anything except go to Orr. Since this is not just my take on Orr, this suggests that Orr needs to be thought through and tuned to provide a place where the combat is challenging, interesting, and fun. They have a ways to go at this point.

Azjenco.9425:

I’ve never seen an army base in preparation for war have its troops just standing around, the commanders content to have their troops do whatever they like.

Sorry to burst your bubble but another thing I’ve never seen is an undead army being lead by a dragon who’s been snoozing under the ocean.

Realism and fantasy do not mix. Do not try to mix them together. If you do not like it, that’s fine but forcing logic on fiction is not a sound way to prove your argument.

The opinion of the Anet employee is fine. When a person works on anything it will always be a point of pride and be subjective to others.

Here is a list of things in Orr from a customers point of view and not someone that has worked “hard” on it. These are not listed in order of preference nor in a good/bad catagory lest they be interpreted as opinion.

Incredible artwork and sound. (maybe opinion)

Almost a hundred little spots of exploration interest, most giving achievements, i still havent found all of them.

Static lifeless maps. Nothing ever changes. The same mechanics that drove MMO’s the last twenty years drive Orr. Having wandering monsters, or mobs in agony doesnt take away from the fact they are there in the same spot, doing the same thing, every day. Again, this is where imagination should have trumped game mechanics but never came close.

Lots of mobs in a grid pattern, a literal grid pattern as others have pointed out.

Incredibly huge aggro ranges on some mobs, not all. Incredibly long attack ranges on some, not all.

For some reason the undead grow tired or disinterested and stop chasing players, that or they are very disciplined and follow orders to guard their little 2 foot by two foot plot of turf…. (sarcasm)

Resources spawn forever.

Interesting lore, though rote action lore to the higest degree.

Still a farming/grind paradise for goldsellers.

Only one way to accomplish things in Orr.

Compared to two months ago Orr is pretty dead except for a couple bases that have fast rote action events that goldsells/grinders participate in.

Havent seen the one famous gold seller event being done in a while in Orr, pretty sure the fractals mechanic took that event down.

Game loot in Orr are based on low drops resulting in players becoming Grinders/Farmers due to game mechanics.

Are there lots of fixes that could be made to Orr? Of course.

I love Orr. I often joke to my friends that I can probably level two or three times over walking from one side of the map to the other, killing everything in my path along the way.

Daddicus.6128:

I agree that Orr is over-the-top in monsters. However, like Anthony, I don’t think that’s the root problem. Unlike Anthony, I feel there’s a deeper problem: the respawn rate.

If I kill a zombie, I had to hack it into little pieces (judging by the number of swings it took), so there’s absolutely no way to rationalize that same monster standing right back up and fighting me again 10 seconds later.

I was in a place where I arguably over-aggroed (4 risen). But, that wouldn’ have been a huge problem without the 15 (that’s NOT an exaggeration) more coming back from the dead in the immediate area WHILE I WAS STILL FIGHTING. I had no choice but to run.

I’m sure the server considers them new entities, but what on earth justifies that kind of respawn rate?

Respawns should occur ONLY in one of three conditions:

• If there’s a reason in the story for it happening, and/or
• Another player enters the neighborhood (maybe within 2-3 aggro bubbles), and/or
• An event begins or becomes available.

Until one of those happens, clearing an area should CLEAR it, not merely make room for more spawns.

There was a skill point in straits, where I had that happen.
That one in the southwest? took me 25minutes. Killing veterans over and over and over. They kept respawning before I could channel the commune.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

As someone who worked extremely hard on one of the Orrian maps, I can tell you that DusK has the most accurate comment.

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From a lore perspective, the risen continent was once a living nation full of all sorts sorts of people and creatures. Now corrupted by the undead dragon, most of them walk the land as monsters. But you’ll still see a lot of the sentient inhabitants mindlessly continuing on the tasks they performed in their old lives. Some of them farm and mine, others lie around and weep in agony.

The coral soldiers, on the other hand, are more direct servants of the elder dragon. They take a more active role in defending the continent, so you should see them patrolling, standing guard, attacking players, etc.

Heya Anthony, please don’t nerf Orr!!!

Although I dislike the game from a gameplay perspective now, the art direction and visual concepts used in Orr is something I’m extremely impressed by and have never seen in any other form of media. Not to this extent.

The Orrian architecture creates a much more unnerving atmosphere for me than the Risen. The whole concept of static eccentricity is so paradox, my brain never stops asking “How could it have been practical to build megalithic asymmetrical, but perfectly round stone structures?”

If you ever wondered about Baalbek and how or why its 2000 ton stone blocks were lifted on top of each other, you know what I’m talking about.

It’s likely that the Tyrian god lore was inspired by the ancient astronaut theory, so maybe the reason(s) for why this architecture exists was also adopted.

I like Orr so far on my Necro. Having to wade through the endless undead to get to any point is what I fully expect the area closest to the enemy base to be like. I am, after all, descending into the heart of the Dragon’s nest, I don’t think I should be able to stroll up and knock on the door unabated.

When I find a few people in the same area moving the same direction there is a silent agreement to work as a group to achieve the same common goal and I love this about GW2, I am not forced to group with them to get my drops or my event completion.

Orr is great. It is what it is and I hope it stays that way.

To be honest, I like Orr (on my Mesmer main). It was designed to be an always active zone.
Fractals killed it though. Too bad.
I am returning from time to time just to do the events if i feel like doing a daily. Kitten, so much potential…

I really do like the visuals and atmosphere, but the drags are so kitten annoying.

I would prefer a barren and desolate feel with places of extreme danger