Guild Wars 2

Hi,
Curious why develop direction and the main focus has turned to living story, instead of making the world seem alive, as was the goal? If you visit any zone that is not connected to the current Living Story, you find an empty zone.

I am currently standing in Fireheart Rise, I see no one. I see events kicking off, expiring, failing, dead friendly NPCs because no one is doing any events. The world feels dead. If you are not playing in the small handful of zones…Queensdale, Kessex, Frostgorge, sometimes Orr. Thats about it.

I am curious what anyone thinks why the development direction went to living story, instead of giving us a real reason to play the game in these zones, when the whole idea was to create a living world. I truly feel that Living Story has had the opposite effect on the game. Its sad to see such fantastic content and dynamic events go to waste.

Make your case over in this thread where you may actually get a Dev response .

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Collaborative-Development-Topic-Living-World/first

Ive posted my fair share in the thread. Eh, yah Ill copy and paste it over there. Maybe Mr Whiteside or Colin will respond. Its such a travesty to see half or 3/4 of this game lay to waste.

Well the Living story IS doing just that.
It makes the world more living.

How many people did you see in Kessex before The Tower of Nightmares?
How many in Queensdale before Queens Jubilee?

lordkrall.7241:

Well the Living story IS doing just that.
It makes the world more living.

How many people did you see in Kessex before The Tower of Nightmares?
How many in Queensdale before Queens Jubilee?

So. Fireheart Rise
Iron Marches
Caledon Forest
Metrica Province
Wayferer Hills
Mount Maelstrom
Timberline Falls

Log into any of these zones and tell me the world is alive.
Don’t mistake the illusion of zerging for LS achievements and coin for a living world. Yes, these two zones, along with MAYBE Orr and Frostgorge, are the only zones considered populated. All other areas are as empty as a beer glass on Thirsty Thursday.
Not even opinion anymore. I guested to some servers, checked out these maps. Empty. Go on your home server and look at some of these zones. Maybe you find someone leveling or map completing. I bet you won’t find someone completing events because he/she genuinely wants to complete events there.

I see people in Metrica, and especially Wayfarer every day. Because I go to these zones every day, so I see them. I think the starter zones still have a pretty good population, at least on my server, which is bottom tier. I see fewer people in other zones, though I always see some and I play at odd hours of the day and night. I guess I’m just on a lucky bottom-of-the-tiers server. =)

But, spreading out the population may be good…or it may be bad. Only so many people to go around. /shrug

The life is where the Zerg is. The Zerg is at the current LS zone, Queensdale and Frostgorge. That is what the games living world has shrinked down to.
If you are lucky, you can find some other players in Orr, but outside of these zones, even meeting an other player is sort of a rare thing, and finding someone to do group events with is fairly futile.

Walking around the desolated maps with all the contested WPs and dead guards at overrun points, it looks like the dragons have already won.

Meanwhile, in a totally safe zone, Queensdale, heroes unite to defeat weaksauce champions for the best available loot and riches.

This game has some serious flaws.

cesmode.4257:

So. Fireheart Rise
Iron Marches
Caledon Forest
Metrica Province
Wayferer Hills
Mount Maelstrom
Timberline Falls

Log into any of these zones and tell me the world is alive.
Don’t mistake the illusion of zerging for LS achievements and coin for a living world. Yes, these two zones, along with MAYBE Orr and Frostgorge, are the only zones considered populated. All other areas are as empty as a beer glass on Thirsty Thursday.
Not even opinion anymore. I guested to some servers, checked out these maps. Empty. Go on your home server and look at some of these zones. Maybe you find someone leveling or map completing. I bet you won’t find someone completing events because he/she genuinely wants to complete events there.

But what can they do?
People will always swarm the most rewarding/newest content.

So no matter how much they change and add people will leave it when it is no longer cool.

They have means at their disposal to encourage us to play in whatever zones we want. I’ve detailed a few suggestions in the Collab Dev thread. They can build on that fundamental idea.
It CAN be done.

cesmode.4257:

They have means at their disposal to encourage us to play in whatever zones we want. I’ve detailed a few suggestions in the Collab Dev thread. They can build on that fundamental idea.
It CAN be done.

Too late, the damage to the game has been done. Too many new toys on the horizon, “Zerg or Die” let many players choose the latter….

I find this to be an interesting discussion. Any zone you go into you automatically scale down to it. Anet has already given you the means to enjoy any zone you enter, the player base must simply decide to do it. How could Anet possibly make each and every zone absolutely compelling to enter every day at all times of the day?

Compare this to other mmo type games of the past, were those lower tied zones not as equally vacant, with the one exception that your character didn’t even scale to the content?

They wasted way too much playfields for level-up zones. They should have made leveling faster and at least half the zones level 80. Without the kitten scaling, all zones could have been made challenging and not the mess, that scaling gives us now.

They could have these “endgame” zones to give the best rewards.

But now, the new players in Queensdale are run over by the Zerg™, killing every challenge there.

Honestly, I have a hard time to somehow see a way how to solve what this game has become…

Maybe if there was something like Nicholas the Traveler, and he needed 5 or 10 different trophies found only in 5 or 10 disparate zones, and he gave some sought-after items, or a good chance for said items, people would spread out each week to the zones to gather these trophies.

cesmode.4257:

They have means at their disposal to encourage us to play in whatever zones we want. I’ve detailed a few suggestions in the Collab Dev thread. They can build on that fundamental idea.
It CAN be done.

But there will always be one or a few zones that are superior for farming/whatever and those zones will always be the target for most people.

I know we’ve had the conversation before, but I’ll answer this question again.

There aren’t enough people to populate every single zone on every single server. It can’t happen.

There are X number of servers. There are 25 zones. There are dungeons, SPvP, personal story instances, minigames and WvW. When you divide the current playerbase per server at any given time, you won’t find enough people on each map unless Anet directs traffic.

You might not like that answer, but that doesn’t make what I’m saying false.

The bigger the game world, the harder it is to get people together in one area.

The truth is that with every living world update, new items show up in the gem store and that generates money. It is the best system currently in place for a F2P game. There is no denying that The game in its entirety is a profit-making organization and we the players are but a resource to sustain it.

I really respect the artist’s, developer’s and community staff’s work. It is state of the art in most aspects. But i dislike every single thing about the living story. Its non immersive, recycleable, non repeatable content that most won’t remember a week after its gone. No exciting long term goals apart from a legendaries which are an endless grind (been there done that) and a gear grind which is a slap in the face from what the game was advertised as before release.

All i see is new items for spending real money on, week after week after week. I find my childhood cartoons to have had better villains that every single one we have every 2 weeks. I mean seriously, what kind of fantasy world introduces a new villain or event every 2 weeks? It makes them feel meaning less and not threatening at all

Sorry if i ruined your Christmas but this is as close as it gets to answer your question in my humble opinion

Vayne.8563:

Saying something is false doesn’t make it false.

I’d like to reply, but my this is my second post to be deleted in two days despite insulting no one, less of all you. (EDIT: Oh. Looks like I don’t have to tell you about that now.) At the very least, rest assured I wasn’t addressing you or anyone here despite the unironic meaning – it was more of a statement towards developers.

I’m getting a strong feeling ANet’s mods don’t want any criticism of the game on this board anymore. I’ve heard this has been the case early on in GW2’s life too.

As for the topic…

As I said, I think the OP serves best as a rhetorical question. No answer is needed.

Ath.2531:

The truth is that with every living world update, new items show up in the gem store and that generates money. It is the best system currently in place for a F2P game. There is no denying that The game in its entirety is a profit-making organization and we the players are but a resource to sustain it.

I really respect the artist’s, developer’s and community staff’s work. It is state of the art in most aspects. But i dislike every single thing about the living story. Its non immersive, recycleable, non repeatable content that most won’t remember a week after its gone. No exciting long term goals apart from a legendaries which are an endless grind (been there done that) and a gear grind which is a slap in the face from what the game was advertised as before release.

All i see is new items for spending real money on, week after week after week. I find my childhood cartoons to have had better villains that every single one we have every 2 weeks. I mean seriously, what kind of fantasy world introduces a new villain or event every 2 weeks? It makes them feel meaning less and not threatening at all

Sorry if i ruined your Christmas but this is as close as it gets to answer your question in my humble opinion

You didn’t ruin my Christmas, because I don’t agree with what you’re saying and I think there are a lot of people out there who also don’t agree.

Everyone is talking about we should have another dragon, because dragons are cool. I’m not one of that audience. After Skyrim and Rift and a few other games, I’m all dragoned out. I don’t need a big scary boss, and frankly, the dragons are just evil because they’re evil. I don’t think they’re particularly more interesting enemies than Scarlet.

On the other hand, I don’t ever really recall playing an MMO where I could take the end boss seriously.

People bring up Guild Wars 1 all the time. The Lich was a joke. Shiro could be soloed in 2 minutes by anyone using a specific build. Abaddon was a completely silly fight.

The mission I remember more fondly in Nightfall is the one before the last mission, which was longer and more challenging.

But I’ve never had an end boss in an MMO that I thought was deep or scared me. The whole point of enemies is to throw challenges at you so you can overcome them. That’s pretty much it.

So while I don’t love Scarlet as a villain that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the Aetherblade Dungeon, the Molten Facility and the new path of TA.

Ath.2531:

Its non immersive, recycleable, non repeatable content that most won’t remember a week after its gone. No exciting long term goals apart from a legendaries which are an endless grind (been there done that) and a gear grind which is a slap in the face from what the game was advertised as before release.

Hit the nail on the head, buddy.

It’s just plain poorly-executed. Even with the current scheme – go to a zone, slay some re-skinned baddies – the content could be fun if it had a better theme and a better execution of underlying gameplay.

There’s also that “Dragons destroying a big-huge world we spent years making? Pah! Booooring! Let’s do something else” factor, of course.

If the loot system didn’t reward everyone, people would naturally break away from zerging. Take champions for example. What if only the top 10 contributors were rewarded with a box, rather than the 50 or so people in the train. It wouldn’t be a train anymore, it’d be ~13 people camping each champion while the remaining people either move on to another zone or something else, or cry about how the other people are being unfair.

They could also force people to go to new zones. Take ascended crafting for example. What if instead of requiring iron, platinum, etc, a new account bound material was added to gathering nodes, which was only obtainable at level 80. This would force players into running around to gather their own materials. They could basically do the same thing with events, where say a level 1~20 event would give a tier 1 token, a level 21~35 would give a tier 2 token and so on. Those tokens could then be used for something.

Without forcing people, the mid range zones will always be dead. If they force people however, they’ll complain.

What reason do they have to be there? Once I complete the map for Timberline Hills, why should I stay there? There’s only so many people on a server.

Phy.2913:

What reason do they have to be there? Once I complete the map for Timberline Hills, why should I stay there? There’s only so many people on a server.

Then you missed the point of what Guild Wars 2 was meant to be. It was hardly meant to be “go find all of the POIs, waypoints, vistas, etc”. Im pretty sure the developers wanted us to get more out of their lush zones than that.

cesmode.4257:

Phy.2913:

What reason do they have to be there? Once I complete the map for Timberline Hills, why should I stay there? There’s only so many people on a server.

Then you missed the point of what Guild Wars 2 was meant to be. It was hardly meant to be “go find all of the POIs, waypoints, vistas, etc”. Im pretty sure the developers wanted us to get more out of their lush zones than that.

I’m not missing the point, the point just isn’t well executed, and yet you guys want more zones to ignore? Why?

Phy.2913:

cesmode.4257:

Phy.2913:

What reason do they have to be there? Once I complete the map for Timberline Hills, why should I stay there? There’s only so many people on a server.

Then you missed the point of what Guild Wars 2 was meant to be. It was hardly meant to be “go find all of the POIs, waypoints, vistas, etc”. Im pretty sure the developers wanted us to get more out of their lush zones than that.

I’m not missing the point, the point just isn’t well executed, and yet you guys want more zones to ignore? Why?

You phrased this so much better than I have in the past.

Everyone wants new zones, that will become old in a couple of months, taken for granted, and no one will care about them.

You can’t endlessly feed the need for this. It’s not realistic.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Maybe if there was something like Nicholas the Traveler, and he needed 5 or 10 different trophies found only in 5 or 10 disparate zones, and he gave some sought-after items, or a good chance for said items, people would spread out each week to the zones to gather these trophies.

It’s things like this that make me wonder if there is any of the original team left over in Anet because so many of the problems in GW2 were solved long ago in GW1. It’s like they forgot the games even existed at all sometimes.

I actually expected a new Nick character with all the trash “trophy” items that pollute the loot tables in the game. Imagine if there was a use for ‘Spike’ other than collecting them for lol’s or just mashing ‘sell trophy’ whenever visiting a merch.

Substance E.4852:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Maybe if there was something like Nicholas the Traveler, and he needed 5 or 10 different trophies found only in 5 or 10 disparate zones, and he gave some sought-after items, or a good chance for said items, people would spread out each week to the zones to gather these trophies.

It’s things like this that make me wonder if there is any of the original team left over in Anet because so many of the problems in GW2 were solved long ago in GW1. It’s like they forgot the games even existed at all sometimes.

I actually expected a new Nick character with all the trash “trophy” items that pollute the loot tables in the game. Imagine if there was a use for ‘Spike’ other than collecting them for lol’s or just mashing ‘sell trophy’ whenever visiting a merch.

But people didn’t spread out. When Nicolas was looking for stuff, people found the most effective farm and for an entire week, that’s the zone everyone was in. Nicolas filled the roll, to some degree of the Living Story with one difference.

Many people just bought what they needed and left and didn’t stay in the zone at all. And then they were gone.

And because of heroes, no one cared whether or not they didn’t have people to play with…or at least many people didn’t.

Vayne.8563:

Phy.2913:

cesmode.4257:

Phy.2913:

What reason do they have to be there? Once I complete the map for Timberline Hills, why should I stay there? There’s only so many people on a server.

Then you missed the point of what Guild Wars 2 was meant to be. It was hardly meant to be “go find all of the POIs, waypoints, vistas, etc”. Im pretty sure the developers wanted us to get more out of their lush zones than that.

I’m not missing the point, the point just isn’t well executed, and yet you guys want more zones to ignore? Why?

You phrased this so much better than I have in the past.

Everyone wants new zones, that will become old in a couple of months, taken for granted, and no one will care about them.

You can’t endlessly feed the need for this. It’s not realistic.

If arenanet took away the incentive to zerg around in little LS events and in one or two zones, and placed those incentives all across tyria in any zone, then maybe the zones won’t be ‘old’.

Yes I want new zones. I want heart events in new zones with new dynamic events.

Vayne.8563:

Substance E.4852:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Maybe if there was something like Nicholas the Traveler, and he needed 5 or 10 different trophies found only in 5 or 10 disparate zones, and he gave some sought-after items, or a good chance for said items, people would spread out each week to the zones to gather these trophies.

It’s things like this that make me wonder if there is any of the original team left over in Anet because so many of the problems in GW2 were solved long ago in GW1. It’s like they forgot the games even existed at all sometimes.

I actually expected a new Nick character with all the trash “trophy” items that pollute the loot tables in the game. Imagine if there was a use for ‘Spike’ other than collecting them for lol’s or just mashing ‘sell trophy’ whenever visiting a merch.

But people didn’t spread out. When Nicolas was looking for stuff, people found the most effective farm and for an entire week, that’s the zone everyone was in. Nicolas filled the roll, to some degree of the Living Story with one difference.

Many people just bought what they needed and left and didn’t stay in the zone at all. And then they were gone.

And because of heroes, no one cared whether or not they didn’t have people to play with…or at least many people didn’t.

I don’t really see how this is different than what we have. No one is killing the offshoots anymore because A. They released a new zone and B. Everyone already got their achievement for doing it.

Nothing about the current LS is new or fresh. It’s the same enemies that have been in the game since launch with a new glow effect and even the Hybrid boss can be solo’ed easily with a little kiting.

Would simply adding new zones without overhauling how they deliver content make any difference? Probably not, but neither is simply plopping new mobs into old areas and giving us a grocery list of achievements to complete that is mostly just “Kill/Do X of Y” ~14 times.

It worked with the Molten Alliance but they can only play the same tune for so long.

Vayne.8563:

Substance E.4852:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Maybe if there was something like Nicholas the Traveler, and he needed 5 or 10 different trophies found only in 5 or 10 disparate zones, and he gave some sought-after items, or a good chance for said items, people would spread out each week to the zones to gather these trophies.

It’s things like this that make me wonder if there is any of the original team left over in Anet because so many of the problems in GW2 were solved long ago in GW1. It’s like they forgot the games even existed at all sometimes.

I actually expected a new Nick character with all the trash “trophy” items that pollute the loot tables in the game. Imagine if there was a use for ‘Spike’ other than collecting them for lol’s or just mashing ‘sell trophy’ whenever visiting a merch.

But people didn’t spread out. When Nicolas was looking for stuff, people found the most effective farm and for an entire week, that’s the zone everyone was in. Nicolas filled the roll, to some degree of the Living Story with one difference.

Many people just bought what they needed and left and didn’t stay in the zone at all. And then they were gone.

And because of heroes, no one cared whether or not they didn’t have people to play with…or at least many people didn’t.

Most trophies aren’t tradeable, for one…and I suggested 5 or 10 different trophies in 5 or 10 disparate zones. Encouraging people to visit all 5 or 7 or 10 zones. Not everyone would do them in the same order, so hopefully people would spread across the zones looking for said trophies. I am not sure trophies already in-game would be used, or special trophies would need to be added to loot drops specific to a certain, say, 3 or so zones. But if what Nick offered was desirable, maybe people would wander around the different zones collecting things. And possibly, do some events, etc. while they were there. It’s just a thought. =)

cesmode.4257:

Vayne.8563:

Phy.2913:

cesmode.4257:

Phy.2913:

What reason do they have to be there? Once I complete the map for Timberline Hills, why should I stay there? There’s only so many people on a server.

Then you missed the point of what Guild Wars 2 was meant to be. It was hardly meant to be “go find all of the POIs, waypoints, vistas, etc”. Im pretty sure the developers wanted us to get more out of their lush zones than that.

I’m not missing the point, the point just isn’t well executed, and yet you guys want more zones to ignore? Why?

You phrased this so much better than I have in the past.

Everyone wants new zones, that will become old in a couple of months, taken for granted, and no one will care about them.

You can’t endlessly feed the need for this. It’s not realistic.

If arenanet took away the incentive to zerg around in little LS events and in one or two zones, and placed those incentives all across tyria in any zone, then maybe the zones won’t be ‘old’.

Yes I want new zones. I want heart events in new zones with new dynamic events.

If Anet increased all rewards so all rewards would be equal, people would spread out everyone and maybe, just maybe, at primetime you might see some people, but I’d question even that.

You don’t seem to get the idea that I don’t believe there are enough people to populate dungeons, WvW, 25 zones, personal story and minigames. If everyone could go anywhere with no direction, we’d see a whole lot less people.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Vayne.8563:

Substance E.4852:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Maybe if there was something like Nicholas the Traveler, and he needed 5 or 10 different trophies found only in 5 or 10 disparate zones, and he gave some sought-after items, or a good chance for said items, people would spread out each week to the zones to gather these trophies.

It’s things like this that make me wonder if there is any of the original team left over in Anet because so many of the problems in GW2 were solved long ago in GW1. It’s like they forgot the games even existed at all sometimes.

I actually expected a new Nick character with all the trash “trophy” items that pollute the loot tables in the game. Imagine if there was a use for ‘Spike’ other than collecting them for lol’s or just mashing ‘sell trophy’ whenever visiting a merch.

But people didn’t spread out. When Nicolas was looking for stuff, people found the most effective farm and for an entire week, that’s the zone everyone was in. Nicolas filled the roll, to some degree of the Living Story with one difference.

Many people just bought what they needed and left and didn’t stay in the zone at all. And then they were gone.

And because of heroes, no one cared whether or not they didn’t have people to play with…or at least many people didn’t.

Most trophies aren’t tradeable, for one…and I suggested 5 or 10 different trophies in 5 or 10 disparate zones. Encouraging people to visit all 5 or 7 or 10 zones. Not everyone would do them in the same order, so hopefully people would spread across the zones looking for said trophies. I am not sure trophies already in-game would be used, or special trophies would need to be added to loot drops specific to a certain, say, 3 or so zones. But if what Nick offered was desirable, maybe people would wander around the different zones collecting things. And possibly, do some events, etc. while they were there. It’s just a thought. =)

For how long? If you don’t make those drops sellable, then people will have to grind it. If you make it too grindy, people will complain. If you don’t make it grindy enough, everyone will finish it in one day and the zone will be empty again.

What you’re suggesting is pretty much what the living story is doing already.

If you say so…it was just a thought. =)

you know, they have the technology to make the players 24 NA servers / 27 EU servers go into the same overflow.

i.e. all players from 24 NA servers enter the same empty map.
i.e. all players from 27 EU servers enter the same empty map.

do that for the empty zones. (maps)

Vayne.8563:

I know we’ve had the conversation before, but I’ll answer this question again.

There aren’t enough people to populate every single zone on every single server. It can’t happen.

There are X number of servers. There are 25 zones. There are dungeons, SPvP, personal story instances, minigames and WvW. When you divide the current playerbase per server at any given time, you won’t find enough people on each map unless Anet directs traffic.

You might not like that answer, but that doesn’t make what I’m saying false.

The bigger the game world, the harder it is to get people together in one area.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

you know, they have the technology to make the players 24 NA servers / 27 EU servers go into the same overflow.

i.e. all players from 24 NA servers enter the same empty map.
i.e. all players from 27 EU servers enter the same empty map.

do that for the empty zones. (maps)

Vayne.8563:

I know we’ve had the conversation before, but I’ll answer this question again.

There aren’t enough people to populate every single zone on every single server. It can’t happen.

There are X number of servers. There are 25 zones. There are dungeons, SPvP, personal story instances, minigames and WvW. When you divide the current playerbase per server at any given time, you won’t find enough people on each map unless Anet directs traffic.

You might not like that answer, but that doesn’t make what I’m saying false.

The bigger the game world, the harder it is to get people together in one area.

Yep, they have that technology. But overflows don’t spawn until the main server is full. What they’d have to do is block of main servers and only have overflows…which isn’t how the game is now structured.

They probably should do that. There should be nothing but overflows in the open world…but then there’s no feeling of belonging to a server, which I definitely now have.

For example, during the Scarlet invasions, we would have the same commanders and same people on the maps over and over again. It made those maps a much better experience than what goes on in overflow.

By the same token, it would have beekittenllion times harder with random people joining random overflows to kill Tequatl, which happens first on Blackgate and then on Tarnished Coast.

I’m not so sure I’d be quickly willing to give up on my server.

And what about the RP community, who randomly can find open RP on TC. What happens to them.

Without getting rid of servers altogether, this suggestion isn’t practical.

in the past, i have seen people mention an “underflow” instance.
let people have options when they enter zones.

sense of belonging for home server still can be preserved.

under options F11
let there be check boxes for

Overflow Priority
- Home Server
- Underflow
- Ask me every time
this option would default to “home server” though.

having “underflow” ticked means my characters would enter the underflow when i enter each map.

having “ask me every time” means i get a pop up window asking me “home server” or “underflow” each time i enter a new zone.

your turn.

Vayne.8563:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

you know, they have the technology to make the players 24 NA servers / 27 EU servers go into the same overflow.

i.e. all players from 24 NA servers enter the same empty map.
i.e. all players from 27 EU servers enter the same empty map.

do that for the empty zones. (maps)

Vayne.8563:

I know we’ve had the conversation before, but I’ll answer this question again.

There aren’t enough people to populate every single zone on every single server. It can’t happen.

There are X number of servers. There are 25 zones. There are dungeons, SPvP, personal story instances, minigames and WvW. When you divide the current playerbase per server at any given time, you won’t find enough people on each map unless Anet directs traffic.

You might not like that answer, but that doesn’t make what I’m saying false.

The bigger the game world, the harder it is to get people together in one area.

Yep, they have that technology. But overflows don’t spawn until the main server is full. What they’d have to do is block of main servers and only have overflows…which isn’t how the game is now structured.

They probably should do that. There should be nothing but overflows in the open world…but then there’s no feeling of belonging to a server, which I definitely now have.

For example, during the Scarlet invasions, we would have the same commanders and same people on the maps over and over again. It made those maps a much better experience than what goes on in overflow.

By the same token, it would have beekittenllion times harder with random people joining random overflows to kill Tequatl, which happens first on Blackgate and then on Tarnished Coast.

I’m not so sure I’d be quickly willing to give up on my server.

And what about the RP community, who randomly can find open RP on TC. What happens to them.

Without getting rid of servers altogether, this suggestion isn’t practical.

Deimos,

I’m not against this in principle at all…I just don’t want to lose my server in the process. By all means if they can keep TC, which I love as a home server, and still give people the advantage of say low pop servers all ending up on an underflow, that would be great.

I don’t know how much work would be required to make that happen. What I don’t want to see is my server going away.

Vayne.8563:

Deimos,

I’m not against this in principle at all…I just don’t want to lose my server in the process. By all means if they can keep TC, which I love as a home server, and still give people the advantage of say low pop servers all ending up on an underflow, that would be great.

I don’t know how much work would be required to make that happen. What I don’t want to see is my server going away.

aye, same here, i would not want to lose my home server too.
this way, guesting would still have a purpose since people can visit the PvE instance of other home worlds.
but people who wants to visit an “underflow” instance would have that option.

hmmm i dunno either.
hopefully they would implement something like this in the future.
then those empty zones might have more players in them.

We don’t know. No one has any idea why the develop this Living World no one asked for instead of developing the story they started with (dragons etc.). It makes no sense. It’s like Christopher Nolan started with Batman Begins and then never went on with the story, instead he made 30min episodes with Joker and Harley Quinn dancing in a field of flowers where butterflies and honey bees fly to the stars hand in hand.

ProtoGunner.4953:

We don’t know. No one has any idea why the develop this Living World no one asked for instead of developing the story they started with (dragons etc.). It makes no sense. It’s like Christopher Nolan started with Batman Begins and then never went on with the story, instead he made 30min episodes with Joker and Harley Quinn dancing in a field of flowers where butterflies and honey bees fly to the stars hand in hand.

Sorry but it’s nothing like that at all. Anet has said from the beginning they were going to make a Living Breathing world. They tried doing it with dynamic events and it didn’t work, but the goal never changed. They have always set this as the bar.

Fighting dragons was a backdrop against which the tale of Tyria would be told, but I never believed there would never be other stories besides dragons.

ProtoGunner.4953:

We don’t know. No one has any idea why the develop this Living World no one asked for instead of developing the story they started with (dragons etc.). It makes no sense. It’s like Christopher Nolan started with Batman Begins and then never went on with the story, instead he made 30min episodes with Joker and Harley Quinn dancing in a field of flowers where butterflies and honey bees fly to the stars hand in hand.

Rather ironic that you would use Nolans Batman as an example seeing as Batman Begins have very little to do with The Dark Knight…..

Also what makes you so sure that they aren’t developing the story with Dragons?
For all we know Scarlet is somehow tied to the overall story of the Dragons (such as working against them or something like that).

Because it is the easy way. 1 minidungeon, quest-like achievements, a back item or so as a reward – content. Tied some cash shop stuff to the “main story” and you get little dev effort plus some cash flow.

Funset.7893:

Because it is the easy way. 1 minidungeon, quest-like achievements, a back item or so as a reward – content. Tied some cash shop stuff to the “main story” and you get little dev effort plus some cash flow.

If you think little dev effort goes into creating something like the Tower or the Tequatl battle, or the new path of Twilight Arbor, I’m not sure what to tell you.

Vayne.8563:

cesmode.4257:

Vayne.8563:

Phy.2913:

cesmode.4257:

Phy.2913:

What reason do they have to be there? Once I complete the map for Timberline Hills, why should I stay there? There’s only so many people on a server.

Then you missed the point of what Guild Wars 2 was meant to be. It was hardly meant to be “go find all of the POIs, waypoints, vistas, etc”. Im pretty sure the developers wanted us to get more out of their lush zones than that.

I’m not missing the point, the point just isn’t well executed, and yet you guys want more zones to ignore? Why?

You phrased this so much better than I have in the past.

Everyone wants new zones, that will become old in a couple of months, taken for granted, and no one will care about them.

You can’t endlessly feed the need for this. It’s not realistic.

If arenanet took away the incentive to zerg around in little LS events and in one or two zones, and placed those incentives all across tyria in any zone, then maybe the zones won’t be ‘old’.

Yes I want new zones. I want heart events in new zones with new dynamic events.

If Anet increased all rewards so all rewards would be equal, people would spread out everyone and maybe, just maybe, at primetime you might see some people, but I’d question even that.

You don’t seem to get the idea that I don’t believe there are enough people to populate dungeons, WvW, 25 zones, personal story and minigames. If everyone could go anywhere with no direction, we’d see a whole lot less people.

And you are entitled to your opinion. I simply disagree. I think there are more than enough people to populate many of the zones, if not all of them. Think of all of the overflows that have been created due to the various LS patches that funnel you into one zone, for instance during the invasions, or queen’s jub, or now into Kessex. Think of the amount of people running around the Queensdale Zerg or the Frostgorge Zerg. Spread those guys out along with everyone forced into overflow from the LS patches, and I think you’ll have people running around each zone. You may not see as many people as you would in Queensdale at the moment, but you would see more people outside of queensdale than you would at the current moment.

Let’s see, Tequatl was wasted effort, he is dead, even for a undead. Most of the tower will probably be gone in a few weeks and TA Aetherpath has as many fans as players that like Scarlet as a villain.

All that effort, wasted. Who would think that is a good excuse? We have done bad, but at least we spent a lot of time doing so!

And I know Vayne, you love it all. But some of the players are just used to more quality.

Vayne.8563:

ProtoGunner.4953:

We don’t know. No one has any idea why the develop this Living World no one asked for instead of developing the story they started with (dragons etc.). It makes no sense. It’s like Christopher Nolan started with Batman Begins and then never went on with the story, instead he made 30min episodes with Joker and Harley Quinn dancing in a field of flowers where butterflies and honey bees fly to the stars hand in hand.

Sorry but it’s nothing like that at all. Anet has said from the beginning they were going to make a Living Breathing world. They tried doing it with dynamic events and it didn’t work, but the goal never changed. They have always set this as the bar.

Fighting dragons was a backdrop against which the tale of Tyria would be told, but I never believed there would never be other stories besides dragons.

More people have asked for Dragons rather than Living Story, as quite evident in the Collab Dev thread. I personally, don’t care what the bosses or villains are. As long as they are well done. They do not even need to be large in scale.

Also, not everyone feels that the dynamic events in the world failed to make a living world. Maybe to you they do, but not everyone. If no one is playing the original DEs, thats only because Arenanet put them into the game at launch and abandoned them. No, adding a few more after launch isn’t what Im talking about either. If arenanet placed the same sorts of incentives, at least, on the original content with the game(the original DEs that came with the game in the open world) and did not focus their efforts on LS, I’d bet we would see a lot more participation.

Not everyone thinks that the original dynamic events in the open world are a failed product.

cesmode.4257:

Hi,
Curious why develop direction and the main focus has turned to living story, instead of making the world seem alive, as was the goal? If you visit any zone that is not connected to the current Living Story, you find an empty zone.

I am currently standing in Fireheart Rise, I see no one. I see events kicking off, expiring, failing, dead friendly NPCs because no one is doing any events. The world feels dead. If you are not playing in the small handful of zones…Queensdale, Kessex, Frostgorge, sometimes Orr. Thats about it.

I am curious what anyone thinks why the development direction went to living story, instead of giving us a real reason to play the game in these zones, when the whole idea was to create a living world. I truly feel that Living Story has had the opposite effect on the game. Its sad to see such fantastic content and dynamic events go to waste.

It’s a far easier and malleable undertaking than adjusting the near entirety of the game world. They could absolutely put effort into making the current map of Tyria strongly dynamic, immensely replayable, and as close to “living” as you could get in a game. But the time and effort it would take to do so would be astronomical, moreso when they’re relying on continued microtransactions as the lifeblood to the game.

Hence the current form of the “Living World”: Getting the players in centralized areas and rewarding their continued play with progress bars.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Let’s see, Tequatl was wasted effort, he is dead, even for a undead. Most of the tower will probably be gone in a few weeks and TA Aetherpath has as many fans as players that like Scarlet as a villain.

All that effort, wasted. Who would think that is a good excuse? We have done bad, but at least we spent a lot of time doing so!

And I know Vayne, you love it all. But some of the players are just used to more quality.

Could be a wasted effort. To me all PvP, WvW and dungeons are wasted effort. Who is right?

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Let’s see, Tequatl was wasted effort, he is dead, even for a undead. Most of the tower will probably be gone in a few weeks and TA Aetherpath has as many fans as players that like Scarlet as a villain.

All that effort, wasted. Who would think that is a good excuse? We have done bad, but at least we spent a lot of time doing so!

And I know Vayne, you love it all. But some of the players are just used to more quality.

There were a lot of problems with those updates but I disagree with your argument. Not many people doing the content does not equate to effort wasted.

Raids in most games have very few players doing them, I think the stats for WoW TBC was 5%. Does that mean the effort used to produce them are wasted? Of course not. TA Aetherpath is (although with huge reward problems) harder than almost any other dungeon path in the game, so inherently you’ll have few people doing it because not everyone can clear it, even if they buffer the rewards.

If you want huge participation rates in all your content, you’re going to basically end up with everything being AC3 and zerg trains…. which is what the LS is all about at the moment.

I am aware of this Living World stuff, but we all thought they would either drive the story into the direction of a new dragon, maybe a bit faster. I hightly doubt, we will fight all the dragons. Before this happens the game will run out of players :-)

And bout the Nolan Batman Trilogy; of course they are all connected. I admit that Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises are more connected but still it is a trilogy. And don’t get me wrong, I was a bit provocative. But as you can see the community wants progression and I want to point out they never asked for this Living Story/World stuff. That was solely the idea of Anet trying something new. I remember when I first read about this and that we may never get an expansion. For me this was kind of a let-down.

I am afraid that updates without expansions won’t have the impact an actual expansion would have. Maybe I am wrong, they can prove and I still hope we will get finally an interesting and intriguing story. There is still Palawa Joko, the Crystal Desert, Cantha, Elona, Ring of Fire 5 remaining dragons etc. etc. I think the community is a bit worried why they give us more or less shallow content instead of an actual interesting story like it was in GW1. I am aware that they ‘tried’ now for a year but if they will continue with this I can’t see playing this game often anymore.

It is the old “it is bad in other games so it is OK to be bad in this game too”.

Zerg™ is the new bad, that GW2 sees at its own thing.

So we have a bad raid, for a hand full of people of all servers combined, a dungeon path that is not rewarding and as frequented as a butcher in a vegan community and the Zerg™, that is as braindead as Scarlet’s plans (does she have a plan at all or is she a bad copy of the Joker).

All together is for some reason acceptable? I think every single aspect is a crime in regards of game design. By the powers combined, it is just terribad.