Guild Wars 2

http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=32955&storypage=1

So they’re still focusing on adding content to the existing world instead of adding new zones (which is a pitty in my opinion but I can see why) and apparently they are going to expand the use of free trials somehow. Also I thought this was interesting:

“At the beginning we steered away from things that would affect the personal story because we wanted to keep this clean and simple. There is no way it should be the case now that anything which is touched upon in the personal story isn’t fodder for the Living World as that would go against what we want to avoid in Guild Wars 2, which is the world being too solidified that it can never change. So we are going to start changing that stuff.”

cesmode.4257:

1.“…look at clockwork chaos as an example, players are banding together.” — If you consider mindless zerging “banding together”.

Players are indeed banding together but for all the wrong reasons, loot, experience and drops instead of helping save the zones that are under attack.

2."We really want to make their actions have a persistent mark on the world, let players leave their mark on the world and let them direct where the world goes through the living story. " — What permanent mark have MY actions made on the world of Tyria through Living Story? I’ve completed all of the achievements I’ve been given, and things happen in a scripted sequence of events. How have my actions or the combined actions of the players shaped the world aside from the election? I hope he is referring to the future.

I guess he is referring to the election. We haven’t made any other choices as a playerbase.

3.“…Flame and Frost updates that we were treading gently in how much content we released and how world impacting it was.”. — What impact? I can log in right now and see no remnants of Flame and Frost other than the two NPCs Braham and Roxx.

There are 2 new mini-zones, the Hatchery and Cragstead, they have lots of npcs there, some of those you helped during F&F (getting their items), there is of course Braham and Rox (and Frostbite of course) who are making an appearance in other LS releases, and I don’t think they’ll stop coming and of course the rather big changes in Southsun Cove (they were a result of F&F as well). Also Molten Alliance members are being used in the Scarlet Invasions too

I think he was trying to say that they started very slowly and with minimal world impact, and slowly the LS will have more and more impact on the world.

Sadly, the releases AFTER F&F had an even lesser impact on the world… While I was able to post a paragraph with F&F “impacts”, I can hardly think of anything from the next releases, other than the Aetherblades appearing in Invasions, the Aetherblade Jumping Puzzle and the fact that Kiel won the voting.

maddoctor.2738:

Sadly, the releases AFTER F&F had an even lesser impact on the world… While I was able to post a paragraph with F&F “impacts”, I can hardly think of anything from the next releases, other than the Aetherblades appearing in Invasions, the Aetherblade Jumping Puzzle and the fact that Kiel won the voting.

Karka queen meta event. Invasions will be permanent aswell (just less frequent). Small things like the mini games and activity npc’s. Theres lots of minor things that people overlook because they are overshadowed by the Living story stuff.

Yes it could be better and sometimes i feel forced to play just to get achievements done (im a completionist). But overall im happy with the constant updates. I wouldnt mind them doing Living story stuff at a much slower rate (once a month). But they should keep the updates rolling out a bit more often with permanent and quality of life features.

I agree about how impressive it is to have the content updates every 2 weeks.

Is any other software developer doing this? Errrm no.

Also, when you look at them, they are pretty big, each update.

So it is IMPRESSIVE, even through each individual player may not like parts of it.

BondageBill.4021:

Hmm, two paragraphs discussing how vertical progression is not “good for the game,” immediately following the announcement of additional vertical progression via ascended weapons that are only available via crafting or rare drops.

I think the player base would really like some consistency and clarity around the future of vertical progression in GW

Well we have known about ascended for quite some time now, anyone who thought that would stop at trinkets/accessories were fooling themselves.

Also, I remember a dev saying ascended was the final tier and the mistake they made was not having it at launch, as it bridges the gap between exotic and legendary.

Parlourbeatflex.5970:

Also, I remember a dev saying ascended was the final tier and the mistake they made was not having it at launch, as it bridges the gap between exotic and legendary.

Source? My recollection was that the dev said they have no plans to go beyond ascended at this time, but that he also could not rule out further gear tiers in the future. Additionally, Anet is often quoted as stating that they do not want to introduce new gear tiers every 3 to 6 months, instead of taking a hard line stance against future gear tiers. Even this article continues to use vague terminology.

Regarding the living story releases, I have mostly enjoyed the current release schedule and content. I agree it is an impressive feat for Anet and GW2

Uh…

Interview

We even have the inverse motivation against having that continual gear grind as it would separate players so they wouldn’t be able to do these things together. If there is a dragon attacking in the open world, with a vertical progression would it end up being too easy for some people and too hard for others?
Our big focus then is to give people more horizontal progression, different things to accomplish and rewards from accomplishing those things. So when we think about the kind of things we can do to update Guild Wars 2, the more traditional way would be to lay out more runway for players. You would have players at a certain level and tier of loot and you see that players are running out of things to do so you lay out more runway: more gear progression, more raids, more grind. This works for some games and for some players, but I think that players are starting to mature past the point of wanting to be on that treadmill, of being in that obvious pattern of every time I catch up you are going to put another carrot in front of me.

Ok, that’s simply not true. Even the slow pace they have been using to introduce Acended gear is exactly what he’s describing in this last line: another carrot put in front of players when they have reached the previous one (the previously-introduced Ascended stuff).

This is proof they honestly cannot see the flaws in their game, they think everything they’ve done is perfect, it disgusts me.

Don’t get me wrong, Anet has been making some good progress (albiet VERY slowly), but if they didn’t have their head "(seemingly) up their booties and were just humble about their product and vocal with the community the game would be x10 better.

It just doesn’t feel like they’re passionate about the game at all, only the artists seem passionate, I wish I was wrong, but this is how it feels to me………….. =[

I can understand what you mean Knote…
When I see what they did with the game over the course of that 1 year I just think about all the things, that are currently all still missing and should have been in the game from day 1 on …

Polymok…Bar Brawls, the Shooting Minigame.. Housing just to name a few things ..
they implement the achievement for Bar Brawls first and then REMOVE them again without implementign the minigame ..

Thats the point where you start to think abou,t that Anet seems to be messed up totally with their own PRIORITIES and that they seem to work on things as it looks absolutely chaotically instead on working on things in a clear order and getting things done once they start on working something or announce something …

Really, what in devils name takes so darn long to implement finally polymok, bar brawl and the other announced minigames which should have been in the game from begin on???

Why did they put those things on ice, instead of working on these things instantly first after the release of the game, , no instead of that they wasted alot of time with other things instead of working on things first, which got already announced alot earlier …

Living story isn’t that great, only Anet banboi drones who plays their first mmo keep praising them and making them continue. Sure new content every 2 week is great, but only great if its good, the quality of the living story is really kitten, its badly written, badly done, its barely 1 hour long content total and all we do is finish the ’’chores’’(achievements) and its mostly repetitive. Its like watching a new tv show every frikken week instead of showing us the continuation of the previous weeks episode.

They told us we would soon know how all the previous living story content were tied and relevent to each other and we should look forward to it. They hyped it so much and made us expect something great and all we got was a Mary sue character with a super boring background and lines it was so emberassing I had to turn of the game sound.. She supposedly made everything happend and how did we deal with it? We became the sidekick for Roxx and Braham who didnt even remember us. We were brushed to the side like trash. Only people who complain about living story are the veteran mmo gamers who’s seen better and played better and when they speak their mind they dont do it because they want anet to fail, they want their game to be what they were promised and their opinions are being ignored mostly and Anet-babies getting what they want.

And now expansions who usealy comes with great quality AND quantity with relevent story lines and content going to be replaced by bad quality living story? And its gonna be released once every 2 weeks? I dont want Elona to be released bit by bit. I rather wait 1 whole year and not get any new content but get a great frikken massive expansion once a year over living story. And your arguments about living story being free content its stupid. I rather pay and get quality then get free bad quality.

Charak.9761:

They went for quantity instead of quality. Nothing has changed in the world, all updates are removed after 2 weeks. If you’re a ‘normal’ gamer, you can complete these LS updates in the first day and twiddle your thumbs for 13 days waiting for the next update because guess what, thew content is so lacking its mind-numbing. So they had to put some constraints, so the last couple LS takes 2-3 days.

They’re boasting LS so much but they never accept the fact that they aren’t that great. Yeah it’s exciting to get an update every 2 weeks, but when you get them you just kind go:

with every update (and decision) they want to generate as much buzz as possible to generate more cash. this 2 week system is designed to get players to buy gems and as a gold sink so players eventually buy more gems for the next “sale” and update.

I understand making money is part of business but they are transparently trying to grab cash while offering little in return. it’s pretty awful when a “mmo” developer invests more effort into feeding player addiction and making temporary junk content while there are gaping holes where essentials should be. my gosh it has been a year and players still can’t move the user interface or zoom the camera out farther so they do get seizures with all the particle effects blowing up the screen. the core of professions are still terrible because they want gearing up to be the customization factor and the long list goes on…

essentially they are not giving back nearly what they are asking for in many ways. sure it’s nice to have good art and graphics, ability to move while attacking and shared gathering nodes, but this game is ultimately not designed for the players, it’s purposefully designed to get cash and produce less for more. bad business catches up though so we will see what the future holds.

Swagger.1459:

but this game is ultimately not designed for the players, it’s purposefully designed to get cash and produce less for more. bad business catches up though so we will see what the future holds.

You just described every MMO ever.

spoj.9672:

maddoctor.2738:

Sadly, the releases AFTER F&F had an even lesser impact on the world… While I was able to post a paragraph with F&F “impacts”, I can hardly think of anything from the next releases, other than the Aetherblades appearing in Invasions, the Aetherblade Jumping Puzzle and the fact that Kiel won the voting.

Karka queen meta event. Invasions will be permanent aswell (just less frequent). Small things like the mini games and activity npc’s. Theres lots of minor things that people overlook because they are overshadowed by the Living story stuff.

Yes it could be better and sometimes i feel forced to play just to get achievements done (im a completionist). But overall im happy with the constant updates. I wouldnt mind them doing Living story stuff at a much slower rate (once a month). But they should keep the updates rolling out a bit more often with permanent and quality of life features.

It is already once a month. They just split each update in two. All the updates have come as pairs so far.

Very disappointing. I don’t care about the two-weekly Living “Story” updates as it’s practically a grindfest with no story at all.
Seems like I need to continue “watching” the game rather than “playing” it, because most of the living story is no “real” content.
At this pace we will never be able to discover whole Tyria or even Elona or Cantha….sad thing.

Flame & Frost: Yes
Dragonbash part with ‘Marjolin’ of wathever her name was: Yes
All other Living story: A big fail. Neither worth expansion, or worthy story. And since it’s temporary it’s a hell of a lot worse then an expansion pack wich is forever. And includes nice new maps.

I know talking bad about your own business, will rarely happen, but that guy must be the most extreme example i’ve seen of overconfidance. Condidance ain’t bad, i know certain people that could use some more, but having to much of it isn’t good either. I hope this overconfidance in particular doesn’t kill the game.

This ain’t a flame. It’s a fact he’s overconfidant, and i’m entitled to my opinion that disagree’s with it.

Milennin.4825:

Swagger.1459:

but this game is ultimately not designed for the players, it’s purposefully designed to get cash and produce less for more. bad business catches up though so we will see what the future holds.

You just described every MMO ever.

Yes but devs of other game at least try to immerse their players. Mike O’Brian tells us

Mike O’Brian:
I think where it really feels right is when you are just fighting for the world and you don’t even think about the fact of whether this was always in the game or if this was an event that was added in recently. You don’t think about the mechanics of how all this is happening; there is just something going on in the world and I’m going to fight for my world.

You don’t think about the mechanics… well, Mr. O’Brian you are right. You are right, that nobody is thinking any longer, all they – us – do is react to achievement goals and sheer loot value. The link to the story of the world, the link to the very heart of the game has long been lost, short after the beginning of the living story. Nothing we do is fighting for the world, all we do is work for gold and achievement points. If you really believe, anyone would think for a mere second, Scarlet could be a threat for the world, you should step back an take a long vacation. If you really believe this, you have lost your touch to the game and your customers.

We play in a world where everything told us from the very beginning, we have no hope to survive. All we can do is struggle to face unbelievable mighty dragons. Dragons that disfigure the very landmass, races, that even rise landmasses from the deep. Then you rain some bandits from the sky, tell near to no story, give us a normal plant creature which has been slain at least once by every participating player character in the game and expect us to feel fighting for the world when one of the living story’s zerg events hit the game?

No, Sir! You are utterly wrong. And this is a shame, since Guild Wars2 has been a great game one year ago and could develop still if you wake up from your “we can do it faster than everybody else” trip. Nobody cares! All we care for is quality, not quantity.

If they had really wanted a dynamic game in which players could make an impact upon the game world, then they should have made a sandbox/hybrid.

I don’t understand why people complain so much. I truly think what this company is doing is absolutely fantastic. I can definitely say if they were not coming out with so much content I would not be logging on as much as I do. (Do I think every single part of this game is crazy amazing? No. But it’s definitely the best MMO I’ve ever played).

The best part is its FREE!

If anyone lives in Canada, I’m sure you’ve seen that commercial where Scotiabank pays for everyones movie/popcorn one night. If this happened to the people complaining on this fourm I feel like after they watched the movie, they would come out and demand a refund because THEY didn’t PERSONALLY like the movie.

Does that not sound absolutely ridiculous? Because it’s pretty much what this thread is about.

Keep doing what you are ANET. It’s turning out to be the best MMO I’ve been a part of. The amount of dedication your employees have towards this product is outstanding. Keep it up

Well this is great, you know I bought the game knowing and promised there would be expansion. Not living story and opening the rest of the continent by small parts. There is not a single positive thing I can think of doing it that way.

If we’re never getting expansions we better sure as hell have it introduced in small intervals, the usual, new zones, new professions, new races, new armour. If anything will be the downfall of this game it would be the developer’s poor decision to continue implementing the living story instead of expansion content. New players shouldn’t have to suffer.

Totally agree with Nightarch
Living story just became too boring, and its just a veil for them to fix some of the broken gameplay but it haven’t been fixed much.
Look at Orr, its almost dead none almost care about that place anymore
They should focus at the game core and the original content and add additions to it not just temporary 2 weeks contents.

goldenwing.8473:

Thanks for posting the link.

The interview confirms the perspective my guild has regarding ANet:

ANET appears to be more focused on their internal processes and less on their customers’ experience.

We’d like to see ANET explain who they believe the game delights (e.g. who are your customers and what do they enjoy?)

Why do you think they care if their game delights? They’re making money hand over fist with the Gem Shop.

Do you think they don’t know clicking F 150 times to break dragon pinatas is boring game design? They do. But they know the temporarily available achievement points tied to breaking those pinatas keeps players logging in. And when they log in they’re going to see those desirable Gem Shop weapon skins available for a limited time; and enough of them are going to spend cash to on those skins (even if they’re locked behind an rng scheme) to ensure things keep going down the way they’ve been going.

I do hope they are going to focus on bigger pieces of content at a slower pace. I guess it’s nice to have something new coming out every 2 weeks, but it’s too time restricted to create anything really large… like things you’d see in an expansion. Such as: a new profession, new weapon sets for professions, a new continent consisting of 10+ zones, a story orc similar to that of the Personal Story etc. I do wonder if we’ll ever get to face any of the other dragons if they do decide not to bring out expansions…

Was that an interview or a selling advertisement?

by the way,… having some clowns ruining a spoiled queen celebration is not exactly changing the world.

September 3 the world will be the same, a little bit zerg free actually (if invasions are over).

Resume of interview:

“Living Story”.

Seriously, drop it for once.

This pretty much confirms my suspicions. ANet is more focused on metrics, numbers spinning and PR than delivering a good, innovative game. It’s funny, I enjoyed the idea of a “revolutionary MMO” more than the actual playing, and I was willing to commit many hours hoping that the game would improve down the line.

Mike’s spin on metrics is the final nail in the coffin for me. I’m the kind of person who wants to enjoy games for the variety of things they can do, not because a certain unscrupulous individual tells me that their game is popular. If this is the kind of person that’s running the show, I’m not confident that the game ANet’s running will go anywhere.

Will this game be successful as it is? There have been arguments about the game’s apparent success. I won’t disagree that the game is successful, but the success of this games is just as bad because it shows that a game can succeed due to the marketing of false promises and ideas rather than the actual game that materialized from them. The aggressive numbers spinning will certainly help.

Well, whatever works for them. I’m just one guy who’s a part of the apparent “vocal minority” that this company loves to trivialize, so it probably wouldn’t matter if I’m not a part of this MMO anymore. Enjoy your “fastest selling” facebook MMO, guys. It’ll just be a bitter memory for me.

TwoBit.5903:

This pretty much confirms my suspicions. ANet is more focused on metrics, numbers spinning and PR than delivering a good, innovative game. It’s funny, I enjoyed the idea of a “revolutionary MMO” more than the actual playing, and I was willing to commit many hours hoping that the game would improve down the line.

Mike’s spin on metrics is the final nail in the coffin for me. I’m the kind of person who wants to enjoy games for the variety of things they can do, not because a certain unscrupulous individual tells me that their game is popular. If this is the kind of person that’s running the show, I’m not confident that the game ANet’s running will go anywhere.

Will this game be successful as it is? There have been arguments about the game’s apparent success. I won’t disagree that the game is successful, but the success of this games is just as bad because it shows that a game can succeed due to the marketing of false promises and ideas rather than the actual game that materialized from them. The aggressive numbers spinning will certainly help.

Well, whatever works for them. I’m just one guy who’s a part of the apparent “vocal minority” that this company loves to trivialize, so it probably wouldn’t matter if I’m not a part of this MMO anymore. Enjoy your “fastest selling” facebook MMO, guys. It’ll just be a bitter memory for me.

Lets play some tinfoil hat: Metrics made public…. Is ANet looking for investment? are they running out of cash? is that the particular hype they have lately for the gem store? sellings dropped that much a year from release? (insert X Files music)

Meglobob.8620:

I agree about how impressive it is to have the content updates every 2 weeks.

Is any other software developer doing this? Errrm no.

Also, when you look at them, they are pretty big, each update.

So it is IMPRESSIVE, even through each individual player may not like parts of it.

What do you find impressive about it? No other software developers are doing this for a reason. It is impossible to produce quality concepts and quality code with a 2 week dev cycle. I’m a software developer and I thought the previous one month cycle was crazy. No matter how they organize their teams to emulate a longer cycle, the meta is that they have a 2 week cycle. Everything produced to date is the fruit of short-term thinking to get something out the door. It is exactly what I would expect from a crazy short dev cycle. And, it will continue on this way until they extend their development cycle. Impressed? No, I would say that I am shocked that any developer group would consider a 2 week dev cycle even viable.

Raine.1394:

Meglobob.8620:

I agree about how impressive it is to have the content updates every 2 weeks.

Is any other software developer doing this? Errrm no.

Also, when you look at them, they are pretty big, each update.

So it is IMPRESSIVE, even through each individual player may not like parts of it.

What do you find impressive about it? No other software developers are doing this for a reason. It is impossible to produce quality concepts and quality code with a 2 week dev cycle. I’m a software developer and I thought the previous one month cycle was crazy. No matter how they organize their teams to emulate a longer cycle, the meta is that they have a 2 week cycle. Everything produced to date is the fruit of short-term thinking to get something out the door. It will continue on this way until they extend their development cycle. Impressed? No, I would say that I am shocked that any developer group would consider a 2 week dev cycle even viable.

it’s actually something like 4 weeks, but i think the point is still valid. several teams overlapping each other. which creates an additional obvious constraint that these all have to be largely independent and self-contained. it’s nothing like a “living world.” more like a travelling circus.

Raine.1394:

Meglobob.8620:

I agree about how impressive it is to have the content updates every 2 weeks.

Is any other software developer doing this? Errrm no.

Also, when you look at them, they are pretty big, each update.

So it is IMPRESSIVE, even through each individual player may not like parts of it.

What do you find impressive about it? No other software developers are doing this for a reason. It is impossible to produce quality concepts and quality code with a 2 week dev cycle. I’m a software developer and I thought the previous one month cycle was crazy. No matter how they organize their teams to emulate a longer cycle, the meta is that they have a 2 week cycle. Everything produced to date is the fruit of short-term thinking to get something out the door. It will continue on this way until they extend their development cycle. Impressed? No, I would say that I am shocked that any developer group would consider a 2 week dev cycle even viable.

Are they really doing it in only two weeks though? Could they not have these 2-week content updates already done, and working on the next one/play testing them?

Copestetic.5174:

Raine.1394:

Meglobob.8620:

I agree about how impressive it is to have the content updates every 2 weeks.

Is any other software developer doing this? Errrm no.

Also, when you look at them, they are pretty big, each update.

So it is IMPRESSIVE, even through each individual player may not like parts of it.

What do you find impressive about it? No other software developers are doing this for a reason. It is impossible to produce quality concepts and quality code with a 2 week dev cycle. I’m a software developer and I thought the previous one month cycle was crazy. No matter how they organize their teams to emulate a longer cycle, the meta is that they have a 2 week cycle. Everything produced to date is the fruit of short-term thinking to get something out the door. It will continue on this way until they extend their development cycle. Impressed? No, I would say that I am shocked that any developer group would consider a 2 week dev cycle even viable.

Are they really doing it in only two weeks though? Could they not have these 2-week content updates already done, and working on the next one/play testing them?

The meta is a 2 week cycle. They have organized teams to emulate a longer cycle for each team. My point is that if you look across development you really have a two week cycle that you are planning around. And, yes, unit testing I’m sure will occur as teams develop, but testing overall, for release, will be on a two week cycle.

They have crafted this rapid delivery as a value proposition. My experience tells me that this will devalue the product. And, my experience with the product to date confirms my negative expectations.

milo.6942:

Raine.1394:

Meglobob.8620:

I agree about how impressive it is to have the content updates every 2 weeks.

Is any other software developer doing this? Errrm no.

Also, when you look at them, they are pretty big, each update.

So it is IMPRESSIVE, even through each individual player may not like parts of it.

What do you find impressive about it? No other software developers are doing this for a reason. It is impossible to produce quality concepts and quality code with a 2 week dev cycle. I’m a software developer and I thought the previous one month cycle was crazy. No matter how they organize their teams to emulate a longer cycle, the meta is that they have a 2 week cycle. Everything produced to date is the fruit of short-term thinking to get something out the door. It will continue on this way until they extend their development cycle. Impressed? No, I would say that I am shocked that any developer group would consider a 2 week dev cycle even viable.

it’s actually something like 4 weeks, but i think the point is still valid. several teams overlapping each other. which creates an additional obvious constraint that these all have to be largely independent and self-contained. it’s nothing like a “living world.” more like a travelling circus.

As of recently, it’s actually 4 months to produce one month’s worth of Living World stuff.

I believe the first living stories that have had the full 4 months of development time are the upcoming October ones. It was in an interview (I think) Colin had recently, though I can’t find it right now.

EDIT: or did you mean a 4-week worth of content to do and not the development time? Confusion, ho!

Meglobob.8620:

I agree about how impressive it is to have the content updates every 2 weeks.

Is any other software developer doing this? Errrm no.

Also, when you look at them, they are pretty big, each update.

So it is IMPRESSIVE, even through each individual player may not like parts of it.

What good is it when it’s so shallow? You should be asking for quality, not quantity.

Lol what???

The Living World and our commitment of a two week cadence is a difficult thing to live up to, so we have been gearing up to be able to do that. I think if you see some of the recent releases we have done, look at clockwork chaos as an example, players are banding together.

No you have the farmers who simply want to obtain rewards as quickly as possible. It’s basically watching addicts getting their fix. Sickening really.

I think you really do get a sense that the world is changing all the time.

No, you really don’t.

I wrote in my blog post that for me where it really comes together is where we have dynamic events that we shipped the game with

You mean those repeatable quests which you can get a gold medal based on participation and not level of success? Those repeatable quests which spawn every 10 or 20 min? Where you are doing the exact same thing over and over. The village doesn’t stay saved, that ‘story’ doesn’t progress any further (in fact it resets to be repeated), the npc’s don’t recognize you or even acknowledge your existence until you click on them. Those DE’s?

and then we have living world events going on. I think where it really feels right is when you are just fighting for the world and you don’t even think about the fact of whether this was always in the game or if this was an event that was added in recently.

You don’t have to think about it. It’s blatantly obvious what’s LS and what’s DE as they really have no connection between them. Not only do they not relate in any way, but they don’t even seem to have any impact on each other at all.

You don’t think about the mechanics of how all this is happening; there is just something going on in the world and I’m going to fight for my world.

Droves of people purposely not completing a DE just to farm the spawning mobs says otherwise.

So it’s great to see players really coming together to fight for their world.

The fact that you think it’s great to see hordes of farmers coming together and exploiting poor game mechanics to amass loot as quickly as possible is rather sad.

We really want to make their actions have a persistent mark on the world, let players leave their mark on the world and let them direct where the world goes through the living story.

Through the LS but not the DE’s? Interesting. I assume that the election was the first of such? After all, everything else was all scripted and predetermined regardless of player actions.

You saw that with our Cutthroat Politics release and we are really excited to deliver content this rapidly and keep the world alive.

We did?

The LS doesn’t not even remotely give the illusion of a living world. It’s nothing more than you guys replacing the previous chapter with the next chapter of an on going story. Comprised of shallow content which is an absolute grind for shinies and AP (farmers wet dream).

There is no mission for which the player(s)’ actions have a direct and/or immediate impact on the game world. Only that the player is involved as more of a bystander within the story as it progresses along it’s linear path.

It’s nothing more than a few weeks of static content that is replaced with a few more weeks of static content which is simply the next chapter to a one dimensional story.

You still have cave mobs re-spawning before you even finish clearing the mobs within the cave. You have the DE’s which are simply repeatable quests that have no lasting impact at all. Guard NPC’s stand post 24/7. Vendors stand there 24/7. Stand next to a NPC that talk and they will repeat the exact same thing every 5 minutes.

At no point do you hear NPC’s (other than the ones involved in the LS) talk about what is currently happening or has happened within the game world.

Where is the npc talking about how much money they won/lost on the chocobo…er…I mean Moa races in LA during the dragon bash?

Sorry but you fail at a living world. It’s just as static as all the other MMOs.

Zeldain.5710:

So it is IMPRESSIVE, even through each individual player may not like parts of it.

The amount of burgers the McD corporation produces and sells each day is also super impressive, but that doesn’t mean it has any value to the customer other than the price and the quality of the product.

Mesket.5728:

Lets play some tinfoil hat: Metrics made public…. Is ANet looking for investment? are they running out of cash? is that the particular hype they have lately for the gem store? sellings dropped that much a year from release? (insert X Files music)

It’s the game’s one year anniversary, so the spotlight’s on ANet and GW2 again. They release metrics, but with very deceptive spin to take full advantage of the publicity. The metrics they have released are still far too vague to provide a clear picture of whether or not the game is, financially, succeeding or failing.

If ANet were to be truly honest about their data, they’d be providing more specific metrics like log-ins per week, average activity per area, gem purchases per week, kitten forth.

It’s both funny and sad when you think about it. Game developers fancy their practice as both a science and an art, but when push comes to shove they either don’t know how to properly apply the scientific method to their practice(which is arguably difficult for something as complex as videogames, and if they have I haven’t seen them do it) or they selectively use metrics to push personal biases rather than to objectively measure reality. The most disgusting offenses occurs in cases like this one, where deceptive metrics are used for the sake of profit.

Mike O’Brien Why did we get rid of quests? We got rid of quests because it forced the world to not change. Every new player that comes into the game has to do the same quests in the same order. How do you try to do that and have the sense that a player’s actions can change the world? Sure my actions can change the world to a certain degree, but not in the sense of ever changing a quest or the circumstances that are causing a quest-giver to say they need your help. So we thought that the kind of content that you release into the world needs to be the opposite of that……..If you want to be able to have players impacting the world around them, not just progressing and leaving the old stuff behind, then all of your content needs to be about impacting the world."

I don’t know about this. Maybe I just don’t understand this concept of impacting the world. If it means to make some sort of difference, then I would have to say I don’t think I have done that in GW2. All the events just keep repeating, everyone is standing in the same place as before, Orr is still crawling with undead even though we defeated Zhaitan. There’s a village of Hylek that I have saved so many times from the krait, but everytime I go back it’s been taken over again.

I was also disappointed to read that they aren’t working on any expansions. I guess that means we won’t be seeing Elona or Cantha any time soon. I just don’t see the Living Story being able to deliver the sort of update an expansion brings. Sure over time in bits and pieces it adds up to a lot of content, but is that the same as what we might see in an expansion with a unified theme? I’m thinking about Eye of the North here with the addition of new races, skills, factions, lands, quests, etc but all around a central theme unfolding in the Northern Shiverpeaks and Tarnished Coast. I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Flame & Frost: Yes
Dragonbash part with ‘Marjolin’ of wathever her name was: Yes
All other Living story: A big fail. Neither worth expansion, or worthy story. And since it’s temporary it’s a hell of a lot worse then an expansion pack wich is forever. And includes nice new maps.

I know talking bad about your own business, will rarely happen, but that guy must be the most extreme example i’ve seen of overconfidance. Condidance ain’t bad, i know certain people that could use some more, but having to much of it isn’t good either. I hope this overconfidance in particular doesn’t kill the game.

This ain’t a flame. It’s a fact he’s overconfidant, and i’m entitled to my opinion that disagree’s with it.

Let’s remember, he has sales and log in figures…you do not.

IMO, the purpose of LS is not to make the world feel alive. That’s just PR thing.
The LS is supposed to keep people playing, just like dailies, monthlies, time-gates, temporary farm-fests and other content etc.
Even if you dislike the game, LS + the lack of subscription means that you will log from time to time, just to check if the game has gotten better.

So they of course choose quantity over quality, because this way they can keep more people playing.

Let’s face it – the idea that at the beginning of each month festival starts, in the middle of the month evil imbeciles interrupt it, and at the end of month imbeciles are defeated, one festival ends and a new one starts is supposed to make world feel alive is really dumb.

Anet of course won’t admit that many players are angry, the fact that they log in is enough for them, because they don’t pay the subscription and make the game appear full of players.

Shagaz.6209:

IMO, the purpose of LS is not to make the world feel alive. That’s just PR thing.
The LS is supposed to keep people playing, just like dailies, monthlies, time-gates, temporary farm-fests and other content etc.
Even if you dislike the game, LS + the lack of subscription means that you will log from time to time, just to check if the game has gotten better.

So they of course choose quantity over quality, because this way they can keep more people playing.

Let’s face it – the idea that at the beginning of each month festival starts, in the middle of the month evil imbeciles interrupt it, and at the end of month imbeciles are defeated, one festival ends and a new one starts is supposed to make world feel alive is really dumb.

Anet of course won’t admit that many players are angry, the fact that they log in is enough for them, because they don’t pay the subscription and make the game appear full of players.

Quantity over quality? Aside from the bugs which get fixed relatively fast, I think quite a few of the updates have been quality updates. Not just quality of life updates like the wallet, the end to culling and stuff like the preview in the marketplace, but stuff like Sanctum Sprint (which I think is a blast), The Molten Facility dugeon, the Aether Blade Jumping Puzzle..there have been plenty of fun updates.

Now you personally might want different content, but that doesn’t make the content particularly bad.

This current update, to me, is the worst of the updates…but that’s still just an opinion. Lots of people seem to like it.

My take on LS is it’s a means to concentrate the game’s population. Same reason behind the dailies and the event API. Even if you rarely team it’s comforting to see lots of other players around. Of course if you ignore these “carrots” to draw in the population you will find yourself exploring a rather desolate world outside of these events.

Don’t get me wrong- for the most part I have enjoyed the Living Story.

I do think that they need to take a step back and look at how it is not actually impacting the world all that much.

There needs to be a better balance between permanent and temporary content.
The trick to actually making the world feeling alive is the blend between the 2 types of content.
Temp content to move the story forward and permanent content to show that it actually occurred.
To me at least it does not feel like they have done this yet.

I appreciate the quality of life updates.

I do not like at all what they are doing with progression because their policy seems to contradict itself.
On the one hand you have new traits and skills ( horizontal progression) and on the other hand ascended- which is gear tier- with all the negatives tied to it.

Not sure what I think of that interview- it doesn’t really address any of my concerns and doesn’t say anything they haven’t said before a hundred times.

I wonder if Mr O’Brien has even played GW2. From what I read, I’m not playing the game that he’s talking about…

I’m sick of all these temporary contents pumped out every 2 weeks. It puts stress on players and the designers. We’ve seen the effects patch by patch, content which comes out buggy, they hastily patch it and the cycle goes on.

Who really thought temporary content was a good idea to begin with… how can your game be good if it hasn’t advance at all since last year fotm.

Well, I had a good run I guess, wish I could still ask for that refund in gems and game now xD

Rosen Myst.7641:

I don’t know about this. Maybe I just don’t understand this concept of impacting the world. If it means to make some sort of difference, then I would have to say I don’t think I have done that in GW2. All the events just keep repeating, everyone is standing in the same place as before, Orr is still crawling with undead even though we defeated Zhaitan. There’s a village of Hylek that I have saved so many times from the krait, but everytime I go back it’s been taken over again.

I have to agree. They’ve tried to say that quests are somehow limiting a few times but they’re not, they way some quests were implemented in some games is limiting quests as a mechanism to guide and track progress through the game is not. In GW2 we’re not changing the world at all, in fact with quests in, for example, WoW your progress changes the world far more through phasing than the personal story/personal quest does in GW2.

Also they didn’t even get rid of quests. They just try to hide the few quests they have either in the Personal Story, Heart Tasks or behind a Living Story achievement checklist like, for example, Emissary Vorpp’s tasks in the current Living Story.

How is the linear path you take for Vorpp through the Living Story system different from a the linear path you take through a more traditional quest? I mean other than the fact that your progress is tracked through the achievement system rather than in a quest log?

I think that at some stage someone realised that they’d never be able to compete in terms of sheer numbers of quests with WoW so they tried to make quests the “bad guy”. Having quests in the game doesn’t mean that everything has to start or end at a guy with an icon over his head they can just be a nice addition to the game.