Guild Wars 2

What I want to talk about here is why HoT was a bit of a disappointment to me (living world season 2 was to an extent but much less so) compared to living world season 1 and why I much prefer temporary content to permanent content. Bear in mind that opinion is coming from someone who has a lot of time to play every day and will not be in a situation where I miss an event no matter how little time it is available for, I do understand some people are not able to take part in all temporary content however.

Since maybe 2 weeks ago I seem to have completely lost interest in heart of thorns. All I am doing in game at the moment it pvp leagues and the occasional tarir to slowly advance the achievement for doing it 100 times. If HoT can’t keep me Interested for even 2 months, but living world kept me interested the whole way through, there is clearly a problem. I have done everything there is to do In The expansion already. To be honest I had done everything within one month, never mind 2. I think the fortnightly, temporary content realeases in season 1 kept me interested because I can happily farm the same thing for 2 weeks, because it is new and I know it will be gone soon so I must enjoy it there and then. If I know it will be there forever I will be more likely to rush through it and never touch it again because I just can’t be bothered at that time and I know I can eventually force myself to do it again several months down the line for achievements.

This is what I feel like with HoT. I still have 4 more story achievements to do. Will I be doing them any time soon? I doubt it. I will probably do them after living world season 3 start date is announced because I don’t want to be messing round with HoT with new content actually available likely for the first time in at least 4 months by the time living world starts again. With season 1 I felt the pressure to play the new content because I can’t leave it to whenever I find the willpower to make myself do it, I need to experience all the content either in those 2 weeks or not at all and that is a much better feeling for me.

Even though season 2 was the regular releases like season 1, it was not as good because it was permanent and I felt no pressure to do it. I just grinded out all the achievements and didn’t touch it until the next release. If the releases were temporary I would have taken much more time to enjoy the release because I would have known I had to do it right then.

Finally, I would love to see living world season 3 be temporary and I would hate to see another expansion (10 months of waiting for 1 month of content, if that) because a temporary event just feels more special to be part of than a permanent one. A year down the line you can look back at your historical achievements and think ‘I remember that event, it was amazing’. In fact I was doing that very thing for season 1 yesterday.

I do know that temporary content does exclude some people that can’t play for that period of time, but this is just my personal opinion so I am not considering that for this post.

P.S. I know this is a very long post but I just wanted to share my feelings about the direction GW2 content is going and seeing what you al, think about it too.

Even though season 2 was the regular releases like season 1, it was not as good because it was permanent and I felt no pressure to do it

Saying “pressure to do it” is not the correct choice of words here as that implies an unhealthy practice (ie: excuse to be glued to your monitor). I’d rather say LS 1 had a much better narrative and execution than LS 2. Despite that LS 2 didn’t have the same caliber as LS 1, that’s not to say the new content wasn’t enjoyable. Making it permanent (mainly single player stories to earn ascended gear) allows Anet to continue monetizing their works, which is a good thing for them as a company to grow. There’s plenty of games out there that focus on single player experiences that vastly excel what any MMO company can deliver. GW2 is a place for me to kick back and relax as I partake in some sort of challenge with a large group of people. Even with HoT, I continue to enjoy that. The Mouth of Mordremoth battle was a unique experience and I enjoyed that. As time goes on and new content is released however, that sort of experience will be harder to obtain given that fewer people will have a desire to complete the meta. So enjoy things while you can.

Stuff that was included in the Season 1 story line is now included in the game as meta events. Escape from Lion’s Arch and the Marionette were essentially just big metas. We have other metas in game now. And they tie into the story too. They’re just not labeled as living story.

For example, the instances that make up the beginning of Season 2, take us to Dry Top. The sand storm is the meta for Dry Top. The equivalent of the bigger events in Season 1.

The same for the Silverwastes and the rest of Season 2. We have giant metas now that parallel the story.

I liked Season 1 better the Season 2 also…if you just count the instances in Season 2 as all that was released.

But I think it’s all part of a bigger picture and you have to pull your view out to see how it all ties in together.

Season 2 and Hot are a good step forward in most places.

Season 1 was incredibly dull, far too drawn out and ultimately lacked in attraction as it required daily log in for 5 minute content at best. Lest we all forget the karma image that pretty much sums up “Season 1”.

I disliked Season 1, temporary content is an absolute waste of production time when that same time could be used implementing permanent content everyone can enjoy. Also found the story in Season 1 to be poorly portrayed at the start. They are doing something new, and it showed. It did get better toward the end of Season 1.

suffish.4150:

Finally, I would love to see living world season 3 be temporary and I would hate to see another expansion (10 months of waiting for 1 month of content, if that) because a temporary event just feels more special to be part of than a permanent one. A year down the line you can look back at your historical achievements and think ‘I remember that event, it was amazing’. In fact I was doing that very thing for season 1 yesterday.

I think temporary content is hard to justify from a developmental perspective.

Why use your employees to create content that’ll only be around for a month (and then gone forever) when they could spend the same amount of time and resources developing permanent content that’ll be around whenever players want to do it?

The issue with HoT is that the story is essentially half of a LS season.

Moreover, they’re diverting resources into raids (which will inevitably only detract from LS focus, regardless of the PR spin).

I think that unless they have a consistent basis for introducing new content for the majority of players (not just the raiders), then GW2 will bleed players.

LS was a great way to keep up numbers and keep people coming back to the game.

However, LS1 wore me out. I liked that I could do LS2 at my own pace without any worries about time constraints on content.

And as we write here, ls2 and HoT is as if it never happened. You can still visit a certain person in Hoelbrak like nothing has happened despite stuff happening in HoT. The world is as frozen and comatose as every MMO. That is really sad, I had high hope for GW2 and it´s concept of LS1 that changed boring Kessex Hills and also put a momumentum ehere Marionette danced.

Farewell, living world.

Torolan.5816:

And as we write here, ls2 and HoT is as if it never happened. You can still visit a certain person in Hoelbrak like nothing has happened despite stuff happening in HoT. The world is as frozen and comatose as every MMO. That is really sad, I had high hope for GW2 and it´s concept of LS1 that changed boring Kessex Hills and also put a momumentum ehere Marionette danced.

Farewell, living world.

I liked it too. But it’s a fact that a lot of people, an awful lot of people really didn’t. People have jobs, familys, they go away on vacation. I have a couple of my guild in the military. One of them left the service now, but he missed most of the living story and he’ll never get to see it.

There’s an upside and downside to most things.

For me, it was perfect. Not so much for other people.

You also miss out when you for example have not seen the Freezer saga, but you can still enjoy DBZ when you start with the Boo saga. I don´t think that is the main probem with ls1. The main problem was probably crying and output of content.

Crying because the 1%ers(google it if you don´t know what this really means instead of looking at the actual number) wete suddenly forced to play with Joe gamer. And as the 1%ers too, Joe Gamer makes mistakes but they are more obvious. I loved every second of crying, accusing and name calling in the chat because the average joe did not give a flying squirrel about angry elitists.
Output because it is probably hard to keep up with a two week schedule. It´s also the only concern I thought was valid with ls 1 from the top of my head.^^

Your analogy is bad and here’s why.

I can always go find the “DBZ saga” i missed and re-watch it. I cannot go re-play season 1.

’Nuff said.