Guild Wars 2

I know what you mean. But that is part of the development. You start as someone who’s essentially little more than a farm hand, whacking grubs and retrieving birdfeed from bandits.
But as you develop yourself you get faced with bigger and bigger problems and conflicts.

Some people would say that it might feel pretty anticlimactic if they went back to fetching the guards lunch and scaring birds away from the freshly sown fields. Something MMOs sometimes do with new content. Where the Hero who defeated the Legendary Evil in last expansion is back to culling small wildlife because they threaten random farmer’s chickens.

Mixing in some more peaceful events every once in a while is still nice, and arenanet does do it I think. If only to give a bit of contrast or more so, comic relief. Because it’s honestly a bit silly for a Warrior wielding the legendary Dusk, having brought down Zaitan the Elder Dragon of Death in the lands raised from the ocean, to go back to feeding the cows.

dekou.6012:

I was watching the Revenant twitch stream and it reminded me of what almost all of GW2’s new areas have been like: endless warzones with explosions everywhere, hordes of enemies coming from all directions and the constant push for “epic” meta events. Yet my favorite places of GW2 are all areas with little action: Queensdale, pre-toxic Kessex Hills, Snowden Drifts, Wayfarer Foothills, etc.

It’s a bit of a contradiction between what I liked about GW2 initially and what it has become. I liked exploration, finding random pieces of lore and doing events that told little, self-contained stories. I also liked fighting a wide variety of enemies with interesting motivations, Or at least somewhat interesting. Now it’s all Mordrem this and Mordrem that. The whole x-pac seems like Orr 2.0 – a desolate place with a boring enemy faction and hordes of players running around pressing buttons, hoping to dodge the big attack they can barely see coming because of SFX overload.

The big problem are Mordrem themselves: they’re beyond boring lore wise. They look nicer that the undead, but they’re still a bunch of evil things that want to kill you. They don’t talk, they don’t have conflicting thoughts, they just whack stuff until it stops whacking them back. This forces the Pact into being a bunch of generic good guys, because when things try to kill you you can only kill them back, with little in-between. I suppose now we’ve got corrupted Sylvari to kill, as well, but brainwashed puppets don’t make for particularly interesting antagonists, either.

I guess there will be some other forces in Maguuma, which may be more interesting that the guys we’ve already fought, but right now the reveals just aren’t doing it for me. I see a video, see some vines blowing up some copters, see the pact running around shooting as stuff and think I’d rather go back to helping Fen see his human friends.

I also miss being able to travel from point A to B without getting pulled, blinded and knocked down a few times.

Dw, you will start fighting a bunch of Talking Sylvari at HoT released XD
They’d have interesting lore and interesting dialogue
be patient~~

To be honest, I really do believe the actual reason why there are a lack of peaceful moments is actually due to getting rid of the old explorable area function where we had the option to slay every monster in that specific map to complete the vanquish title.

Source:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Vanquish
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Explorable_area

but yea i know what you mean, a few more peaceful moments or at-least a minute or two to look at the lore within a specific place would be nice. The only place where you can have a peaceful moment would have to be in the dungeons however Anet doesn’t seem to add enough lore to the content to make a group DPS/beserker geared token/gold runners to take the time and look unless whatever the lore is would be depicted at the end of the dungeon. You also have to consider that in order to view this said lore content you would need a group and not too many people like to wait for someone to view a cut-scene, from my experience.

Terrahero.9358:

I know what you mean. But that is part of the development. You start as someone who’s essentially little more than a farm hand, whacking grubs and retrieving birdfeed from bandits.
But as you develop yourself you get faced with bigger and bigger problems and conflicts.

True, but bigger problems don’t necessarily mean larger-scale battles and lots of explosions. You could be exploring ancient temples, doing rituals to contact the dead or calm their spirits, taking down Lovecraftian horrors in strange locations, etc. “Warzone” is just one possible setting for a high-level adventure, but it seems to be the only one GW2 uses.

dekou.6012:

Terrahero.9358:

I know what you mean. But that is part of the development. You start as someone who’s essentially little more than a farm hand, whacking grubs and retrieving birdfeed from bandits.
But as you develop yourself you get faced with bigger and bigger problems and conflicts.

True, but bigger problems don’t necessarily mean larger-scale battles and lots of explosions. You could be exploring ancient temples, doing rituals to contact the dead or calm their spirits, taking down Lovecraftian horrors in strange locations, etc. “Warzone” is just one possible setting for a high-level adventure, but it seems to be the only one GW2 uses.

Yea this is what I’m seriously looking forward to, although I seriously do hope there will not be as many areas having the Pact influence; soldiers, broken airships, etc in terms of scenery as we go further or deeper into Mordems territory so the natural Magumma textures can flourish.

yeah, i’d like to see more downtime. i like having time to breathe, and not in a “ok, now everything will stop for an arbitrary amount of time so you can vendor your trash items and then we start over” way.

it’s hard to feel compelled to explore when there are 30 event icons demanding that you do this thing right now or else.

don’t get me wrong, i like the idea of maps not feeling so desolate and devoid of content, but i also don’t like the maps to be too dense with stuff, with some progress bar pushing players to force everyone else into the content so they don’t screw up (because we still can’t pick our overflows, so we’re inevitably hurting people that are doing the meta event when we’re faffing about).

I’d love to see a taste of some of this “learn language to learn the lore, to do XXXYYYZZZ things” they hinted at with Masteries, unfortunately i think that would also be very spoiler-ish for their story so they have to weigh only showing the combat stuff for now.

I’m just hoping that it plays a big part in the events of the xpac and aren’t sorta thrown in there for a few people that tend to care about lore to do.

peaceful areas wouldn’t make sense in the context of the story. You cannot have a peaceful area in a dragon control area. You could create a new peaceful map but that would simply be a waste of resources to create something that is not relevant to the game.

dekou.6012:

The big problem are Mordrem themselves: they’re beyond boring lore wise. They look nicer that the undead, but they’re still a bunch of evil things that want to kill you. They don’t talk, they don’t have conflicting thoughts, they just whack stuff until it stops whacking them back. This forces the Pact into being a bunch of generic good guys, because when things try to kill you you can only kill them back, with little in-between. I suppose now we’ve got corrupted Sylvari to kill, as well, but brainwashed puppets don’t make for particularly interesting antagonists, either.

Lol, if you’re looking for a compelling story in a T-rated MMO, you’re going to be looking for a long, long time.

Andred.1087:

dekou.6012:

The big problem are Mordrem themselves: they’re beyond boring lore wise. They look nicer that the undead, but they’re still a bunch of evil things that want to kill you. They don’t talk, they don’t have conflicting thoughts, they just whack stuff until it stops whacking them back. This forces the Pact into being a bunch of generic good guys, because when things try to kill you you can only kill them back, with little in-between. I suppose now we’ve got corrupted Sylvari to kill, as well, but brainwashed puppets don’t make for particularly interesting antagonists, either.

Lol, if you’re looking for a compelling story in a T-rated MMO, you’re going to be looking for a long, long time.

What does the game’s rating have to do with the quality of its story?

darkace.8925:

Andred.1087:

Lol, if you’re looking for a compelling story in a T-rated MMO, you’re going to be looking for a long, long time.

What does the game’s rating have to do with the quality of its story?

Quite a lot. Many of the most interesting themes explored in high-quality stories are too adult for a T-rated game. And even when they’re not, they would be lost on the average player. You’ll find most games that present the player with legitimate and compelling moral quandaries are aimed at mature audiences, who have the life experience to understand the implications.

It’s not really that the rating forbids thought-provoking story, but there’s no point in producing one when a large portion of your players will not appreciate it. I’ll also concede the MMO aspect of the game contributes a lot more to the lack of compelling story than the rating. You just aren’t going to get the same experience as you could in a single-player game, where your choices can really matter.

I’m sure ANet could produce a much more interesting and evocative story if they wanted to, but again, there’s no point when the target audience isn’t mature enough to fully appreciate it, and if the game were M-rated, that would mean a considerably smaller player-base.

Andred.1087:

dekou.6012:

The big problem are Mordrem themselves: they’re beyond boring lore wise. They look nicer that the undead, but they’re still a bunch of evil things that want to kill you. They don’t talk, they don’t have conflicting thoughts, they just whack stuff until it stops whacking them back. This forces the Pact into being a bunch of generic good guys, because when things try to kill you you can only kill them back, with little in-between. I suppose now we’ve got corrupted Sylvari to kill, as well, but brainwashed puppets don’t make for particularly interesting antagonists, either.

Lol, if you’re looking for a compelling story in a T-rated MMO, you’re going to be looking for a long, long time.

M rating is all about sex, drugs and brutal violence. That’s it. Sex, drugs and brutal violence aren’t required to make a villain interesting.

While it’s safe to assume that most of the meta events will be all war torn and stuff, the idea of the adventures being more peaceful and featuring a story of sort is not totally out of the question.

I enjoy this post, it’s not something I would bring up but since you did it reminded me of the peaceful zones in leveling and exploring. I sure hope Anet sees this post or is already thinking to still include that “home, feel-good” experience in some of the newer areas. And I’m sure the Mordrem won’t be the only enemies we encounter throughout the xpac.

While I understand what you mean, I actually do sometimes just hang around queensdale or wayfarer’s faffing around…

You have that option too :p

When I want to farm gold/mats/karm whatever I go to the maps that are best for those. When I want to enjoy the scenery and atmosphere I go to the maps that I find best for that etc.

dekou.6012:

It’s a bit of a contradiction between what I liked about GW2 initially and what it has become. I liked exploration, finding random pieces of lore and doing events that told little, self-contained stories. I also liked fighting a wide variety of enemies with interesting motivations, Or at least somewhat interesting.

The issue is, you want good, polished and fun content. But ArenaNet knows they don’t need to bother with any of that – they can just add grind, and plenty of players will eat it up. Look at the Silverwastes – it’s basically copy-paste so we get the same thing four times, with the same kind of enemy dominating nearly the entire map, incredibly generic events most of the time, and lacking in polish (why haven’t the new currencies been added to the wallet?). Yet it’s one of the places that always has a lot of people playing.

ArenaNet has no need to make the things you asked for. Grinders will settle for much less, and that’s basically who ArenaNet’s target audience is right now.

dekou.6012:

I was watching the Revenant twitch stream and it reminded me of what almost all of GW2’s new areas have been like: endless warzones with explosions everywhere, hordes of enemies coming from all directions and the constant push for “epic” meta events. Yet my favorite places of GW2 are all areas with little action: Queensdale, pre-toxic Kessex Hills, Snowden Drifts, Wayfarer Foothills, etc.

Well those zones were pretty much warzones themselves, Queensdale had hordes of Centaurs, Bandits, and unimaginable horrors in the swamp, Kessex Hill was also pretty centaur infested, with a fair number of bandists, Snowden Drifts and Wayferer are under constant assault by the Sons of Svanir, with a nasty dredge infestation. The only real difference is in how content rich and active those zones are (only a hand full of events at a time spread over a large area which leads to the zones not feeling very active).
But I do get where you’re coming from. I like the new meta-map model since it adds a lot of replay, but at the same time the vanilla maps added a sense of exploration and the feel of a lived in world, which maps like Silverwaste and Dry Top don’t, because you don’t have time to stop and smell the roses.

dekou.6012:

The big problem are Mordrem themselves: they’re beyond boring lore wise.

Well there is some potential with the Sylvari though.

dekou.6012:

but they’re still a bunch of evil things that want to kill you. They don’t talk, they don’t have conflicting thoughts, they just whack stuff until it stops whacking them back.

This is more an issue with the game mechanics though. Does tie in a little bit into how lore is conveyed through the mechanics, but in essence you can say the same thing for almost all the other non-modrem enemy types.

silvermember.8941:

You cannot have a peaceful area in a dragon control area. You could create a new peaceful map but that would simply be a waste of resources to create something that is not relevant to the game.

True on the first account, debatable on the second. It’s all about the experience that ANet wants to provide the players, an exploration / vanilla style map can offer a very different experience to the meta-maps. Personally I’d prefer more variety overall in GW2 (especially in pvp! although that’s a completely different conversation).

Andred.1087:

Lol, if you’re looking for a compelling story in a T-rated MMO, you’re going to be looking for a long, long time.

I hope you’re connect MMOs and non-compelling stories, because I’m pretty sure Pixar has proven that the T-rated doesn’t particularly prevent compelling stories. Also why do I constantly get the feeling that when people bring in ratings they’re secretly trying to say that something like Game of Thrones should be the standard for compelling stories?

Andred.1087:

It’s not really that the rating forbids thought-provoking story

Yeah something like Game of Thrones is not thought provoking.

silvermember.8941:

peaceful areas wouldn’t make sense in the context of the story.

Then perhaps it is time for a more complex story.

(not that Silverwastes, for example, have any sense to them with the circular “always failing regardless of results” approach)

I agree with dekou. Some of us like to explore, to spend time admiring this or that corner of the map, and exploring several maps, the bigger the better. in fact GW2 has a lot of those special, and paceful places where you just can enjoy yourself.
But it seems (from what they have told us and show us so far) that what all of us we’ll have will be just 2-3 maps, of a SW size, and plenty of flashes, explosions and “stuff to do”…

We can see plenty of “peaceful” areas in the HoT trailer, the battlefield is only one map out of several. You’ll have stuff to explore don’t worry.

CureForLiving.5360:

Well those zones were pretty much warzones themselves, Queensdale had hordes of Centaurs, Bandits, and unimaginable horrors in the swamp, Kessex Hill was also pretty centaur infested, with a fair number of bandists, Snowden Drifts and Wayferer are under constant assault by the Sons of Svanir, with a nasty dredge infestation. The only real difference is in how content rich and active those zones are (only a hand full of events at a time spread over a large area which leads to the zones not feeling very active).
But I do get where you’re coming from. I like the new meta-map model since it adds a lot of replay, but at the same time the vanilla maps added a sense of exploration and the feel of a lived in world, which maps like Silverwaste and Dry Top don’t, because you don’t have time to stop and smell the roses.

I don’t agree on them being “pretty much” warzones. They contain warzones and that’s fine. Good, even. However, large parts of these zones are relatively peaceful most of the time. That makes the zones much more than warzones, which is an extremely important distinction IMO and one you have noted, as well.

dekou.6012:

but they’re still a bunch of evil things that want to kill you. They don’t talk, they don’t have conflicting thoughts, they just whack stuff until it stops whacking them back.

This is more an issue with the game mechanics though. Does tie in a little bit into how lore is conveyed through the mechanics, but in essence you can say the same thing for almost all the other non-modrem enemy types.

Yes, but enemies like centaurs and bandits have their personal goals and can have monologues during combat, be captured, have deserters, etc. Moth’s minions are just a horde of brainless creatures that have even less of a personality than the game’s zombies.

The dredge are an example of a good antagonist race that works with GW2’s mechanics. They’re not inherently evil. They have a clear, complex social structure. They have conflicting factions and motivations. They are capable of being both menacing and amusing. If their architecture wasn’t so annoying, I’d praise them even more.

Keep in mind that the first area we are entering in HoT is the place where the pact fleet was defeatet by the modrem. Where else should be a huge battlefield in the jungle – I think it is really fitting there.

Also I´m 100% (ok lets say 90%) convinced that the “exploring old places” etc content will also play a huge role in HoT – just look at the old cities that are shown in the trailer. Its probably the main theme after escaping the modremforces that were sent to clean up survivors of the pact.

dekou.6012:

Andred.1087:

dekou.6012:

The big problem are Mordrem themselves: they’re beyond boring lore wise. They look nicer that the undead, but they’re still a bunch of evil things that want to kill you. They don’t talk, they don’t have conflicting thoughts, they just whack stuff until it stops whacking them back. This forces the Pact into being a bunch of generic good guys, because when things try to kill you you can only kill them back, with little in-between. I suppose now we’ve got corrupted Sylvari to kill, as well, but brainwashed puppets don’t make for particularly interesting antagonists, either.

Lol, if you’re looking for a compelling story in a T-rated MMO, you’re going to be looking for a long, long time.

M rating is all about sex, drugs and brutal violence. That’s it. Sex, drugs and brutal violence aren’t required to make a villain interesting.

They are aspects of the real world, though, and omitting them implies either that it’s forced because of the rating (preventing us from exploring the influence of these aspects on Tyria) or that these problems have been, somehow, solved (and we don’t know how).

We are not fighting the type of dragon you think we are…

Mordremoth! Not Spike… (see attached for Spike)

But I know what you are saying, lets see what HoT holds and other upcoming things.

Ascimator.6735:

They are aspects of the real world, though, and omitting them implies either that it’s forced because of the rating (preventing us from exploring the influence of these aspects on Tyria) or that these problems have been, somehow, solved (and we don’t know how).

No it just means you use heavy handed metaphors. Instead of crack you can have someone addicted to pixie dust, and still have him act like a crackhead (I’m thinking of the Blood Elves from WoW now). Brutal violence is simply fan-service, violence done by one to another can illicit similar reactions, murder is murder (no matter how violent it was). Sex is pretty much fan-service as well though.

Peaceful areas? We have several. Cities. If you are familiar with an area (or look it up on the wiki) you know what events spawn where so can find a fort nothing happens at. Wandering monsters will be attacked by the NPCs.

In low level areas it is hard to die as well. Still possible (especially with hordes) if you do nothing to stop it.

Andred.1087:

darkace.8925:

Andred.1087:

Lol, if you’re looking for a compelling story in a T-rated MMO, you’re going to be looking for a long, long time.

What does the game’s rating have to do with the quality of its story?

Quite a lot. Many of the most interesting themes explored in high-quality stories are too adult for a T-rated game. And even when they’re not, they would be lost on the average player. You’ll find most games that present the player with legitimate and compelling moral quandaries are aimed at mature audiences, who have the life experience to understand the implications.

It’s not really that the rating forbids thought-provoking story, but there’s no point in producing one when a large portion of your players will not appreciate it. I’ll also concede the MMO aspect of the game contributes a lot more to the lack of compelling story than the rating. You just aren’t going to get the same experience as you could in a single-player game, where your choices can really matter.

I’m sure ANet could produce a much more interesting and evocative story if they wanted to, but again, there’s no point when the target audience isn’t mature enough to fully appreciate it, and if the game were M-rated, that would mean a considerably smaller player-base.

Many of the most interesting themes are too adult? Personal opinion.

Rating has nothing to do with story quality.

dekou.6012:

I was watching the Revenant twitch stream and it reminded me of what almost all of GW2’s new areas have been like: endless warzones with explosions everywhere, hordes of enemies coming from all directions and the constant push for “epic” meta events. Yet my favorite places of GW2 are all areas with little action: Queensdale, pre-toxic Kessex Hills, Snowden Drifts, Wayfarer Foothills, etc.

It’s a bit of a contradiction between what I liked about GW2 initially and what it has become. I liked exploration, finding random pieces of lore and doing events that told little, self-contained stories. I also liked fighting a wide variety of enemies with interesting motivations, or at least somewhat interesting.

The big problem are Mordrem themselves: they’re beyond boring lore wise. They look nicer than the undead, but are still a bunch of evil things that want to kill you. They don’t talk, they don’t have conflicting thoughts, they just whack stuff until it stops whacking them back. This forces the Pact into being a bunch of generic good guys, because when things try to kill you you can only kill them back, with little in-between. I suppose now we’ve got corrupted Sylvari to kill as well, but brainwashed puppets don’t make for particularly interesting antagonists, either.

I also miss being able to travel from point A to B without getting pulled, blinded and knocked down a few times.

Agree.

Yes, I agree with OP. Constant, annoying battles, noisy events and legions of mobs – this is why I’m totally avoiding Orr, Silverwastes and Dry Top. Not every map needs to be idyllic countryside but if all we get is SW 2.0 and Orr 2.0, oh my god I don’t want to play these maps already.

I hope devs know this so they balance the content and we get both siege maps and immersive explorable maps.

What exactly is the point of a LVL 80 map that has no significant challenge / enemies? There are plenty of other “peaceful” maps elsewhere (that being said, how about “repair” Kessex?).

A trip through Silverwaste is like a walk through Time Square; it’s constant motion and noise. Sometimes I just want to peaceful hike through Yellowstone where I can enjoy the lovely vistas.

Considering how exploration is a MAJOR part of the expansion (to the point where one of the 4 major types of mastery they’ve outlined, and the one that’s gotten the most exposure so far, is called Exploration), I’m sure they’re going to have some peaceful areas where its not combat 24/7.

The demo area isn’t a good indication of such things, because demos are meant to generate hype and give players stuff to do in the limited amount of time they have with said demo. You want to fight stuff, do events, fly around, not sit there and enjoy the scenery.

Same goes for live developer demos like POI, if they aren’t doing stuff constantly then people will complain about it being boring.

at least in GW2 you have level scaling and also reward scaling, so you can really go into those old peacefull areas and have fun you can’t do that in most other games…

Brother Grimm.5176:

What exactly is the point of a LVL 80 map that has no significant challenge / enemies? There are plenty of other “peaceful” maps elsewhere (that being said, how about “repair” Kessex?).

Yes, they are old and boring. I am not against siege maps. I am against siege maps only.
So why don’t add both siege and peaceful maps? All of us would be happy with them.

The starter zones are peaceful because they represent the timeline before the major war with the dragons is taking place. They have small concerns like bandits, not big important concerns. As you increase in level the significance of the threats increase and the peace of the areas decreases until there are no more habitats and only war camps. By the time you are in Orr you are in full on life and death battle with an Elder Dragon.

The story then bring you back to some of the peaceful place and shakes them up as Scarlet takes the battle to those with small concerns. Eventually putting it right in the middle of a city which is supposed to have no concerns at all.

Then with the move toward Drytop it is another building of this threat level as another Elder Dragon starts becoming a problem, fully revealing itself in the Silverwastes which is constant fighting.

HoT is the culmination of this, becoming another Orr where the Pact fleet is in full on war mode again. There is no room for peaceful calm areas in the middle of a war.

If you want peaceful calm areas then you need to hang back in the starter areas where the war hasn’t started yet.

Trying to explain bad (and, worse, no fun) design elements with backstory never works that well. Especially if parts of that backstory (Scarlet…) are bad, bad, bad.

In other words, trying to tell me that me having no fun is logical and reasonable is unlikely to be met with understanding.

Kal Spiro.9745:

The starter zones are peaceful because they represent the timeline before the major war with the dragons is taking place. They have small concerns like bandits, not big important concerns. As you increase in level the significance of the threats increase and the peace of the areas decreases until there are no more habitats and only war camps. By the time you are in Orr you are in full on life and death battle with an Elder Dragon.

The story then bring you back to some of the peaceful place and shakes them up as Scarlet takes the battle to those with small concerns. Eventually putting it right in the middle of a city which is supposed to have no concerns at all.

Then with the move toward Drytop it is another building of this threat level as another Elder Dragon starts becoming a problem, fully revealing itself in the Silverwastes which is constant fighting.

HoT is the culmination of this, becoming another Orr where the Pact fleet is in full on war mode again. There is no room for peaceful calm areas in the middle of a war.

If you want peaceful calm areas then you need to hang back in the starter areas where the war hasn’t started yet.

Do you know how all the maps are going to be designed? Because if you do share your insight.

Jungle wastes shattered by mordremoth’s vines are natural battleground. However the deep jungle itself surrounding mursaat city can be this peaceful side with frog-people and dinosaurs not being (yet) involved with the war. Watching trailers I’m really hopeful this is what I saw there.

And well… if you want to rationalize with your post than only you have the right to have fun with your chaotic siege maps, there’s no point in discussing with you. I want both types of maps so we all can be happy. You want it only to be one-side fun. Poor attitude.

I’m sure we will have peaceful areas in HoT,and even better,peaceful forests,which is one of my favorite environments.

I had a lot of fun in Asuran areas from GW:EN,it wasnt that peaceful (a lot of raptors packs running around) but it had a cool feeling to it.

I’m a big fan of forests and snow enviroments,and I hate deserts or hot places.
I hate the Ascalon area because it looks like an area in constant 120°F and I can actually feel the heat just by looking at it. It makes me sick lol

Yes, I completely agree with this. My favorite maps in the game are the “if you pause for a moment, you can hear crickets” ones, not the “if you pause for a moment, you’re getting attacked by a pack of 20-foot tall crickets” ones.

Personally, I think there is at least going to be another graveyard of considerable size. And not just because of the cost of war, but because whoever writes all of those monumental inscriptions hasn’t gotten to write any in awhile and is probably itching to do so.

I agree too with OP. After constant battles in endgame zones it was hard for me to enjoy battle events with another lowbie again and to have the same fun as I had before. Everything can be “too much”.
I can understand it was needed for the last 3 zones, but I really hope it will not become standard. I really miss the RP feel of starting zones level 1-15.

Exploration is fun! That is, it’s something I enjoy that others may not

I’d love to have some form of dungeon crawler built in, such as a huge cave system that just peaks above ground here and there. Not a maze, but just somewhere for us explorers to go peaking around. Throw in a few puzzles and traps, the occasional waypoint to get us back on track.. wonderful!

It doesn’t have to be a frustration event or achievement to do it.. just something that’s fun to look around in and discover occasional loots.
If you want a frustration, add something like Bronze/Silver/Gold times to complete a JP! Failure via mesmer port of course

I understand that wish for peaceful areas. In Kessex Hills, before the lake became a ruin that noone cares to do something against, I often would just stand on the hill above the truffle-heart and look at the amazing landscape.
Sometimes I just travel to the hidden garden in Mount Maelstrom, or the secret strawberry-patch in diessa plateau just to have those peaceful moments in the game(mostly when I’m eating while playing XD).
In the newer maps it’s a lot harder to find a place to just take five minutes to enjoy the art-design of the game without getting eviscerated by something that can one- or two-hit you.

As for complex enemies…I can’t remember any of those in the whole time I played the GW-games. Which I kinda like actually.
There is the chance that we will see some brainwashed Sylvari in the story of the expansion who try to return to their former self, but can’t because of the dragons power.

Kal Spiro.9745:

The starter zones are peaceful because they represent the timeline before the major war with the dragons is taking place. They have small concerns like bandits, not big important concerns. As you increase in level the significance of the threats increase and the peace of the areas decreases until there are no more habitats and only war camps. By the time you are in Orr you are in full on life and death battle with an Elder Dragon.

ANet decides what the story is like. While the story’s flow should make sense, it should also allow for good gameplay and area design.

One more vote for peaceful areas. My main motivation to ‘escape’ to MMOs.

I still remember the days when I tucked away from reality atop a peaceful floating leaf in Ragnarok Online, and more recently in various ‘peaceful’ places in GW2.

but guys, when some of you are saying “if you want peacefull places, go to starter areas or go to the cities”, you are forgetting that we have to pay for HoT.
I mean, i already have peacefull places, i know, i paid for them 3 years ago and i love them.
The question is: when i pay for HoT, what would i recieve? SW 2.0? 3 minimaps? big maps, plenty of exploration?… When that get answered and a price tag will be decided, then i’ll know if i will want to buy it or not.
So far, i dont, cause so far they have shown stuff that im not interested in, or the things that i am interested in, seems to be testimonial or small.

segman.3560:

Kal Spiro.9745:

The starter zones are peaceful because they represent the timeline before the major war with the dragons is taking place. They have small concerns like bandits, not big important concerns. As you increase in level the significance of the threats increase and the peace of the areas decreases until there are no more habitats and only war camps. By the time you are in Orr you are in full on life and death battle with an Elder Dragon.

The story then bring you back to some of the peaceful place and shakes them up as Scarlet takes the battle to those with small concerns. Eventually putting it right in the middle of a city which is supposed to have no concerns at all.

Then with the move toward Drytop it is another building of this threat level as another Elder Dragon starts becoming a problem, fully revealing itself in the Silverwastes which is constant fighting.

HoT is the culmination of this, becoming another Orr where the Pact fleet is in full on war mode again. There is no room for peaceful calm areas in the middle of a war.

If you want peaceful calm areas then you need to hang back in the starter areas where the war hasn’t started yet.

Do you know how all the maps are going to be designed? Because if you do share your insight.

Jungle wastes shattered by mordremoth’s vines are natural battleground. However the deep jungle itself surrounding mursaat city can be this peaceful side with frog-people and dinosaurs not being (yet) involved with the war. Watching trailers I’m really hopeful this is what I saw there.

And well… if you want to rationalize with your post than only you have the right to have fun with your chaotic siege maps, there’s no point in discussing with you. I want both types of maps so we all can be happy. You want it only to be one-side fun. Poor attitude.

That’s a good point. I forgot about the city and the indigenous cultures, so it is reasonable for there to be some calm areas. I kind of expect some events in the calm areas too, though. The whole place is under siege by Mordremoth, after all.

one part immersion does is letting you enjoy the scenery, let the environment sink in and enjoy the view you’re getting.
that’s why i call GW2 so dead, i can’t judge the expansion just yet but when i look at the new places it literally feels dead.
as if i am visiting a graveyard filled with blind ghosts, doing whatever they want but not a single sound comes off it.

to put it simple, GW2 is till now just as immersive as watching a movie with the sound off, they should really make the environment count more and care less about pushing ppl to do events.
don’t put them against each other so much and use plenty of neutral creatures, there is nothing wrong with just walking through the jungle and enjoy what you see.

In the trailer, I see a peaceful civilization of a bunch of Helik (frog race)
Why not be patient and wait for more news about HoT before you make quick judgement?

kitten ,wrong thread. lmao

PS: D … E. RP is censored,really? lol