Guild Wars 2

i know area net has to think about the bigger groups and all. But what about people with work and school, is there anyway we could be in it :C i dont wanna miss a boss

Were you there for the Halloween event act 3 “one time event”? It was just a real-time cinematic that everyone in the vicinity watched together, only lasted a minute or so. It’s really not a big deal and there’s absolutely no way to set it up so everyone can see it. The content will still be there for you, you’re just going to miss out on some epic cinematic that will be available to watch on Youtube shortly after. Stop crying, please.

BroScientist.9875:

Were you there for the Halloween event act 3 “one time event”? It was just a real-time cinematic that everyone in the vicinity watched together, only lasted a minute or so. It’s really not a big deal and there’s absolutely no way to set it up so everyone can see it. The content will still be there for you, you’re just going to miss out on some epic cinematic that will be available to watch on Youtube shortly after. Stop crying, please.

That was a thirty second cinematic of something that kept happening, by the looks of it this time, there’s going to be actual content to the event.

Also we all know the real event last time was the login server breaking down from the massive amount of players online at once.

There are 3, 1 time events.

1 on friday at 3:00est
1 on saturday at 3:00est
1 on sunday at 3:00est

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Lost_Shores

The last one states – Multi-Hour event.

So you have plenty of time to log in on one of those three days.

Wait…. correct me if i’m wrong but I though the finale event is on sunday noon?

12:00 PST , I am EST

Nirvash.3018:

Wait…. correct me if i’m wrong but I though the finale event is on sunday noon?

3pm EST is noon PST.

Much like that “one time event” in Las Vegas during Defcon when you and that girl and that guy and that guy-girl did that thing… this will not be a one time event when it comes to the Internet and YouTube ;-)

its a one time event but you can do it the whole day so your not misssing anything besides the one time event is on sunday at 12 so i f you have school or work on sunday you shouldnt even be playing videogames

I think you might all be missing where he is from, In Australia , NZ and the other parts of the Asia pacific the finnal event is 7Am Monday , so yeah we do have a gripe about missing the event and with just cause.

phabby.8945:

I think you might all be missing where he is from, In Australia , NZ and the other parts of the Asia pacific the finnal event is 7Am Monday , so yeah we do have a gripe about missing the event and with just cause.

Or Europe, where the event starts at 20:00 (British Isles and Portugal), 21:00 for the western part of the mainland and 22:00 for the rest.

Yes, I’ll miss the finale because of that, because a multi-hour event will push it way past reasonable hours, especially if you have to get up at 6 again the next morning.

And it’s not the event itself, it’s the fact that you’ll get rewarded for living in the right area… (even if it’s only a “useless” town clothing item, I’d love to get it)

Valentine.6529:

All I heard when reading this was, me, me, me, me. :C The title of your thread kinda ruined it no offence.
“The one time event, and how I’M not gonna be in it”

Whilst I understand your point this doesn’t invalidate his.

Not everyone is going to skip days just for an event in an online game. People work, people study, and people shouldn’t be expected to skip an entire day for one event at all.

One-time events, regardless of the reward (whether a simple cinematic or an actual item of some sort) simply do not belong on a game played for hundreds of people spanning the entire globe.

Developers can make the excuse that they’re trying to cater to the largest online demographic at the time but that’s a straw-man argument, since if the event wasn’t a one-time event and spanned multiple times over the course of 1 or 2 days then there would be no need to cater to any one demographic.

For me, it’s largely the principle of the thing. I don’t care for this particular event as much as I do for the idea that it could happen for every single event, some of which could potentially reward some awesome content I’m probably going to miss out on just because of where I live.

Why should people be punished because of where they live? I can’t just up and go whenever I want, nor did I exactly choose to be born and raised in NZ.

while the idea of immediate and gratifying once-off events sounds wonderful, it’s not much taking into account the concept of a “global” game. don’t mean to come off as someone who’s whiny, but it always means a good portion of your customer base are being given the boot.

not very in-keeping with the premise of being fun and friendly.

I believe anet have stated that they timed these events for when their data shows the most number of people online in the game. How else could they choose it? If you are unlucky enough to be working all weekend, like me, there’s not really much they can do about it. I’m fine with it.

One time events are fine, great even, but I think they should be going on for a whole day, giving everybody a fair chance to participate, while still remaining that “once upon a time” even for players to tell stories about.

As long as nothing is provided that has stats and is not obtainable after the event, I don’t mind missing it due to work and friends. If something is only available via those events then I have an issue. Thankfully I’ve got no plans on Sunday, but Friday and Saturday are already booked and have been for weeks.

/shrug

bpphantom.8243:

As long as nothing is provided that has stats and is not obtainable after the event, I don’t mind missing it due to work and friends. If something is only available via those events then I have an issue.

^ this.

I’m hoping to make the event, myself, but I’ve been getting terrible lag and if it continues I doubt I’ll be able to play. But if there isn’t anything unique to be gained (and therefore missed), I don’t mind much.

Would love to attend the sunday epic one time event but unfortunately work trumps

New Years Eve – 1 time event (albeit every year)
Easter – 1 time event,
Christmas lets you slack a bit and is 4 days long.

Life is not all about you you you…

The whole “you you you” think is just silly. There are a LOT of people who will miss this due to the timing. One time events can not work on a global game as someone above stated. It needs to last for 12-24 hours each part. Now maybe it is just a cinematic which most can deal with missing, but if there is actual content/collectibles/acheivements then it is basically just rude haha

Yeah … multi-hour one time event … starting at 7am on a work day.

Way to kitten over Australia again games industry.

People will always be left out, in absolutely everything, it’s a part of life, don’t expect people to stop everything to just wait for you to show up, it’s not how it works

It’s not about showing up, its the fact that as Maim just said “noon pst” here in Aus is 7am for most, 6am for me on Monday. As if that would not bother you

The only way to have done this is to have it a twice only event that was 12 hours apart.

There would be options of changing your sleeping pattern around the game. But you can’t change your work, school, life commitments schedule around it.

that’s the thing, by doing it the way as planned now, people don’t even have the OPTION of trying to attend said event. and stating that there will be rewards at the end of the multi-hour chan, that you do not want to miss, is not what a gamer wants to hear.

sure, we appreciate these one-time events. but at the same time, continually shutting off an entire player base, due to their timezone and location, i don’t deem very friendly. the fact that it’s the highest concurrence time is a lackluster reason. almost an excuse. perhaps, have future events be at different times? that cater to different groups. of if you want more people to parcipate, why not choose a time where there’s a higher chance for people to choose to attend? i don’t think it’s THAT hard. but am sure they have their reasons.

on the other hand, most ANet staff i’m sure will have to be around and on-call when the events go live, and they’re essentially giving up their weekends to plan this event and make sure it’s running smoothly for us as well. so in that regard, it’s much appreciated.

just hope in the future, one-time events won’t just by default always be on Sunday at noon PST. even if it was a few hours earlier, those in Australia could make the choice if they wanted to wake up a few hours before work and try to experience at least a part of it. and it wouldn’t heavily affect anyone else…

The only day I’ll really be free is Saturday and even then it’s only part of the day. I hope I don’t have to be on at a particular time to get one of the unique items.

BroScientist.9875:

Were you there for the Halloween event act 3 “one time event”? It was just a real-time cinematic that everyone in the vicinity watched together, only lasted a minute or so. It’s really not a big deal and there’s absolutely no way to set it up so everyone can see it. The content will still be there for you, you’re just going to miss out on some epic cinematic that will be available to watch on Youtube shortly after. Stop crying, please.

Then don’t attend the event, it’s easy to tell people not to complain when you yourself aren’t going to miss it.

I’ll send you a postcard (screenshot) from the event labeled, “wish you were here”.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure the first two parts of the event on Friday and Saturday will be running all day, and the final part on Sunday will be running for several hours at least. Plus even if you can’t attend the finale, I doubt you’ll be missing too much. It’s just going to be a boss fight which I’m sure won’t drop anything exclusive to this one-time event. If it does drop something rare though, I think they’ll put it on the trading post at least.

If it is only a boss fight encounter then why not make it an instanced event? At least all can enjoy the mechanism but not just a proportion of it.

MatthewMedina.5419:

We know that this is a topic that’s going to be heavily discussed, and we definitely want as much of your feedback as possible, both positive and negative (so long as it remains constructive and within the guidelines of the rules of conduct). However I would just like to point out that this:

“…fact that it’s the highest concurrence time…”

is contradictory to this:

“why not choose a time where there’s a higher chance for people to choose to attend?”

The reason we chose the times that we did, when concurrency is at its peak, is precisely because it offers us the highest chance for the largest number of people to attend. By definition though, because concurrency rises and falls, that means it’s impossible for us to choose a time that offers us a chance for everyone to attend.

Offering events like this at multiple times for different time zones is certainly worth considering, but given our team’s goals and the timeline we had to operate in (we fielded our team immediately after shipping the Live game), it just wasn’t feasible for us to consider such an option for this particular event.

Having said that, this decision is something that we realized would not make everyone happy. Keep in mind that there is a tremendous lineup of content to choose from during the weekend and after, with both the island and the Fractals dungeon remaining active, and we will continue to listen to both criticisms and compliments about these special events in order to continually improve your playing experience.

Thank you for the reply, Matthew. We hope you guys realise that most of us DO understand the reasoning behind the decision. That sacrifices have to be made for the greatest good and all. We’re just hoping that it’s not the SAME group of people constantly making the sacrifices. Both Halloween and the Lost Shores finales took place on a time/day that was extremely inconvenient for people in the Asia/Oceanic regions. Our request is that future events aren’t always scheduled at a time where the same group of people is constantly forced to miss out.

MatthewMedina.5419:

We know that this is a topic that’s going to be heavily discussed, and we definitely want as much of your feedback as possible, both positive and negative (so long as it remains constructive and within the guidelines of the rules of conduct). However I would just like to point out that this:

“…fact that it’s the highest concurrence time…”

is contradictory to this:

“why not choose a time where there’s a higher chance for people to choose to attend?”

The reason we chose the times that we did, when concurrency is at its peak, is precisely because it offers us the highest chance for the largest number of people to attend. By definition though, because concurrency rises and falls, that means it’s impossible for us to choose a time that offers us a chance for everyone to attend.

Offering events like this at multiple times for different time zones is certainly worth considering, but given our team’s goals and the timeline we had to operate in (we fielded our team immediately after shipping the Live game), it just wasn’t feasible for us to consider such an option for this particular event.

Having said that, this decision is something that we realized would not make everyone happy. Keep in mind that there is a tremendous lineup of content to choose from during the weekend and after, with both the island and the Fractals dungeon remaining active, and we will continue to listen to both criticisms and compliments about these special events in order to continually improve your playing experience.

So there is going to be no chance that you will make this event into an Instance like our story mode so we in the Asia/ Pacific region can enjoy the event and gain the rewards which are for this event?

Just like Halloween finale where we here in Australia missed that as well due too your One Time event timing policy , it really needs to be addressed and given, since the announcement of the event, we have been voicing our complaint I think its a little to poor on the eve of the event to say srry deal with it.

I hope you can understand that we are very unhappy, In Guild Wars there was never this problem with events running for 4 days or up to a week allowing every player world wide to benefit from the content.Now for some reason you have decided that in gw2 from the start, with this being the 2nd event content added, that it is ok to have players at a disadvantage from playing the game the way in which it is intended .

MatthewMedina

The reason we chose the times that we did, when concurrency is at its peak, is precisely because it offers us the highest chance for the largest number of people to attend. By definition though, because concurrency rises and falls, that means it’s impossible for us to choose a time that offers us a chance for everyone to attend.

I understand that nobody is going to be able to make all the events all of the time; it would be pretty unreasonable to expect otherwise. It’s just that if highest concurrency is always going to be ~12 noon PST, then it’s likely the same people are always going to feel like we’re missing out. There’s a pretty big difference between “I don’t expect to make all the events” and “I expect to not be able to make any of them.” The former is okay, the latter is what engenders hurt feelings.

Thank you for the reply, and it’s unfortunate that it was only feasible for it to be held as a once-off event. I just hope this changes soon.

MatthewMedina.5419:

that means it’s impossible for us to choose a time that offers us a chance for everyone to attend.

So why have one time events when you know that it’s impossible for everyone to attend ?

Why schedule them in such a fashion that the people who miss out on one are likely to keep missing out ?
Why give the impression that your American and European customers are more important than your Oceanic customers ?

Having said that, this decision is something that we realized would not make everyone happy.

I don’t recall anyone ever complaining that a game didn’t have one time events. Only that they missed out on events when the developers chose to include them.

So that leaves one obvious solution that should please everyone: Don’t have one time events in the first place.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

MatthewMedina.5419:

that means it’s impossible for us to choose a time that offers us a chance for everyone to attend.

So why have one time events when you know that it’s impossible for everyone to attend ?

Why schedule them in such a fashion that the people who miss out on one are likely to keep missing out ?
Why give the impression that your American and European customers are more important than your Oceanic customers ?

Having said that, this decision is something that we realized would not make everyone happy.

I don’t recall anyone ever complaining that a game didn’t have one time events. Only that they missed out on events when the developers chose to include them.

So that leaves one obvious solution that should please everyone: Don’t have one time events in the first place.

For this case, they had to do the one-time event to capitalise on new zones.

The events should last longer though.

toomuchtatose.6874:

For this case, they had to do the one-time event to capitalise on new zones.

The events should last longer though.

No they didn’t. From what I can gather, the one time events are something invading Lions Arch. There are a few other options:
– No invasion at all. We just have a new area to visit. Just like Sorrow’s Furnace in GW1.
– Multiple invasion attempts, just like how the Risen keep trying to retake the temples in Orr. The only difference is that the raids can’t do any permanent changes, just changes that can be fixed.
– Write something that can take place in an instance, like the storyline missions, dungeons or pretty much all of GW1.

MatthewMedina.5419:

The reason we chose the times that we did, when concurrency is at its peak, is precisely because it offers us the highest chance for the largest number of people to attend. By definition though, because concurrency rises and falls, that means it’s impossible for us to choose a time that offers us a chance for everyone to attend.

You could have picked a Saturday/Sunday night for the one-time event. That would offer much more options to adjust daily schedule than Sunday/Monday night. If the event will last past midnight – and since it’s supposedly “multi-hour” and starts here at 23:00 (i think) it’s very likely – i won’t be able to participate (work hours and all that).
And since thee will be a prize for participating… you see the picture?

MatthewMedina.5419:

The reason we chose the times that we did, when concurrency is at its peak, is precisely because it offers us the highest chance for the largest number of people to attend. By definition though, because concurrency rises and falls, that means it’s impossible for us to choose a time that offers us a chance for everyone to attend.

Offering events like this at multiple times for different time zones is certainly worth considering, but given our team’s goals and the timeline we had to operate in (we fielded our team immediately after shipping the Live game), it just wasn’t feasible for us to consider such an option for this particular event.

Having said that, this decision is something that we realized would not make everyone happy. Keep in mind that there is a tremendous lineup of content to choose from during the weekend and after, with both the island and the Fractals dungeon remaining active, and we will continue to listen to both criticisms and compliments about these special events in order to continually improve your playing experience.

Matthew, thank you for your post here – this does provide a level of explanation as to why – so far – all “events” in game have been one time.

I have previously posted my thoughts on this topic here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/events/The-lost-shores-one-time-events/first#post649153

Going forward from here, I would hope that the team behind these events surrounding the Lost Shores can appreciate that, by design, they have made it impossible for a portion of their client base to attend. For clarity (as I’m sure this post will be derided by several forumgoers), I don’t mean impossible as in “I choose to do something else at the time”, I mean impossible as in “I simply cannot attend as this falls during working hours on a work day”.

I personally would like to see two things as an outcome to these, and the Halloween event(s):

(1) Future events should not be a “one time” thing – this simply does not work when the audience and client base is global. Either these events need to be “instanced” per player, or be designed to last 24 hours or more, giving players at least a window of opportunity to partake in those events. Every single player of GW2 paid a share toward the development of these event contents by purchasing the game, and potentially gem purchases since the launch of the game. Please don’t alienate your clients by designing content that they will never have an opportunity to see based on a one time event and concurrency timing.

(2) If there will be items available to players in these events introducing the Lost Shores, please allow those who are unable to enjoy the content at least have a method of obtaining the items they otherwise would have been able to enjoy – not doing so would be an added insult to those players who have, by the misfortune of where they live, already missed out on the opportunity to partake in this content.

With that out of the way – and some may be surprised at this (but don’t be, I did wish the above to be both emphatic, but constructive), I’d like to thank the entire team at ArenaNet for both making this wonderful game, and also for creating two great additions to the game (Halloween and Lost Shores) in an incredibly short time frame! This augurs well for a great future for GW2, something that I’m sure all players look forward to.

I would also like to thank the team at ArenaNet for listening, and caring about the game as passionately as they obviously do – much feedback has been given on these forums in the past 2-3 months, and I for one am impressed at the amount of feedback that has obviously been read, considered and implemented.

Thank you for encouraging this discussion!

I am lucky to live in a time zone where the one-time event is highly convenient, but I also feel guilty for having it easy when many European and Oceanic players will have trouble attending. I would feel better if I was the one that had to make the hard scheduling choice from time to time…

That being said, you’re introducing a Fractals of the Mists dungeon in which the premise is that there are alternate realities, correct? Why not make one of them an “explore” style of an alternate reality, by which I mean selectable as an option instead of the normal dungeon mode, where the event was somehow delayed and is just beginning?

Or alternately, can we get something akin to Ouroboros in the City of Heroes games? After all, the game has established that time itself can fracture and who’s to say that some crazy … I mean brilliant, of course… Asura can’t find a way to gate into such a phenomenon?

You already have a badge system in place that tracks if particular characters or accounts have completed certain content, so it should be possible to make sure that it is a one-time-only per account (or character) experience, shouldn’t it?

I know it’s likely much more complicated than I’m thinking it is, but it was just a thought that sprang to mind.

I’m lucky to be able to attend all phase change overs of the event, but even if I weren’t I love that there’s one time only events with a (semi-) permanent effect on the world which is something many players have asked for since beta because other events are on a spawn timer / trigger and feel repetetive.
Making it instanced would be more inclusive of all players but would also take the charm away from it for me.
What I’ve missed in all mmo’s of the past decade (except maybe Rift before the dungeon finder was introduced) is open world action, almost all of them are reduced to lobby games (until a new zone is added) after you’ve hit max level.
The most fond memories I have from another game is when there were one time only GM-run events (for example huge monsters controlled by GMs attacking a city or joining the pvp fight).
That’s why I love GW2 so much, there’s a lot of open world action and a large beautiful world to explore. One time only open world events play perfectly into that.
Can’t wait for the event to start

The team no doubt put a lot of time and heart into these one-time events, and masses of players will miss the experience due to commitments big and small. How is that fair on them? They paid just as much as everyone else to play the game.

I missed the Mad King wrecking the statue in LA. I missed the hole in the ground being closed up again afterwards. Did I enjoy the rest of the event? No. I saw cute baby quaggans dressed as ghosts and made my character puke on candy corn and got a book to wear on my back, but that was all side dressing to a main event that I had to watch on Youtube.

Munrock.3092:

The team no doubt put a lot of time and heart into these one-time events, and masses of players will miss the experience due to commitments big and small. How is that fair on them? They paid just as much as everyone else to play the game.

I missed the Mad King wrecking the statue in LA. I missed the hole in the ground being closed up again afterwards. Did I enjoy the rest of the event? No. I saw cute baby quaggans dressed as ghosts and made my character puke on candy corn and got a book to wear on my back, but that was all side dressing to a main event that I had to watch on Youtube.

I missed everything about the halloween event, I signed on to defeat the mad kind once and fail at the clock tower countless times, and I missed the end event also. the problem with being in the UK is that we get the Event close to midnight, around about 8pm…ish, so that means If i don’t have work tomorrow I can get at least 4 hours in on the event, but unfortunately I do have work, so that means I could probably squeeze in about 2 hours of play, That’s just for Day One, and it will also be the same for Day Two and most likely the end event. So for a Three Day event I would’ve only clocked in a minimum of 6 hours of play for a One time only event. Now I just feel left out.

I’m not saying we are worse off than everyone else, I know people who can’t actually attend at all and they want to. I’m just saying for One Time Only event, they chose a pretty bad time to open it.

People seem to expect ArenaNet to email everyone asking for a preferred time.
Not to mention, if they did do that .. the times would be the same. As, as they have said countless times, this is the higher peak hours for players. (I.E when the MOST players are online). So people stating ‘the masses’ will miss out. Er, no.

The west coast isn’t the only place in the world.
I feel sorry for Anet. Trying to improve the game, and just get moaned at….

There is moaning, but there is criticism going on as well, they now know next time to rethink about their “peek times” how would it go if it started an hour or two earlier? Hmm?

Leweegibo.1562:

in Aus is 7am for most, 6am for me on Monday. As if that would not bother you

Or 4am for Aus western standard time :P

MatthewMedina.5419:

We know that this is a topic that’s going to be heavily discussed, and we definitely want as much of your feedback as possible, both positive and negative (so long as it remains constructive and within the guidelines of the rules of conduct). However I would just like to point out that this:

“…fact that it’s the highest concurrence time…”

is contradictory to this:

“why not choose a time where there’s a higher chance for people to choose to attend?”

The reason we chose the times that we did, when concurrency is at its peak, is precisely because it offers us the highest chance for the largest number of people to attend. By definition though, because concurrency rises and falls, that means it’s impossible for us to choose a time that offers us a chance for everyone to attend.

Offering events like this at multiple times for different time zones is certainly worth considering, but given our team’s goals and the timeline we had to operate in (we fielded our team immediately after shipping the Live game), it just wasn’t feasible for us to consider such an option for this particular event.

Having said that, this decision is something that we realized would not make everyone happy. Keep in mind that there is a tremendous lineup of content to choose from during the weekend and after, with both the island and the Fractals dungeon remaining active, and we will continue to listen to both criticisms and compliments about these special events in order to continually improve your playing experience.

As long as you guys don’t give players who attend special items or achievements then it’s fine.

That or have an NPC stand there afterwards handing out items to players like the NPC who gave out witch hats and the achievement.

Hiz Father.5186:

its a one time event but you can do it the whole day so your not misssing anything besides the one time event is on sunday at 12 so i f you have school or work on sunday you shouldnt even be playing videogames

Out of curiosity what does working Sundays have to do with playing video games? For years I worked every Sunday, now I rotate in every 3rd Sunday but I play plenty of games.

I’ll miss out on the initial event today and possibly tomorrow as I have to work Saturday as well, ah well it happens. I will be able to attend this Sunday which is great. Am I disappointed? Sure.. Will it really mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things? Not really. So to those who can make it have fun, those who can’t log in when you can and enjoy what is going on when your around.

This may be a crazy suggestion, but for people who apparently have had their lives ruined because they may miss out on a one-time-only event… Why not just once stay up late or get up early? Even if napping before/after, stay for half an hour or an hour. This won’t apply to people at work at the time, but for those complaining that it might be 9pm or 6am or something outside of work hours. It’s just a game, and I’d like to think that most people can deal with missing something here or there, but if it’s absolutely imperative that you get in on this, wouldn’t one night of ruined sleep be okay? It’s not like this is going to happen often. Especially as Matthew mentioned that it may be worth considering having future events at different times for different time zones.

Funny. When I posted the very same question about why a one time event was happening during USA work hours, a few people said “europe is more important” and then a dev locked the thread. Yet here we’re being told ‘your feedback is important’.