Guild Wars 2

Warning, this will contain spoilers.

This episode feels a lot like filler, with all the recycled dynamic events, but one event in particular stood out. That event was of course Bria. Now some of the other events were already cheap, like visiting Serenity Temple to finish the event there, and collecting the crown-piece at the end. It really felt like collecting the crown-piece was just tacked on at the end. What a cheap way to fill the episode. But Bria is a special case.

Those of you who have been playing since launch, may remember that Bria’s quest chain has been broken for more than a year after launch. It was only fixed a few months ago. For ages Bria wouldn’t spawn at all, or the ghosts in the forest wouldn’t spawn, or get stuck in trees. It was a mess. The event would fail at various points, and occasionally part of it would be fixed, only for it to stall in some other way. I was always curious what this event would be like. The location always looked foreboding, and I was always looking forward to it working. What could it be like? Was there an epic boss fight? But it took ages for them to fix it. To the point where when they finally did fix it, I didn’t care any more. But hurray, now it’s fixed… and they recycle it for the Living Story.

Bria’s quest should have been working when the game launched. Bria’s quest should have been fixed at least within a month after the game launched. And now they cheaply recycle that same quest that was broken for so long.

I feel insulted. I feel insulted as a player, and as a consumer.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

This episode feels a lot like filler, with all the recycled dynamic events…

I appreciated the draw toward not obscure but not so frequented Events. It can be improved.

I agree with your post, Queen Malafide, though the emphasis on Bria’s quest seems unnecessary. The fact that this DE has such a long history of problems is a different topic altogether.

The whole crown search is extremely uninspired. The events on which this was tacked on are as much a victim of this living story update as we are.

This is actually one of my favorite events and I’ve never seen it broken if you don’t count the ghosts in trees.

You know what stood out to me more? The crown piece is in a pile off to the side from the entrance. I mean, Bria’s not even in the way of it! It’s not in the mansion (which you can’t go into anyway), so why does Bria’s presence determine whether or not I can get it?!

I just think this whole crown piece collecting was so lame done it makes me cry.

Such a legendary crown is randomly spread out for whatever reason and all you did was checking the map for the next green star and search a pile of rubble.

Anticlimatic, boring, badly done.

The use of existing events into the LS was one of my favorite parts… opinions are opinions I guess. I loved that they pulled the existing world into the LS.

So you are upset that Bria’s quest was bugged for too long, and now you are upset that it has been fixed and made part of the core story?

I don’t understand this.

It’s great that they decided to use existing dynamic events as part of the living story in my opinion, after all they are an integral part of the game that’s largely ignored.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The use of existing events into the LS was one of my favorite parts… opinions are opinions I guess. I loved that they pulled the existing world into the LS.

I can’t say I even consider it a part. I got all 3 crown pieces just by sauntering over after the events had apparently been done recently. It was pretty much the least involved thing ever.

Farzo.8410:

I just think this whole crown piece collecting was so lame done it makes me cry.

Such a legendary crown is randomly spread out for whatever reason and all you did was checking the map for the next green star and search a pile of rubble.

Anticlimatic, boring, badly done.

This, a thousand times.

Spirigo.2897:

So you are upset that Bria’s quest was bugged for too long, and now you are upset that it has been fixed and made part of the core story?

I don’t understand this.

It’s great that they decided to use existing dynamic events as part of the living story in my opinion, after all they are an integral part of the game that’s largely ignored.

I’m upset that they recycle a quest that should have been working when the game released. You have to understand, for the longest time I was really excited for this quest. I was so disappointed when I reached Hellion Forest, and this quest wasn’t working. I kept returning in the following days, and then weeks, hoping that it would be functional. Weeks passed. Months passed. A whole year passed. Still broken. Eventually I completely forgot about the quest. But all of a sudden, lo and behold! A patch and it is finally fixed. I remember thinking to myself, who cares at this point? It’s been broken for so long, why even bother to fix it now?

And then they recycle it, and I think to myself, this is an embarrassment. An embarrassment to the game, and to the players. We know it has been broken for decades, and now you also recycle it? That is why I feel insulted by it.

Insulted? Seriously?

You probably played several hundreds of hours, had fun, did tons of stuff and one quest that was bugged (and now “recycled”) insults you?
I guess it’s true what they say, people always focus on the one thing that’s broken and forget the rest.

The quest to search the “lost” crown pieces was ridiculous. It clearly told you where each piece was, so the pieces were never lost. Yes, I know the one piece magnetically pulled you toward the other pieces, but it actually didn’t. it just showed you where they were.

It would have been great if the quest was done so that you get three arrows/pointers on your UI/map to show the direction where the pieces are. Not the actual locations. So you would actually have to search for the lost pieces.
Most of the quests in GW2 are too easy because it almost always tells you exactly where to go, there is no searching or exploration needed there.

Otherwise nice prequel for something that might actually be fun.

@ OP

How many people actually revisit random events on random maps? Not many. Had Bria’s event been fixed since launch, you would forget about it and not be sour about it like you are now. They revitalised a few dead events so that people can do them more often (well at least untill Ch4 rolls out), that is what you get from a biweekly free event. Should you feel insulted by this, I don’t think so.

Alerno.1425:

The quest to search the “lost” crown pieces was ridiculous. It clearly told you where each piece was, so the pieces were never lost. Yes, I know the one piece magnetically pulled you toward the other pieces, but it actually didn’t. it just showed you where they were.

It would have been great if the quest was done so that you get three arrows/pointers on your UI/map to show the direction where the pieces are. Not the actual locations. So you would actually have to search for the lost pieces.
Most of the quests in GW2 are too easy because it almost always tells you exactly where to go, there is no searching or exploration needed there.

Otherwise nice prequel for something that might actually be fun.

And who would do all the prequests as opposed to checking Dulfy/Map chat?

I think the recycling is not a bad thing, and now that it was fixed (didn’t know it was bugged… I think I’ve done it several times in these two years) more people can experience it.

However, the real issue is with the wasted potential of Bria and her story. We have a ghost who somehow broke free of Adelbern’s curse and returned to her evil ways of feasting on children’s souls. We are on a mission to free the Ascalonian spirits suffering from said curse. Put two and two together and we get… do the event that’s the same as before, loot a pile of rubble that was conveniently placed in front of the house… because LOGIC!

Instead of a cool story thread where we learn that when Bria rid herself of Adelbern’s influence (and how she did so), she showed him her middle finger while taking away a piece of his god-forged, pretty crown just because she could do so, we get the BS in the above paragraph.

Congrats, writers.

Styxx.1564:

Insulted? Seriously?

You probably played several hundreds of hours, had fun, did tons of stuff and one quest that was bugged (and now “recycled”) insults you?
I guess it’s true what they say, people always focus on the one thing that’s broken and forget the rest.

I would make a joke about how anything can insult anyone, but it will end up insulting someone (even though that will prove my point…..), so in the interest of not getting reported/infracted twice in a week…..

Seriously, what’s wrong with ‘recycled’ places/world events? I bet that a vast majority of players have never even played those specific events before. I only played the Frostgorge event once since the game came out, and only once again this week. I’ve only played the Bria event twice as well. Sucked that it was broken so long, but hardly insulting.

It was a good way to get people back out there, playing dead events that no one cared about. In this update. there were still a few new good instances and a pretty good boss battle at the end of one of them. There was also a whole lot of story.

While the Bria event did sometimes bug out (as have many events in GW2), I have successfully completed it multiple times over the past 2 years. The claim that the Bria event was ‘bugged’ and that revisiting it and tying it into the LW is ‘insulting’ appears to me to be deriving offense from, well… nothing. It’s ludicrous.

With that said, I do think the crown fragments thing was extremely poorly done. Fragments of the crown of Ascalon that are to be used in a ritual to attempt to cleanse the Foefire, of all things, and they are dumped in rubble piles in random places in Ascalon? What? It makes no sense and feels thematically… awful.

I have to chime in on not understanding how recycling Bria in particular is insulting. Yes, it’s been bugged for a long time. Yes, most of the time I had passed by this house, the event was either stalled or completed, bu I think the fact that it’s been fixed now is all the more reason to integrate it into the Living Story. It’s kind of like saying, “Hey, guys. We’re sorry this has caused problems, but it should be fixed now!” It’s a pretty clever way to get players to be redirected to this place.

As for recycling events in general, I think it was kind of clever how they integrated these parts in. Sure, when I was doing them on the first night release, it was pretty much a zerg fest, and I ended up doing little to help the event finish, but that’s fine. I would rather they reintroduce some events than introducing events that kept breaking or stalling like they did in Iron Marches initially. Just today, I found an event I’m pretty sure has been there since the beginning, but I had never seen before. I bet some people had never been to the level 80 shiverpeaks zones, not even caring about the dungeon there or map completion. So what if you’ve seen it before? Someone else might not have.

@Nilkemia, the reason you care is that when Bria’s quest is active, she projects an aura that prevents you from investigating the rubble. You have to then lure her out and kill her to return her spirit to rest.

While I do agree with the main argument, that an event chain, even an obscure one like this that hardly gets attention, should have been fixed long ago, there’s a number of things I disagree with.

First, you have to put this into the perspective of time. Down the road a month or two, these events will get limited attention by the people playing the LS episodes via the new journal. Contrary to the natural hype that you’d get today, you’ll see a more steady and natural stream of people going to those events that have been “victimized” by this update, rather than flat-out ignored events.

Secondly, you need to remember that Anet has a way of only coming up with fixes for things that they’re able to witness firsthand, and that players using the “report bug” function (yes, it still exists on the menu) is the most common way that they hear about problems in a non biased, non hysterical way. I happen to have completed Bria’s event chain successfully, easily, some time in 2012 if I remember correctly, so I know for a fact that it wasn’t gamebreaking. When it was, though, it was admittedly just a small part of the overall world.

Thirdly, it’s your fellow players’ to blame. The company caters to the audience, and they have shown time and time again that they are not interested in the “trash mobs”, the “fluff events”, the recycled quest format that’s been used a thousand times yet is necessary to be used in order to create the extraneous side lore… which you feel is important. (I’m in the same boat, I like the smaller details). Unfortunately other players don’t care, and Anet’s time (read: corporate funds) is not spent on it when 0.02% of players gush over it.

Bria’s event chain is one of those that bug out over time. They’ll work fine after a server reset, then eventually stop working.

I’ve done Bria’s event before…

I liked it for the whole “Hansel & Gretel” type of feel to the event.
It’s like a real ghost/witch story to scare little Charr cubs into being good kits.

Was any of the post-event dialog new? I don’t remember it, but it’s probably been over a year since I did the event before.

Farzo.8410:

I just think this whole crown piece collecting was so lame done it makes me cry.

Such a legendary crown is randomly spread out for whatever reason and all you did was checking the map for the next green star and search a pile of rubble.

Anticlimatic, boring, badly done.

I originally thought they were going to send us across the map, with a bunch of riddles to give us hints on where to go. But it was too…obvious. Kind of lame tbh.