Guild Wars 2

I’m guessing the frequency of the LS updates is what keeps people here. (Or else why are devs making their own lives so difficult?). So the question is if they changed and were brought out every 3 months, would you quit? Would you stop spending real money in game? Would you be so un happy? If you read the interviews about the LS the devs make it sound like without them the game would die. Is this true?

And another thought occurs, does their current schedule cause you to spend more real money in game, and play more?

Just curious.. I truly think every 2 weeks is nuts and quality will suffer. Your thoughts?

If they changed and were brought out every 3 months, would you quit?

Most likely, yes. As it is now, I tend to log on a bit less and less as the cycle nears its end.

Would you stop spending real money in game?

I will start spending real money in the game once there is something that I want to spend real money on. (Also, once I have a bit more disposable income).

Would you be so un happy?

As anyone who has something that is good and gets it taken away from them, I would be unhappy.

If you read the interviews about the LS the devs make it sound like without them the game would die. Is this true?

Who knows? I am sure the WvW crowd would not mind as much.

And another thought occurs, does their current schedule cause you to spend more real money in game, and play more?

Not really sure if this is really an extra question. I do not spend more on their current schedule, but yes I play more.

Just curious.. I truly think every 2 weeks is nuts and quality will suffer. Your thoughts?

They increased the development teams by 4 and decreased the frequency by 1/2. That means they have twice as much time to polish content before it is released. Therefore, I do not think quality will suffer.

The frequent Living Story updates have caused me to quit playing. I don’t enjoy being forced to adhere to a gaming schedule in order to complete new content. Not to mention the content itself seems to be very bland and uninspired.

Jemmi, thanks for your frankness. Elbegast, I’m in the same boat.

I really am struggling for reasons to login. I loved the game at first, now.. it feels like a grinding mmo. Which is the one thing they swore up and down they would not be. That coupled with my friends leaving, I’m just really at a loss for reasons. I started leveling a 3rd character that had fallen by the wayside. The story line is ok, but constantly needing to ask for help because the class is greatly underpowered is just pushing me away more. I hope for the sake of the Anet employees and their families this push for live content is a good investment and they see strong returns. Otherwise it’s a huge waste of time.

No, they don’t. This game lives on to me because I’m just a crazy altaholic with 9 char slots. yes NINE. And I’m glad it’s very possible to be one in this game (so far, before they take another ascended dump into the game, then my char options are killed in WvW).

I’m usually not playing any of this “living” “story” crap for more than a day. Much less feeling like spending in the game, i feel like never spending again the more stupid this gets. And I kinda regret i’ve spent some of it at all. I had a little hope with fire and frost (or whatever that was called) because it actually had some story, a somewhat interesting alliance but I was ultimately kitten ed off because I missed the dungeon since i do have a bit of a life (not much, mind you lol)
then it just ended like that. Poof. CRABS AGAIN!!!ONE!!1!

When they start adding some permanent cool DEs in the effin open world, like, you know, the real game they’re supposed to be making, then maybe LS will keep me playing.

I do like the concept, though. I’d love they’d prove me this is not a lazy cashgrab gemstore scheme and an actual experimentation phase. But, until then, my alts and only them will keep me playing – and probably not for long.

I have no intention of quitting regardless of the timing of the update cycle.

Depending on what’s going on in my real life, I may have more or less free time to play at any given point, but I can’t picture a scenario where I’d give up the game entirely.

I enjoy them a lot, but I’m already a regular player and I do not intend to quit the game anytime soon, with or without updates.

I’m still playing, but with every event I tune more and more out. I’ll never have a fully ‘completed’ character for my weird MMO OCD’s sake, and with every LS update I become more disinterested.

Someone tell me why we are screwing around while the Elder Dragons are out slowly doing their thing on schedule? Every LS seemingly takes us further away from the PS, and THAT is why I’m interested in GW2! I like them, but it’d be nice if it were like…2 LS, one Big PS chunk, etc. I’d be fine with stretching Living story content out longer – I’d encourage it.

So far, I haven’t been able to recommend the game to my friends on the weird basis of “Oh man, this event was amazing! You should have come tried it since it was a one time only thing and you can’t get the awards again or experience the cool content that was in it.”

It gets me playing in a trudging kind of way. Yesterday I played alot just cause I wanted to finish all the cache stuff, and some Dragon Bash stuff, but it wasnt very fun since it was like a speed run. I prefer taking my time. Its why Im still only a bit past halfway done with the main story.

With LS update every two weeks I do enjoy the game more, it was pretty slow after capping out three classes I stopped playing, I didn’t even bother w/dailys.

Now with intentions to make much more of it permanent, better content, and constant reward system through LS & Achievements anet I think has done a good job listening to its community while keeping to the idea of how they want GW2 to grow.

They keep this up Guild Wars 2 year two looks pretty good from here.

I feel less and less interested. For a while, I was getting excited for today’s patch because of all the changes and Achievements actually meaning something. Then I read the patch notes and see that there’s more RNG crap in the gemstore, unexplained nerfs to almost every class and no fixes to bugs that have been plaguing the game since the pre-release. For an hour after the patch installed, I watched youtube videos while asking myself, “why should I bother to sign in when they keep pulling this crap?” Anet swears up and down that they’re listening to us but the majority of feedback that I’ve seen is completely ignored.

While the new area is pretty, it will suffer the same fate as many before it. It’s temporary. The game doesn’t feel like it’s growing at all. Instead it’s like Anet comes to our house, changes the wallpaper in one room and swearing it’s new and exciting because they’ll change it back in 2 weeks.

It’s done the opposite for me, and pretty much driven me away.
I was making it a point to get all the achievements for each section, but honestly, I don’t have a lot of free time, and what I do have, I may not want to dedicate to GW2 for a while. Even still I was forcing myself to slog through each ‘chapter’ so I could wrap everything up before they ended until Sky Pirates came around. I found out about the difficulty of the dungeon achievements and, above all else, the obsidian sanctum cache achievement and just stopped. Had these been permanent additions I could go towards at my own pace, I could deal with it, but to go for those in the time they were available would basically require me to throw my weekends away in hopes of getting them.

And now that those achievements are lost to me, I’ve no more motivation. But even if I’d pushed through and gotten them, the feeling that I have to log on and do the event activity crap on their schedule kills the motivation. It became less a matter of feeling like I was logging on to see something I wanted to and more just out of a sense of obligation. And it was doubly-bad because I never found any of the content designed to actually be engaging and fun or the narratives to be… well… good. The constant influx of this underwhelming material killed whatever hope I had left for Tyria to become the world they always made it seem like outside of the game :-/

Logged in today just to mess around for a bit, but I don’t think I’ll be coming back often, if at all from here on.

Same with a lot of the sentiments here. I know everything is technically “optional”, but the feeling of something always being taken away forever sucks. I like to complete things.

As of now the game is starting to feel more like an obligation, where I have to do certain things within this short time period. Oftentimes, I find myself prioritizing the temporary content over stuff that I really want to do. OCD-completion ftl.

Luckily it’s still summer and I have time to play. But I think once life starts getting busy, I will find myself dropping this game entirely.

I actually stopped playing GW2. Didn’t even try doing Sky Pirates, but did try Bazaar, but it felt so boring, so i logged out. :/

Wow, so I’m not so alone in my view. Granted this is a small cross section of the players, it still show how some players feel. I have tried and tried to get interested in the LS, but I just can’t. It really is too much to get it done so fast. I spent time in Southsun, and NO ONE ELSE WAS THERE! I asked in open chat, nothing.. I asked in lions arch, players said “dude that place is over and done, no one goes there..”. All these LS areas will suffer the same fate as well it seems.

The part that bothers me the most is Anet knows better. They know what works. Bioware had never made and mmo, they had an excuse for failing. Anet has no excuse, they just threw out all the things they learned and (sorry to say this guys) really blew it. They are confusing heavy traffic with success. When ESO and others launch, this game will suffer a huge hit, playerwise.

Its, partly, stopped me playing GW2.

The updates are just too fast for me personally and its started to feel like a 2nd unpaid job.

I like playing a computer game when I want, on my own terms timewise not on someone else’s timetable.

I just play WvW now and do the festivals, like Dragon Bash, Halloweon, Winters Day. I purposely ignore everything else. Play other games in the mean time…

Did all the LS upto Dragon Bash, then did zero Sky Pirates and will do zero Bazaar as well…

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

And another thought occurs, does their current schedule cause you to spend more real money in game, and play more?

I answered the question about playing more (no real change, here) but I realized I didn’t answer the part about spending money.

I spend less real money because of Living Story.

It’s not something conscious or planned. It’s just that in the past, stuff in the gem store was either 1.) upgrades and conveniences I knew I could get whenever I felt like it, or 2.) items for big special events that I would budget a certain amount for. I bought both of these categories from time to time.

Because the LS stuff rotates in and out so fast, though, I just can’t keep track of what’s available at any given time, and there’s no particular big event (like Halloween, before) that makes me feel like I should set aside a little special spending money. So I’m pretty much not doing #2 anymore at all.

I’m not purposely spending less. The gem store just doesn’t suit my buying patterns as much anymore so I’m not naturally gravitating toward it – it’s just too hard to keep track of what I might want when I’d have to check so often to figure out what’s even available when I have some entertainment money to spend.

It was somehow ok for me until they reduced the time available to complete some achievements, namely the sky pirates ones, to ridiculously low periods. There’s no way I could have reconciled this with my real life. Their strategy is obvious, the less time there is for completing content and grinding, the more people will buy items at the gemstore. Combined with other strategic decisions like ascended gear, bad balancing, low quality content (stupid grind AND time gating) and development (way too many bugs), GW2 has become exactly the opposite of what was advertised in the beginning and a major annoyance, meaning I spend more time complaining about it than actually playing. So the living story was just the final nail in the coffin that made me (and my gf, since she doesn’t want to play alone) stop playing.
Plus that probably was my last MMO, GW2 somehow managed to ruin the whole genre for me. I’ve never been so disappointed in a game and a company. I’m pretty sure one day I’ll look back, just like with WoW, and think "thank god I stopped playing before it got really bad". I’m not sorry about the few hundred hours of playtime, most of it has actually been fun. Maybe a bit sorry about the money I spent on gems, supporting this strategy while it seemed to make sense. I just feel sorry for the people at ANet that actually had a vision of a game that many of us expected to become reality, i.e. a game for "busy adults". Don’t know what happened, probably pressure from NCSoft. Farewell, I’m out.

/e: lol. Not even the uninstaller works properly.

I am fed up with it now, but the rest of the game is dead Orr is almost empty apart 3-4 people (trying to) complete the map. It certainly isn’t making me spend money on them. I think I would prefer a substantial update every quarter to the 2 week timescale or at least have the 3 months having the same story and bring it to a conclusion.

As it is now we have so many loose ends we dont really know what is going on its like trying to read 4 books at the same time going from chapter to the next. The other problem I think is none of the teams have very good writers (flame and frost was by far the best story) and to me it feels like they are designing the content and then spending a few hours takking a story on.

Just my opinions but I’m probably only going to come back for the continuation of F&F or permanent content now.

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

Do the freq LS updates keep you playing?

Yes.

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

So the question is if they changed and were brought out every 3 months, would you quit?

I wouldn’t quit, but I would play significantly less. I am largely “done” with the regular content and achievements. I realise that you are never truly “done”, but exploration is my favourite part of GW2 and I’ve explored pretty much everything, except for a few dungeon paths. Living story updates deliver new content to be explored.

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

Would you stop spending real money in game?

I wouldn’t stop spending money, but with playing significantly less, I would have less opportunity and desire to spend money.

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

Would you be so un happy?

In a way, no, because I would just fill the gaps with other games and activities outside of GW2. So it wouldn’t be harmful to me, just harmful to GW2 itself.

But in a way, yes, because my boyfriend and I got GW2 as a mutual hobby (and hang-out) while we’re on different continents. A year into the game, we have made other friends, too, that I like to hang out with. So, less time spent in GW2 is not actually my goal. I want to play, and I want to do so without getting bored.

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

If you read the interviews about the LS the devs make it sound like without them the game would die. Is this true?

Suggestive question, and any answer would be pure speculation. Shame on you.

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

And another thought occurs, does their current schedule cause you to spend more real money in game, and play more?

Yes, an update every two weeks makes me play more than an update every 3 months, and with more time spent in game I have more opportunity and desire to spend money – but I’ve already answered that above

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

Just curious.. I truly think every 2 weeks is nuts and quality will suffer. Your thoughts?

I disagree. I think the quality is fine.

I do think that 2 weeks can make for a very hectic schedule when you don’t have time to play ALL the time, and I think I’d be happiest with monthly updates – enough new content to keep me coming back, but maybe also some spare time for fractals and such.

It was during Flame & Frost, which was a lot slower, that my boyfriend and I did all the mini-dungeons and jumping puzzles and started playing dungeons more; the recent schedule would not have allowed us to do so.

I started playing this game on the day of release with my girlfriend, and had a lot of fun exploring the world at our own pace. At first, we didn’t really care about achievements, or the best gear, we just liked finding new and cool things to do.

When they released the Flame & Frost prequel, we found ourselves excited and rushing to explore the new content. Then, it started….

Flame & Frost was released, and so was SAB. We knew we only had a short time, so we went at it, trying to gets the achievements before they were gone. Then came Southsun, and it became worse as we tried to run through the content just in case we ran out of time.

Then Dragon Bash started and this is where is started to feel animosity towards the game. The grindy achievements, and requirement to play Dragon Ball started to take its toll on me. My girlfriend found herself unable to find the time to get the 20 Dragon Bash wins, and so I stayed up, playing her character so she didn’t miss the achievement (she had won about 5 games, so she knew she could do it.).

It was during this time Sky Pirates was released. This coincided with when my mum was visiting, and our plans to spend a week in Italy/Europe. My girlfriend wanted to bring her laptop so she didn’t miss any new content, but after much convincing I was able to get her to leave it at home.

I had an amazing time on my trip, but the second we walked back in the door, we were faced with a bunch of achievements, and less than a week to do them. On top of this was the fact that this release contained a very difficult dungeon that required a fair amount of learning curve.

So, we set to work desperately trying to finish things. My girlfriend, with the help of our friends was able to get the last of her achievements a day before, while I was stuck with PUGs. On the last day, I lost a night sleep as I played from 10pm, to 5:30am in a desperate attempt to get the last achievement. I finally went to sleep, and woke up the next morning after not much rest, to try again.

After failing with a few PUGs, I was able to pay a group of people to help me get it. It literally came down to the final seconds as the big yellow update text flashed on the screen.

I sat back and realized I just gave up an opportunity to hang out with my mum the day before she returned home, and felt horrible. I realized that due to the schedule of this game, and my addiction to it, I passed on hanging out with someone I love.

Then, came the new content. It was the first time I didn’t bother reading the patch notes. It was the first time I logged in, and didnt really care that much what was happening. My girlfriend and I headed over to the new map, and after a few moments realized that due to broken mechanics, the chances of us completing this content was quite low.

Last night, we logged in and by using our VPN service, my girlfriend was able to sort of get through some of the achievements. I on the other hand was still experiencing broken mechanics/lag and so I opted to make a video instead.

http://youtu.be/5QC4CCDcgRg

Turns out this video was the most fun I’ve had in the game in weeks. Today, I’m sitting here and my desire to log on is nonexistent. I just don’t have the energy to fight the game, and try to get the achievements. I can’t even experience the story because of the game being so broken.

So, as you can probably tell, the Living Story has worn me down, bit by bit, sword swing by sword swing. At this point I’m not even sure how I feel. I don’t particularly care one way or another if I miss the new content. The once strong urge to get the achievements before they’re gone is no longer there.

I feel that this game may be coming to an end for me. The longer it goes on at this pace, and the more content I miss, the less I’ll care.

As for money spent. Well, I’ve boycotted RNG, so unless there is something I deem worth my money (axe), there just isn’t much to spend money on. I’ve has 1500gems sitting in my account for weeks, but no real desire to spend it.

Anyway….I suppose time will tell.

I tend to play this game in bursts, will play a lot within the span of 2-3 days and then take little breaks. It usually works out that I will play a lot when a new update is released and then my playtime will slowly dwindle until the next update. While I do like the constant updates to the game, I am very worried its just going to be this string of temporary content that doesn’t accomplish anything other than making me play for a couple of days and then going back to doing my tiny progress with the game (such as world completion, 1% to go, all I need is my server to become red in WvW >.<). Most of the content of the living story I do within a day or two. Such as, this new Bazaar stuff I did the majority of the content within the first few days and now am back to doing my normal killing world bosses and dailies.

I know they have said this but they really need to have a lot of this stuff be permanent. So I don’t feel like I have to do all this content / achievements within the 2 weeks to have that experience. I wasn’t playing during the Flame and Frost update so I will never be able to experience that content. While it does keep me playing, I would much rather have some big update or content patch that adds another storyline branch to the game that involves the after effects of Zhaitan being killed and the progress towards defeating another ED. I know these content patches are somewhat like that but they feel so disjointed and kind of like cheap content. On a side note though I really enjoy the Bazaar map, not necessarily the content in this patch so much but the new area is absolutely gorgeous

What has thus far kept me playing persistently is the ‘core game’ that we got at launch. There’s been very little added since launch that I view as an improvement. In fact, I view most of what has been added as detrimental to the game (living story, ascended gear) or was so ‘brilliantly executed’ that I’ve not yet experienced any of it (guild missions). To paraphrase John Carter, “I still play!” but that’s in spite of the additions rather than because of them.

I wish we were just around the corner from getting a whole game’s worth of new content (see GW1 Factions), but it would seem Anet has innovated that sort of thing right out of the picture.

I usually do the new events etc for 1-2 days every two weeks and continue doing WvW afterwards. I would much prefer to see less but better and PERMANENT content and not something that is there for some weeks and then disappears without having any meaning to the world.

for me, the CONSTANT updates with living story (every TWO weeks?) and associated achievements, combined with the new “achievement rewards” we’re getting, has turned this into a different kind of grind.

nope. i’m not doing vertical gear progression … but if i want the achievements (and i am kind of a collector) then i will be pulling away from my characters’ development (i currently have about 12, at various stages of completion, including several 80s) to go “grind” out the bloody living story content.

i’ve been a fangurl for this game since betas.

you’re losing me. quickly.

I don’t know if they will take what we’re saying here into consideration, they say they will. But they are creating the new LS content and getting it “Ironed out” then they promise to see how the community feels. Talk about putting the cart before the horse. They are breaking all the established principles in Online sales. I deal with this daily, you must, must, must, know what your target audience wants. Build a base, maintain that base as they will carry you through the lean times. Then build and draw in new customers. Anet has ignored all of the established premises. All I can say is I hope when they realize what has happened, and see GW2 has become the new joke of the mmo world they finally listen. (hey it took many years for SOE to live down the SWG/NGE stigma, SWTOR falling flat on it’s face helped too.). I’ve gotten to the place where I don’t believe anything game developers say anymore. It’s like rule #1 (Whovians will smile at this) the Doctor lies. So it seems do gaming companies. Anet might actually be able to compete with EA for the most hated company.

Please let me be wrong.

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

I don’t know if they will take what we’re saying here into consideration, they say they will. But they are creating the new LS content and getting it “Ironed out” then they promise to see how the community feels. Talk about putting the cart before the horse. They are breaking all the established principles in Online sales. I deal with this daily, you must, must, must, know what your target audience wants. build a base, maintain that base as they will carry you through the lean times. Then build and draw in new customers. Anet has ignored all of the established premises. All I can say is I hope when then realize what has happened, and see GW2 has become the new joke of the mmo world. (hey it took many years for SOE to live down the SWG/NGE stigma, SWTOR falling flat on it’s face helped too.). I’ve gotten to the place where I don’t believe anything game developers say anymore. It’s like rule #1 (Whovians will smile at this) the Doctor lies. So it seems do gaming companies. Anet might actually be able to compete with EA for the most hated company.

Please let me be wrong.

The problem is that the feeling that living story updates are to frequent and causing a grind are not ubiquitous.

Jemmi, true. Many will say how wonderful the game is publically, and privately despair and eventually stop playing without ever voicing their concerns. This is rampant in older players. They want to believe they picked a good game because to accept otherwise would mean they are not able to choose wisely and that is simply not acceptable. (yeah I’m old lol).

One thing that seems to go unmentioned is the vast number of players that have left already do not play any game for an extended period of time. Traditionally mmos had a monthly fee. So a percentage of players raced to the end as fast as possible to use up the free period that usually offered. Once it ended they leave. My circle of friends calls them locust. They arrive, play, feed, leave. And every MMO I’ve played will go to their grave trying to get them to stay. Why? They are the leaders of a group that will not fail. They knew every step, every turn, right down to the second when a certain skill or skills should be used. They could defeat any boss, any dungeon with basically a handful of friends and as many pug players as required. Once they had done this a few dozen times, they leave. They are the 1%r’s. They are gone from GW2, and for the most part they will not be back.

This leaves the casual players to make up the core of the day to day players. The players that can play a few hours a week, or less. They are more inclined to pay for items because they simply don’t have the time to achieve their goals without paying.

But again, all the mmos I’ve played have ignored them and gone after the hard core players. WOW is dying, stop copying them. Their time is done, even they know it. Why on earth would any rational being copy a premise that does not work anymore?

So the question is if they changed and were brought out every 3 months, would you quit?

It’s a free game, so really what does “quitting” mean? I’d probably play less as the 3 month mark approached, but it would really depend on the type of content being produced. If it’s a lot of grinding to fill the time, yeah I’d probably quit playing for long stretches to allow content to build back up.

Would you stop spending real money in game?

Honestly, I haven’t spent much real money on the game because there hasn’t been anything worth spending it on. I, as a rule, pay for content not frilly appearance stuff. I’m also pretty good at statistics so I will not pay money for any of those RNG boxes.

New classes, new races, new zones, new things – all stuff I’d consider paying money for (if I judged it worth my time – that’s the weakness of a microtransaction model, the buyer has the ability to say things aren’t worth paying for after the content is made).

Would you be so un happy?

<shrug> I try not to get unhappy about games. It wouldn’t bother me if they changed their delivery schedule if they did it for the right reasons.

If you read the interviews about the LS the devs make it sound like without them the game would die. Is this true?

Tough to say. The concept of a Living World is definitely something that MMOs should be working toward – but GW2 isn’t currently hitting it out of the park. I personally think they should go back to the root storyline. A fight against world-devouring dragons is pretty epic in scale and could have a lot of depth to it. Given there’s a corresponding race to each dragon – there’s a lot of backstory and development being left on the table while introducing second or third string bad guys in places we don’t really need to care about.

And another thought occurs, does their current schedule cause you to spend more real money in game, and play more?

I don’t really play more, but the time I spend in the game is certainly less free-form and more “I have to do this to the exclusion of all else before it goes away”.

Like you, I think a constant stream of new content every two weeks is an unsustainable pace. It will likely wear out both developers and players. I’d rather see a more “module based” approach, where the storyline builds and develops on the two week schedule (or maybe a little longer) but then climaxes and there’s a month or so where not much is going on and the players can take a breather.

I still play but the time I do spend playing is mostly on the non LS stuff because LS stuff stuff tends to be a bit shallow. I’m not really fond of this episodic content. The PS has essentially fallen to the wayside in favor of stories that aren’t really interrelated. I haven’t spent a dime on the game since purchasing it because there’s nothing worth spending on. All that’s buyable is silly stuff I’m not interested in. What I’d spend money on is real meaty content, not ugly armor skins or lottery boxes for a chance to win a weapon.

Anyway, to make a long story longer, the LS doesn’t really influence my playtime that much as I’m mostly just screwing around leveling different characters and occasionaly doing dungeons/fractals. When a new LS chapter starts I usually check it out but I don’t really focus on it that much afterwards.

If the frequency of the LS updates changed and were brought out every 3 months, would you quit?

Nope, I’d still play… just less frequently. Like, every 3 months. :P

Would you stop spending real money in game?

Haven’t spent any real money yet. Not even for the box (it was a gift). Don’t see any reason to start.

Would you be so un happy?

Not particularly. I juggle a lot of games, often playing at least 3 a night. Less updates means I’ll have a free slot for something else.

If you read the interviews about the LS the devs make it sound like without them the game would die. Is this true?

Yarp. I’ve seen what happens when content goes stale. People leave then games die.

And another thought occurs, does their current schedule cause you to spend more real money in game, and play more?

The current schedule certainly sees me playing more. Never spending any money though until I see something worth spending it on… maybe a super fast flying mount that can sprint clear from one side of a zone to the other in 15 seconds or less can part me from my money.

Just curious.. I truly think every 2 weeks is nuts and quality will suffer. Your thoughts?

What they have going now seems to be working. Why change it?

If anything LS is affecting my opinion on game negativley. Stories are uninteresting, they feel like a drag and are mostly in shadow of achivement chasing. I had higher hopes, now im just dissapointed with way LS is headed.

Elbegast.6970:

The frequent Living Story updates have caused me to quit playing. I don’t enjoy being forced to adhere to a gaming schedule in order to complete new content. Not to mention the content itself seems to be very bland and uninspired.

This pretty much. I don’t like the feeling of being forced to play the game else I’ll be missing out on everything. The new stuff does seem very… tired.
Updating constantly is a bad idea imo, as they’ll eventually run out of ideas or options. Better to have larger updates less often than small and boring updates every fortnight.

The Flame & Frost thing was good in the way that it was a large ‘living story’. There was a new update to it every week or so was it? But you could always go back and complete the previous steps. There was also plenty of time to do it in and even if you didn’t pay much attention to the story text, it was easy to follow what was happening.

The novelty of these smaller updates will quickly wear off but I know I’m still going to feel like I’m forced to play. Strangely more so than I felt while paying for WoW.
I’d rather them concentrate on fixing bugs and broken classes than small updates that don’t matter. (Yea I know different teams, but people could still be reallocated).

Yeah. I was playing every day and doing some stuff in other games periodically. Now I’m pretty much just playing GW2. Since we’re just discussing the LS as opposed to the entire patch content (which is actually pretty exciting but the one-at-a-time-though-biweekly rate actually decreases the impact IMO).

I’m logging in for the mechanics and have paid progressively less attention to the story part of it. I’ve been pretty impatient with people on other forums (Massively.com comment sections in particular) because of their complaint with the temporary nature of the LS:

I refuse to log in because this content is temporary and I don’t want to play something that I can’t play again later.

Which is just a pig-headed reason but might show more of a flaw in communicating thoughts than reason behind it. The thing about the temporary nature (and this does tie into the rate or ‘cadence’ as they call it…making me cringe) is that you can’t really tell a story with any depth for it to be so ‘hot-joinable’. Drop into any episode of Lost (See footnote) in season 3 without having seen the show before and tell me what’s going on.

My dislike of their use of the term cadence to descibe the pace is it’s musical definition describing an ending. This for instance is a cadence.

• I use Lost not as an example of depth but of serial story-telling. This footnote could also be used as a tl;dr.

I feel it’s far too much far too frequently. Much like the issues I had with Rift that led to me eventually quitting, there’s just too much going on ALL the time. With the temporary nature of things, it makes me feel obligated to go on and DO THOSE THINGS, and by the time I’m done with that and a daily run, I just don’t feel like actually playing the game that’s already there. In order for special events to actually matter and feel SPECIAL, you need to have a status quo. Sometimes the world just needs to be at rest for a bit…give people time to unwind, do what they wanna do, enjoy guild content, leveling, exploration, what have you, without feeling like they’re missing something by not doing the Living World content.

I enjoy it, but perhaps there could be a pause every once in a while, and that team could be put on some new additions to keep things interesting without making a huge event about it. Like Fractals. Why haven’t we seen any additions to the Fractal roster since release?

Voltar.8574:

Yeah. I was playing every day and doing some stuff in other games periodically. Now I’m pretty much just playing GW2. Since we’re just discussing the LS as opposed to the entire patch content (which is actually pretty exciting but the one-at-a-time-though-biweekly rate actually decreases the impact IMO).

I’m logging in for the mechanics and have paid progressively less attention to the story part of it. I’ve been pretty impatient with people on other forums (Massively.com comment sections in particular) because of their complaint with the temporary nature of the LS:

I refuse to log in because this content is temporary and I don’t want to play something that I can’t play again later.

Which is just a pig-headed reason but might show more of a flaw in communicating thoughts than reason behind it. The thing about the temporary nature (and this does tie into the rate or ‘cadence’ as they call it…making me cringe) is that you can’t really tell a story with any depth for it to be so ‘hot-joinable’. Drop into any episode of Lost (See footnote) in season 3 without having seen the show before and tell me what’s going on.

My dislike of their use of the term cadence to descibe the pace is it’s musical definition describing an ending. This for instance is a cadence.

• I use Lost not as an example of depth but of serial story-telling. This footnote could also be used as a tl;dr.

BTW, Cadence is often used in storytelling to talk about the rhythm or flow of the story.

It is definitely used in music, but it also is used in poetry and it also just means the revolutions of a crankset per minute.

I forced myself to visit the four winds, it was interesting for about half an hour then the newness wore off and it was a cross between boring and grind. The only part I liked was people triggering a champ, or the Aetherblade raids. But they were less enjoyable when players left and a few tried to fend them off. Sorry I would give this update a “D” must do better. I think the real reason for the LS is due to falling sales, low in game purchases, and players leaving, Anet has no budget for expansions. My worry is Ncsoft will grow tired of waiting and pull the plug.

To each their own. If you do not like what they are offering there is always other MMO’s you can move onto. I heard most of them have a really intricate combat system where instead of hitting 123456789 you hit 1325365446. Must be exiting. Or you could move onto games like COD…OMG the fish moving away from the screen :o

If you can not get content that can be done in 2hrs done in 2 weeks you should have never started MMOs. If you want to wait a year for lousy expansions you could always move onto WoW.

More content every 2 weeks is great and I really enjoy the feeling of being in a world where things change in a pretty reasonable time. It is a shame that most content is taken away but who cares. New content arrives.

If you left Guild Wars 2, thanks for the $60. You do not need to come here and expect someone to be like oh sorry, did you quit. Okay we will change our whole system because what 6 people left the game. Leave and try other MMO’s but dont come back like everyone eventually does because every other MMO is so bad.

One thing I don’t get is when people behave as if no content at all would be better than having content, because having content “forces” them to log in and play the game.

……what?

It’s not like you miss out on some important progression or gear or items or levels or something if you miss a Living Story event. If you don’t want to log in and do something, then don’t log in and do something.

^
The game would die if the Living story was at anything over a month (which is still too long of an interval) because MOST of the gamers finish the new content in a day-week.

Plus if you have your priorities straight its easy to get an hour of gaming a day to do dailies/new content.

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

I’m guessing the frequency of the LS updates is what keeps people here. (Or else why are devs making their own lives so difficult?). So the question is if they changed and were brought out every 3 months, would you quit? Would you stop spending real money in game? Would you be so un happy? If you read the interviews about the LS the devs make it sound like without them the game would die. Is this true?

And another thought occurs, does their current schedule cause you to spend more real money in game, and play more?

Just curious.. I truly think every 2 weeks is nuts and quality will suffer. Your thoughts?

They are beginning to have the opposite effect on me. I don’t do well in things that are timed .. whether it is a jp that has timed parts or a race. I don’t like content that is around a limited time. I’m terrible at jumping. I don’t have the super fast reflexes needed to jump, spin, etc to win. I’ve got 5 level 80’s. I’ve got 95% map completion. I play WvW. I don’t play sPvP. So its not like I can’t or don’t do “anything”. I just can’t do a lot of what the last two living worlds have required.

And before people come in with the “entitled” etc complaints. No, I’m not wanting to spoil other peoples fun and sense of achievement. No, I don’t want things just handed to me. People who thrive on this type content will be happy.

I’m just trying to decide if this is the game for me anymore.

I’m getting bored with the repetitious killing a certain number of things and clicking on a certain number of things and getting frustrated with temporary content, jp requirements, and content that requires you to have a really fast reaction time.

I completed all of Flame and frost and most of southsun cove and dragon bash. I completed one achievement in sky pirates – krytan aetherblades killing one. I’ve completed 9/16 of this last one. I have 3 more achievements to do that I’m looking forward to doing. That leaves 4 more. I doubt I get the sky crystal done. I have 28/40 but getting to the last 12 is proving more frustrating than fun. I did 1 of the jp ones (because it wasn’t a jp). I may or may not do the drinking minigame. I love the race but I’m not skilled enough to place in the top 3. I had fun at first in this living story but now not so much.

I hope that they have something else they will add to pve for those of us who aren’t into the current trend. However, I got the impression that expansions are out and living story is in. So if the PvE content continues to be this way then no I won’t be playing more. I’ll be playing less.

I enjoy the LS updates but there is too much in too smaller time. For instance over the last 3 days I have probably put in around 15-20 hours of play time and have still not completed the LS quests.

Why?? Because there are still dailys and Monthlys to think about as well as travelling all over the world finding random objects. Im finding the 2-3 week release cycle just a bit too frequent. One a month would help it not seem like such a chore, or reduce the amount of achievements( or size of the achievement in cases of things like belchers bluff which I can see taking quite a while to master) in each LS release.

I said a few upadtes ago that having them in a 2 week release schedule also penalises players who want to go on holiday for a couple of weeks or in some cases even away for a few days (missed out on the fireworks achievement, and therefore the helm reward, during Dragon bash as I was away for 5 days at a festival)

I get that they want to retain players and stop them getting bored if they have completed the core game but the frequency seems to be pushing people away going on the comments above.
Since the LS stuff started coming out i have not really had time to concentrate on getting much more of the core game completed.

Yes.

I would play less if they were brought out every 3 months.

Okay new question: Is the LS as good as Expansions? In GW1 each expansion brought a new continent, new missions, new storyline, and 2 new professions (I have no idea if we could even hope for new professions, but ya never know) I’ve read there are no expansions planned, I’ve read not for a few years, etc.. How would you feel if they didn’t put out any expansions, ever?

The new content itself doesn’t give me much reason to log in mostly because after going through the grind they intended even in a casual pace(which most of the living story content can normally be ballparked most of it within a few hours so a casual pace is something i’m pushing at hard.)

The only content i’ve liked recently was the final phase of the f&f and the first week of the southsun but the second one you can chalk up to wanting the rewards with the magic find as opposed to actual fun.

I’d also like a break from forced jump puzzles(i won’t debate the symantics behind this but when meta’s either have me pick between jump puzzles or pvp i’m more inclined to do jump puzzles) because the jump puzzles are more stressful to me mostly because i don’t like doing platforming with a laptop keyboard setup.

Don’t get me wrong i like platforming just not in mmo’s which i understand some people do enjoy and i don’t mind that but i personally don’t like jump puzzle emphasis 2 updates in a row.

They are fun ! but nope!

In fact, I dread almost every update now, since they intend on destroying my main (mesmer)

I log in because of WvW, my goal for a legendary (actually, I think the Living Story might be slowing down my pathway for my first legendary) and because this game is the successor of my favorite game GW1

While the new content is fun (mostly…except for the drinking game with Irongut, which really ruined this one for me), the frequency of it makes me feel pressured to play. Yes…pressured…as in if I don’t log in I will miss something, or won’t have time to complete all the content to get the nifty thingie at the end. When my hobby which is supposed to be relaxing and fun starts adding to my stress, I step away from it.

At this point, if I miss the beginning of new content, I’ll largely just write off the game for two weeks until the next content comes out. I’m glad there is new content, but AN should slow it down a tad…once a month would really be just fine.

Pavees.7281:

I’d also like a break from forced jump puzzles(i won’t debate the symantics behind this but when meta’s either have me pick between jump puzzles or pvp i’m more inclined to do jump puzzles) because the jump puzzles are more stressful to me mostly because i don’t like doing platforming with a laptop keyboard setup.

I’m not a big fan of Arcade style games either. Hopefully the larger audience is, or it’s a huge waste of development time.

I think I finally put my finger on what is bothering me about GW2. It’s not like GW1. I guess I was hoping for more of the same with a better engine and combat. As is, GW2 feels like a completely new group of developers, writers etc.. were brought in, and they never played GW1.

As is, GW2 is (IMHO) as different from GW1 as it could be. They have no basis for comparison other them some canon. Friends talked about playing GW1 to get the achievements and to learn the story etc. I told them If you play GW1, you will not be happy with GW2. Now put the ropes down. My reasoning is easy. They are avid readers, and love an immersive storyline. GW1 had this, GW2 doesn’t and judging from interviews etc.. it won’t have one anytime soon.

I don’t touch the LS content unless there is something I REALLY want. I think I am a minority in this as alot of other people feel compelled to do them just because it is limited time only.

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

If they changed and were brought out every 3 months, would you quit?

Probably. It would likely start with me logging off in between, but I could easily see that rapidly turning into dropping the game entirely.

Would you stop spending real money in game?

I spend money on char slots. That’s it. So for me, no. However, from what I’ve seen in-game, there are plenty of people who spend money for each new set of stuff Anet puts out. So for people who like to spend their disposable income on the game, I suspect yes, they’d spend a whole lot less.

Would you be so unhappy?

Unhappy? I’d probably get bored faster and eventually quit, which would make me sad.

If you read the interviews about the LS the devs make it sound like without them the game would die. Is this true?

I could imagine the player base dropping significantly.

Does their current schedule cause you to spend more real money in game, and play more?

Spend more, no. Play more, absolutely.

I love the latest area, but then again, I love the jumping puzzles. I don’t like massive zergs, and I don’t like being pushed into WvW or group dungeons for what otherwise seems to be solo content. I like WvW. I just don’t want to do my PvE in the WvW zone (yes, I’m looking at you, WvW jumping puzzle with the kite and pirate chest in it).

My only real complaint about LS, however, is its transient nature. I don’t see why they couldn’t use the personal story concept for the LS stuff. That way people wouldn’t miss out on parts. Or, at the very least, keep all the content they can. The Aetherblade base in LA. Why couldn’t that have just stayed there as a dungeon for good? Is the pirates maintaining a base there any harder to imagine than any of the other dungeons’ permanent nature? Sure, have a few achieves tied to some quick stuff that you can only do during the two week timeline, but everything else should be left around to be done at a more leisurely pace, imo.