Guild Wars 2

What does everyone think about this going forth? I think it is hard enough to keep up as it is and none of the content has really been perma-content, just temporary. Thoughts?

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/06/26/guild-wars-2-planning-a-two-week-update-schedule/?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=emp

the new jumping puzzle is permanent
the new scavenger hunt is permanent
the dungeon will be added as a permanent fractal probably

southsun:
the queen karka metaevent is permanent
new guild missions are permanent
new events and scenerie is permanent

also: Anet stated that they will add more permanent content coming with the living story in the future.

When you look at it as a whole for those particular items, but the living story content like when they have to move onto the next one, and say you just started playing the game, and have low level character. I have attempted much of the content from Dragon Bash and the Pirates of Tyria content, and some of it is just way out of my league. The monsters are ridiculously high in level for me and then on top of it, by time I would be high enough, the content to get all the achievements will have been long gone.

the dungeon scales you up to lv.80. Which monsters are you talking about?

Getting like the achievements to get to the weapon caches in the real high monster areas. Literally if you get hit, you are down and dead and hope to god you got to the next waypoint or you are starting over from the last one.

Zipster.5190:

Getting like the achievements to get to the weapon caches in the real high monster areas. Literally if you get hit, you are down and dead and hope to god you got to the next waypoint or you are starting over from the last one.

as I said: the scavenger hunt is permanent content. It’s still there in the future so take your time and level to 80, then do it. Which area specifically are you talking about? Isn’t the highest zone for the hunt Mount Maelstrom?

That one and I believe getting to the Trolling cache as well. And the weapon caches are only there til July 9th I believe, so I will not be lvling to 80 in that short amount of time, therefore will miss out on the achievements and events.

I don’t like the 2-week schedule. Its too much too quickly, IMO.

I’m sure some people are bored of the main game, have done everything, and appreciate the constant barrage of new content. But for me, I’m far from experiencing everything in the normal game (I’ve still never even done a dungeon aside from the event ones, never finished personal story, have a handful of zones I’ve never been too, ect), and this non-stop rush of events is keeping me from experiencing any of the normal content as it rushes me from one event to the next.

I just want some time to relax and experience the normal content within the game at at a leisurely pace. And sure, I could choose to ignore the events in order to do that instead, but then I’m permanently missing out on content in favor of doing stuff that I’ll technically be able to do any time (though if events keep coming, “any time” means never :p). And that doesn’t seem very appealing either.

@Electro thank you, that is the point I am trying to make with this OP!
It makes new players shy away and makes it less favourable, next to impossible for some.

Honestly as a new player these limited time events are just horrible. For the multiple reasons listed in this thread I may not make it to my second month in this game, and that is a true shame because other than these limited time exclusive crap quests the game is great.

But it comes down to either I ignore them and watch all this cool stuff pass me by (Most of it is even outright impossible for new lower level players to do)

Or I constantly am trying to keep up with these events and there for am missing out on the forest because of the trees.

On the one hand, I think it is amazing and very admirable that the GW2 devs want to pump out this much content in what is essentially (after the initial purchase) a free-to-play game. I applaud them for their efforts.

On the other hand, new (temporary) content every two weeks is too much. I am an adult with a family, a job, and a house — I can’t keep up with all of the content/achievements at the pace they are being released.

If by two week updates, they mean something more like having all of the grindy content in Update A and then 2 weeks later add more story content in Update B, and more story in Update C, but still leaving in the grindy bits from Update A, I’m fine with that. But if every 2 weeks we are going to have different “press F” tasks, then I will never keep up.

Ultimately I would like to see something like I mentioned above where a 4-6 weeks story arch (with the grindy parts over the entire time) occurs, and then there is a 2 weeks phase where the only thing in the update is bug fixes and permanent content (new Dynamic Events, new dungeons, jump puzzles, etc. – that stay).

I need that two weeks every few updates where we return to the status quo, so I can level alts, or explore the world, pvp, wvw, etc. I want it so every so often I don’t have to bash, smash, mash, mangle, open, eat, kill, repair, hit, shoot, etc. anything.

Just my 2 cents and nothing more

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Zipster.5190:

Getting like the achievements to get to the weapon caches in the real high monster areas. Literally if you get hit, you are down and dead and hope to god you got to the next waypoint or you are starting over from the last one.

as I said: the scavenger hunt is permanent content. It’s still there in the future so take your time and level to 80, then do it. Which area specifically are you talking about? Isn’t the highest zone for the hunt Mount Maelstrom?

There are 3 high level zones 60-70 and the WvW (that your server may not even have a shot at) zone for the caches.

Not to mention its hard getting in to a group for the dungeon when you are low leveled and poorly geared.

It places a bar that some players just can not or need to spend massive amounts of time to reach.

I very much like the constant updates as long as quality doesnt suffer. Imo a 4 week (or 6 weeks but overlapping so you still have a content patch per month) schedule with deeper content like the halloween riddles for the backpiece and less superficial run all over ‘current event zone’ and click things (signs, pinatas, etc) would be better though.

Thanks to the 2 week time limit, this latest and greatest content is probably going to make me fail my goal of getting all the living story achievements. I should thank anet for freeing me of this foolish goal. It’ll probably save me many a gem as I won’t get as involved in the content from here going forward.

I feel like I rush to make sure I obtain the limited meta item or skins related to the living story that will go away. I’m focused on that only. The tasks to get those items before they’re gone. I feel like I forget the story entirely or why they are there. I don’t care about them because they don’t give me time to care. It has to be extended 3-4+ weeks. I feel like I can’t get immersed into this Aetherblades story. It just seems like such a weak delivery at something with potential with little time to attempt to enjoy it.

Whats the use for Anet staff to put their efforts into all these details and the players can’t take time to appreciate it? I know the staff who put their time into this deserve better.

After reading the previous contents, I see almost no valid arguments. So you say you have a life? Get a grip. I think that a constant flow of updates is healthy for the game, and encourages people to play and level up in order to partake in them. If you are complaining about too much content, then you obviously don’t have much time to play the game anyway, and shouldn’t worry about missing small two week events.

Lets say you miss one of the “two week events”. So what? There will be another one in two weeks. We cannot criticize future content that “isn’t accessible for low level characters” when we haven’t even seen what they have in mind yet. In my opinion, if they are going to fire off content this quickly, then it won’t be too drastic to miss one or two updates. I completed most of the Aetherblade content within a few hours of game time (aside from the initially bugged dungeon), and I completed it for fun, not for the rewards.

Remember, this blog post seems to convey that they are aiming at more permanent content.

“We’ll introduce new maps and regions permanently to the world, but with a storyline that drives their creation and discovery to make them feel natural and seamless rather than suddenly tacked on. Though there will be a broader narrative that carries across many of the releases, players will find the themes and story of each release will be relatively self-contained. Players who miss a release or new players who arrive won’t feel lost in the story and can just dive right in and join in the fun.”

While there may be some temporary content available such as a skin, there should also be a slew of permanent items left for players. This in a sense means, you can get to it when you get to it. Temporary content is nice for some of the more seasoned players. It gives a short term goal they can strive for while following the living story.

My concern with a “2 week” agenda is that they are pulling members away from developing an expansion. I hear rumors in-game about NCsoft not funding an expansion than they change their mind and they will. I don’t know the details of it but at some point I would like to see a fleshed out full expansion release returning to some of the former continents from gw.

There are massive threats and mysteries left in the gw world. Palawa Joko, Cantha, Elona, the Forgotten, human gods, it would be a shame for this lore potential go unexplained.

Personally I applaud Anet’s willingness to go to a lot of effort to make the world more fluid. I’m tired of static games that change infrequently, if at all. If it means I don’t get every single achievement, then so be it. I’ll still get some and the world will feel more alive to me.

Lance Darkrage.1398:

My concern with a “2 week” agenda is that they are pulling members away from developing an expansion. I hear rumors in-game about NCsoft not funding an expansion than they change their mind and they will. I don’t know the details of it but at some point I would like to see a fleshed out full expansion release returning to some of the former continents from gw.

There are massive threats and mysteries left in the gw world. Palawa Joko, Cantha, Elona, the Forgotten, human gods, it would be a share for this lore potential go unexplained.

I think the 2 week agenda has a positive in that it might help quell some of the complaints of boredom I always seem to hear in MMOs. There are a lot of players out there that would just blow through a new expansion in a heartbeat, then complain that there’s nothing to do. By gradually unfolding new regions and activities through LS on a two week schedule, there will always be something new to do.

Really my only problem with this is the two weeks. Don’t get me wrong I think every month would have been a better choice but I understand there are some people who just complete everything in the first few days. Still two weeks is a bad timeline for fixing any problem that may stop people from completing game play.

I think it will be really awesome with consistent updates. However, like my post before, I would like a large continuous story with depth eventually.

“Still two weeks is a bad timeline for fixing any problem that may stop people from completing game play.”

I don’t think that will be a problem because they don’t actually develop and test the content in 2 weeks. The official post says that they take rotations so there are 4 teams cycling through dev releases. They get ~6 weeks for development, testing etc…

I don’t mind it if they make each of the updates last for, like, 2 months. At this rate, 4 living story related events will be up at the same time, all the time, but it shall give us time to finish them.

I’ve already addressed this in another thread but still to contribute, with each team staggering their releases, I worry that the experiences, feedback and understanding of what works and won’t work during a release won’t make it into their other teams, so it’ll feel like the improvement of this concept will be lagging behind with each new release as it’ll be too late to take feedback from current releases of other teams (especially those closer to release) into account before pushing forward.

It feels like they’re trying to run before they can walk.

dronzer.8392:

I’ve already addressed this in another thread but still to contribute, with each team staggering their releases, I worry that the experiences, feedback and understanding of what works and won’t work during a release won’t make it into their other teams, so it’ll feel like the improvement of this concept will be lagging behind with each new release as it’ll be too late to take feedback from current releases of other teams (especially those closer to release) into account before pushing forward.

It feels like they’re trying to run before they can walk.

If the teams work anything like a true developer team would, they hold meetings in a conference room every few weeks and each team gives a presentation for what they have, and the other teams critique the content.

That said, here’s what I DO NOT WANT TO SEE in terms of temporary content in the Living Story:

Missable (note: NOT TEMPORARY, but MISSABLE) story/lore. I myself started playing Guild Wars 2 while Flame and Frost was going on. Naturally, I was busy exploring the natural world and had no clue what Living Story even was at that point. As a result, I missed every single thing to do with it and have zero clue what exactly happened.

I love Marjory’s Journal. It’s useless since I’ve already done the story arc for that line, but if a Herald had a similar item to hand out regarding Flame and Frost events, well that would be just the thing I need to understand what went on. The BLTC is growing into a huge corporation. I don’t see what limitations there could be to printing “newspapers” that use Asura technology to allow a player to see critical story events they may have missed.