Guild Wars 2

So I was just wondering how efficient dynamic events are from the developers stand point? I mean how much gameplay do we get for the time developers spend on making those events?

In other games long lasting end game is build around extremely difficult raid dungeons for which you need to be equipped with the best gear that you acquire through massive grind (I don’t wan’t to argue about if this is actually the case in all games because that’s not my point of discussion).

So this takes a lot of time to complete (like weeks) and the amount of work seems reasonable in comparison.

And what I understand from this new update description is that the new content will be few dynamic events that I expect to be extremely easy to complete and will probably last for like 15-60 minutes. And even worse… The reword you will probably get is some Karma and 2 silver!

Is this the way to go?! What is the reason behind this?

Ok, I suppose that they may be preparing some smart reword system but still… It doesn’t seem to be reasonable to do such things when you must think about making people stay in the game for a long time.

Even worst is the mentality about the events. Most people doesn’t consider DE content on equal footing with the dungeons content. Dynamic events is not what people consider as end game content.

Agree lol. I swear, i was thinking it was a joke, this section. A bunch of stupid DEs are the Anet idea of keep players online and an alive world? Lol. More are leaving, daily, we others left yet.
At least, who stop thinking about it a second “What in the hell i’m doing, a 5 minute DE, again, the same stupid DE i did 2 hours ago?”

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

Agree lol. I swear, i was thinking it was a joke, this section. A bunch of stupid DEs are the Anet idea of keep players online and an alive world? Lol. More are leaving, daily, we others left yet.
At least, who stop thinking about it a second “What in the hell i’m doing, a 5 minute DE, again, the same stupid DE i did 2 hours ago?”

Just a note… I really don’t think that Gw2 is in any despair or that population is dropping considerably (as far as I know it’s rising ant that people are playing more).

But I question the way that ANet plans to keep their player base occupied and the kind of content that they plan to add.

Please prove me wrong!

DE’s need more story, which I guess is what the living story is all about. Assuming this patch has some real update to the F&F, the living story DE’s might be worth it: as I find the DE’s are the best way to learn about the game world.
I remember some events more then others, and the ones I do are the ones with dialog. Just enough to get me to understand what is going on, but then over a few events get a tiny feel for the character. That is what I hope these DE’s do with the new characters they keep talking about.

Oh and a reward for killing these new enemies. Halloween had it (the best one so far) and Xmass had them. They are what make me search for events in the first place which leads to the nice dialog.

DOW Mageski.2097:

DE’s need more story, which I guess is what the living story is all about. Assuming this patch has some real update to the F&F, the living story DE’s might be worth it: as I find the DE’s are the best way to learn about the game world.
I remember some events more then others, and the ones I do are the ones with dialog. Just enough to get me to understand what is going on, but then over a few events get a tiny feel for the character. That is what I hope these DE’s do with the new characters they keep talking about.

Oh and a reward for killing these new enemies. Halloween had it (the best one so far) and Xmass had them. They are what make me search for events in the first place which leads to the nice dialog.

Ye, you have some great points there… But what about challenge? If your able to complete the event the first time you run it then what you do next is just farming it for the rewords. But what if there is a simpler way to acquire those rewords? People will just abandon the event (that’s why all group events are deserted – no reason to run them) and complain about that they don’t have anything to do.

HiddenNick.7206:

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

Agree lol. I swear, i was thinking it was a joke, this section. A bunch of stupid DEs are the Anet idea of keep players online and an alive world? Lol. More are leaving, daily, we others left yet.
At least, who stop thinking about it a second “What in the hell i’m doing, a 5 minute DE, again, the same stupid DE i did 2 hours ago?”

Just a note… I really don’t think that Gw2 is in any despair or that population is dropping considerably (as far as I know it’s rising ant that people are playing more).

But I question the way that ANet plans to keep their player base occupied and the kind of content that they plan to add.

Please prove me wrong!

It’s not. If you see more peeps around you they are just abusing of the guest feature for farm. No doubt, i guess most of us are concerned about Anet plans to keep their playerbase occupied.

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

It’s not.

What is not? Player base is not rising? How do you know?

It’s not raising. At all. It’s decreasing, daily. For billion reasons you can find on this very forum , and many unofficial others. Read around. Sometimes people just got bored to be ignored, reporting problems, and not reading a fix nor an answer by the company. And funnily, even a ban for “not being productive on the thread” lol. I guess it was pretty clear from months noone cares of 999.000 negative threads (the other 2 million are instadeleted by a mod), basically most of this forum. Am i wrong?
What you see around you running around are just guests farming, illuding you the game is hugely populated. IF it was so much populated, we wasn’t arriving on main LA instead of an overflow on peek hours. Am i wrong?
Do you remember this game during the first couple months? THAT was huge population online.

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

…

So it’s your personal assumption… Ok, thanks.

PS I don’t think that the player base is as large as at launch.

Ye, Anet is keeping well hide the real status of the actual playerbase, and how it was at launch. Not even updating the real status of servers ( we saw a tiny update with a lot of middle/low populated serves one time, it creates enough reasons for most to quit).
Ye, clearly is not even near to the launch’s playerbase. You notice it too.

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

Ye, Anet is keeping well hide the real status of the actual playerbase, and how it was at launch.

No it’s not. You can see the population status for each server whenever you want. Also Colin Johanson said some time ago that the population was rising constantly for last few weeks and their very excited about it. Also they’ve told us that the game was pre-ordered by 2M people. So you can assume what was the player base at that time.

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

Not even updating the real status of servers ( we saw a tiny update wth a lot of middle/low populated serves one time, it creates enough reasons for most to quit).

At the same time when they’ve added Guesting they’ve also increased population limits for all the servers. So that was your spike. Real server population are updated daily and they are growing right now (was declining after launch).

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

Ye, clearly is not even near to the launch’s playerbase. You notice it too.

Of course it’s not! What did you expect? As long as the game is healthy I don’t mind people leaving – their choice. There are a lot of MMO’s out there.

PS Keep in mind that the main reason to post on the forms is to complain about something (as I am in this thread but I’m not leaving). And that if you log into mighty all WoW after a while you will probably notice that half of your guild is missing. People come and go.

I have no doubt about the “come and go” Just.. here is just “go”.
If you truly believe PR announcements, well..
Really? You have a way to see the real exact number (real time) of players online on gw2?
Even the past one, at launch (the famous 2M players online of Johanson) with a graph? I’m amazed waiting your answer
Can you link me this website ( or show me how it works)?

PS during WoW glorious days, i wish my guildies was offline, at least one more seat for more raids was free for me, lol

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

I have no doubt about the “come and go” Just.. here is just “go”.
If you truly believe PR announcements, well..
Really? You have a way to see the real exact number (real time) of players online on gw2?
Even the past one, at launch (the famous 2M players online of Johanson) with a graph? I’m amazed waiting your answer
Can you link me this website ( or show me how it works)?

PS during WoW glorious days, i wish my guildies was offline, at least one more seat for more raids was free for me, lol

Ok, so I will better listen to you then! And assume that your a super human and know everything by simply assuming your right! lol

I don’t know the numbers. But do you know the number of current WoW subs? No… Oh my… Then it’s probably diving hard! lol

The DE system is a way of focusing on the current ongoings in an area and the current fights being fought around the places.
- I agree that in order for this to work better we need to have the lore integrated more thoroughly, meaning that we’re not “just doing” them, because they are basically cut of the same cloth. It seems like doing the same task but in different areas.

The Quest-system would explain some lore, whereas the DE’s kinda presumes that you have some background knowledge.
- I think that with the Living World Events we get told a story and get to see these events actually happening.
Anet keeps saying that they are enthusiastic about this way of going about making “quests” or content, but that they will probably discover the flaws and merrits over time, so that future Living World Events will become better and tell the current story even better.

In other words, I think we should give them time to examine the feedback during these events so that they can improve on it, thus giving us better, more fun and integrating story and content later on.

Sinifair.1026:

The DE system is a way of focusing on the current ongoings in an area and the current fights being fought around the places.
- I agree that in order for this to work better we need to have the lore integrated more thoroughly, meaning that we’re not “just doing” them, because they are basically cut of the same cloth. It seems like doing the same task but in different areas.

The Quest-system would explain some lore, whereas the DE’s kinda presumes that you have some background knowledge.
- I think that with the Living World Events we get told a story and get to see these events actually happening.
Anet keeps saying that they are enthusiastic about this way of going about making “quests” or content, but that they will probably discover the flaws and merrits over time, so that future Living World Events will become better and tell the current story even better.

In other words, I think we should give them time to examine the feedback during these events so that they can improve on it, thus giving us better, more fun and integrating story and content later on.

But still there is no challenge or replayability. Even if the story will be amazing it’s going to end after 15-30 minutes like in all other events! Or maybe it will not…

Either way people need some goals and those goals needs to occupy them for weeks or months in between the updates! Is this achievable with one time events?

I’d guess they would give out some laurels, but that’s only a guess.

HiddenNick.7206:

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

I have no doubt about the “come and go” Just.. here is just “go”.
If you truly believe PR announcements, well..
Really? You have a way to see the real exact number (real time) of players online on gw2?
Even the past one, at launch (the famous 2M players online of Johanson) with a graph? I’m amazed waiting your answer
Can you link me this website ( or show me how it works)?

PS during WoW glorious days, i wish my guildies was offline, at least one more seat for more raids was free for me, lol

Ok, so I will better listen to you then! And assume that your a super human and know everything by simply assuming your right! lol

I don’t know the numbers. But do you know the number of current WoW subs? No… Oh my… Then it’s probably diving hard! lol

Put apart my superhuman skills. You agree we have way less players than at launch. But then you suddendly said playerbase is growing. My point was obiouvs (and you agree with it), how you can prove your point about the current playerbase growing?
I was sure was enough clear if you see more peeps around you is just thanks to guesting. Even 1000 players guesting around every server will illude yourself this game is hugely populated and growing. It’s still 1000 players + you
Playerbase is decreasing daily, simply because of the disappointment this game gave us (Anet). The potential was huge on this game, the comapany simply… let it die.
I wouldn’t name the king of MMOs (WoW) expecially during his glorious days, attempting to compare gw2. Panda surely ruined the game (Cata too lol). But that’s not because WoW didn’t offer nothing to do for sure. Mostly because the content implemented was just boring nowadays, and many more little reasons.
Even said that, wow still remains the most populated mmo around, even with pandas.
(Beware, i’m not a WoW fan from when cata was out, i’m not defending it nor interested to talk about it. You mentioned it, illuding yourself i’m a WoW player/fanboy).

The DE system is a way of focusing on the current ongoings in an area and the current fights being fought around the places.
- I agree that in order for this to work better we need to have the lore integrated more thoroughly, meaning that we’re not “just doing” them, because they are basically cut of the same cloth. It seems like doing the same task but in different areas.

The Quest-system would explain some lore, whereas the DE’s kinda presumes that you have some background knowledge.
- I think that with the Living World Events we get told a story and get to see these events actually happening.
Anet keeps saying that they are enthusiastic about this way of going about making “quests” or content, but that they will probably discover the flaws and merrits over time, so that future Living World Events will become better and tell the current story even better.

In other words, I think we should give them time to examine the feedback during these events so that they can improve on it, thus giving us better, more fun and integrating story and content later on.

I still wonder how the section title “Living World” is related to a bunch of DE repetable billion times, not changing a kitten ingame PERMANENTLY. A living world is a world where let’s say “An NPC died, because the server’s playerbase didn’t do that content”. Died, forever. With a tomb. And people passing by will remember forever that NPC and the battle related, and their server losing the hope of a better world.
THIS is a living world. What we have is just a bunch of nice textures, some stupid DEs Anet is even proud to talk about, and nothing made the playerbase interested more than do them 1 time quickly just bored of the usual AC+COF eternal grind farming gold. Living world, rofl..

Please, if you turn this discussion to just another complaint about how the game is dead there is smaller chance someone might actually read it and think about what the op was all about. Just stop answering him, doing it ruins the thread.

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

…

Everything is dying! Whatever… Just focus on the subject.

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

I still wonder how the section title “Living World” is related to a bunch of DE repetable billion times, not changing a kitten ingame PERMANENTLY. A living world is a world where let’s say “An NPC died, because the server’s playerbase didn’t do that content”. Died, forever. With a tomb. And people passing by will remember forever that NPC and the battle related, and their server losing the hope of a better world.
THIS is a living world. What we have is just a bunch of nice textures, some stupid DEs Anet is even proud to talk about, and nothing made the playerbase interested more than do them 1 time quickly just bored of the usual AC+COF eternal grind farming gold. Living world, rofl..

In this thread I wanted to look at the new content with a developer perspective. AN is doing something new with the game and no one can know where it will lead.

But your idea would end with total disaster from developer stand point. It sounds nice to be able to let some NPC’s die or save them but… If you would let the world branch for each server individually (on some servers the NPC would be dead and on others alive) then after a while you would get 20 different worlds to support! How many developers would you need to do that? 1000? More? Maybe like… Infinite!

DE’s makes an illusion of truly dynamic world and that’s a great achievement.

Apologizes if i was derailing. I’m trying to stay ontopic just focusing on the entire title of this section, and this thread title: do we really need those preprogrammed repetable DEs to make a living world? I don’t get the HiddenNick’s point: why would it need a support , if the storyline of a server just went succesful or a failure? After all, things happens, events happens, big important events happens. BE part of it, and lead your server to the victory will be remembered forever. As much a fail. THIS is a living world.
How to program this?
Just programming the event with 2 different endings, one winning, one losing, with permanent consequencies. A winner server will have a different set of DEs, accordingly to the living world it’s living. A loser one, a dark, sad set of DE attempting to fix the horrible event happened, losing an important battle. This is epic, isn’t it? BE part of something important, makes the world permanently alive. And yes, makes an NPC even die , with a tomb. Logging 3 years later, walking near that tomb, still remembering "Oh ye, that was the big war of the first era. Loads joined, but “npc name” died, sadly. How horrible is the world, now. WE have to deal with all those battles, all those attacks, our world will never be the same". Then a second era began, a new hero rise, a new battle arrive, maybe things will be better. Different. Thinks, this will even create a bond with you and your server, not having any interest to move out just for grind (nor guesting for the same purpose).
Because well, you was part of the history of your server, being remembered and respected at every login forever..
Such a epic design huh? This is what Anet claimed to have programmed and selling, talking about gw2. What we have is just a bunch of stupid DE without a question mark doing a repetable quest where be online doing it or not doesn’t change a kitten and this entire project they are so proud to talk about, is just, after all… just a bunch of new DEs with a poor background noone of their costumers cares, nothing more.
Did i give a developer perspective now?

At the Lost Shores event there was a great battle and at the end the ancient Karka fell in its Hive. And it stayed in that “tomb” to be remembered permanently…

So your event is just a bit different then that what Karka event was. So why are you or majority of players not so thrilled about it? I’ll tell why(as I told you in my first post)! It wasn’t just about technical problems. People didn’t care about the tomb or big battle or the entire new island. After two days it was all over and everyone had go back to be bored. And that’s the big problem. People don’t appreciate that kind of events! And they wouldn’t appreciate your epic battle either (as would you).

Uhm, no. Every time i walk near the karka’s boss i still remember very well that huge battle. And the disconnection + refund lol. Still, it was a memorable memory, i was there.
Problem is, it was just a stupid badly programmed , unplayable huge event, nothing more. Be there or not, having him killed or not, didn’t change a kitten
No server failed (not even overflows), was just a matter of not being kicked out by the server you’re playing, and wait the end. Then, nothing.
By far, karka’s event is the worst example to throw here.
What i’m talking about is epic moments, a living world. We don’t have any living world on this game, not even the shade of it. Just a bunch of farmable DEs. When done, rinse repeat it. People appreciate to be part of something epic, remember it years later. Much more if was a fail “Ah crap, so much was be done, if just (npc-name) didn’t die, so many things would have happened, now.”
Some mmo gave us this experience, we cannot forget those memories, they are still there logging.
Gw2 doesn’t offer anything similar, at all. The only thing “epic” i see when logging is my armor and my weapon and the title above my head, a proof of a real hard work, a long trip (couple months). Nothing else is left.

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

Uhm, no. Every time i walk near the boss i still remember very well that huge battle. Still, it was a memorable memory, i was there.
Problem is, it was just unplayable huge event, nothing more. Be there or not, having him killed or not, didn’t change a kitten

And your event would be remembered just in this way (removed some words intentionally). Different outcomes? For people doing it there is only one outcome and the other one does not matter because it wouldn’t be ever experienced.

What I’m trying to say is not that Karka event was great. But that your event would suck as much but it would require a lot more work from developers stand point.

What events do you remember from other games?

Uhm. For example Gates of Ahn’Qiraj. I was there, i cannot forget it. Unique event.
Nor noone who was with me forgot it nor me being there and what i did.
What we saw after the event, was the outcome of that battle, a sign for the history.
Leaders (and who got his hammer) got an unique mount, just to mark forever a respect well earned.

I don’t know about you, but i still believe most wish to be part of something unique on their game’s life. Wishing their virtual life matters..

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

Uhm. For example Gates of Ahn’Qiraj. I was there, i cannot forget it. Unique event.
Nor noone who was with me forgot it nor me being there and what i did.
What we saw after the event, was the outcome of that battle, a sign for the history.
Leaders (and who got his hammer) got an unique mount, just to mark forever a respect well earned.

I don’t know about you, but i still believe most wish to be part of something unique on their game’s life. Wishing their virtual life matters..

Where is the second outcome?! If you would fail everything starts over! How is that any different from Karka Event? Only difference is that players decide when to start… And that’s it! Your just denying your self.

And the mount?! That’s your so special outcome?!

And the epicness of the event in whole his glory: http://youtu.be/5fZBwwC-ZaA
And Karka event for compassion: http://youtu.be/Rd0341FOq70

Well, it was one of the most epic worldwide events of the history of mmos.
An effort of multiple guilds of both factions (enemies working together) for a great purpose. No effort no event.
As you said players decided. For a great battle. Noone who was part of it can forget those days from when it was announced the first time to the final battle.
The reward was the most unique and superb mount of the game (still the best ingame). Thousand players around you fighting, no trash-culling gw2-style.
(Can you imagine the same event on gw2? Hahahaa, 10 players around you at best spamming on chat “where is everyone? main event is ongoing!” “Around you, move your char, we will pop” hahahha)
When someone with that mount walk, is a truly worthy player, who deserve respect.
(Except who abused of the title and mount during the gate bug of 3.0.2 lol)
The outcome was Ahn’Qiraj on your server completed, giving to everyone the access to the most long and hard raid ingame. A living world where things changed, forever. Believe me or not, who lost the event dream to use a time machine and be there.
Just be there, being sure he did his part, his mmo life matters.
Nooone surely miss the karka’s event and see how a junk mmo behave roflmao.
And nothing changed our gw2 life AT ALL with or without that example of an mmo fail called karka’s event.
So far, this new content is not even barely comparable to anything of it, much less a living world at all. It’s just a bunch of stupid DEs noone is interested except who is curious or bored. No purpose, no real unique rewards, no permanent changes being there or not doing those DEs. Did you wonder why i log once or two times per month? Most just removed the client from their pc in the same period i got bored, the 4th month. I just come back for my guild duties and check if i sold something else.
This new content for sure didn’t gave me any minimal interest to even go there.
And well, i’m not the only one.
Living world, rofl..

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

Gates of Ahn’Qiraj

But… I still don’t think that you would appreciate similar event any more. In that time it was something new and exciting. There is a reason why most MMO’s aren’t trying to do that kind of things. The battle at the gates waged for minutes and then what? It was over… For how much end-game is that good for?

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

DE’s

DE’s are equivalent of quests and daily quests in other MMO’s. You should compare them with that instead. And that compassion looks pretty good from Gw2 stand point.

Not true. I was uberexcited to be part of an unique nextgen event like the upcoming karka event, when devs announced it. I was so excited to play a new generation of a huge battle. Didn’t expect that “junk” for sure hehe
As i said, i wasn’t focusing on uber events for a few minutes, but on permanent changes of the world we are living. Clearly, a key event must happens, to determine why a world is full of vegetations with funny DEs with some big attacks, and one is with a permanent bloody sky, with horrible continuous attacks. The feeling of an epic game, where something unique happens and last, forever. And YOU was part of what happened. What you did MADE THE DIFFERENCE. And well, sometimes the commander die, changing the course of the events.
I’m not dreaming that much, a game attempting to be permanent about the life of the player was Fable. What happened, happened. Who died, died.
THIS is a living world.
What we have is just a bunch of preprogrammed DEs where be online or not, doing them or not, doesn’t change a kitten 10 minutes later, it’s resetted.
If you read carefully the propaganda Anet was scamming around prelaunch, they was talking about gw2 exactly like this: a world alive, permanent , what we will do even on the story mode questline will determine the future, a living world. Oh my, rofl..
An example? Take a look at GW1. There was a particular series of events on LA.
Don’t do it, and the world around you will be as you remember. Do it, and look what happens: new mobs pops where wasn’t supposed to be, attaccking around.
On some ways, what you did matters, what you was able to see wasn’t for every other player. Just who did that content was part of it. Wait, gw1 is an Anet product, lol.
So , how we have this gw2 senseless non-living world?
Designer perspective, is it?

p.s. note for the reader: my post are giving a feedback and suggestion about the section: a living world. This is not a whine or a negative attitude. Quite the opposite. I truly hope a dev is reading those posts, believe me.

To the OP’s point, I’m vehemently opposed to putting any more rewards to events than it has. DEs will become very much like the Mega-Boss events we have currently, with timers everywhere , and people just grinding them out, without much care for the lore or story.

Lucas, you’re assuming that a single player game is just as easy to design as an MMO. While we’d all love for those little things you mention to happen, it just won’t happen nilly-willy in a game like GW2, unless some massive reworks to the system take place, and by that time, the game would probably look more like a GW3 with such a overhaul.

To me, it seems the team is making “big events” one time deals, where as smaller DEs will still be the way they were before.

I think the team’s conflicted – on the one hand, they want to cater to people like you, who would like to see permanence, and things that change frequently. On the other, they have to cater to people who work, have lives, kids and other responsibilities, who can’t login everyday and can only play for so long.

The best compromise I can see, is just having more DE sets in each area, and have more than a “WIN” and a “FAIL” state. A seperate chain of events for daytime, and a seperate chain of events for night. Maybe a few one off events during sunset.

Note that even this requires MASSIVE amounts of manpower, dev time, and dev testing. Making sure that events don’t collide with another and bug out. Making all connections and making sure story is consistent throughout the entire thing. Making sure that characters act within their lore, and not do something they usually wouldn’t do. Lots of little things that the average player wouldn’t even consider.

I prefer new, more, bigger and epic dungeons with reasonable rewards instead of more DE’s. I’m a GW1 player who has played GW2 since release and DE’s haven’t kept me busy at all and I don’t see how this could be end game concept.

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

…

I can’t disagree with more… So let assume they’re doing things your way. So players started playing Gw2 and won the battle with Centaurs, won with Zaithan and conquered every temple. And then what? After a month there would be no one to fight with. Do you expect that AN or anyone can remake their world (it was developed in 6 years) every week? That’s just ridiculous.

And from your description I really can’t recognize the game I’m playing.

What’s wrong with centaurs fighting back seraph? And why not to let seraph attack centaurs again if their defeated the first time? Seraph on their event can fail and centaurs on their event can also fail. What’s wrong with that? It’s logical. If you conquer any of the temples then you can defend it as long as you like. But why would you want to forbid the undead to try take it back? Also when the temple is conquered by alliance then surroundings change: sky is brighter and the penalty effects are removed.

The only problem with this system is that the event chains are a bit to short. And that’s it.

And again about Karka event. I know about the technical issues. But lets assume that there wasn’t any. No culling or connection issues. Would you like Karka event then?

JesseyFranz.8362:

I prefer new, more, bigger and epic dungeons with reasonable rewards instead of more DE’s. I’m a GW1 player who has played GW2 since release and DE’s haven’t kept me busy at all and I don’t see how this could be end game concept.

Exactly.

Dunan Atreides.5436:

To the OP’s point, I’m vehemently opposed to putting any more rewards to events than it has. DEs will become very much like the Mega-Boss events we have currently, with timers everywhere , and people just grinding them out, without much care for the lore or story.

Ye. What I would like to see is a reword system with other concept then: “do this 100 times and then you will get this shiny thing or do it 200 times and you will get that other shiny thing”. That’s really bad… I rather see a reword system that requires from players to complete a 100 different events all over the world.

Dunan Atreides.5436:

I think the team’s conflicted – on the one hand, they want to cater to people like you, who would like to see permanence, and things that change frequently. On the other, they have to cater to people who work, have lives, kids and other responsibilities, who can’t login everyday and can only play for so long.

That’s a huge problem. Half of the people have a good chance to be sleeping when the event happens. And an end game that only half of the players can experience is a bad idea.

Dunan Atreides.5436:

The best compromise I can see, is just having more DE sets in each area, and have more than a “WIN” and a “FAIL” state. A seperate chain of events for daytime, and a seperate chain of events for night. Maybe a few one off events during sunset.

Good points there.

To answer the OP’s question, I’d be willing to assume that most games of this format have a lot of dev time vs. player time – if you want to be “efficient” on dev vs. play time, then you’re talking much simpler games (e.g. tower defense cell phone game).

The biggest problem I have with DEs, especially living story ones is the timers and random spawns of them. When I saw Living Story, I wanted to log on and just experience new the content. I don’t want to sit around in Wayfarers with a lvl 80 prodding the Svanir that I killed back when I was level 10 just to see the new invader DEs, + wondering if the Living Story stuff is bugged on my server. I actually just discovered the invader content accidentally when I was helping a guildie level a character – that shouldn’t be the way it happens.

IMHO, the DE system as it stands is a horrible way to introduce new content. I’d much prefer -dare I say it- instanced versions of open-world maps, like a group version of the personal story steps (or GW1’s Winds of Change). With this format, the people who want to be immersed in the new content can have their epic battles without watching the level 8 character throw snowballs at Norn kids 100 metres away. Additionally, the people who only have 2 hours a week or something can organize with their friends to log on that one night and try out a part of a living story arc.

HiddenNick.7206:

Sinifair.1026:

The DE system is a way of focusing on the current ongoings in an area and the current fights being fought around the places.
- I agree that in order for this to work better we need to have the lore integrated more thoroughly, meaning that we’re not “just doing” them, because they are basically cut of the same cloth. It seems like doing the same task but in different areas.

The Quest-system would explain some lore, whereas the DE’s kinda presumes that you have some background knowledge.
- I think that with the Living World Events we get told a story and get to see these events actually happening.
Anet keeps saying that they are enthusiastic about this way of going about making “quests” or content, but that they will probably discover the flaws and merrits over time, so that future Living World Events will become better and tell the current story even better.

In other words, I think we should give them time to examine the feedback during these events so that they can improve on it, thus giving us better, more fun and integrating story and content later on.

But still there is no challenge or replayability. Even if the story will be amazing it’s going to end after 15-30 minutes like in all other events! Or maybe it will not…

Either way people need some goals and those goals needs to occupy them for weeks or months in between the updates! Is this achievable with one time events?

No, I don’t think so. There should be certainly be implemented more content than that to fill the void between them. More goals and such.
- But thinking about other MMO’s there would be dungeons to do and that would almost be the only thing other than PvP before the next patch or expansion.

I think it could work, but I also think it will take some time for them to understand how to best design their content.

Sinifair.1026:

No, I don’t think so. There should be certainly be implemented more content than that to fill the void between them. More goals and such.

I hope so… Just a note: those goals need to be fun to do and engaging. Some trash covered with mud is not a thing anyone would want to do.

Sinifair.1026:

- But thinking about other MMO’s there would be dungeons to do and that would almost be the only thing other than PvP before the next patch or expansion.

They’ve already said that dungeons is not what they are doing now.

Sinifair.1026:

I think it could work, but I also think it will take some time for them to understand how to best design their content.

Let’s hope it’s sooner then later

NibriAyid.3680:

IMHO, the DE system as it stands is a horrible way to introduce new content. I’d much prefer -dare I say it- instanced versions of open-world maps, like a group version of the personal story steps (or GW1’s Winds of Change). With this format, the people who want to be immersed in the new content can have their epic battles without watching the level 8 character throw snowballs at Norn kids 100 metres away. Additionally, the people who only have 2 hours a week or something can organize with their friends to log on that one night and try out a part of a living story arc.

Yes, this is what i meant: something like Wind of change. This is a living world where do something change the world around you for real. And just for the player when logged, having time to log, playing the “change”. Completing a long series of events, DEs, huge battles (even with AI support like some story mode AI driven battles, or even playing with a friend on the same event arch) will have a different world than what can see an user who didn’t do that content. And when done, an other “wind of change” pops available to be done, changing again the world around you. FOREVER..
After all, it’s what Anet advertised talking about gw2, what we had on gw1.
We don’t have anything like this here.
Just a bunch of new stupid repeatable DEs with an Anet PR pretending to tell us this is a living world..

See, HiddenNick? Doesn’t collide with other player’s interests, noone is losing nothing because sleeping etc.

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

See, HiddenNick? Doesn’t collide with other player’s interests, noone is losing nothing because sleeping etc.

Why are you addressing this to me? Do you know what I meant with my opening post?

I really didn’t want to argue whether the DE system is good or bad. But is it economical from a developer stand point to introduce a new content with it? Is it going to occupy a community for the amount of time that will let the developers prepare the next package?

We all know that doing instances is. Blizzard is introducing a Raid from time to time and it is more then enough to occupy their community and make them happy (so happy that they pay for the game each month). Can the DE system be something that will occupy the community for a long time as well?

Great example of what I mean are Fractals that occupy players for dozens of hours and the Karka event that came and go in a matter of hours. Even worse is that a lot of people didn’t like the event because of the technical issues and a lot of the others didn’t even experience it! But it required from ANet to create a whole island – that some people don’t appreciate either because is seams to them that there is nothing to do in there! So it seams that DE’s are a lot harder to prepare and less efficient and fun then instanced dungeons!

Instances that you are talking about aren’t any better then DE’s in regard of economics. It’s a one time thing as the DE’s but differently introduced – we can argue about whether it’s more fun or does it have less flaws, but I really didn’t meant to.

We was all rotating around your OP. No, DE is not the way to go, at all.
It’s a funny Anet version of the quest with the question mark on the head, that’s all.
New content still based on this method is not gonna be considered endgame nor make anyone interested. Except who is bored of the usual turboruns, just to do something else, for one day at least. 3rd chapter is out, 3rd day of something new yay.. zzzz

I think you’re missing the point to “living story.” The story of Tryia is going to change with little and perhap sometimes silent content update, that is ANet’s stated goal. New NPC enemy dynamics and battles to fight without an expansion. Thus the “story” is evolving and changing consistently over time…
you’re earlier point that having player decisions effecting the world would take too many programmers to keep up with all the servers and their respective changes is a valid one. Truly the only thing living aspect about it is the changing storyline over a consistent and sustained timeline, not AI adaptivity to player input. I’m not sure any MMO is capable of maintaining that player responsive changes over many servers.

But you have to admit that having these consistent little changes is refreshing compared to waiting for and paying for an expansion to change the landscape/enemy dynamics.

Ye, it’s new content, and we didn’t “pay” an expansion to play them.
I don’t get how do some DE and read some text until reset would “change” the story of tyria, and how is going to impact all of us in the future, honestly. I guess we have to wait the end of this “package”?

Apperently, the OP (and several others in this topic) have not taken the time to read up on what Anet had been planning to do with the game in between bigger expansions, like, right from the get go.

Also, you apperntly pay little attention to the world you prance around in – there are already changes to the terrain, even new outposts, POIs and Waypoints in the game; so yes, the game world is evolving. It doing so whether you pay attention or not is kind of what the whole idead of DEs was about…

Did you really think we’d get a bunch of new aeas, new dungeons etc. on a regular basis without having to pay for expansion packs? We already got a new endgame are – although I’ll admit that its attractivity is debatable AND a new dungeon, which is actually several dungeons, for free. kidsthesedays …

The plans you’re talking about are just the map bigger with more continents (isle of fire etc) then slowly makes the map bigger, year by year. Assuming the uber amount of bugs will still make the game playable adding even more stuff and content.

The “changes” you’re talking about are mostly fix and or adjustments reading the disappointment focused by the community. A design fail fixed.

Considering Anet promised to us customers expansions for free forever , yes we want new areas, new dungeons etc on a regular basis. For free. Constantly. Bug free. One new dungeon per month too. Other famous mmo online do it, like PSO2.

Customer’s rights, we paid this client and based the purchase on what the company promised to the customer. Clearly (as we saw about “we don’t make grind games” and other fake promises) wouldn’t surprise me at all we will be forced to pay to get some “new content” adeguate and needed by the bored and disappointed community this forum populates, opening more threads of disappointment then happyness.
One thing is open a thread asking “something else”, one thing is focus a big disappointment most of us can see and agree.

Don’t listen to the nonsense Anet. Many do appreciate you adding content to the open world. Especially those of us who hate dungeon running. What I want to see is more focus on story in the open world. I suppose that’s what this living story is aiming for, only I hope it lives up to that in the end. I’m talking about GW1 level of story that we saw in Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall. A story where we actually care about things and want to know what will happen next.

I feel like the whole Elder Dragon story falls flat. They are so impersonal and it just doesn’t make me care at all. I’m kind of wary of the Living Story because it’s just flame legion and dredge. But then again it could be the beginning of something interesting and epic. Prophecies, afterall began with us just fighting Charr. Things got more complicated as the story moved on. That’s what I want to see here. Make me actually CARE Anet.

And please for the love of god don’t shove important story things in bloody dungeons. Bad enough you shove vital personal story parts in dungeons. If you go for instanced content for the stories it should be like the personal story instances where you can go alone or with a few friends.

HiddenNick.7206:

But what about challenge? If your able to complete the event the first time you run it then what you do next is just farming it for the rewords. But what if there is a simpler way to acquire those rewords? People will just abandon the event (that’s why all group events are deserted – no reason to run them) and complain about that they don’t have anything to do.

This is a huge problem I see in the Guild Wars franchise.

It’s always – and I do mean always – a vocal minority shouting “it’s good hard!” or “it’s too easy!” Two minorities that shout opposing things. This results in things like Winds of Change where the content was wtfhard, or things like Arah story where decent-difficulty content is made wtfeasy.

I’ll just say this one sentence in response:

Not all content can be geared to all players.

Meaning that a single event will be hard to some – too hard even – but easy, or too easy, for others, while just right for still others. And this is so for every single bit of content.

The problem in this lies in how everything holds a single difficulty level.

Here’s my suggested solution:

An option in the Options Menu to scale your characters’ stats and the rewards you receive. For example, let’s say there’s four scaling points given: Easy, Medium, Hard, Nightmare. With easy, your stats are buffed and you get less valuable drops; with medium, no change to current system; with hard your stats are nerfed a little and your drop rates improve (think of it as a boost to Magic Find); and with Nightmare your stats are lowered more with even better drops to reward you facing the challenge.

It’d be little different than just wearing basic armor instead of exotic as a level 80 or using level 35 rare gear as a level 80, but it seems those who want a challenge are incapable of nerfing themselves manually.

I don’t think that anyone can have a problem with the world-boss-encounters, the last time I fought against Tequatl I stood directly in front of him and spammed 1 (and sometimes another key for a phantasm for more damage) without any danger. He feared me a few times, but this was just an annoyance.

Anet should have the numbers: Event XY is successful 90%. And now they should act accordingly and balance the creature for a 50% win/lose ratio.

honestly, I’m pretty sure the dragons get defeated at a rate of 99%. They are just a loot pinata.