Guild Wars 2

To quote the great Tyler Durden, “This game has you grinding content you hate for rewards you don’t need. This is your game, and it’s dying one Living Story content update at a time.”

I loved what this game was envisioned to be. I loved what this game was at release. I was all in with Guild Wars 2 because efforts were made to make it something different than what the rest of the genre was offering…a game to be played because it’s fun, not because of carrots.

With each Living Story installment I see buckets of achievement points offered for menial tasks, rewards being locked behind time gates, and a reversal of the developers’ self-stated measure of success shifting from “is it fun” to “does it keep players logging in”.

I’m not against a Living Story, I’m just against the way it’s being utilized. I feel the Living Story should be used to deliver compelling content and game improvements, not as a system to deliver a never-ending stream of rewards designed to inflate the daily log in metric.

^ what darkace said. For examples, SAB & SAB 2 lasted for 2 months April & Sept and it has nothing to do w/ GW2 story at all. GW2 released almost 13 months now and u spent 20% playing silly things. I know people gonna say " u dont have to do SAB if u dont want to". I think as a whole players want to see the story progress not just random stuff that living stories thrown at us.

darkace.8925:

To quote the great Tyler Durden, “This game has you grinding content you hate for rewards you don’t need. This is your game, and it’s dying one Living Story content update at a time.”

I loved what this game was envisioned to be. I loved what this game was at release. I was all in with Guild Wars 2 because efforts were made to make it something different than what the rest of the genre was offering…a game to be played because it’s fun, not because of carrots.

With each Living Story installment I see buckets of achievement points offered for menial tasks, rewards being locked behind time gates, and a reversal of the developers’ self-stated measure of success shifting from “is it fun” to “does it keep players logging in”.

I’m not against a Living Story, I’m just against the way it’s being utilized. I feel the Living Story should be used to deliver compelling content and game improvements, not as a system to deliver a never-ending stream of rewards designed to inflate the daily log in metric.

Hmm… I think that if you’re not interested in any of the rewards then you don’t need to farm anything.

For example to play Queen’s Jubilee only for fun: you could just check out story instances, check out the pavilion for a minute or two, complete gauntlet and complete few invasions. If you feel like you NEED to play for gold or other rewards then you’re the problem, not the game.

Of course that AN could give almost everything for free. Remove AC gear and all difficult to get rewards. If they do that than it would be exactly as you suggest: “people would play less”. Good luck finding people to fight World Bosses, champions, dungeons or Invasions then.

HiddenNick.7206:

Hmm… I think that if you’re not interested in any of the rewards then you don’t need to farm anything.

That’s all well and good, but that doesn’t solve the problem (as I see it). Every hour of manpower, every dime of the Living Story budget, every art asset, every design idea…every resource that goes into making content designed to give the reward-crowd a reason to log in is a resource that could have been, but wasn’t, spent giving the content-crowd a deeper experience.

Imagine that instead of updates every two weeks, updates with about an hour of story content and endless hours of farming temporary events for temporarily-available achievement points, mini-pets, and backpacks we had updates every six to eight weeks with hours of story, actual voiced dialogue for our characters, fewer menial tasks, and more permanent content. I don’t speak for everyone, but I’d certainly be happier with the latter.

darkace.8925:

HiddenNick.7206:

Hmm… I think that if you’re not interested in any of the rewards then you don’t need to farm anything.

That’s all well and good, but that doesn’t solve the problem (as I see it). Every hour of manpower, every dime of the Living Story budget, every art asset, every design idea…every resource that goes into making content designed to give the reward-crowd a reason to log in is a resource that could have been, but wasn’t, spent giving the content-crowd a deeper experience.

Imagine that instead of updates every two weeks, updates with about an hour of story content and endless hours of farming temporary events for temporarily-available achievement points, mini-pets, and backpacks we had updates every six to eight weeks with hours of story, actual voiced dialogue for our characters, fewer menial tasks, and more permanent content. I don’t speak for everyone, but I’d certainly be happier with the latter.

HiddenNick.7206:

Of course that AN could give almost everything for free. Remove AC gear and all difficult to get rewards. If they do that than it would be exactly as you suggest: “people would play less”. Good luck finding people to fight World Bosses, champions, dungeons or Invasions then.

darkace.8925:

To quote the great Tyler Durden, “This game has you grinding content you hate for rewards you don’t need. This is your game, and it’s dying one Living Story content update at a time.”

I loved what this game was envisioned to be. I loved what this game was at release. I was all in with Guild Wars 2 because efforts were made to make it something different than what the rest of the genre was offering…a game to be played because it’s fun, not because of carrots.

With each Living Story installment I see buckets of achievement points offered for menial tasks, rewards being locked behind time gates, and a reversal of the developers’ self-stated measure of success shifting from “is it fun” to “does it keep players logging in”.

I’m not against a Living Story, I’m just against the way it’s being utilized. I feel the Living Story should be used to deliver compelling content and game improvements, not as a system to deliver a never-ending stream of rewards designed to inflate the daily log in metric.

This is the best summary of the direction of the game I have seen on these forums. Anyone working at Anet needs to print it out and place it next to their keyboard as a reminder.