Guild Wars 2

I have to say Arena Net, you really impressed me on The Nightmare’s End. The NPC interactions are brilliant example 1: One sylvari NPC will ask where is Maddox but once you talked to Mistress Kari, your character will carry that knowledge and tell her about his death to that NPC. The Hearts have been updated! There are refugee NPC’s in the outposts even in Kessex Haven which is pretty far from Viathan Lake. There are so many new NPC dialogues throughout Kessex Hills.

Guild Wars 2 is like a fine wine, it keeps getting better.

Yes its great that this bad storyline is finally starting to wrap up. the only thing in enjoyed was the cutscene of the tower exploding

I have to say that I really enjoyed everything about the Nightmare’s End solo instance and cutscenes. It was all excellent stuff. The story team and the team that built the solo instance did an excellent job. I’m not so sure about the persisting events in Kessex, they are already becoming a bit under-populated since everyone got their achievements done in the first two days.

In gameplay terms, I think that is one thing that really needs work, that many activities and achievements require large numbers of players to make them viable, and yet in many cases these audiences only last for the first few days of a patch, and then people move back to the usual activities. I think that they need to put more effort into making sure that these challenges can scale down to accomodate small parties (anyone tried to clear the tower start to finish with only 3 people?), or even solo players, and/or that they need to provide reward mechanisms that make them well worth doing the entire duration of the month or so that they are live.

I’m a very harsh critic of the Living World, mainly due to the time-limited, exclusionary nature of it and how that negatively impacts not only LW, but the rest of the game (with “timeritis” creeping into all events being the most pernicious).

However, I will always admire the immense talent that oozes from every aspect of Guild Wars 2, and that most certainly applies to the Living World as well. I’m also a big fan of the incredibly rich and entertaining dialog found throughout Tyria.

Despite my disappointment with LW’s early days, I’m encouraged by comments made by Colin and other members of the staff indicating improvements in future LW installments. Hopefully the lessons learned from 2013 will lead to better offerings in 2014.

As the saying goes:

“True success is 1% iteration, 99% more iteration.” — Researcher Irkz

Here’s hoping 2014 will emerge as a turning point and triumph for the Living World, and a stronger, more enjoyable Guild Wars 2 for all its many different kinds of players.

And if anyone from ArenaNet should chance upon this post, please know I love you guys. You do, after all, make the best game I’ve ever played.

I like that suggestions that I saw on the forums have now been implemented. Many people complained that the map ignored LS. This adjustment is an improvement.