Guild Wars 2

Just wanted to see what others think of the living story stuff. I personally have stopped playing because I’m extremely bored with GW2 right now and the living story contents just seems like a whole lot of crappy little mini games imo.
Don’t get me wrong I love GW1/2 and have for 6 years and I’m also the type of Anet supporter that just agrees with most stuff they do because I’m sort of a fan boyish GW player. I have 6 level 80’s 1 level 50 and 1 level 36 but I’m burnt out levelling for now and my main has a legendary.
Title grinding is not my thing and I don’t like fractels so I’m limited to what I can do now. I just enjoy PvE and doing new stuff but as for new stuff its just (IMO) mini quests with mini games on the side which I don’t like at all.
I think imo the only way Living story could work as they intend it to is by up scaling it to a level that it is more compelling. I think the best way to do it would be to make the living story releases further apart with more impact on the game.
Each story should add a new zone and dungeon with the story to blend it into the gw world. As it stands the living story is just a mini or back piece, a short story path and some boring mini games.
I would pay $200 for an expansion with real content over 12 months of the current living story content any day of the year.
Do others really enjoy this mini content that much or is more and more players getting sick of it like myself?

Ps’ Please don’t give me a list of other things for me to do, I’ve been playing since 1st Beta and know the game well thanks. I love Gw1 and 2 and I’ll always come back to it but while mini games and mini quests are what Anet is offering to keep people interested I’ll just log in for a look and to catch up with friends from time to time as I wait for Real content.

Please keep any feedback constructive because this isn’t Anet bashing its just seeing if others feel like me.

Thanks all.

There are plenty of people who feel like you (and plenty of people who don’t, also).

I do notice that on days the new content comes out, for the first week, there’s tons of overflow servers, so someone is playing that content.

I do suspect we’ll start to see some changes moving forward from here…but we wont’ know until we see the new stuff.

I like the mini games, they’re a blast to play with guildmates and friends. I wish there was a way to party queue for them instead of us having to constantly leave and rejoin until we all end up in the same game.

The living story is okay in my eyes, I like the idea of being able to test fresh new ideas on a bi-weekly basis but don’t understand why the content that was thoroughly enjoyable for most everyone has to go away. I miss the Super Adventure Box and the Molten Facility.

To each their own!

i would like if not a full expansion an opening of new areas to explore, with new mobs to kill new dynamic events and heart to complete, new world bosses and some more lore… for the moment we are running around the same places over and over… the only new area was southsun and this happened months ago.
i’m not necessarily talking about new elder dragons to slay though, but i would like (in case they plan to do it) to see the new elder dragon as a dynamic event (even one time only) although this would mean a lot of people due to crash or bugs or real life problems would miss it… maybe better an istanced event but still open to more than 5 players at a time!! i don’t mind how zhaithan fight was handled but instead of a flock of npc i would really prefer a flock of real players… whatever can give me the feeling that we are all involved in this fight as we all are brave soldier against the common evil.

but mainly i would like to explore new maps, new skills, new traits, maybe even new races or classes

The living story has nothing to do with new areas being open or not open. It’s a thing apart. There are teams working on longer term/bigger upgrades…this is filler until those upgrades are done…with this proviso…

Anet has yet to decide how that bigger content will be released…it may come as an expansion but it might come as part of the living story as well.

In the mean time, no company is going to produce totally amazing full zones that fast. Take a game like Rift. We didn’t get new zones the first year…and the game was a whole lot smaller than Guild Wars 2 (11 small zones instead of 25 large ones).

Also, I believe Anet said new zones wouldn’t include hearts, just dynamic events.

it’s a pity because with no hearts exploration is really fast (it was the case in southsun) or frustrating like in orr (but the orr thing it’s just my opinion).

edit: also lacks of heart means a lack of even tiny lore. that is the thing that bugs me about southsun… we still don’t know where this karkas come from, they are just there… and what about all those sunken ships or the ships above the ground (the one in the umping puzzle for example). there is no story in southsun but the consortium exploitative attitude

Amadan.9451:

it’s a pity because with no hearts exploration is really fast (it was the case in southsun) or frustrating like in orr (but the orr thing it’s just my opinion)

The hearts were never meant to be part of exploration. It’s all about dynamic events. Think of Orr. Was Orr fast/easy to explore? There are no hearts there.

The thing is, originally the game wasn’t supposed to have hearts, but people ran through areas where events happened and didn’t hang around and ended up wondering where the quests were. The hearts were added to keep people in an area to get them used to dynamic events.

The hearts themselves…mostly boring…collect, kill etc. That’s why most dynamic events count toward hearts.

Also, hearts can’t be redone, but dynamic events can. There are 300 hearts in the game and over 1500 dynamic events.

I think hearts were meant as more of a crutch than a feature of the game.

hearts are boring true, but easily completed they also tell something about the zones unlike some dynamic events. example: in queen’s dale there is a heart that ask you to collect apple, while also defending the farmers from spiders. it’s not much but you see a farm, with people busy doing what farmers do and they need a hand with spiders running rampant all over the place. than there is the troll champion event triggered by someone who interact with the rune stone… why the runestone is there? why it summon a troll? why is it important to anybody that i interact with it? there is also a rune hunter there, but she doesn’t say anything. how this event make sense?

I suppose looking at Living story as a filler type content while larger more compelling content is in production is ok but it still leaves a portion of us bored and waiting for real content over longer periods. In a way the 4 teams working on living story small content fillers could be utilised better and be working or less regular more significant content. Sure there is plenty of players that enjoy mini games which there is no shortage of in gw2 but real content is few and far between imo. The key for me is like I said in the op, zones and dungeons. I have seen the Anet posts about what they intend to add the 2nd half of this year which is great but I suppose myself and others like me are just stuck waiting. I’d just like to point out that I’m also the type of GW fan that if I’m seeing issues with the game then there really is issues. I sort of take that back, not so much issues but for me to lose interest is a major so I hate to think what gamers playing gw without my loyalty/appreciation are feeling or going to be feeling in the not so distant future.

I think we will get the ‘bigger’ content on the same schedule as we would have without Living Story, or close to it. So, I am pleased there is new content every 2 weeks while we wait. Otherwise, the complaints on the forum would just be “There isn’t anything new to do, we are tired of waiting”, instead of what they are now. Either way, there would probably be some kind of complaints about content.

Amadan.9451:

hearts are boring true, but easily completed they also tell something about the zones unlike some dynamic events. example: in queen’s dale there is a heart that ask you to collect apple, while also defending the farmers from spiders. it’s not much but you see a farm, with people busy doing what farmers do and they need a hand with spiders running rampant all over the place. than there is the troll champion event triggered by someone who interact with the rune stone… why the runestone is there? why it summon a troll? why is it important to anybody that i interact with it? there is also a rune hunter there, but she doesn’t say anything. how this event make sense?

This is all very true. But I remember when I was leveling one of my first characters there and I happened to have stumbled upon that rune stone and then a giant troll came out to kill me and I had to go gather some more people to kill it. It became a pretty epic battle that lasted for a while with lots of downed states and close calls because I think we only had 2 or 3 people in total. Even though there was no story to the event it was still fun because it was surprising, and then a little imagination combined with some lore knowledge of the zone can help make it feel more epic.

Its probably to much work for anet to add a lot of detail to some of these events, but I defiantly think they are on the right track. The events make the zones seem more alive and dynamikittenil you start doing the same events over and over lol. But for that they should make some more meta events that have long timers, but have a bunch of different chains that take you on a journey across the zone.

I had mostly stopped playing until the Adventure Box. SAB opened my eyes about the living story. The way I see it, we get a new mini-game every few weeks. I log in a few times, have some fun then don’t play until the next patch. Maybe most people like me feel burned out by the game, however that’s perfectly normal.

To Vayne,

I personally find the story so far to be mediocre at best, and not interesting. I have however been in the “Living Story” content majority of my time since QJ has been out.

Does this mean I love LS? No, the only reason I’ve been there is to farm like a mad man with the rest of people. Anet and others can say that this is a big hit, but from what I see, majority of people are just farming the champs for gold, not to enjoy the LS.

Bad or good, it is what it is. I would put every ounce of gold on a bet that if there was a fast paced farm in any map that had absolutely nothing to do with LS that could be farmed just as efficiently, the mass would be there, and not here.

With all that said, they could make every LS update a farm fest and I bet they would see large participation in those events every time. Its a marketing winner for LS imo.

Nothing more attracting than easy gold, loot.

It is mindless content for the most part though. Exception being the Gauntlet, which even for some wasn’t as challenging as some may wish.

(I thought the gauntlet was cool, but reduced since you are playing in a bubble of an area, and zergs below you bringing lag. Instanced would had made this more enjoyable. I also thing repairs should had been disabled in QG)

Vayne.8563:

Amadan.9451:

it’s a pity because with no hearts exploration is really fast (it was the case in southsun) or frustrating like in orr (but the orr thing it’s just my opinion)

The hearts were never meant to be part of exploration. It’s all about dynamic events. Think of Orr. Was Orr fast/easy to explore? There are no hearts there.

The thing is, originally the game wasn’t supposed to have hearts, but people ran through areas where events happened and didn’t hang around and ended up wondering where the quests were. The hearts were added to keep people in an area to get them used to dynamic events.

The hearts themselves…mostly boring…collect, kill etc. That’s why most dynamic events count toward hearts.

Also, hearts can’t be redone, but dynamic events can. There are 300 hearts in the game and over 1500 dynamic events.

I think hearts were meant as more of a crutch than a feature of the game.

I wish they would put hearts in Orr, or at least have more small-scale, individual dynamic events whose triggers are marked. I’d like more individual dynamic events in some of the lower zones, too.

The reason is because I don’t have a lot of time to game. I get 20 minutes to an hour at a time, and it can be really disappointing to spend that time wandering around not doing much, hoping dynamic events will pop. The hearts are great because they’re easy to find and give me something to do that relates to the world and lore. Yes, they’re simple and can be boring. Yes, dynamic events are much better. But unless you’re in a few specific places, finding dynamic events going on can be a challenge.

In places like Orr, it’s infinitely worse because the dynamic events are all these long epic chains to take back temples and such, and require a fair amount of time and people to complete. Time I often don’t have.

I have always been frustrated with MMOs because the leveling portion of the game is great fun, something I can do by myself or with my family members in small chunks as I have time available. But as soon as I reach endgame, the gameplay changes to something that requires larger groups of people and much larger chunks of time to participate in. And suddenly it’s no longer a game I can (or want to) play.

I dont like it, its flashy and pretty for a day or two, but after that, I really just go “meh..” and Don’t bother with most of the achievements.
The Arena we have now is especially just a circle grind for zergs.

I haven’t had the time to complete ALL the living story achievements. So I fully support the ‘get 16 of the 30 new temporary achievements for a special mini’ stuff . Allows me to allocate my time better and, while not hitting everything, I feel like I’ve ‘done it’. (And the instances and mini events of course)

I still think it’s awesome that they give us so much. I have no problem dumping my money into gems for them as a result.

Noobkaka.5067:

I dont like it, its flashy and pretty for a day or two, but after that, I really just go “meh..” and Don’t bother with most of the achievements.
The Arena we have now is especially just a circle grind for zergs.

The concept is a great idea but it lacks depth.

Right now it’s more “Living Festival” than it is Living Story

There’s not much depth in Living story at the moment.

I will however wait and see how they implement the new zones and larger content updates before making a final judgment.