Living story = players not returning?

Living story = players not returning?

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Posted by: Smith.1826

Smith.1826

The funny part about this whole thing is that the devs have said the same thing. And I’m just saying I spoke to a dev who said it. Why would anyone doubt that a dev is saying what other devs are saying.

I was simply stating this because people were questioning the integrity of the devs and my contribution was that this guy wasn’t painting a rosy picture with anything else he said. What I said he said…that was already said by others and is a matter of public record.

Those people so intent on doubting me, are asking me to show text of a conversation I had with a dev, who happens to be saying something other devs have said publicly.

You people are something. lol

I’m not one who doubts the conversation happened. I think its awesome you did, in fact. But I’m not going to be concerned by someone saying “a dev I talked to said they’re gonna do something bad for the game!”. Similarly, I’m going to be a trillion times more comforted if I could actually see what the dev you spoke to said.

Saying that someone can’t experience it now, so it’s not lore is probably not the best definition of lore.

I wasn’t aware I was saying it wasn’t? Sorry if it came off as such. I was saying I wouldn’t compare a backstory to content that’s been deleted resulting in backstory. At least I think, I’m getting distracted by Dragon’s Dogma as I’m posting. kittening garms.

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Posted by: Mackodlak.7961

Mackodlak.7961

OK, again i see many of the “pro and contra” stuff being said here. I will try and explain now, yet again, why living story content is not good for the game, specially in this paste.

Imagine a recording device of any sort has never been invented and you only get to watch the live shows on TV. There is this AWSOME series, let’s call it “Living story” and it has awsome plot, characters, the only problem is there never a rerun (except the one on the same week it has been shown) and it goes live every day at 18:00 CET.

Now, some of us are working late, some are in school/uni whatever, some go on vacation and can’t watch TV etc…

Now, this story is awsome in a way that there are actually several different plots that sometimes intertwine, sometimes they have a “special show” that’s not connected with any other previous or future show, they have a bunch of nice stuff.

Still, you know, if you miss out on 10 episodes for this or that reason you kinda have to feel you don’t rly understand what is going on now. Who are this new actors? What is this new plot? Where the kitten is that actress I so love to watch so much?

If there are no reruns… I may stop watching completely cause there is no point… this will keep on happening and I don’t wanna talk to friends every time so they can explain what I have missed out on.

Some of you argue that there is more people playing the game now than at the start and that population is still growing. But that is the result of still ongoing hipe and advertisement. People are slowly but surely leaving the game. WE have had many people leaving in a huge wave when WvW community felt like their time here is over cause nothing is being done in WvW or sPvP. Out of 7 friends that started playing the game together from the start I am the only one left still playing. One other thing, this is a “no subscription game” so account, once bought, stays the person playing the game" forever – always counted. So no…. there aren’t more people playing now, at lest not necessarely… just more sold copies than there were before

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Posted by: MeGaZlo.9516

MeGaZlo.9516

Sadly, but OP is right. I have a couple friends who did not want to return to the game because of Living Story too. One believes that developers spend excessive surprising number of resources to the content which most of players will not see, so that the game will not be successful. Another believes that there is no point in returning because he is already “missed everything.”

I like the idea of living Story. However, I must admit: it is good as long as you have time on it. Too much emphasis on the things that will disappear in a month. On the other hand, we can see that the most of bugs almost not fixed since the very start of the game, the old content is not completed yet, the most vaunted aspects of the game (personal story, events, etc) as if in beta stage. New players see exactly THIS, rather than “oh, the game is updated every two weeks for the next two weeks, cool!”.

If living Story would released along with major updates and well developed fixes – people’s attitude would be quite different. One of the things that I can not understand. A-net team of nearly 300 people. Around 20-40 working on living Story. SAB is generally even made by four. What are the others doing then?

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Posted by: MikaHR.1978

MikaHR.1978

Sadly, but OP is right. I have a couple friends who did not want to return to the game because of Living Story too. One believes that developers spend excessive surprising number of resources to the content which most of players will not see, so that the game will not be successful. Another believes that there is no point in returning because he is already “missed everything.”

I like the idea of living Story. However, I must admit: it is good as long as you have time on it. Too much emphasis on the things that will disappear in a month. On the other hand, we can see that the most of bugs almost not fixed since the very start of the game, the old content is not completed yet, the most vaunted aspects of the game (personal story, events, etc) as if in beta stage. New players see exactly THIS, rather than “oh, the game is updated every two weeks for the next two weeks, cool!”.

If living Story would released along with major updates and well developed fixes – people’s attitude would be quite different. One of the things that I can not understand. A-net team of nearly 300 people. Around 20-40 working on living Story. SAB is generally even made by four. What are the others doing then?

They are working on expansion, NCSfot said they want expansion and NCSoft is da boss. They will just feed you 2 week (questionable quality) living story and gear grind (reusing launch content) till expansion.

Colin Johanson: “Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the
best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base.”

(edited by MikaHR.1978)

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Posted by: Kaiyanwan.8521

Kaiyanwan.8521

The problem is, if they want to make content that is essential for lore, it would have to be permanent.
The LS arcs are not meant to be that kind of story.
Let’s just say that the aetherblades are related to the awakening of a new elder dragon in TA. We would have at least some events left over (invasions, TA p4) so people would have context to the main story. Nontheless, it would be bad, as the villain was introduced in a LS that is over, so people new to the story would grief that they missed it.
Why would you do that to your customers.

On the other hand, bringing a plot to a final conclusion by showing the bigger picture at the end works perfectly fine in books. In games it just tells peope at the end of the arc what they’ve missed. I couldn’t think of a better way to kitten off your playerbase.

That is why the story telling in GW2 fails in combination with temporary (one-time) content. That is why ANet is avoiding to make anything happening in the LS relevant to the main story plot, the elder dragons and their defeat. This is why the LS feels boring and meaningless most of the time.

The game is going nowhere with the LS, we can only hope, they decide to do an expansion at some point…

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Posted by: EdgarMTanaka.7291

EdgarMTanaka.7291

OK, again i see many of the “pro and contra” stuff being said here. I will try and explain now, yet again, why living story content is not good for the game, specially in this paste.

Imagine a recording device of any sort has never been invented and you only get to watch the live shows on TV. There is this AWSOME series, let’s call it “Living story” and it has awsome plot, characters, the only problem is there never a rerun (except the one on the same week it has been shown) and it goes live every day at 18:00 CET.

Now, some of us are working late, some are in school/uni whatever, some go on vacation and can’t watch TV etc…

Now, this story is awsome in a way that there are actually several different plots that sometimes intertwine, sometimes they have a “special show” that’s not connected with any other previous or future show, they have a bunch of nice stuff.

Still, you know, if you miss out on 10 episodes for this or that reason you kinda have to feel you don’t rly understand what is going on now. Who are this new actors? What is this new plot? Where the kitten is that actress I so love to watch so much?

If there are no reruns… I may stop watching completely cause there is no point… this will keep on happening and I don’t wanna talk to friends every time so they can explain what I have missed out on.

Some of you argue that there is more people playing the game now than at the start and that population is still growing. But that is the result of still ongoing hipe and advertisement. People are slowly but surely leaving the game. WE have had many people leaving in a huge wave when WvW community felt like their time here is over cause nothing is being done in WvW or sPvP. Out of 7 friends that started playing the game together from the start I am the only one left still playing. One other thing, this is a “no subscription game” so account, once bought, stays the person playing the game" forever – always counted. So no…. there aren’t more people playing now, at lest not necessarely… just more sold copies than there were before

The show is active for atleast 2 weeks and often more, if you miss a show that mostly not even needs more than one hour to see, I think you are prioritizing something else and that means that this show wasn’t that important in the end.

There is a difference between a show that shows for one hour and an event that is active for two whole weeks.
When I was younger and only had a Television and no Beta/VHS to record movies and missed a program I wanted to see I had to wait for this rerun… But they only showed the rerun on a specific time for 2 weeks and I was always busy that specific time in two weeks and I had to wait about ten years until I found it in a video store.
So I have been there and done that but as I said this show was only one hour long and shown once a week during a specific time for to weeks, Living story is active during these two whole weeks and I am sure most of us can take one hour a week of our life to spend at the PC if we realy like this game.

But if you missed it you can read about it in the newspaper (Again: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Living_World_summary ) or hope that someday there will be a remake, since the ones creating the show have said that they are working on a way to give us a way to see a rerun of the show whenever we want too!

Member of Alpha Swedish Gaming Community – http://www.alphas.se/
Guild Leader of Alpha Sgc [ASGC]

(edited by EdgarMTanaka.7291)

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

If everything becomes lore than nothing is.
How about bringing things in context, like:
A nice backstory of the deepsea dragon forcing the karka and kraits to leave their domiciles. Giving a real backstory to the karka event might have included it into lore.

Otherwise it is just a random place, where something has happened without any real context or impact. It was just too encapsulated, a bubble of an event too small to offer any importance.

Lore is the bigger picture. Killing some random Mobs on an island where nothing happens is not.

Lore isn’t the bigger picture…you’re just calling it that. Lore is, at it’s most basic level, background information…no more no less.

Some of that appears in game and some of it doesn’t.

At least with your definition, we have an excuse for all writers at anet for their lousy story telling in GW2.

The writing is uneven to say the least. There are examples of some decent writing and some examples of some pretty mediocre writing. Sometimes the writing is fine but the voice acting lets it down too.

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Posted by: Galen Grey.4709

Galen Grey.4709

This makes no sense. You are talking of a background story, of lore, which is essential to build a world that is believable. It is everywhere around you, as it is part of why you are in the mystical world.

Tell me, what part of, for example, the molten alliance invasion has become lore, an epic event that has shaped the world so drastically, that future content is build on it.
We have 2 npcs left from that, but surely, the game is not building up on these former events.

The living story is mostly just trashing out fire and forget content, that has no influx on the bigger picture.

why does it make no sense?

The events of the molten alliance effected the world in different ways. The dredge and the flame legion joined forces. The invasions ravaged outlining villages in wayfarer foothills and diessa plateau which in turn created refugees. Those refugees when on to build a lot of the infrastructure in southsun. The failure of those invasions resulted in scarlet escalating her actions and facilitating an alliance between the pirates and the inquest and a plot to take over the LA council from the inside. When that failed scarlet too a more direct role. She tried to kidnap queen Jennah and started invading all parts of tyria using not only the motlen alliance and aetherblade pirates but also the steam creatures.

So if I am a new player that joined the game today and tomorrow try out what I am assuming to be an assault on Scarlet’s hideout or one of her bases or whatever it turns out to be all of that is now lore and back story to the Scarlet character. Why are the charr and dredge fighting along side her? she was pivot to them coming together. Why are the aetherblade pirates so advanced compared to other pirates? cause Scarlet got them to join up with the inquest. Why are we fighting scarlet at all? She assassinated a member of LA council, tried to kidnap queen Jennah and is invading our homes. etc…

This is what makes LS so awesome.. in Gw1 using the same example we know the Charr invaded ascalon because they were trying to take their own land back after we forcefully drove them out. We only get to know that based on story (which isnt bad, thats not what I am saying here). In GW2 we get to play the back story as it builds future story up. If I join the game today all the LS up till now for me is just back story like humans taking over ascalon from the charr was back story. For us who were there we got to play it an experience it first hand however.

Thats what makes this a living story. Instead of having the world set in one fix time period with a written history explaining events preceding that time period you have a world thats evolving. Players get to play what in 2 weeks time will become history and back story to the game while setting the stage for the next update. I find that really cool personally.

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Posted by: MikaHR.1978

MikaHR.1978

The problem is, if they want to make content that is essential for lore, it would have to be permanent.
The LS arcs are not meant to be that kind of story.
Let’s just say that the aetherblades are related to the awakening of a new elder dragon in TA. We would have at least some events left over (invasions, TA p4) so people would have context to the main story. Nontheless, it would be bad, as the villain was introduced in a LS that is over, so people new to the story would grief that they missed it.
Why would you do that to your customers.

On the other hand, bringing a plot to a final conclusion by showing the bigger picture at the end works perfectly fine in books. In games it just tells peope at the end of the arc what they’ve missed. I couldn’t think of a better way to kitten off your playerbase.

That is why the story telling in GW2 fails in combination with temporary (one-time) content. That is why ANet is avoiding to make anything happening in the LS relevant to the main story plot, the elder dragons and their defeat. This is why the LS feels boring and meaningless most of the time.

The game is going nowhere with the LS, we can only hope, they decide to do an expansion at some point…

They dont see a difference between a book and a game (no wonder)

Its like reading a book that had half of pages ripped out and then added some more pages that are continuation of those ripped out pages.

Not a very good expereince for the reader, not at all, “defenders” saying that “you can go on net and read a summary of ripped out pages” deosnt help either. Unfortunately they do drag the constructive discussion down.

Colin Johanson: “Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the
best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base.”

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Posted by: Kaiyanwan.8521

Kaiyanwan.8521

why does it make no sense?

The events of the molten alliance effected the world in different ways. The dredge and the flame legion joined forces. The invasions ravaged outlining villages in wayfarer foothills and diessa plateau which in turn created refugees. Those refugees when on to build a lot of the infrastructure in southsun. The failure of those invasions resulted in scarlet escalating her actions and facilitating an alliance between the pirates and the inquest and a plot to take over the LA council from the inside. When that failed scarlet too a more direct role. She tried to kidnap queen Jennah and started invading all parts of tyria using not only the motlen alliance and aetherblade pirates but also the steam creatures.

So if I am a new player that joined the game today and tomorrow try out what I am assuming to be an assault on Scarlet’s hideout or one of her bases or whatever it turns out to be all of that is now lore and back story to the Scarlet character. Why are the charr and dredge fighting along side her? she was pivot to them coming together. Why are the aetherblade pirates so advanced compared to other pirates? cause Scarlet got them to join up with the inquest. Why are we fighting scarlet at all? She assassinated a member of LA council, tried to kidnap queen Jennah and is invading our homes. etc…

This is what makes LS so awesome.. in Gw1 using the same example we know the Charr invaded ascalon because they were trying to take their own land back after we forcefully drove them out. We only get to know that based on story (which isnt bad, thats not what I am saying here). In GW2 we get to play the back story as it builds future story up. If I join the game today all the LS up till now for me is just back story like humans taking over ascalon from the charr was back story. For us who were there we got to play it an experience it first hand however.

Thats what makes this a living story. Instead of having the world set in one fix time period with a written history explaining events preceding that time period you have a world thats evolving. Players get to play what in 2 weeks time will become history and back story to the game while setting the stage for the next update. I find that really cool personally.

Because that is what the op and many others feel. They feel like they have to rush through the LS. If they are away, they miss out the content. Missing out content makes them feel like they don’t want to come back as they a) missed it anyway and b) fear for the same happen again.
For every LS over, some people are left behind. They won’t just read what they’ve missed, it will be a worm in their shiny apple.
It’s like missing an episode of your favorite show. You want to know what happened, you want to see it, not just read a synopsis. You can rent or buy it, but unfortunately in GW2 it’s just over.
In fact, that’s actually how I stopped watching some shows, just because I missed an episode or two…

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Posted by: Galen Grey.4709

Galen Grey.4709

Yes I am sure given the opportunity we’d all buy a time machine in order to get filthy rich not realizing the result would be complete collapse of the world economy in a single instance.

Time machine? I didn’t say nothin’ ‘bout that. I’d say its more in-line with liking a particular part of a video game that I really enjoyed and being able to re-experience it any time I wish, which is what I consider to be a huge strength about video games.

Sure MA was actually playable content which we who were there played. Its now back story for players who join today no different then any back story in any mmo.Why dont feel bad for never playing through back story of MMOs why should this be any different?

Because those “backstories” you reference are text and lore that no one’s experienced. The LS is actual content and gameplay that’s been deleted from the game that new and returning players don’t get to experience. If I had a great time with a part of a game, I’d want someone else to have that great time as well, and I’d be more than willing to slightly disregard having a “living world” if it meant that someone else could have that same great time I had, and if they’re having a great time now then I’m sure they’d have a lovely time playing all (or most) of the stuff they missed.

Regarding MF and AR: Can’t say I’m looking forward to the fact that I’m gonna have to go through a lot of old content just to get to the new, but maybe I can find a group that keeps “rerolling” the fractal until we get to the goodies.

but they will have a great time same as you did with the new content thats being released. Using Gw1 as an example… there was a bonus mission pack which had 4 missions in it. Each of those missions had you experience some of the lore. You got to play and experience Gwen captured by the charr. You got to experience Saul D’alessio and how the white mantle came to be. etc.. The pack was like $10 and while I have no idea how well it sold I have no doubt that some, possibly many people passed on it cause they might have thought its too expensive for what it offered (they’d be wrong cause it was really great) But my point is people who opted not to buy the mission pack, did they get to enjoy Gw1 any less? Did they miss out on what Gw1 had to offer just cause they didnt get to play some of the lore? Not really. As long as there is stuff for them to do and enjoy all of that what an extra bonus and so is this. A player who starts to do is still going to find new stuff to do every 2 weeks. Sure they missed a lot of updates and they missed the opportunity to experience first hand what is now just back story but they didnt miss the experience.. that keeps going, they will still get to experience what LS is perhaps better then we did.. even though it was just hte first cases there are still plenty of people who refer to the living story as nothing more then hanging up signs.

As for MA, AR return, we dont know how that will be implemented, it might be just fractals added to the current rotation or it might be what they did for the mini games and have an NPC who gives direct access to them. both MA and AR as they currently are too long for fractals anyway. But I have no idea what they’re gonna do we have to wait and see for that.

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Posted by: Kaiyanwan.8521

Kaiyanwan.8521

but they will have a great time same as you did with the new content thats being released. Using Gw1 as an example… there was a bonus mission pack which had 4 missions in it. Each of those missions had you experience some of the lore. You got to play and experience Gwen captured by the charr. You got to experience Saul D’alessio and how the white mantle came to be. etc.. The pack was like $10 and while I have no idea how well it sold I have no doubt that some, possibly many people passed on it cause they might have thought its too expensive for what it offered (they’d be wrong cause it was really great) But my point is people who opted not to buy the mission pack, did they get to enjoy Gw1 any less? Did they miss out on what Gw1 had to offer just cause they didnt get to play some of the lore? Not really. As long as there is stuff for them to do and enjoy all of that what an extra bonus and so is this. A player who starts to do is still going to find new stuff to do every 2 weeks. Sure they missed a lot of updates and they missed the opportunity to experience first hand what is now just back story but they didnt miss the experience.. that keeps going, they will still get to experience what LS is perhaps better then we did.. even though it was just hte first cases there are still plenty of people who refer to the living story as nothing more then hanging up signs.

As for MA, AR return, we dont know how that will be implemented, it might be just fractals added to the current rotation or it might be what they did for the mini games and have an NPC who gives direct access to them. both MA and AR as they currently are too long for fractals anyway. But I have no idea what they’re gonna do we have to wait and see for that.

Because people had the choice to buy it over monthes and then ANet reintroduced it three monthes after it became unavailable.
Kitten, you can still buy it today. How can you compare that to the LS that is gone?

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Posted by: Galen Grey.4709

Galen Grey.4709

They dont see a difference between a book and a game (no wonder)

Its like reading a book that had half of pages ripped out and then added some more pages that are continuation of those ripped out pages.

Not a very good expereince for the reader, not at all, “defenders” saying that “you can go on net and read a summary of ripped out pages” deosnt help either. Unfortunately they do drag the constructive discussion down.

Its actually exactly the opposite.

MMOs used to be 1/2 books and 1/2 game. The 1/2 book = the lore which if you wanted to know about you had to read stuff on the website or even literally books with just alittle bit of stuff sprinkled in game.

Gw2 is turning it into 95% game… you still have some lore presented to you out of the game of course, like the short stories we get with releases but the majority of it is experienced in game. If you miss it you get to experience just like you experience it in all other MMOs other there, by reading about.

So I dont understand why you’re seeing this as any worst, at most its on par with what is out there.

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Posted by: Galen Grey.4709

Galen Grey.4709

Because that is what the op and many others feel. They feel like they have to rush through the LS. If they are away, they miss out the content. Missing out content makes them feel like they don’t want to come back as they a) missed it anyway and b) fear for the same happen again.
For every LS over, some people are left behind. They won’t just read what they’ve missed, it will be a worm in their shiny apple.
It’s like missing an episode of your favorite show. You want to know what happened, you want to see it, not just read a synopsis. You can rent or buy it, but unfortunately in GW2 it’s just over.
In fact, that’s actually how I stopped watching some shows, just because I missed an episode or two…

Feeling is something else. I have no control on what people feel, nor do I want control on what people feel. I can only offer a different point of view. It may apply or it may not apply to you or anyone else but none of it is intended to address feelings.

As for rushing, LS releases are never that long “story wise” unless you’re trying to get all the achievements a couple of days is all it takes to experience all the story. Of course you can still miss some of it, if you’re away on holiday or just simply busy. In which case you read about and fill the gap just like you would with regular lore in other MMOs. If they dont feel like reading a couple of paragraphs detailing what happened then they dont care about lore at all in which case it will be even less of a problem.

I mean lets be honest here if you truly care about the story you have to read. Even if you dont miss the LS at all, just playing the content is not enough, you have to hunt the story by talking to NPCs by Interacting with Tomes and also by talking to little robots at times. Not all of it is Voiced over and not all of it is represented by the content you get to play directly. Example, if all you did was do the motlen alliance events and the MA dungeon and neglected to talk to prisoners after the fact you’d never learn someone external to the flame legion and the dredge had them form an alliance. If all you did was play the AR instance and neglected to go to the lion guards prison and talk to Mai Trin you wouldnt know of Scarlet at all at that stage. If during the bazaar you didnt speak with the NPCs involved you’d never know the zepherites are even related to Glint.

Simply speaking if you’re interested in the story you cannot avoid doing some reading. I agree with you thats much better to experience it yourself but missing out on a release is not the end of the world by far. Same thing happens in the personal story btw… You cannot experiance the personal story completely without creating multiple characters of different races because some of the ractial stories fill in some of the blanks you get when doing your personal story. Example


at one point of the personal story you’ll use an orrian mirror against the eye of zaithan. You will never know where that mirror came from unless you create a sylvari character and choose act with wisdom as the most important Ventari’s teaching in which case you will be involved in a storyline that actually acquires that same mirror. Does it mean you cannot fully enjoy the mission against the eye of zaithan without doing the side missions that get you that mirror? no, the game is designed so that while many stories intertwine each one can live happily on its own. Same here if you miss the MA storyline it doesnt mean that you cannot experience the queen’s gauntlet release fully you’re just missing some of the back story and if you’re someone who wants to know story reading literally 2 paragraphs to fill the void is not a big deal!

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Posted by: Galen Grey.4709

Galen Grey.4709

Because people had the choice to buy it over monthes and then ANet reintroduced it three monthes after it became unavailable.
Kitten, you can still buy it today. How can you compare that to the LS that is gone?

Thats not the point, the point is how was the experience people who didnt buy that mission pack negatively effected? answer it wasnt. Its just an optional nice to have. Same thing here, Obviously its way better to have experienced every single part of the LS but how will the next update be negatively effected if you didn’t play say the MA dungeon update. Answer: it wouldn’t not in a single way.

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Posted by: Tower Guard.5263

Tower Guard.5263

OP: I come back every 2 weeks to check out the LS (or update), but I leave soon after. Last update I liked was the Zephyr Sanctum . Queen’s Jenna’s Party and Overflow Teq, not so much.

Hopefully the Mad King will have some fun things to do.

(edited by Tower Guard.5263)

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Posted by: Kaiyanwan.8521

Kaiyanwan.8521

Because people had the choice to buy it over monthes and then ANet reintroduced it three monthes after it became unavailable.
Kitten, you can still buy it today. How can you compare that to the LS that is gone?

Thats not the point, the point is how was the experience people who didnt buy that mission pack negatively effected? answer it wasnt. Its just an optional nice to have. Same thing here, Obviously its way better to have experienced every single part of the LS but how will the next update be negatively effected if you didn’t play say the MA dungeon update. Answer: it wouldn’t not in a single way.

But it is, people can live with not participating with content as long as they have the choice to do it at one point. This will let them play at their own pace.

It is all nice and well that you think that people should do this and that, and that there is still stuff ahead, but that is unfortunately not how most humans work.
They look back over the last few monthes and count what they have gained by not playing the game. Why it would entertain them again. Telling them what they have missed and what is lost forever will not motivate them much, even if there is stuff ahead.
There is no bargain in returning to the game to overcome the reasons they have left it for in the first place.
This is human behaviour 101, not rocket science.

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Posted by: Devata.6589

Devata.6589

This is a very long discussion that has also been going on for a very long time. Looking at the last few patches you would think ArenaNet finally did something with comments about this. SAB is a returning event and not really a living story, bossweek was also not really a living story and is permanent and the upcoming patch seems to be slightly link to the story but is a new permanent dungeon path (not sure if there is more). If they now only completely drop the temporary available achievements + reward and make that also permanent it’s much better. (then you only still have the temporary black lion stuff that should not be temporary)

Then again, ArenaNet seemed to be turning in the wrong direction a few times before and then spin around again and raced the other side so only time will tel.

It might also all be to little to late. Back when Colin Johanson said they would only have the story temporary but the content permanent they should have done that. But that was just before they announced a lot of time-gated content that would come out over the next half year and just before the politics stuff… once again temporary. The patch after that was again temporary and only now with SAB and bossweek it became a little better.

The only way to set the record strait is with a time-machine to relive the old events, As you might have noticed fractals is already some sort of time-machine so that fits in the story. But like Colin said, part of a living story is that it’s there and then it’s gone and if you where not there you missed it. Thats true but the only moment that comes to my mind if we talking about such moments was the karka invasion in LA and there where no achivements and no rewards linked to that. Besides old players do not miss that event and have the island that came out of it. Thats how it should be.

Living story should be a event building up slowly over time so you really feel you are part of it like with the Karka story (the introduction with the refugee’s was also slow enough but had achievements linked to it) and not with any of the later events that went so fast it felt like a drain in stead of a living story. At the end of one of those stories something big should happen like the Karka invasion. To make it even more epic this should be recorded for every server. Meanwhile no temporary achievements or rewards should have been linked to that story but the result of the big finally should end up in a a lot of new permanent content (it might even be mixed with an expansion), That now content will have achievements, rewards and so on.

Also should there be a history tab where you can read the passed story and see a movie from the final event. Because that gets recorded per server that means that the people that where there can be seen on the video. Then you have the epic feeling of a story, people are not being left behind with content being it dungeons, rewards or achivements and they can read back on the story if that interests them.

The time-machine can then only go back before it was build over the last year.. damm Asura, great technology but always some negatives about it.

Thats the only way I see a living story work and to ‘fix’ what have been done wrong with the living story until now.

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Posted by: Galen Grey.4709

Galen Grey.4709

But it is, people can live with not participating with content as long as they have the choice to do it at one point. This will let them play at their own pace.

It is all nice and well that you think that people should do this and that, and that there is still stuff ahead, but that is unfortunately not how most humans work.
They look back over the last few monthes and count what they have gained by not playing the game. Why it would entertain them again. Telling them what they have missed and what is lost forever will not motivate them much, even if there is stuff ahead.
There is no bargain in returning to the game to overcome the reasons they have left it for in the first place.
This is human behaviour 101, not rocket science.

I have no doubt that from some players thats entirely true. Others however see this as a positive. That every 2 weeks the story of the world is propelled forward.

Gain doesnt even factor in it. WoW might not have the living story but what do you gain in a few months if you dont play? Nothing! why should the LS be any different? if you dont play you dont gain anything thats logical! Not only that but if you’re enjoying the game, if you have new content every 2 weeks why would you even quit?

You’re never going to make everyone happy, thats a given but if they’re sticking to this course it is because more players enjoy this way of delivering content. Arenanet arent out to prove anything. They want to the game to succeed and with that to make money and ensure their future. If more people hated this then people love it which they can easily tell using player metrics they wouldnt stick to it.

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Posted by: Mathias.9657

Mathias.9657

I’m sure some of anet developers are sad as we all are. They wanted to make an epic mmo with esport but instead they are forced to create facebook games because metrics say so. Sadly.

Maybe they should start building a game for their players instead of stock holders.

Back to WoW, make GW2 fun please.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

I’m sure some of anet developers are sad as we all are. They wanted to make an epic mmo with esport but instead they are forced to create facebook games because metrics say so. Sadly.

Maybe they should start building a game for their players instead of stock holders.

Without stockholders there wouldn’t be a game at all.

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Posted by: Mathias.9657

Mathias.9657

I’m sure some of anet developers are sad as we all are. They wanted to make an epic mmo with esport but instead they are forced to create facebook games because metrics say so. Sadly.

Maybe they should start building a game for their players instead of stock holders.

Without stockholders there wouldn’t be a game at all.

Look at GW1, you can do both. And thank you sherlock.

Back to WoW, make GW2 fun please.

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Posted by: Kaiyanwan.8521

Kaiyanwan.8521

Anet is making a change to the LS lately, they are shifting away from on-time LS to seasonal content and permanent content.
Why do you think they do so? The setup of a one-time event mmo was doomed to burn out players. And as I have explained will not bring back those who left.

I am 100% certain, that at one point most of the content will be permanent/seasonal and content that will disappear will mostly be just gem store fluff…

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Posted by: korelg.7862

korelg.7862

First, I am not leaving. I play every day and do most of the LS content.

I am in 3 guilds, 2 of which are dead. I have had friends in my 2 dead guilds start asking me about what is going on in GW2 because they heard about all the new content and where thinking about coming back. So I tell them about all the great updates we have had, but then I have to tell them, “sorry, it was temporary so you missed out”.
It’s a real downer. None of my friends has any interest in returning once they find out they missed so much content that they will most likely never see again. Telling them there is new content every 2 weeks makes no difference it seems.

Has anyone else experienced this with their friends? Opinions? Is LS really a reason not to return?

I think people is missing a point here, the good thing abaout LS is that even if you miss a whole year of LS content, you wont be left behind, you can jump back in the game whenever you want…

I used to play wow, the other day blizz sent me this “huge offer” of 7 free days of game!! but after being away from that game for about 2 years i’d need months just to catch up, THAT sucks, instead in GW2 if i miss LS updates i can just go check the updates page to see what happened and then go back to my heroic deeds as if i’d never left

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

I’m sure some of anet developers are sad as we all are. They wanted to make an epic mmo with esport but instead they are forced to create facebook games because metrics say so. Sadly.

Maybe they should start building a game for their players instead of stock holders.

Without stockholders there wouldn’t be a game at all.

Look at GW1, you can do both. And thank you sherlock.

Guild Wars 1 was made at a different time. A time with a lot less competition. All you need to do is look at the number of multiplayer fantasy games that were out when Guild Wars 1 came out that didn’t have a monthly subscription. There were none. Guild Wars 1 had no competition. There weren’t free MMOs everywhere you looked, with much more clout to get the name out there. No free Age of Conan, no free Lotro, no free Dungeons and Dragons Online, no free Superhero MMOs, no free Star Trek or Star Wars MMO.

I’m not sure why people don’t understand that Guild Wars 1 launched at a certain time and place, and frankly, it was far to intelligent a game to ever truly appeal to the masses. It doesn’t say much for the masses, mind you, but it’s what I believe.

It’s the WoW, EQ equation. EQ was probably the better game with the smaller audience. WoW made a lot of stuff accessible (read dumbed it down) and suddenly there were more players.

Guild Wars 1 was a great game. I won’t say otherwise.

But it was always going to be a niche game.

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Posted by: Mathias.9657

Mathias.9657

GW1 had no competition? Lol I specifically remember WoW being a huge thing back then, since both games released around the same time. It’s amazing GW was even able to bring people in during that time.

I agree GW was too intelligent a game to appeal to the masses but the people it did appeal to were very happy with it – I’m so baffled ANet just chooses to ignore that entire playerbase and pull a Blizzard making the most casual game possible (read:dumbed down).

GW wasn’t even that hard, it just took some basic thought to throw a build together and read your opponents. Too bad, people prefer brainless zerging it appears.

Being a truly unique niche is more important than being yet another MMO that failed to meet expectations because it’s trying too hard to be something it’s not. GW2 is just another clone, a korean grind.

All those F2P MMO’s are trash, no competition there lol.

Back to WoW, make GW2 fun please.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

GW1 had no competition? Lol I specifically remember WoW being a huge thing back then, since both games released around the same time. It’s amazing GW was even able to bring people in during that time.

I agree GW was too intelligent a game to appeal to the masses but the people it did appeal to were very happy with it – I’m so baffled ANet just chooses to ignore that entire playerbase and pull a Blizzard making the most casual game possible (read:dumbed down).

GW wasn’t even that hard, it just took some basic thought to throw a build together and read your opponents. Too bad, people prefer brainless zerging it appears.

Being a truly unique niche is more important than being yet another MMO that failed to meet expectations because it’s trying too hard to be something it’s not. GW2 is just another clone, a korean grind.

All those F2P MMO’s are trash, no competition there lol.

You didn’t read my post did you? WoW was a game that charged $15 a month. Therefore it wasn’t direct competition for a free game. That’s what I said.

There are many many people that won’t pay a subscription for a game, period. All the MMOs back then, DAoC, WoW, all of them were subscription games. Guild Wars 1 changed the nature of the fantasy genre by offering a multiplayer game without a subscription. And they were able to support Guild Wars 1. You only had 50 programmers. A lot less voice acting. The nature of the genre has changed drastically.

I’m not even sure what the discussion here is.

Are you saying the that the MMO competition and setting today is the same as when Guild Wars 1 released?

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Posted by: Devata.6589

Devata.6589

I’m sure some of anet developers are sad as we all are. They wanted to make an epic mmo with esport but instead they are forced to create facebook games because metrics say so. Sadly.

Maybe they should start building a game for their players instead of stock holders.

Without stockholders there wouldn’t be a game at all.

Look at GW1, you can do both. And thank you sherlock.

Guild Wars 1 was made at a different time. A time with a lot less competition. All you need to do is look at the number of multiplayer fantasy games that were out when Guild Wars 1 came out that didn’t have a monthly subscription. There were none. Guild Wars 1 had no competition. There weren’t free MMOs everywhere you looked, with much more clout to get the name out there. No free Age of Conan, no free Lotro, no free Dungeons and Dragons Online, no free Superhero MMOs, no free Star Trek or Star Wars MMO.

I’m not sure why people don’t understand that Guild Wars 1 launched at a certain time and place, and frankly, it was far to intelligent a game to ever truly appeal to the masses. It doesn’t say much for the masses, mind you, but it’s what I believe.

It’s the WoW, EQ equation. EQ was probably the better game with the smaller audience. WoW made a lot of stuff accessible (read dumbed it down) and suddenly there were more players.

Guild Wars 1 was a great game. I won’t say otherwise.

But it was always going to be a niche game.

I have to disagree
First of all see this list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_games

And about free to play. Well GW1 was not F2P but B2P and how many games are now really B2P? GW1. GW2 could have gone for B2P and would still be pretty unique with there payment model.

Besides that, most of the games you name where games that started as P2P and failed with that having to turn to F2P. They don’t have very big playerbases and so aren’t very big competition. In fact since GW2 release the only big other releases are just now coming in. Other big players in the market are games like WoW and EvE but they already existed when GW1 was released if you would also look at other payment models.

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Posted by: Devata.6589

Devata.6589

@Vayne.8563
Tell me something. Do you get payed for these comments or do you really dislike the game a lot? But then why are you defending it?

It must be one of the two because whenever I am on the forums I see recent comments from you and I am on the forum at very differed times so it can’t be that we are just on it on the same times.

So if you are always on the forum you can’t even play the game.. what you would be doing if you really enjoyed it as much as you seem to do if we where to believe your comments.

I also had a look here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/members/Vayne-8563/showposts and it shows me hours for the last 24 hours (after that it become days). Then I see you literally post multiple things every hour with a break of 9 hours in between (guess thats your sleep-time).

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

This forum would have a field day with the other stuff the dev said. No reason to give anyone ammunition. And no, I don’t go around screenshotting convos. I’d personally consider it rude without consent, unless someone was being abusive.

Apparently you don’t have a problem reporting some of the details of a private conversation and alluding to others in order to “win” an argument on the internet. I’d consider that rude. If I were the dev, I would certainly never speak to you again. Yes, yes, he should have assumed that a random player would lack manners and discretion.

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Posted by: Azala Yar.7693

Azala Yar.7693

It’s part of why I stopped playing GW2. Never did like the LS it just seemed like cheap content based around achievements and achievements are the cheapest way to generate so called content.

Was attracted to GW2 originally because they set out to make an MMO as I understood it were a solo player could do most of the content. By the time I actually purchased the game it was already moving away from that ideal. With more content being aimed at guilds for one.

Only played for about 2 months, have 8 characters, 6 of which are max level. Started to get bored with the content in the end though especially end game content. Although to be fair I wasn’t, doing much PvP as players just seem to appear out of nowhere I put this down to not having a fast system at the time.

I felt with content like the living story, poor drop rates from mobs which made even farming mobs boring that the game was becoming less about the game and more about how to milk their customers by getting them to use the shop.

(edited by Azala Yar.7693)

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Posted by: Smith.1826

Smith.1826

Yes I am sure given the opportunity we’d all buy a time machine in order to get filthy rich not realizing the result would be complete collapse of the world economy in a single instance.

Time machine? I didn’t say nothin’ ‘bout that. I’d say its more in-line with liking a particular part of a video game that I really enjoyed and being able to re-experience it any time I wish, which is what I consider to be a huge strength about video games.

Sure MA was actually playable content which we who were there played. Its now back story for players who join today no different then any back story in any mmo.Why dont feel bad for never playing through back story of MMOs why should this be any different?

Because those “backstories” you reference are text and lore that no one’s experienced. The LS is actual content and gameplay that’s been deleted from the game that new and returning players don’t get to experience. If I had a great time with a part of a game, I’d want someone else to have that great time as well, and I’d be more than willing to slightly disregard having a “living world” if it meant that someone else could have that same great time I had, and if they’re having a great time now then I’m sure they’d have a lovely time playing all (or most) of the stuff they missed.

Regarding MF and AR: Can’t say I’m looking forward to the fact that I’m gonna have to go through a lot of old content just to get to the new, but maybe I can find a group that keeps “rerolling” the fractal until we get to the goodies.

As long as there is stuff for them to do and enjoy all of that what an extra bonus and so is this. A player who starts to do is still going to find new stuff to do every 2 weeks. Sure they missed a lot of updates and they missed the opportunity to experience first hand what is now just back story but they didnt miss the experience.. that keeps going, they will still get to experience what LS is perhaps better then we did.. even though it was just hte first cases there are still plenty of people who refer to the living story as nothing more then hanging up signs.

That’s great, I agree.

However, I think it’s absurd that someone joining now will have missed a year’s worth of content, and as I mentioned when I first replied to you, I’m having a real hard time seeing an issue with allowing players to be able to (re)experience most of this content as they choose.

I know not all of it is feasible to bring back – namely things like the first Flame and Frost that affected a landmass – but otherwise, what’s to lose? The “feeling” of a “living world”? I’d be willing to let go with some of that “feeling” if it meant more people got to enjoy all the game’s content, I’d like to hope you would as well.

This concept of “disposing content” never made much sense to me. Maybe it’s “okay” because its an MMO thing? At least in WoW you can head back to the content from the last three expansions with a friend and still see the old content

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Posted by: Mimir.4690

Mimir.4690

They should take living story elements (not all living story content – TA updates, Tequatl, or even holiday events like Halloween, Wintersday, and the Jubilee as these are either permanent or come annually) and create fractals based on these elements. While they may not be exactly like the events, they could at least give players a sense of the story behind those events and a bit of the gameplay, introduction to those characters, etc.

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Posted by: Devata.6589

Devata.6589

By the time I actually purchased the game it was already moving away from that ideal. With more content being aimed at guilds for one.

~

I felt with content like the living story, poor drop rates from mobs which made even farming mobs boring that the game was becoming less about the game and more about how to milk their customers by getting them to use the shop.

Wait what.. content for guilds? On of the main issue’s as a guild is the lac of things to do.. yes there are the guild-missions but thats it. WvW is zerg vs zerg, not really great for a guild because of overflow.

Bosses (Tequatl) are nice but also not great for guilds. Non-guild members might do thinks that mess thinks up and once again overflows stop people from getting in.

If it comes to that ArenaNet got it completely wrong if it comes to instances. What should be instanced, like raid attacks we see in boss fight is not really in an instance.. guild puzzle is no real instance but every map is an instance while that should have been one big open world.

Open world bosses are not bad but then also ad raids for guilds only so you can really work on tactics. And gives really something in WvW like a castle we can build and defend (have a look at ArcheAge) and let us really build a guild-house.. don’t just give us one, make a map where people can build them. There is not enough stuff to do for guilds.

What you refer to is most likely zerging but thats something else because it misses tactics.

Then again I 100% agree with the last part of your comment.

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Posted by: DireSwift.9083

DireSwift.9083

I have nothing to add to this other than I am enjoying the Living Story after having been gone for several months after release. Life got busy so I never got to even experience level 80. I haven’t been around to experience what most have here so to me it’s fresh and fun to have something different going on every couple weeks.

Oh, I quit reading this kitten thread after the 50th “Kitten”….my f’ing lord what an annoying word that everyone uses for everything around here.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

I’m sure some of anet developers are sad as we all are. They wanted to make an epic mmo with esport but instead they are forced to create facebook games because metrics say so. Sadly.

Maybe they should start building a game for their players instead of stock holders.

Without stockholders there wouldn’t be a game at all.

Look at GW1, you can do both. And thank you sherlock.

Guild Wars 1 was made at a different time. A time with a lot less competition. All you need to do is look at the number of multiplayer fantasy games that were out when Guild Wars 1 came out that didn’t have a monthly subscription. There were none. Guild Wars 1 had no competition. There weren’t free MMOs everywhere you looked, with much more clout to get the name out there. No free Age of Conan, no free Lotro, no free Dungeons and Dragons Online, no free Superhero MMOs, no free Star Trek or Star Wars MMO.

I’m not sure why people don’t understand that Guild Wars 1 launched at a certain time and place, and frankly, it was far to intelligent a game to ever truly appeal to the masses. It doesn’t say much for the masses, mind you, but it’s what I believe.

It’s the WoW, EQ equation. EQ was probably the better game with the smaller audience. WoW made a lot of stuff accessible (read dumbed it down) and suddenly there were more players.

Guild Wars 1 was a great game. I won’t say otherwise.

But it was always going to be a niche game.

I have to disagree
First of all see this list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_games

And about free to play. Well GW1 was not F2P but B2P and how many games are now really B2P? GW1. GW2 could have gone for B2P and would still be pretty unique with there payment model.

Besides that, most of the games you name where games that started as P2P and failed with that having to turn to F2P. They don’t have very big playerbases and so aren’t very big competition. In fact since GW2 release the only big other releases are just now coming in. Other big players in the market are games like WoW and EvE but they already existed when GW1 was released if you would also look at other payment models.

Wow, you’re really stretching here.

Yes, there aren’t many buy to play games, but back then there weren’t any. Only Guild wars 1. Now there are FREE TO PLAY games. that’s the difference.

See Guild Wars 2, you have to spend money to get into it at all. The other free to play games draw people in buy being free to play.

When Guild Wars 1 came out there were no free to play MMOs. Everything has a subscription and it was the only buy to play game.

You use buy to play as different and it is, but when most people see the word free and most people see the word buy…well…most people, I believe would prefer free.

There are a handful of MMOs all up when Guild Wars 1 came out. I don’t think there were 10. Now there are a hundred.

I’m really not sure how you can even be having this discussion.

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Posted by: cesmode.4257

cesmode.4257

I stopped playing because of living story, along with ascended..crap.

Karma is as abundant as air, and as useless as the Kardashians.

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Posted by: minbariguy.7504

minbariguy.7504

Oh, I quit reading this kitten thread after the 50th “Kitten”….my kitten lord what an annoying word that everyone uses for everything around here.

LOL, DireSwift, nobody really uses the word “kitten”. It’s the forum software that censors swear words and plugs the word “kitten” in to replace the bad word. But don’t worry, you’re not the first person to be completely bewildered by the prevalence of kittens around here! :-)

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Posted by: ShiningSquirrel.3751

ShiningSquirrel.3751

Oh, I quit reading this kitten thread after the 50th “Kitten”….my kitten lord what an annoying word that everyone uses for everything around here.

LOL! No one “uses” that word. It’s the forums “bad word” filter. Anything they consider to be inappropriate is replaced by the word “kitten” automatically.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

I spend so much time on these forums I now use kitten in real life. lol

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Posted by: minbariguy.7504

minbariguy.7504

I spend so much time on these forums I now use kitten in real life. lol

Heh. I can’t lie. I have to admit that I’ve been tempted.

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Posted by: ShiningSquirrel.3751

ShiningSquirrel.3751

I spend so much time on these forums I now use kitten in real life. lol

Maybe we need to have “kitten day”. Everyone use “kitten” for all verbs everyplace on the forums and in game. I can just see the chat in LA now, LOL!

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Posted by: timidobserver.7925

timidobserver.7925

I gotta say that I prefer the expansion model. This constant content is nice, but expansion content is just so much better.

I won’t be quitting Guild Wars entirely for a long while, but I am going to be playing it less and less until some real quality/expansion level content is released.

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Posted by: Dante.1508

Dante.1508

I have different conversations with friends.

What’s new in the game. The living story. This week we’re fighting T’quatl. It’s a pretty epic dragon battle. Next week, there’s a new dungeon path coming into the game.

It’s not about what’s gone, it’s about what’s coming. You’re always two weeks away from something new…and you never know what it’s going to be.

To me that’s a selling point.

The Fact you have to try and sell the game to your friends to get them to play like you do above tells me the game has many issues.

If the game was fun in any way at all you wouldn’t need to “sell” or “justify” parts of the game to them, and they still missed out on a lot of content for which they will find out sooner or later..

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

I have different conversations with friends.

What’s new in the game. The living story. This week we’re fighting T’quatl. It’s a pretty epic dragon battle. Next week, there’s a new dungeon path coming into the game.

It’s not about what’s gone, it’s about what’s coming. You’re always two weeks away from something new…and you never know what it’s going to be.

To me that’s a selling point.

The Fact you have to try and sell the game to your friends to get them to play like you do above tells me the game has many issues.

If the game was fun in any way at all you wouldn’t need to “sell” or “justify” parts of the game to them, and they still missed out on a lot of content for which they will find out sooner or later..

Ummm no. I’m telling the truth. The truth is I’m enjoying the new content. People don’t have to sell the game to their friends, but if they don’t like the game,. why do they care if their friends come. In case you haven’t noticed, some people DO like this game. Those people are sharing what they LIKE about the game.

If that’s selling the game to your friends, I guess it is.

But people who go and say you missed everything are completely ignoring that fact that there’s always something new.

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Posted by: Galen Grey.4709

Galen Grey.4709

Anet is making a change to the LS lately, they are shifting away from on-time LS to seasonal content and permanent content.
Why do you think they do so? The setup of a one-time event mmo was doomed to burn out players. And as I have explained will not bring back those who left.

I am 100% certain, that at one point most of the content will be permanent/seasonal and content that will disappear will mostly be just gem store fluff…

They did that because thats what a lot of players asked for. There is notion that Arenanet dont care about what their players said even if time and time again they course corrected based on feedback yet each time we act with surprise like this is the first time it happened / like they’d been forced to do it because they had no other choice.

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Posted by: Kaiyanwan.8521

Kaiyanwan.8521

Anet is making a change to the LS lately, they are shifting away from on-time LS to seasonal content and permanent content.
Why do you think they do so? The setup of a one-time event mmo was doomed to burn out players. And as I have explained will not bring back those who left.

I am 100% certain, that at one point most of the content will be permanent/seasonal and content that will disappear will mostly be just gem store fluff…

They did that because thats what a lot of players asked for. There is notion that Arenanet dont care about what their players said even if time and time again they course corrected based on feedback yet each time we act with surprise like this is the first time it happened / like they’d been forced to do it because they had no other choice.

The player feedback was probably no longer logging in and not returning. If you think any other feedback is sort of priority, you are delusional.

Living story = players not returning?

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Posted by: Galen Grey.4709

Galen Grey.4709

That’s great, I agree.

However, I think it’s absurd that someone joining now will have missed a year’s worth of content, and as I mentioned when I first replied to you, I’m having a real hard time seeing an issue with allowing players to be able to (re)experience most of this content as they choose.

I know not all of it is feasible to bring back – namely things like the first Flame and Frost that affected a landmass – but otherwise, what’s to lose? The “feeling” of a “living world”? I’d be willing to let go with some of that “feeling” if it meant more people got to enjoy all the game’s content, I’d like to hope you would as well.

This concept of “disposing content” never made much sense to me. Maybe it’s “okay” because its an MMO thing? At least in WoW you can head back to the content from the last three expansions with a friend and still see the old content

Its a classic case of you cannot make an omlette without breaking a few eggs. You can either have a dynamic story but loose content or you have a static story and keep everything. You cannot have a dynamic story and retain content at the same time. Molten Alliance, would it feel like we really won against them if the invasions kept occuring? Could we talk to Mai Trin in custody if every time you run the dungeon is there for you to fight? etc..

Personally I think its worth sacrificing that content in order to have this. Actually I am also kinda concerned that they’re planning to make most of the content permanent with just some of it temporary. Thing is this is no WoW or your typical MMO. In WoW adding new content doesnt carry any risks because at some point that content will expire. Even if WoW added 50 zones it wouldnt be a problem cause they’re no longer playable once you out level them hence at any one point in time most players will be focused in the same handful of max level zones but Gw2 is different. Provided they keep this up we’ll be getting 24 updates per year. Imagine if every single update adds more then a single thing most of the time like say the bazaar added a zone, 3 minigames, a pvp map. Cutthroat politics added 2 new mini games, a solo instance and pvp mini game etc.. if we assume an average of 3 new activities be it mini game, dungeons or instance or pvp stuff thats potentially 72 activities that will split players up per year… in 10 years thats 720 new avenues in addition to whats already in there. Thats significant, very significant! With the choice as is now you already have enough player fragmentation that some mid level maps are sparsely populated.

What I am saying is we need to keep in mind that in Gw2 no content ever expires. The more you add the more places you have where players will spread. we got 51 servers if every single one of those 3.5m players still play (which i am not saying is the case) thats about 70k players per server.

We already have 8 dungeons with soon to be 25 paths, 11 fractals, 4x WvW maps, 6x pvp maps, 14x mini games, 41 jumping puzzles, 6x guild missions, 25x zones, 17x world bosses, 3x temple events, 2x world events, 1500x dynamic events, 35x personal story missions. So right now thats already about 1700x ways how players can be split. meaning if we assume all those 70k people play every day with a very high 1/3 concurrancy that leaves just 13 players per activity if they’re equaly split. Thats no where close to enough for most of those events. You cannot have WvW with 13 players, you cannot have world bosses with 13 players, not even some of the guild missions etc… Now keep in mind these numbers are with theoretical maximums, not every player who bought the game plays it, not all players play every day, not all of them play at the same time etc.. At the same time not all content is played equally, in truth you dont find 13 players at world boss event, you find over 500 in most cases (we know thanks to overflows) but to get 500 players there it means a whole 38 other activities have been starved of their fair share of players in the best case scenario!

Having tons of new content sounds great on paper but it frightens me in a game like Gw2 where no content ever experience, it might pull players too thin and activities that require a healthy number of players to be enjoyable might suffer.

Living story = players not returning?

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Posted by: Galen Grey.4709

Galen Grey.4709

Anet is making a change to the LS lately, they are shifting away from on-time LS to seasonal content and permanent content.
Why do you think they do so? The setup of a one-time event mmo was doomed to burn out players. And as I have explained will not bring back those who left.

I am 100% certain, that at one point most of the content will be permanent/seasonal and content that will disappear will mostly be just gem store fluff…

They did that because thats what a lot of players asked for. There is notion that Arenanet dont care about what their players said even if time and time again they course corrected based on feedback yet each time we act with surprise like this is the first time it happened / like they’d been forced to do it because they had no other choice.

The player feedback was probably no longer logging in and not returning. If you think any other feedback is sort of priority, you are delusional.

Ohh come on, are you going to tell me in the first month people stopped logging in because they couldnt access their crafting mats directly from the bank? No but people voiced that they wanted it and one month later Arenanet Gave it to them. Then they said they wanted to be able to discover from the bank as well.. again, its the 2nd month of release, they already got something they wanted from Arenanet how many do you think quit the game because they couldnt discover recipes directly from the bank? very few if any, yet arenanet gave them to them as well.

So no and I am not delusional in saying Arenanet act on feedback even if people dont quit an mass. And again since LS started in more then once they said that player counts are on the rise across the board hence there was no mass exodus that forced them to act on player feedback for sure.

Living story = players not returning?

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Posted by: Kaiyanwan.8521

Kaiyanwan.8521

If you don’t see the difference between quality-of-life changes and a grand strategy for a game that struggels to seperate itself from all others, you are delusional.

ANet is running a fair risk with the LS, they wouldn’t adapt it if it wasn’t directly related to lower sales.