Guild Wars 2

To explain this in a simple way why is that so I will start with an allegory which I title “The Troll Beer.” Obviously mostly the adult males will understand it fully but I think the rest will get the picture:

Owner: This beer is very good or so I heared I think I’ll drink it on saturday though
Beer: No way dude by saturday the content inside this can will be gone
Owner: err ok then I’ll drink you right now
Beer: Sorry pal this can is impossible to open till wednesday
Owner: Fine I’ll drink you friday then
Beer: Fine but I gotta warn you that I will taste the best right after opening so it’s best to drink me wednesday
Owner: Listen beer I paid for you so I should decide when I drink you!
Beer: Chill out dude I’m just a beer if you have such complains talk to my makers, plus no one is telling you that you have to drink me
Owner: Ok screw this I am never drinking you again and I don’t care how good you may taste!

Yes temporary content works exactly like that. Regardless if its good or bad it will just annoy eventually. Even more so if it is good. Why is that so? It’s simple: Let’s say that we get new content that is simply so great and epic that we don’t want to stop playing it. Well in that case once it’s removed we will want it back and the fact it won’t be back will annoy us greatly.
Now on the other hand if the content sucks (which mostly does) we won’t want to play it but we still will do it for the achievements. And that is really all it goes down to – the achievements or rather the achievement points. The achievements are meaningless because all achievements from temporary content are meaningless no matter what you have to do to get them. More over most of them are just stupid tasks like find/kill/dodge X times something.
Now somebody is going to say that this is for bragging rights. Well you know what? Thats not happening because a lot of them require cooperation from +100 players so our add to the business is less than 1%.
And now someone is going to pull out the Queen’s Gauntlet card and say this truely is for bragging rights. Well guess what it’s not. Thats because no temporary content can be used for bragging rights. That is due to the fact that there are a lot of new players appearing right now and there will be more in the future that will never have the chance to fight Liadri. And everyone will agree that among them there are those that are capable of beating her. Also there is no bragging to those that were already playing during the Queen’s Gauntlet either because they can always say “I didn’t have time to play back then.” And how do we know a person didn’t indeed? I mean there are a lot of people that have very little time to play so how can we tell if someone is lying?
Also what does beating Liadri mean actually? There are no other bosses that fight like her in the game so what use is beating her at this point?
So it all goes down to the points and the rewards they give us. Yeah well I hate to say it but doing all paths in AC earns more cash than most of the chests give us and the other rewards are mostly garbage.
And now I will tell you how pathetic our efforts are by revealing you the future of GW2.
Thats right I am predicting the future so listen closely!
As soon as GW2 has all of it’s expansions and the living world updates are no more ANET will make more infinite achievements and remove the limiters from the current ones. Why? Because all players must have an equal chance at getting all the rewards including those who only start playing at that point.
So there will be more infinite achievements that give points infinitely. There will porbably be one for events, faractals, kills in pvp, kills in wvw etc.
And so our efforts in the living world will become worthless.

And now my final point is one that ANET should listen to.
YOU HEAR ME ANET I’M TALKING TO YOU TOO NOW SO HEAR ME OUT!
Temporary content will only make people not want to buy this game. Because no one will really like the idea of buying a game if he/she hears the game has content no longer available to them just because they didn’t start playing sooner. So take my advice ANET and stop making temporary content because it’s a bad commercial if you try to tell your clients when they should be playing your game. So either only make permanent content even if only in a much smaller scale or don’t make this at all.
I’m serious you are only pushing future clients away.
Seasonal content like Wintersday is all fine but not this so if you really have to then make more of that. Easter is coming soon so it’s a much better idea to add an easter celebration rather than living world.

“Geijitsu wa bakuhatsu da”

There are people out there who really like the concept of temporary content and can appreciate it, you know. Great things come and go, and so is the LS content, and because it’s temporary, it gives you that feel of the living world. Nothing is permanent in the real world.

Yes, Living Story has its flaws, but it’s not the idea itself that’s a failure. Think about it, how real would Tyria feel if it wasn’t changing at all? If every patch was adding permanent content? We would be fighting Scarlet million times, years after her death and that would make no sense.

As for missing the content.. Well, I was out of the country last year and I haven’t been able to play for 3 months. I missed the aetherblades patch, the jubilee, voting for Ellen, all that. And I don’t care about the achievements I don’t have. I only regret that I couldn’t experience the content and story. Because that’s what this game’s all about for me. If I wanted to just get points, I’d go play tetris.

So basically, you can’t just jump in here and “predict” the future of the game based on just ONE point of view, one opinion. Because not everyone is the type of player you are, and everyone is enjoying different things.

PsiQss.6927:

“Geijitsu wa bakuhatsu da”

There are people out there who really like the concept of temporary content and can appreciate it, you know. Great things come and go, and so is the LS content, and because it’s temporary, it gives you that feel of the living world. Nothing is permanent in the real world.

Yes, Living Story has its flaws, but it’s not the idea itself that’s a failure. Think about it, how real would Tyria feel if it wasn’t changing at all? If every patch was adding permanent content? We would be fighting Scarlet million times, years after her death and that would make no sense.

As for missing the content.. Well, I was out of the country last year and I haven’t been able to play for 3 months. I missed the aetherblades patch, the jubilee, voting for Ellen, all that. And I don’t care about the achievements I don’t have. I only regret that I couldn’t experience the content and story. Because that’s what this game’s all about for me. If I wanted to just get points, I’d go play tetris.

So basically, you can’t just jump in here and “predict” the future of the game based on just ONE point of view, one opinion. Because not everyone is the type of player you are, and everyone is enjoying different things.

I hate to break it to you but if you regret missing some of the content it only means I’m right.

Not really. I only said that to point out that if there’s anything I regret, it’s the story I missed, not the achievement points I can’t get anymore. I regret that I COULDN’T be there for this part of LS. But I’m still glad it was temporary because if it wasn’t, the world wouldn’t feel alive to me Read my post carefully and respond to it as a whole, not just to a single sentence because that might lead to pointless semantics arguement.

PsiQss.6927:

Not really. I only said that to point out that if there’s anything I regret, it’s the story I missed, not the achievement points I can’t get anymore. I regret that I COULDN’T be there for this part of LS. But I’m still glad it was temporary because if it wasn’t, the world wouldn’t feel alive to me Read my post carefully and respond to it as a whole, not just to a single sentence because that might lead to pointless semantics arguement.

You don’t get it do you? I think it is you who needs to learn to read. The point I was making is that people should not be told when they should play a game. And the fact you don’t like to miss content yourself is one of the reasons why it is a bad idea to make temporary content. Got it?

Even though I don’t like to miss the content, I’m still glad it was there when I wasn’t playing. That’s what makes MMOs different from SP games – the world is there and it’s living, whether you play it or not.

You say it is bad to make temporary content. Well, it’s your opinion and I respect that, even though it’s far different from mine. But I think you shouldn’t just jump on ANET for having a different view. Your whole post comes down to a single thing – that in the Living Story you only see the achievements. It’s your playstyle and it’s ok. But you should respect other’s opinions and not speak for everyone, yelling at the developers that their concept is a “failure”. There are people who play for achievements, and there are people who play for the story. And the whole point of the story is that it’s dynamic, it has to proceed forward, not stand still in one spot. Yes, I’ve saidI regret that I missed some content. But it was my fault, or my life’s fault that I couldn’t play. And I can only blame myself, not the developers.

First off… only ‘adult males’ will understand your analogy? Yeah, no. Most women I know drink more than most guys I know (though that just may say something about my circle of friends). Still, a statement like that is just starting off on the wrong foot.

Second, Living Story is not just temporary content. Season 1 predominantly was I’ll give you that. The most we had in terms of new locations was Southsun and Zephyr Santum (one of which is a traveling merchant group and will return regularly), but you can’t think for a second that Season 2 will follow that pattern the whole time. Season 1 had to get us to a point that the need to expand the world was there… could it have been done differently and sooner… sure, of course. However the need to expand will be there in the story and ANet is not going to make whole maps that are temporary content. We go west of Brisban Highlands in Season 2, that map will still be there at the end of Season 2. It may not look the same as when we first get there, but it will be there as will all the jumping puzzles, vistas, etc. they put there.

Third, not everyone plays for AP. In fact I’d say most players don’t play for AP in and of itself, they just don’t mind getting it. It’s a normally useless system in most games that they have tied some rewards to. AP in and of itself though is just for those who feel the need to base their enjoyment of the game on an arbitrary number. (raises flame shield)

Fourth… “As soon as GW2 has all of it’s expansions and the living world updates are no more ANET will make more infinite achievements and remove the limiters from the current ones. Why? Because all players must have an equal chance at getting all the rewards including those who only start playing at that point.” makes no sense what so ever. There is no need to remove limitations at all because when ANet moves on from GW2 (who knows when that will be, GW1 is still running), there is nothing stopping them from just releasing all LS updates (holidays aside) and have a historian in a city to tell you what happened and you play them, much like they did with the special missions in GW1. May need some tweaking, but I think they may even do that for content as they go as they have mentioned they were looking into ways for players to play content they missed.

Sixth, temporary content can have the opposite affect that you are claiming because a lot of more casual players, hell, the fact this game had a living world got like 3 of my friends off of WoW and into GW2, simply because WoW never changes. Been There, Done That. Yes, I know, anecdotal evidence, but there is something to that. Once you finish the latest WoW expansion or get to max level there’s nothing to do other than grind with your guild doing raids and then go level an alt. In GW2 thanks to the LS there is always something going on. Is it always the best stuff? No, but I don’t expect it to be.

Just a sidebar to add in…

I think ArenaNet added the Living Story Atlas so that the content wouldn’t ever go away completely.

For example, PsiQss, after a 3-month hiatus, could return, flip through the atlas, read the release notes, look at the pictures and the annotations, and be mostly caught up. Then jump into the wonders that await them with the latest chapter.

I would also like to address the point of being “told when to play.” I can’t say I’ve felt this. I missed a living story release because it didn’t appeal to me (but it’s the Aetherblade path of TA, so I can still go back to it). I’ve regretted not having enough free time to play through content to my liking. But I’ve never been told by the game that I should play.
Reasons:
1. No subscription fee. I paid for the game, and all the added content is bonus. One of the reasons I don’t play sub games is that I feel like any time I spend playing something else is wasting money. No sub fee, no problem.
2. The remainder of the game (minus LA now) is available at all times. The living story content, in the grand scheme, makes up at most 5% of the content available at a given time, if that. And that’s just PvE. Were the LS 50% of the entire game, I think there’d be more of a point to complaining about temporary content.
3. Achievements are a treadmill of points. I’ll never have as many as the people who do nothing but play, but there’s an unlimited supply of them via dailies. Yes, some people do them just for the points, but I find they also help guide me through the content by pointing me towards activities, locations, encounters, etc.
4. Every living world release I’ve seen can be experienced in about 5 hours. Please don’t mistake: you can’t complete the achievements in that time. But you can wander around the new areas, talk to NPCs, browse the merchants, fight the baddies, dabble with the activities, read the new mail, go through the instances, and generally see what there is to be seen in detail. If you don’t have 5 hours in two weeks to spend, then you probably shouldn’t be playing MMOs.
5. Approximately every month they’ve given us something that sticks around: a grip of new jumping puzzles, Cragstead and the devourer hatchery, Southsun, fractals, some more fractals, Belcher’s Bluff, Crab Toss, Southsun Survival, Sanctum Sprint, the Aetherblade Twilight Arbor path, evolved Tequatl, the Great Wurms, the Edge of the Mists, several PvP maps, and that’s off the top of my head. Not to mention recurring content like the Mad King, Wintersday, Super Adventure Box, and I assume Zephyr Sanctum. You may not get the instances, the cutscenes, or the cheebs, but plenty of content remains.

TL:DR The temporary Living Story content is not enough of the game to call it all of the game, and there’s no pressure outside your own motivations to play it.

I am actually loving this stuff. There have been bits I have missed and others I have skipped over, but it makes me feel the world is actually changing, rather than being static. Yes, sometimes I feel “oh kitten, I missed this or that” but I also know when I do get in, there will be something interesting and active, rather than going from a zone into a new expansion area set later, doing stuff, then going back to that first zone to see nothing has changed and they are still stuck in the proverbial 1070 AE

Living World isn’t that bad, not sure if it’s sufficient at present to serve as the backbone of content delivery in GW2, but that’s another discussion.
Some more persistence would be nice, but Living Word was designed to be temporary and have an impact, which conceptually is a pretty nice idea, however practically the amount of impact it’s had been limited.
But I do feel like it’s been getting better and better. Short content chunks allowed for experimentation, seeing what works what doesn’t etc.

I really like the idea of the Living World and I think that Temporary Content is a great feature. It’s one of the best parts of GW2 for me.

I understand that it doesn’t appeal to all kinds of players, and that’s fine too.

Thing is, though… this is GW2. This is what the game is. Living World and the Living Story are major features of the game and probably always will be. If you really hate it that much then you probably need to find a game that suits you better.

If you like GW2 overall, but are disappointed with the kinds of content the Living Story delivered, then you might post a thread about the kinds of content and features you want to see in the next Living Story Season.

I like the Living World. It puts fresh content in on a frequent basis. If they set it up so people can access past cutscenes then that will address many of the complaints of those who missed past episodes or just want to relive it. If they didn’t have it, there is only so many times you can repeat map completions, dungeons, jumping puzzles, etc.. before it gets stale. The Living Story gives a change of pace to those who want it and can be ignored by those who don’t.

That doesn’t mean it can’t be improved, but needing improvement is not the same as a failure, no matter what.

So, basically your’e saying…YOU don’t like it?
too bad.
There is no point arguing about something you don’t like, because eventually it’s a matter of personal taste.
and guess what, most of the people REALLY like the living world.
I think temp content is awesome just because it’s temporary.
Makes you always come back and check for new content, see what items you’ve missed and what bosses are there now.

TL;DR I liked the living story, don’t care about your opinion of it, blah blah blah blah yakkity schmakitty blah blah blah.

The original ANet plan was to release new World Dynamic Event content every month, (along with occasional dungeon and other content), with the goal of doubling the Dynamic Events in the game during the first year of free updates. Some would advance the stories told by the original DEs for the zone. Others would become part of a rotation of DEs in and out of the game, in a fashion that would ensure that you’d find new content and a different combination of content when ever you returned to a zone after a month or two.

Instead, they chose to do Living Story; completely temporary content that actually has pulled players out of the game world and into a linear, adventure by checklist, “get this exclusive, limited time reward”, sort of play.

We are now 18 months post launch. Is anyone seriously going to tell me that 18 months of producing temporary content that no longer exists to be played by anyone is a better alternative to being able to log in today to find more permanent Dynamic Event content than had originally launched with the game and a content rotation system that would keep each zone feeling fresh for a long time to come?

There are two sins of Living Story that are unforgivable. What should have been, but wasn’t and what Living Story has done as far as retraining players to avoid the game world in Lieu of the most cynical form of “Adventure by Checklist”, “Chase the Carrot while running on the Hamster Wheel” form of “Game Play”.

Living Story has proven the actual antithesis of the game play GW2 launched with and is a stunning exemplar of the sort of sad, silly, vapid, linear sort of game play GW2 was supposed to vanquish.

Lynx Raven Raide.2764:

I am actually loving this stuff. There have been bits I have missed and others I have skipped over, but it makes me feel the world is actually changing, rather than being static. Yes, sometimes I feel “oh kitten, I missed this or that” but I also know when I do get in, there will be something interesting and active, rather than going from a zone into a new expansion area set later, doing stuff, then going back to that first zone to see nothing has changed and they are still stuck in the proverbial 1070 AE

The world is completely static. Destroying LA, or leaving the very, very rare mark on the world that something happened, while the same Dynamic Events the game launched with 18 months ago continue to repeat in an endless loop, has done nothing to produce a Living World.

It hkittentered the illusion of a living world while convincing some that running on a new treadmill every two weeks in exchange for the latest, limited time only treat, is an actual substitute for exploring the world and always finding something new there.

If you removed the rewards and the achievements entirely and just asked people to play the living story content for fun until they had seen enough or gotten bored, how much average game play do you think most people would get out of all the living story content, combined, released in the last 18 months? Twenty hours? Ten? Five?

It’s not just bad because all the actual content has been temporary, but because all the content has amounted to very little in the way of content you’d play just to have fun playing it.

Arenanet used to make fun of MMO treadmills and grinds that aren’t really much fun, but reward a carrot at the end. This game was supposed to do away with “smoke and mirrors” fluff masquerading as actual game content.

What the heck happened? And does finding an audience willing to put up with it in exchange for “limited time only”, Happy Meal toy equivalents, really make it in any way acceptable?

Fiontar.4695:

The original ANet plan was to release new World Dynamic Event content every month, (along with occasional dungeon and other content), with the goal of doubling the Dynamic Events in the game during the first year of free updates. Some would advance the stories told by the original DEs for the zone. Others would become part of a rotation of DEs in and out of the game, in a fashion that would ensure that you’d find new content and a different combination of content when ever you returned to a zone after a month or two.

Actually this does sound pretty cool.

They actually put in a few new events, a looong time ago. There were no player comments about them in the forums, no interest generated, so apparently they decided not to put any more in. There was a post by a Dev way after they did this, saying that they had done so and commenting on the lack of player interest. In fairness to the players there were a few mitigating reasons.

1) I’m pretty sure it was during a major holiday, I think it was as the first Halloween with a whole new set of interesting quests to do with the very first vanity back piece iirc.
2) they made no announcement of it at the time.
3) it was only a few new events.
4) they were scattered all over the world.
5) if someone encountered them, they would have absolutely no way of knowing they were new events unless they had all the old events memorized.

So, since there was no buzz of excitement over them when released with no announcement during, I think, a new major holiday, apparently that made them decide adding new quests was pointless. (No comment over the logic of this, just reporting what I read about it at the time).

Your analogy isn’t very good.

The Living Story is more like, say, a concert ticket. You purchase your ticket for the date(s) of the event and if you miss it, then that’s a real bummer but it was a live event so there isn’t anything you can do about it.

People want content that’s more like buying a CD, where you can listen to it by yourself when and where you like.

Both have their pros and cons, but that doesn’t make one any more or less of a failure than the other.

Fiontar.4695:

Arenanet used to make fun of MMO treadmills and grinds that aren’t really much fun, but reward a carrot at the end.

An optional carrot, big difference. Not having that cool-looking item with no stat advantage wont make your character less powerful.

Stone.6751:

The Living Story is more like, say, a concert ticket. You purchase your ticket for the date(s) of the event and if you miss it, then that’s a real bummer but it was a live event so there isn’t anything you can do about it.

uhm no not really. you bought a ticket for a concert, went to the concert, then went to the bathroom and didn’t hear 10 minutes of it.

that said, I loved LS and I can’t wait for season 2 to begin.

dat wall o’ text. can someone give a quick summary of what the op is on about?

CureForLiving.5360:

Fiontar.4695:

The original ANet plan was to release new World Dynamic Event content every month, (along with occasional dungeon and other content), with the goal of doubling the Dynamic Events in the game during the first year of free updates. Some would advance the stories told by the original DEs for the zone. Others would become part of a rotation of DEs in and out of the game, in a fashion that would ensure that you’d find new content and a different combination of content when ever you returned to a zone after a month or two.

Actually this does sound pretty cool.

They did this strategy in the beginning. But people did not appreciate it. They had to change the strategy.

Astral Projections.7320:

They actually put in a few new events, a looong time ago. There were no player comments about them in the forums, no interest generated, so apparently they decided not to put any more in. There was a post by a Dev way after they did this, saying that they had done so and commenting on the lack of player interest. In fairness to the players there were a few mitigating reasons.

1) I’m pretty sure it was during a major holiday, I think it was as the first Halloween with a whole new set of interesting quests to do with the very first vanity back piece iirc.
2) they made no announcement of it at the time.
3) it was only a few new events.
4) they were scattered all over the world.
5) if someone encountered them, they would have absolutely no way of knowing they were new events unless they had all the old events memorized.

So, since there was no buzz of excitement over them when released with no announcement during, I think, a new major holiday, apparently that made them decide adding new quests was pointless. (No comment over the logic of this, just reporting what I read about it at the time).

When outlining the original strategy, they said they would add the content with little or no fanfare and count on players finding it themselves. I thought that was probably a little counterproductive, at the time, but it makes them using the low level of response as an excuse to drop the plan extremely silly.

I think Living Story has proven that some people want the treadmill, the time limits and the rewards that have a “one time only” sort of exclusivity to them, regardless of the actually quality of the content the meta achievements actually revolve around.

They could just as easily have added 20 DEs to a different game zone every two weeks, built a little bit of story and the treadmill, carrot, meta-achievments around that zone and offered exclusive rewards for those who made that zone their focus. The permanent DE content would still be there afterwards, even if the meta-achievement and story line would not. They could even temporarily turn on level-up level scaling for the zone of focus, in order to allow for the strategy to eventually visit and add content to every zone in the game.

If they had done that, same treadmill experience for those who want treadmills, the same long list of exclusive rewards, 18 months of story AND every zone in the game world would have had at least one pass by now that added PERMANENT Dynamic Event content.

;TLDR Those wanting “Adventure by Checklist” and “Limited Time Only” Meta-achievement Rewards could just as easily have been catered to by building the Meta-achievements and temporary story around the introduction of permanent world content.

Belenwyn.8674:

CureForLiving.5360:

Fiontar.4695:

The original ANet plan was to release new World Dynamic Event content every month, (along with occasional dungeon and other content), with the goal of doubling the Dynamic Events in the game during the first year of free updates. Some would advance the stories told by the original DEs for the zone. Others would become part of a rotation of DEs in and out of the game, in a fashion that would ensure that you’d find new content and a different combination of content when ever you returned to a zone after a month or two.

Actually this does sound pretty cool.

They did this strategy in the beginning. But people did not appreciate it. They had to change the strategy.

No. No no no no no no no.

It really wasn’t that people didn’t appreciate it. A lot of the DEs jsut came unannounced so people didn’t know it was there, and that plus the fact that rewards for DEs are just screwed on a core level (this is a MMO, people need loot as an incentive) meant of course it would be unappreciated.

For me, temporary content doesn’t work either, on so many levels.

1. It doesn’t add to the core game. Yes, LA is pretty cool, but what do we still do on a day-to-day basis? FotM, CoF1, etc etc, hasn’t changed for a long time.

2. Its a massive waste of effort. People often complain that the game has so little content compared to other games (notably GW1), but that’s not exactly true. If you count the amount of content that’s been released so far, its more than what most games get in 2-3 years. It’s just that its all temporary. Battle of LA is basically a new city, that’s an entire temporary city, that’s just such a huge waste of effort.

3. It concentrates players, and takes them away from other content because you put a deadline on them to play it soon as possible.

Belenwyn.8674:

CureForLiving.5360:

Fiontar.4695:

The original ANet plan was to release new World Dynamic Event content every month, (along with occasional dungeon and other content), with the goal of doubling the Dynamic Events in the game during the first year of free updates. Some would advance the stories told by the original DEs for the zone. Others would become part of a rotation of DEs in and out of the game, in a fashion that would ensure that you’d find new content and a different combination of content when ever you returned to a zone after a month or two.

Actually this does sound pretty cool.

They did this strategy in the beginning. But people did not appreciate it. They had to change the strategy.

Not only does that sound extremely odd, given that they had said the plan was NOT to blatantly draw attention to said content, but they literally gave it one month before switching strategies. From the perspective of many, Living Story has been one of the worst content development strategies seen in the history of MMOs and they’ve stuck with it for almost a year and a half.

A senior developer said a few months ago, to paraphrase, “the game will probably have to continue to lose players for another year or so before we’d have to give up on Living Story and try something different”. First, the comments showed that the strategy has not stopped the loss of players; second that they are so obsessed with Living Story that even though it has failed to provide hoped for levels of player retention, they are committed to it through 2014, no matter how bad the bleed of players becomes. All in the defense of a content strategy that has added close to zero in the way of permanent content!

They were willing to completely abandon the design principles and ideals the game was built upon a few months after one of the most successful MMO releases of the last decade, but they will cling to a strategy that not only isn’t working, but doesn’t even produce content of long term value for the title? If some of us come of as hyperbolic in our descriptions of the level of folly here, it’s because the entire mess is truly, objectively unfathomable.

If they had had even half the same level of commitment to the original game design and it’s logical post launch, live update progression as they have had to a failed strategy that has produced almost no permanent content after nearly 18 months, the game would be in much better shape.

Also, don’t forget that one huge advantage of the Buy to Play business model was that players could take breaks from the game and always know they would come back to a game with new things to see and do that they missed during their hiatus. That advantage has been completely nullified by the decision to spend a year and a half producing temporary, time limited content.

My brain still hurts trying to understand how such a self destructive content strategy ever got off a white board with out the author of the idea being laughed right out of the studio.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Belenwyn.8674:

CureForLiving.5360:

Fiontar.4695:

The original ANet plan was to release new World Dynamic Event content every month, (along with occasional dungeon and other content), with the goal of doubling the Dynamic Events in the game during the first year of free updates. Some would advance the stories told by the original DEs for the zone. Others would become part of a rotation of DEs in and out of the game, in a fashion that would ensure that you’d find new content and a different combination of content when ever you returned to a zone after a month or two.

Actually this does sound pretty cool.

They did this strategy in the beginning. But people did not appreciate it. They had to change the strategy.

No. No no no no no no no.

It really wasn’t that people didn’t appreciate it. A lot of the DEs jsut came unannounced so people didn’t know it was there, and that plus the fact that rewards for DEs are just screwed on a core level (this is a MMO, people need loot as an incentive) meant of course it would be unappreciated.

For me, temporary content doesn’t work either, on so many levels.

1. It doesn’t add to the core game. Yes, LA is pretty cool, but what do we still do on a day-to-day basis? FotM, CoF1, etc etc, hasn’t changed for a long time.

2. Its a massive waste of effort. People often complain that the game has so little content compared to other games (notably GW1), but that’s not exactly true. If you count the amount of content that’s been released so far, its more than what most games get in 2-3 years. It’s just that its all temporary. Battle of LA is basically a new city, that’s an entire temporary city, that’s just such a huge waste of effort.

3. It concentrates players, and takes them away from other content because you put a deadline on them to play it soon as possible.

I agree on everything except with the scope of the temporary content in the second point. The meta-achievment grinds have stretched what little actual content there was out exponentially vs. the actual amount of playable content that has been introduced and then disappeared, with each Living Story update.

Being temporary has just made it easier for them to cover up the fact that the content they have produced was very thin on actual content.

Your third point is one of the most important. The problem with Living Story goes beyond how little the game has to show for it. It has actually been a method of providing game play that has trained participants, like mice in a maze, to think that the entire world is actually just a series of temporary mazes to be navigated for a reward and that no greater world or game play of any value exists outside of the latest maze. It not only concentrates players in one area, pulling them from the larger game world, but it degrades the perceived value of all that world content and destroys sustainable game play patterns that utilize all that content they spent over five years creating.

I see many people here complaining about the Living Story and Living World Concepts, how they work(and how they don’t), knowing two things:
- It is a revolutionary concept, period. It is trying to achieve something different, trying to give us something no other game does, envisioning a “living, breathing world”, and taking steps towards living up to it’s own manifesto.
- It is a CONCEPT. It is an IDEA. It needs WORK, and it is GROWING.

Such a great concept, and only 1 year old. Did you expect for a new idea that has never been implemented before to suddenly be at its final phase? to be entirely perfect? One of the biggest questions when the ANet Dev’s approached such a masterpiece of a vision, wasn’t whether it would work or not. IT WORKS. It does because, when you think about it, a living breathing world in an mmo, that’s the dream, and certainly attainable. No, one of the biggest questions was HOW a player-base of, anywhere between 1 and 2 decades , into mmo’s, traditional mmo’s, would receive such a different thing.

Us, the player-base, have been asking for something like this for a long time now. We didn’t just ask, as a gamer I can say that I’ve thought of it myself, and I’m proud that ANet took the risk to try it out.
The player-base shouldn’t be saying it doesn’t work.
They should be giving feedback on HOW to make it work. Because these two concepts(LS/LW) are new, they’re young, they need to grow up.
Temporary and permanent content should be placed where they have a meaning. In the first season of the LS, things could have gotten better, but tbh, I’m glad they didn’t. With this, the Dev’s learnt, and these concepts grew a bit more. If we look back on this last year, Tyria has changed, it has gone through a lot. That is proof that the idea works. If we analyze each update technically, that’s where we’ll find the flaws. I don’t call that a failure. I call that progress. And sure it may just be me, but I’m pretty sure many more think the same way I do, and as players, are interested in helping and seeing such concepts grow.

GW2 won’t change for anything, they set out to be different and that’s what ANet is going to do with it. And players such as myself will back them up. If these concepts aren’t your thing, if they aren’t “mature” enough for you to experience them, then there are two observations I can make. You were naive to think you’d get a good experience, even after 1 year of it. You should try to find another game that pleases you through its own content delivery system, since it seems as if you don’t want to be a part of this journey that is a “living breathing world”.
It’s understandable that the current status of the LS/LW concepts aren’t for everyone’s taste. Personally I’m loving it, and I can only see it get better from here on. But to say it’s a failure just after one year?

Revolutionary things were never perfected in one year. Electricity wasn’t created in one year, neither was the Internet. Games aren’t created in one year, so I’d say these two concepts are in it’s Alpha stages, and it’s great that ANet has let us be it’s testers. We didn’t pay for the LS/LW, for all I know they’re free content. We paid for a game, with a Personal Storyline, and an evolving world(theoretically) through it’s Dynamic events System, and that’s it. The rest is a bonus, that’s how I feel, and I’m happy to be given a chance to be a part of it.
So stop it with the negative feedback stating how much of a failure it is.
Don’t like it? Leave it. Simple.
Like it? Not exactly how you’d like? Think these concepts could evolve in certain areas? In all areas? Give feedback, stating your reason and your ideas.

Fiontar.4695:

Not only does that sound extremely odd, given that they had said the plan was NOT to blatantly draw attention to said content, but they literally gave it one month before switching strategies. From the perspective of many, Living Story has been one of the worst content development strategies seen in the history of MMOs and they’ve stuck with it for almost a year and a half.

A senior developer said a few months ago, to paraphrase, “the game will probably have to continue to lose players for another year or so before we’d have to give up on Living Story and try something different”. First, the comments showed that the strategy has not stopped the loss of players; second that they are so obsessed with Living Story that even though it has failed to provide hoped for levels of player retention, they are committed to it through 2014, no matter how bad the bleed of players becomes. All in the defense of a content strategy that has added close to zero in the way of permanent content!

They were willing to completely abandon the design principles and ideals the game was built upon a few months after one of the most successful MMO releases of the last decade, but they will cling to a strategy that not only isn’t working, but doesn’t even produce content of long term value for the title? If some of us come of as hyperbolic in our descriptions of the level of folly here, it’s because the entire mess is truly, objectively unfathomable.

If they had had even half the same level of commitment to the original game design and it’s logical post launch, live update progression as they have had to a failed strategy that has produced almost no permanent content after nearly 18 months, the game would be in much better shape.

Also, don’t forget that one huge advantage of the Buy to Play business model was that players could take breaks from the game and always know they would come back to a game with new things to see and do that they missed during their hiatus. That advantage has been completely nullified by the decision to spend a year and a half producing temporary, time limited content.

My brain still hurts trying to understand how such a self destructive content strategy ever got off a white board with out the author of the idea being laughed right out of the studio.

The Living World was and is successful. As mentioned at the birthday parts last year the number of players increased slowly but steadily there was no drop during Summer 2013.
This falsifies the statement that the LW is a failure. Even the earning reports for 2013 and Q4 2013 show that the concept works well.

The biggest misconception many players follow is that LW is a synonym for temporary content. The LW is an concept to deliver content as an expansion pack is a concept to deliver content. If an expansion pack would deliver mainly temporary content you could complain too.

Fiontar.4695:

A senior developer said a few months ago, to paraphrase, “the game will probably have to continue to lose players for another year or so before we’d have to give up on Living Story and try something different”.

Would ask for a reference, but yeah… don’t feel like going down that road… I’ll just assume you have your sources, and revealing who said that would possibly get that person in trouble.

Astral Projections.7320:

So, since there was no buzz of excitement over them when released with no announcement during, I think, a new major holiday, apparently that made them decide adding new quests was pointless. (No comment over the logic of this, just reporting what I read about it at the time).

Well that sucks. I think the logical response would be to make a rather large noise about this? Maybe if we generate the buzz…
Although I doubt there would be much success in marshalling the anti-LW crowd for this, most of them at this point seem very much again LW in any format other than shipped in a retail box called expansion.

This is not a new concept, it is simply the first time I’ve been present when a company went “all in” towards supporting it rather than making it a side line.

But I’ll recount one which also held promise – Bloody Kithicor. Supposedly the culmination and climax of a lot of GM run events in EverQuest before the first expansion hit. It was a battle between players and hostile NPCs on different factions, and ended when the zone broke If that ending sounds somewhat familiar to people who were present for Lost Shores, now imagine that was a lore event which was one god saying “screw this” and killing everything in the zone. Supposedly there was more to come and we got a little token bits and pieces through the next expansion with rescuing the High Elf princess (a GMPC worse than any claims of Trahearne).

In the end, there wasn’t much support for the idea. They did try smaller arcs sometimes (a plague called down on a major section of one continent which had many many monsters spawn and it was released in phases) but nothing quite as world-changing. In short, throughout the years I played ol’ EverQuest? There was as much story forward motion and permanent changes because of that as there was during Living Story year 1.

(Yes, there were more additions through patches, but they were more content dumps than a story. And some of them . . . well, terrible. Just terrible.)

Fiontar.4695:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Belenwyn.8674:

CureForLiving.5360:

Fiontar.4695:

The original ANet plan was to release new World Dynamic Event content every month, (along with occasional dungeon and other content), with the goal of doubling the Dynamic Events in the game during the first year of free updates. Some would advance the stories told by the original DEs for the zone. Others would become part of a rotation of DEs in and out of the game, in a fashion that would ensure that you’d find new content and a different combination of content when ever you returned to a zone after a month or two.

Actually this does sound pretty cool.

They did this strategy in the beginning. But people did not appreciate it. They had to change the strategy.

No. No no no no no no no.

It really wasn’t that people didn’t appreciate it. A lot of the DEs jsut came unannounced so people didn’t know it was there, and that plus the fact that rewards for DEs are just screwed on a core level (this is a MMO, people need loot as an incentive) meant of course it would be unappreciated.

For me, temporary content doesn’t work either, on so many levels.

1. It doesn’t add to the core game. Yes, LA is pretty cool, but what do we still do on a day-to-day basis? FotM, CoF1, etc etc, hasn’t changed for a long time.

2. Its a massive waste of effort. People often complain that the game has so little content compared to other games (notably GW1), but that’s not exactly true. If you count the amount of content that’s been released so far, its more than what most games get in 2-3 years. It’s just that its all temporary. Battle of LA is basically a new city, that’s an entire temporary city, that’s just such a huge waste of effort.

3. It concentrates players, and takes them away from other content because you put a deadline on them to play it soon as possible.

I agree on everything except with the scope of the temporary content in the second point. The meta-achievment grinds have stretched what little actual content there was out exponentially vs. the actual amount of playable content that has been introduced and then disappeared, with each Living Story update.

Being temporary has just made it easier for them to cover up the fact that the content they have produced was very thin on actual content.

Your third point is one of the most important. The problem with Living Story goes beyond how little the game has to show for it. It has actually been a method of providing game play that has trained participants, like mice in a maze, to think that the entire world is actually just a series of temporary mazes to be navigated for a reward and that no greater world or game play of any value exists outside of the latest maze. It not only concentrates players in one area, pulling them from the larger game world, but it degrades the perceived value of all that world content and destroys sustainable game play patterns that utilize all that content they spent over five years creating.

But really, all new content in MMOs is somewhat ‘thin’. They aren’t going to last long on their own merits because simply its impossible given the time contraints and budget to make it not thin. Even WoW’s expansions, which are huge in terms of MMOs, last for what a month? before it descends into a grind, that they come out every 2 years, not every 2 weeks.

Xae Isareth.1364:

But really, all new content in MMOs is somewhat ‘thin’. They aren’t going to last long on their own merits because simply its impossible given the time contraints and budget to make it not thin. Even WoW’s expansions, which are huge in terms of MMOs, last for what a month? before it descends into a grind, that they come out every 2 years, not every 2 weeks.

The game which had the most “content” in that score really kind of was Ultima Online, due to a lot of it being the first, quintessential “sandbox” form MMO. Currently, the successor is EvE Online . . . where “content” is really things like those massive battles which make headlines in gaming news. And they’re the rare things which happen, not the every day things.

And, unsurprisingly, both of those games have a significant amount of grind attached.

Temporary content really frustrates me. I like the fact that the world is dynamic, but the fact that it gets removed for good after it is added is extremely frustrating, particularly for those like me who are away for long periods of time due to commitments in real life and thus unable to play the content when it is available, and to those keen to replay the content on other characters in future. It just seems like a waste that all this effort is being put into creating this content by the devs only to be whisked away a few moments after release.

What would be ideal IMO is if the content was added and removed from the world as it is now, but with the option of entering an instance where you can replay the content: some sort of historian NPC would work who you could speak to to ‘relive’ past living world events would be great.

Missing some content is, oddly enough, part of what makes this whole thing a living story for me. If I miss something, the story moves right along, it doesn’t wait for me. If it waited for me, it’d feel like some kind of permanent expansion. But it’s not. That’s the whole point.

To put it another way, we miss plenty of things in real life. We don’t get angry at real life, although we may regret missing some things that happened. Obviously the living story was created by Anet and is controlled by them as well, but their goal is not to cater to every individual. Their goal is to make Tyria a living world where things change and time passes. Even though I’ve missed a large number of content updates I don’t feel like I’m missing out on the story at all. I feel like the world is alive to some extent, although even that aspect of the living story could be a bit better.

It’s more like this, OP:

You are a guy who bought a one-time lifetime membership to an exclusive pub house that has bi-weekly import specials that are only available if you come in those weeks. Any other time you are welcome to come in and you can drink all of the free beer you want! But if you want to have that special limited run imported ale then you need to be present during the time period that this ale is available. If you show up too late, too bad, the brewery only made so much and it’s all gone!

So no, you cannot complain that you “paid” for that beer, you did not. You paid for the opportunity to have that beer, for free mind you, but the only caveat is that you need to show up to the pub any time in that 2-4week period, otherwise the beer is all gone.

Does this make sense now?

I’d love to see if you would be the guy that starts complaining to the pub owner about how it isn’t fair that the special limited run import that was advertised as only being available from X date to Y date is no longer available because you were late. He would tell you “too bad, dude, there will be another type of import next week”. And you would be on your way.

It’s the same exact thing here.

Temporary content becomes frustrating when it is the major fraction of content over a longer period of time. Even an expansion pack would cause the same frustration if 90% of the content would be temporary – even more frustration caused by the paid and lost money. The problem was that there was no large amount of permanent content available 2013. The LW teams and other teams were able to produce a small amount of permanent content embedded in temporary content. LW could deliver something to keep the players entertained. An expansion pack with costs would have delivered even less.

You can compare the LW with the opening ceremony for an opera, an airport or a new restaurant. It is nice to attend the ceremony and you would fell a little bit sad if you miss it. But the most important thing is what stays after the ceremony ends. If nothing stays the ceremonies start to feel boring and meaningless. But without the ceremonies the boredom is even bigger. As you can see the problem is not the ceremony (LW) but the lack of the opera, the airport etc (permanent content) the ceremony was planned for.

Rikimaru.7890:

Owner: This beer is very good or so I heared I think I’ll drink it on saturday though
Beer: No way dude by saturday the content inside this can will be gone
Owner: err ok then I’ll drink you right now
Beer: Sorry pal this can is impossible to open till wednesday
Owner: Fine I’ll drink you friday then
Beer: Fine but I gotta warn you that I will taste the best right after opening so it’s best to drink me wednesday
Owner: Listen beer I paid for you so I should decide when I drink you!
Beer: Chill out dude I’m just a beer if you have such complains talk to my makers, plus no one is telling you that you have to drink me
Owner: Ok screw this I am never drinking you again and I don’t care how good you may taste!

This part in your explanation on why the Living Story is bad, is where your argument falls apart imo. Living Story is what the name says, a Living Story, a story that progresses without you, kinda like life does. You aren’t going to yell to the skies about how it’s unfair that you missed the Industrial Revolution, the 80’s, or your favorite musical artists concert, which all temporary content in the game of life. You can’t hold the world back simply because you missed the best it had to offer, video games can be a form of escapism, and a part of making that a believability is also making the world change in there too.

This is also like complaining about how Halloween or Wintersday is timed content too, every game has a holiday event that is timed and gives exclusive goodies, if you missed it that is on you. If you look at other mmorpgs, they all eventually just get boring, same old content that usually isn’t changed as time goes on, so what’s the point of playing the game if it doesn’t have much new to come back to? If you can’t take a couple of days to finish what you care most about in this game, that’s your problem. Your opinion isn’t some universally agreed upon point of view.

I personally love the idea of the Personal Story, and now that Season 1 has ended, it can only get better from here as the devs have learned a lot. Here’s another thing to note, Guild Wars 2 is the first game to really put something like this into action, so they are also still learning on how to perfect it still!

PsiQss.6927:

Yes, Living Story has its flaws, but it’s not the idea itself that’s a failure. Think about it, how real would Tyria feel if it wasn’t changing at all? If every patch was adding permanent content? We would be fighting Scarlet million times, years after her death and that would make no sense.

Tyria doesn’t feel changed at all.

Dynamic events all over the world still repeats their same action, quest and lines over and over again.

runeblade.7514:

PsiQss.6927:

Yes, Living Story has its flaws, but it’s not the idea itself that’s a failure. Think about it, how real would Tyria feel if it wasn’t changing at all? If every patch was adding permanent content? We would be fighting Scarlet million times, years after her death and that would make no sense.

Tyria doesn’t feel changed at all.

Dynamic events all over the world still repeats their same action, quest and lines over and over again.

So at least the Living Word makes Tyria feel like its changing, sure in small ways like LA or Kessex Hill. Also the spore events still seem to be popping up, so that’s something new.

Awkward beer analogy is awkward.

Atiar.5469:

Awkward beer analogy is awkward.

And unfair. What you’d rather LS be compared to any continous and regular activity, that you decide or have to to skip once in a while. Let’s say it’s a series of monthly concerts featuring some cool bands of your favorite genre. If it happened, deal with it, instead of kittening around how poor you are and how bad organisator is because he will not reinvite the band especially on your behalf. It was up to you, not organisators having several hundred thousands of participants, to watch the schedule.

Personally, I LIKE the temporary nature of the content, and especially like the temporary nature of the rewards it grants.

That’s something MMOs by and large miss in this day and age. Yeah, sure, you have the mighty frost sword of greebledark the mad, because you stopped him from freezing the plains of hyperdaisies. That doesn’t carry much weight when that same “threat” exists in perpetuity for the remainder of the game’s life time. In ten years, greebledark will still be threatening the hyperdaisies, and your sword won’t be a neat memento of a piece of history for which you were present, it’ll just be another crappy mid-level sword.

I have (and love) skull shoulders and a flaming book from Mad King Thorne’s first appearance in GW2, the oldest limited release skins in the game. I love knowing that these mementos will reamin with me for years, so that in seven years, when we’ve killed all of the dragons and the new big bad whatever is threatening tyria, some newbie can say “where’d you get that?” to which I can reply: Let me tell you a story about something that happenned nine years ago, when Lion’s Arch was a burgeoning trade hub, and the elder dragons still menaced tyria.

Already I’ve had the chance in fractal groups to tell the mighty tale of the molten facilities, and I love those moments. They truly make me feel like my character has a place and history in the world.

That’s what the LS is about to me, the idea that, even though its destiny is preordained, that we have characters that have a chance to live the real history of the world. That tiny fact is what it’s about, and honestly, if you’re playing a theme park, aren’t you playing it for the narrative and shinies? This is some of the best implemented narrative and shinies setup I’ve played. It doesn’t require me to grind boring content or log in for twelve hours a day or find 50 people and grind a raid for months just to see the next part. It only asks that I show up, and do my part, on my schedule, within a two week window.

Would I like better writing or more intricate/challenging scenarios? Sure. But that’s all been getting progressively better! LS isn’t a failure by any means. It’s the reason why GW2 is the only themepark MMO I have any interest in playing.

CureForLiving.5360:

runeblade.7514:

PsiQss.6927:

Yes, Living Story has its flaws, but it’s not the idea itself that’s a failure. Think about it, how real would Tyria feel if it wasn’t changing at all? If every patch was adding permanent content? We would be fighting Scarlet million times, years after her death and that would make no sense.

Tyria doesn’t feel changed at all.

Dynamic events all over the world still repeats their same action, quest and lines over and over again.

So at least the Living Word makes Tyria feel like its changing, sure in small ways like LA or Kessex Hill. Also the spore events still seem to be popping up, so that’s something new.

Living World does not make Tyria feel like it is changing. Small ways doesn’t help.

Spore events feel like it is there because someone copy and pasted the event over there. The friendly npc surrounding doesn’t even know of its existence even if it is right there.

I’ve got two problems with the rock concert analogy.

Should it be that missing concert #X mean that I don’t have an understanding of what’s playing at concert #X+1? Or in another way, it seems I have to have gone to all previous concerts, otherwise the current one doesn’t make any sense if I just walk in.

And where is the band’s album release that people can play on their hi-fi? It’d be stupid if I can only ever enjoy their material when they feel like playing it.

I totally agree with rikimaru,
its a total failure, I know so many people who stopped playing guildwars 2 because of the LS. most of them are guildwars fans that played guildwars 1 for more then 6 years.

they waited for guildwars 2 a long long time, then when its finnaly there they find out the only thing it has with gw1 is a bit of the story only 250 years later.

all the things we loved are gone , no more skill hunts or elite areas like UW and FoW
all we get back is a potentially nice game to build further on but they refuse to build.

we get back the living story, a achievement grind fest with temporarily items for sale in the item shop. they choose this kind of content because it makes them more money.
what I would love to see is challenging content that stay`s. I always liked the concept of guildwars because you could take a break from the game and come back when ever you wanted. the living story makes that impossible because if I take a break for 2 weeks
I miss out on a lot and most of it is gone for ever so I cant do it anymore.

give us more skills to pick from to make more exiting builds, give us areas like UW or FOW. in guildwars 1 these areas where hard to finish with 11 quests to complete. replace the quests with awesome events and you have super nice areas. its nice that the dragons wake up but where the ^&%^@ is DHUUM!!

make its a elite expansion pack, with FOW, UW and DOA and maybe a new area .
I would love to pay for it, and then the people who hate living story also have something to make them stay in the game.

living story is nice to use to introduce new content like UW or FOw into the game but not as the main content ( my opinion)

What is wrong with LS in a nut shell with no anet hate.