Guild Wars 2

When this new content (re)releases, it brings a new zone, and future updates bring new zones. However when the festival ends, I imagine the Zephyrites leave but that just takes away the decorations and ships.. the zone can stay.

I say this because the better mindset would be to always keep zones introduced this season and add POI and other things to have fun with once the map ‘ends’ without fully eliminating the content.

What zone are you refering to? From what I can tell there hasn’t been anything removed from the festival, except the festival itself.

The problem is that the zone where the Zephyrites hang out is more or less completely taken up by their airship.
Without that airship the map is first of all rather small and secondly more or less empty.

People complained rather much when Southsun was released because there were too little things there.
Now how would people react to a map that is very small and literally empty?

pdavis.8031:

What zone are you refering to? From what I can tell there hasn’t been anything removed from the festival, except the festival itself.

The Labryinthine Cliffs, the zone introduced to hold the Bazaar of the Four Winds. Once Bazaar ended, access to the zone did as well.

lordkrall.7241:

The problem is that the zone where the Zephyrites hang out is more or less completely taken up by their airship.

Except that it’s not. The airship occupied the upper portion of the zone. There was an extensive and well-established conglomerate of structures built into the cliffs that you had to climb to reach the airship at all. Only once you reached the top of the cliffs did you reach the airship itself. The non-airship structures actually make up the majority of the zone.

I also would love for the zone to stay, and I don’t understand why it was removed the first time. Just remove the airship.

Aaaah gotcha. But there was nothing there. It was uninhabited, which is probably why the sanctum landed there. Leaving it open would make it another dead zone even worse than southsun cove, or LA as it is now. It doesnt count toward map completion so there is no reason to ever visit.

Have you been to Southsun Cove these days? Not dead at all. Even LA always has people in it thanks to the megaserver.

Anyway, I don’t see a reason why merchants couldn’t continue to inhabit the zone even when the airship isn’t there, particularly now that LA is destroyed. The aspects could still be scattered around the zone, there could be permanent achievements put there, and the lack of counting towards map completion could be fixed. That would easily keep people coming back there.

Heck, put a couple merchants and crafting stations there and it would instantly be my new go-to city.

I agree the zone should stay. Even without the ship it’s still a nice place.

MatthewMedina.5419:

The content in the Cliffs last year was all very specifically designed to support the story of the election that was happening between Ellen Kiel and Evon Gnashblade. It really wouldn’t have made sense to keep the map open without turning much of that content off, and that would have left the area feeling very empty and lifeless. There are other reasons beyond this, but for maps like this, which are based around a festival or a special event like the election, it just couldn’t have worked to keep it open year round. It’s only a few more days until you all get to play in the map again. I can’t read into the future, but we love the gameplay and the bizaare atmosphere of the bazaar, so I believe it will continue to be a setting we can return to when it fits with the story we’re trying to tell. :-)

Woot!! Thanks for the reply!! Looking forward to it!

Thank you for the reply, Matthew. I suppose that asking for non-event, non-festival content to populate the zone during the off time would be too much? Really, I just love the zone to death. It’s my favorite place in the game hands down and I really miss it when it’s not around.

Guess I’ll just have to really get my fill (and plenty of screenshots) these next two weeks

It’s a traveling bazaar, basically. I see the cliffs as being lived in and maintained by the Zepherites whenever they come into town. Like a traveling circus, only with a bit of a permanent structure to use and perhaps build on each time the are in town. When the Bazaar goes away, so do the inhabitants. I like the fact that it is festival-like, without any kind of set date. The Devs can have them “visit” any time during the year.

Interesting. We’re seeing more devs posting now. No doubt because they now have a moment to breathe after the Chinese release.

I don’t mind festival-theme or special event zones being temporary; the problem was that that type of content was the overwhelming majority throughout season 1, which isn’t good for the game. We definitely need to have new permanent zones, and sooner rather than later.

Vesuvius.9874:

Interesting. We’re seeing more devs posting now. No doubt because they now have a moment to breathe after the Chinese release.

Well to be fair it seems like a decent number of them actually WENT to China for the release ceremony thingy. So I guess they were pretty busy :P

Perhaps the Zephyrites will be the ones that bring us the message from Cantha that they need help with Bubbles in a (more or less distant) future.
And perhaps they may be our link to Cantha by then.

MatthewMedina.5419:

The content in the Cliffs last year was all very specifically designed to support the story of the election that was happening between Ellen Kiel and Evon Gnashblade. It really wouldn’t have made sense to keep the map open without turning much of that content off, and that would have left the area feeling very empty and lifeless. There are other reasons beyond this, but for maps like this, which are based around a festival or a special event like the election, it just couldn’t have worked to keep it open year round. It’s only a few more days until you all get to play in the map again. I can’t read into the future, but we love the gameplay and the bizaare atmosphere of the bazaar, so I believe it will continue to be a setting we can return to when it fits with the story we’re trying to tell. :-)

Or you can just leave it in, content and all…
I don’t see you removing the Great Jungle Wurm just because scarlet and her probes are gone. I don’t see you removing Arah, just because Zhaitan’s dead and it’s been nearly 2 years since the events there transpired. I don’t see you removing TA Aetherpath, just because we’ve stomped out the forces there and Caithe no longer has a reason to be there. I don’t see you removing the personal story, just because the events are far in the past at this point. I don’t see you closing the path to South Sun Cove, just because the karka and consortium there have been dealt with. I don’t see you shutting down the Straights of Devastation, just because we’ve already done the events there and the lore the related to is long since over.
The reason you gave just isn’t an actual reason. It’s akin to saying “because reasons”, and then removing it. I can understand in the case of yearly festival (wintersday and the like), or for things you plan to permanently re-implant in a better format (Atherblade Retreat, removed and then reintroduced permanently in FotM), but for some things it just leaves me scratching my head. It’s cool content that we could be playing, and that you could add to later if you wanted to mess with it. Instead we sit in a game that is that much emptier as a result of it being removed.

Arewn.2368:

MatthewMedina.5419:

The content in the Cliffs last year was all very specifically designed to support the story of the election that was happening between Ellen Kiel and Evon Gnashblade. It really wouldn’t have made sense to keep the map open without turning much of that content off, and that would have left the area feeling very empty and lifeless. There are other reasons beyond this, but for maps like this, which are based around a festival or a special event like the election, it just couldn’t have worked to keep it open year round. It’s only a few more days until you all get to play in the map again. I can’t read into the future, but we love the gameplay and the bizaare atmosphere of the bazaar, so I believe it will continue to be a setting we can return to when it fits with the story we’re trying to tell. :-)

Or you can just leave it in, content and all…
I don’t see you removing the Great Jungle Wurm just because scarlet and her probes are gone. I don’t see you removing Arah, just because Zhaitan’s dead and it’s been nearly 2 years since the events there transpired. I don’t see you removing TA Aetherpath, just because we’ve stomped out the forces there and Caithe no longer has a reason to be there. I don’t see you removing the personal story, just because the events are far in the past at this point. I don’t see you closing the path to South Sun Cove, just because the karka and consortium there have been dealt with. I don’t see you shutting down the Straights of Devastation, just because we’ve already done the events there and the lore the related to is long since over.
The reason you gave just isn’t an actual reason. It’s akin to saying “because reasons”, and then removing it. I can understand in the case of yearly festival (wintersday and the like), or for things you plan to permanently re-implant in a better format (Atherblade Retreat, removed and then reintroduced permanently in FotM), but for some things it just leaves me scratching my head. It’s cool content that we could be playing, and that you could add to later if you wanted to mess with it. Instead we sit in a game that is that much emptier as a result of it being removed.

What he’s saying is that during non-festival times, they will have to remove all the people and the Zephyr Sanctum because it flies to other places and trades with them in the story.
If they keep the map open by then, it’s going to be an empty husk with nothing inside of it, kinda like Southsun, but much worse.

To have such an area accessible in the game hurts it alot, especially for people that don’t know why it’s so empty.

Keeping places like the queens gauntlet open might be problematic since it’s designed for zergs. Having several such areas open at the same time might result in less zergy-ness concentrated in a particular area.

However they could have kept the marionette around. Tequatl is still around even though lore wise he’s dead.

I just hope the final reward is something memorable for the 1 time-event China release…something asiatic-themed would be great.

Mikuchan.7261:

What he’s saying is that during non-festival times, they will have to remove all the people and the Zephyr Sanctum because it flies to other places and trades with them in the story.
If they keep the map open by then, it’s going to be an empty husk with nothing inside of it, kinda like Southsun, but much worse.

To have such an area accessible in the game hurts it alot, especially for people that don’t know why it’s so empty.

I completely understand that. What I specifically said in my post though was to not remove that stuff in the fist place (and went on to justify why). If they reaaaaaaaally feel that the Sanctum is just something that doesn’t make sense to keep in, then fine, ill give you that one even though I still disagree. But what about the Crown Pavillion and SAB?
Not to mention the problem of content like the Marionette, Tower of Nightmares, Attack on Lions Arch, etc, being open world stuff they “can’t” keep around.
They need a solution for all this content that ends up either inaccessible for long periods of time, or in the trash can.
If I feel like doing a gambit in the Crown Pavilion, why should I have to wait an undefined period of time for Arena Net to more or less arbitrarily decide to put it back in the game. That’s fun and rather unique content that I could be enjoying (read: could be keeping me in your game), and instead I cant. As a result, I go and play another game.
This is bad for the player, bad for Arena Net, bad for the image of the game.

MatthewMedina.5419:

The content in the Cliffs last year was all very specifically designed to support the story of the election that was happening between Ellen Kiel and Evon Gnashblade. It really wouldn’t have made sense to keep the map open without turning much of that content off, and that would have left the area feeling very empty and lifeless. There are other reasons beyond this, but for maps like this, which are based around a festival or a special event like the election, it just couldn’t have worked to keep it open year round. It’s only a few more days until you all get to play in the map again. I can’t read into the future, but we love the gameplay and the bizaare atmosphere of the bazaar, so I believe it will continue to be a setting we can return to when it fits with the story we’re trying to tell. :-)

If you don’t mind me picking your brain; what kind of permanent:temporary content spread can we expect to see in LS2 in general? One of my biggest problems with LS1 which I think is shared by the community is that LS1 didn’t really see any new zones added to the game other then Southsun.

Methinks laberynthian cliffs should become a festival hub, with upper portions only available during four-winds events (due to aspects).

I did like just hanging out there over LA. It was really nice looking.

I think new zone maps should be designed like Kessex Hills in the future, in the sense that they should be designed as stand alone maps with all the normal recurring events and THEN have all the relevant Living World storylines/NPCs/events weaved through them. This should help make the world seem more expansive without seeming like a cage and still allow for Living World content to flow smoothly.

Why not make Labyrinthine Cliffs the new general hub, now, that LA is destroyed? Even if we rebuild LA, it would make sense in a way to relocate the hub from LA and now Vigil Keep to the point where the Zephyrites have a base. You know, for future expanding of the realm (I intentionally did not use “expansion” here).

The zone already exists (at least a part of it) so why not let developers add more content to it (make the zone bigger, add a vista, Point of interest, etc…) and a hidden jumping puzzle. (Let the user climb up then add a hidden entrance into the mountain and add a jumping puzzle there (and let it count for world completion).

The content is being revisited now, so why not ‘rework’ the zone so it can stay?

If that isn’t a good reason for a zone to stay, then why is LA still there? With all respect, but there is nothing to do in LA either except for a jumping puzzle and a vista… And southsun is a similar story…

MatthewMedina.5419:

The content in the Cliffs last year was all very specifically designed to support the story of the election that was happening between Ellen Kiel and Evon Gnashblade. It really wouldn’t have made sense to keep the map open without turning much of that content off, and that would have left the area feeling very empty and lifeless. There are other reasons beyond this, but for maps like this, which are based around a festival or a special event like the election, it just couldn’t have worked to keep it open year round. It’s only a few more days until you all get to play in the map again. I can’t read into the future, but we love the gameplay and the bizaare atmosphere of the bazaar, so I believe it will continue to be a setting we can return to when it fits with the story we’re trying to tell. :-)

When thinking about future content I don’t think it should be designed to ever go away, the cliffs are interesting just like bandit camps and other locations specific to personal storyline missions are interesting.. many of those personal storyline camps and areas in the open world are great to look around, and just a few POI, diving goggles, etc. make any zone expand the world permanently rather than just temporarily.

Think beyond the cliffs and into all maps that will be introduced in season 2

I’m inclined to agree that there’s almost never a good reason to remove an actual zone. Instances, maybe, depending on how ‘specialized’ they are (like the Mad King stuff).

This is really one of the major reasons why there’s so much angst on the forums. People just plain don’t like getting disproportionately temporary content, and it doesn’t even really make much sense to close a zone off ‘just because’.