Guild Wars 2

I can’t help but feel like it’s a strange idea to spend development time on temporary content.

If you look back at older MMOs like Everquest or World of Warcraft or City of Heroes(RIP), they contain a seemingly bottomless pit of content. Years and years of updates and expansions stacked on top of one another make for a wealth of content that newer MMO’s can only hope to obtain in time. Even if it ends up being largely unused as the players keep up with the ever advancing endgame, it allows newer players to see and explore the past. Kind of like how the Southsun Cove is now. It’s fallen into obscurity, but newer players who wern’t around for the event have the oppourtunity to discover the area and explore it.

There are still so many areas of this game that can be filled out. Why spend time on this when you can make more permanent additions to your game and use them as selling points? Just from past updates, I get the impression that the dev team is spread thin enough as it is without tacking on tasks that only have a temporary impact. Spend those resources elsewhere like patch QA, bugfixing, mini games, new zones, polishing the personal story, balancing skills and traits, etc. I think that would be appreciated more than what were getting with the living story now.

It is a valid point; this strategy may actually be backfiring.

I know quite a few players who arn’t actively playing GW2 anymore because they are waiting for “more content”; this short term content tends to fly under the radar and when they finally DO return, they see no new content, shrug and go back to playing something else while they wait.

This strategy is novel; but it might not be working as intended

I hope future content isn’t as mediocre as this has turned out to be.

I can’t help but agree. This method of content updates just doesnt have the same substance as previous games. The very idea of something happening or changing in the world whether you’re there or not is not going to grow fond memories for any kind of casual audience or players who miss out on such events due to other real life responsabilities. Southsun cove is a good example, any new players joining the game around now will probably have no idea of the relevence behind the karka and will probably wonder why there is an empty level 80 zone in the middle of the sea.

This method also greatly reduces the amount of time people will be playing the game. Older games with expansions of new areas etc. still have those areas open to new people joining the game late. At this stage in GW2 there is just the personal story and the living story. With the living story constantly progressing and removing the old living story content to make way for new content, a new player will only ever have the personal story and the current living story available to them. Older players will have had the entire living story up until that point, with the experience and the memories of what happened in them. New players get shafted, feel hard done to and decide their time is better spent elsewhere. I know it sound ridiculous but in my experience, this is what happens over the course of the life of such MMORPG games.

Personally, I somewhat disagree. I love the evolution of the game. The fact that newcomers will not know the significance of Southsun Cove is kind of cool. They may come to us veterans to ask. I like that the world is slowly evolving before our eyes, so that it’s not the same stagnant game today as it was a month ago.

That said, I’d like to see massive content updates in addition to these smaller ones (not in place of them). I hope that ANet has something big up their sleeve that they can add with a large amount of permanent content. I’d be happy with large updates like this every 6-12 months and smaller living story updates monthly.

However, if I had to choose one over the other, I think I’d prefer spaced out significant large updates over living story.

And again people are comparing Guild Wars 2 with other MMO’s

Dark FQ.1038:

And again people are comparing Guild Wars 2 with other MMO’s

And again people read one line of the opening post and jump to conclusions.

Read again; this isn’t about “hermagerd GW2 isn’t WoW/GW1/STO/SW:ToR/ESO/etc/etc”, these are legitimate observations about how the player base and the short term events interact and how that may affect the game’s long term potential

Also comparing and contrasting a game to other games of the same genre is perfectly legitmiate; look at FFXIV or whatever number they’re up to now – that game was essentially developed in a vacuum in an attempt to be original and it ultimately turned out awful because it was missing many of the innovations modern MMO gamers take for granted. Their response was “This isn’t like any other MMO, you can’t judge us” – but it didn’t stop the players doing EXACTLY that and walking away

Dark FQ.1038:

And again people are comparing Guild Wars 2 with other MMO’s

Ok then, what am I supposed to compare it to?

This game is amazing compared to Super Mario Bros! It’s got amazing graphics and story and it’s in 3d and the different characters aren’t just a palette swap!

This game sucks compared to ice cream. It tastes like plastic and metal. Ice cream tastes like cold, chocolate goodness!

Xriah.5743:

I can’t help but feel like it’s a strange idea to spend development time on temporary content.

Kind of like how the Southsun Cove is now. It’s fallen into obscurity, but newer players who wern’t around for the event have the oppourtunity to discover the area and explore it.

There are still so many areas of this game that can be filled out. Why spend time on this when you can make more permanent additions to your game and use them as selling points? Just from past updates, I get the impression that the dev team is spread thin enough as it is without tacking on tasks that only have a temporary impact. Spend those resources elsewhere like patch QA, bugfixing, mini games, new zones, polishing the personal story, balancing skills and traits, etc. I think that would be appreciated more than what were getting with the living story now.

Well I would have highlighted “bug-fixing” as with every patch I expect bugs, no game is perfect but with GW2 you can expect to wait a month, or more, before those bugs are fixed. As for new zones? That sort of goes against what you are asking for here as you do mention filling in the current zones first and I’m all for the latter.

I love the idea of the ever-changing story and I get your fears about it, both plausible and agreeable but I also want to see how far it goes, will it perform well,? Only time can tell. We do have to remember the game is just 7 months old.

Turial.1293:

Xriah.5743:

I can’t help but feel like it’s a strange idea to spend development time on temporary content.

Kind of like how the Southsun Cove is now. It’s fallen into obscurity, but newer players who wern’t around for the event have the oppourtunity to discover the area and explore it.

There are still so many areas of this game that can be filled out. Why spend time on this when you can make more permanent additions to your game and use them as selling points? Just from past updates, I get the impression that the dev team is spread thin enough as it is without tacking on tasks that only have a temporary impact. Spend those resources elsewhere like patch QA, bugfixing, mini games, new zones, polishing the personal story, balancing skills and traits, etc. I think that would be appreciated more than what were getting with the living story now.

Well I would have highlighted “bug-fixing” as with every patch I expect bugs, no game is perfect but with GW2 you can expect to wait a month, or more, before those bugs are fixed. As for new zones? That sort of goes against what you are asking for here as you do mention filling in the current zones first and I’m all for the latter.

I love the idea of the ever-changing story and I get your fears about it, both plausible and agreeable but I also want to see how far it goes, will it perform well,? Only time can tell. We do have to remember the game is just 7 months old.

Just to clarify, I meant “areas” as in different aspects of the game like PvP or WvW, not a location. But I will adress your good point anyway. The difference between changing a zone that exists and adding a new zone is that the new zone creates more space to explore. If you change something you already have, you’re replacing something that already existed, even if it was just a plain hill or a field. I think the zones we have now are reasonably spaced out now. If you cram in new feature after new feature into the landscape, it’s going to start feeling unrealistically spaced (moreso than MMOs already do).

I am remembering that this game is only 7 months old. That’s kind of a big issue as to why I feel this way. It’s a 7 month old MMO and it feels like one because I’ve done pretty much everything it has to offer. I’ve reached burnout on the game for now and I’m taking a break to give the it time to develop and grow. It’s a great game and I’m sure I’ll come back to it at some point, but I’ll never experience part of this living story, and any other living stories between now and whenever I decide to log back in. The only people the living story benefits are the people who are already playing the game. Future players and players who aren’t currently active will never see the fruits of these development efforts.

I totally agree with what OP said. Please arena net, make more permanent contents. In the first few month, there are friends curiously asking me:“what did A net add after release of the game?” I said:“Well, there is halloween event, karka boss fight, and winter’s day.” friend asked:“great, I will jump in and take a look.” I shake my head:“nono, those events are over.” My friend with sad face.
It would be nice if they can spend more times on filling the Tyria with permanent content. Every time after the time is up, all the contents A net worked hard on is gone for good. And we are back with normal GW2 which is kinda sad. Tyria never feel like growing and expanding, rather than just fill with temporary events every month.

I like it. It gives a different feel from other mmos. Temporary content breathes a bit of life into a static world. While it’s not quite like having a GM changing the world for you it does have similar themes to that.

Now hopefully there will be more permanent changes to the world as a consequence of this story, then it really will feel like a living story. And if they keep on doing that every month, it will make for a much more engaging game than if you wait for 6-8 months at a time for a big patch that adds some daily hubs.

I agree that the living story is a new approach and personally I enjoy it now that it gets into swing (parts 1 + 2 were too small). I assume there WILL be new permanent content as the OP is asking for at the end of the chapter. The new homestead in wayfarer foothills at least because they arent gonna wipe it off the map. My guess would be once this chapter closes the doors are opened and you have a heart, skill challenge and so on inside. I expect the same to happen to southsun, gradually (there are changes with this patch for example).

I understand your concern because obviously thats less permanent content then putting 100% of the dev time into a full new zone. But they tried that with southsun originally and it kinda fell flat. Lets give them till their anniversary to get the living story chapters into full swing and judge from there.

Finally I want to make a comparison to another game (omg how dare I do that): WoW back when I played many years ago would have a content patch every 5-10 months with a new dungeon/raid, outpost and some hearts+events (quests). Thats it. If every chapter of living story ends with a new outpost like this homestead and some content revolving around that, we’re halfway there. if you keep in mind that they already added a permanent dungeon style thing (fractals) then imo the first year is on course so far.

I can see both sides of the issue here—one of the things that I thought was rather lousy about Myst URU was that there was all this GM and Player-driven content that happened before I ever had a chance to get into the game—and the only way I had to learn about it was through wikis and web-pages.

OTOH…how about ArenaNet let the races kludge together something that allows players to visit a dreamstate or spirit realm or some such where these events are eternally active? That way new players can see a recreation of the event (and more importantly, get the achievements and loot from it! ;-) ), without having to keep them active world-wide. A Tyrian version of Paragon City’s Ouroboros, if you will..

Vulpis.8063:

OTOH…how about ArenaNet let the races kludge together something that allows players to visit a dreamstate or spirit realm or some such where these events are eternally active? That way new players can see a recreation of the event (and more importantly, get the achievements and loot from it! ;-) ), without having to keep them active world-wide. A Tyrian version of Paragon City’s Ouroboros, if you will..

Neat idea. Or they could make a library in LA. If you take out a specific book about a past event you can read about each event … but instead of “reading” about the event, you could play through the event and get the rewards.

When I read OP’s post I immediately thought “Buy new expansion, exhaust all content within a month. Buy next new expansion, exhaust all content within a month. Repeat this process for years.” What do you end up with? $100s down the drain and a bunch of empty maps no one goes to. Those other MMOs you spoke of not only charge you to play their game per month, but also require you to buy new content and expansions? Just so you can grind, grind, grind and work, work, work? Hello, this is reality here saying your free time is worth so much more than that! With Guild Wars 2, you get an evolving world (not just “new maps” thrown in there), for free (unlike expansions which cost up to $40-60?), and it runs for as long as the devs want it to go on for (unlike other games where you wear out all content within 3 weeks).

I am actually very happy about this strategy. For one thing, I love to see the world evolve and change; for another, I think it’s nice to get tidbits of new content in between new paid expansions. Also, it is not like they didn’t announce they’d be doing this from the start…

Plus I’m pretty sure they have different teams working on living story content and expansion pack content.

Edit: Also, it is kind of understandable why they’d create more content for the people who actually keep playing this game than for the ones who rush through new content in no time and then stop playing until the next big expansion pack comes around – you know, from an economic point of view.
As for the ones who haven’t even started playing GW2 yet…well, tough luck. But hey, events like Halloween and Wintersday happen on a yearly basis, so it’s not as if they’d never get a chance to experience these.

Xriah.5743:

I am remembering that this game is only 7 months old. That’s kind of a big issue as to why I feel this way. It’s a 7 month old MMO and it feels like one because I’ve done pretty much everything it has to offer. I’ve reached burnout on the game for now and I’m taking a break to give the it time to develop and grow. It’s a great game and I’m sure I’ll come back to it at some point, but I’ll never experience part of this living story, and any other living stories between now and whenever I decide to log back in. The only people the living story benefits are the people who are already playing the game. Future players and players who aren’t currently active will never see the fruits of these development efforts.

See, this baffles me. You do know that there is currently some new content in the game, so why don’t you just spend a couple of days logging back in and experiencing said content?
Also, if you keep looking into the forums from time to time, you will see when there’s new content around, so you don’t even need to log in to play on a daily basis so you don’t miss new stuff.

As a latecomer I was honestly baffled when my friends told me about Karka invasion and how it was a one time event. How on earth would you think that is a good idea in the first place and even CONTINUE to make more one time events as “content”. It reminds me of Square Enix’s attitude of “we don’t care if you dont want it, we’re gonna make it and you’re gonna like it”

TheDraco.3965:

It reminds me of Square Enix’s attitude of “we don’t care if you dont want it, we’re gonna make it and you’re gonna like it”

Be used, here it’s worst they don’t even answers to us here at all lol

Yes OP , this is the plan, more and more repeatable DEs, with some bigger or smaller repeatable behaviour, instead of clean bugs and improve the world we have yet.

Eddard.2930:

Vulpis.8063:

OTOH…how about ArenaNet let the races kludge together something that allows players to visit a dreamstate or spirit realm or some such where these events are eternally active? That way new players can see a recreation of the event (and more importantly, get the achievements and loot from it! ;-) ), without having to keep them active world-wide. A Tyrian version of Paragon City’s Ouroboros, if you will..

Neat idea. Or they could make a library in LA. If you take out a specific book about a past event you can read about each event … but instead of “reading” about the event, you could play through the event and get the rewards.

This is actually a very similar method used for the bonus mission DLC from GW1. You went to a special scholar NPC and picked up a book which transported you into a mission as the story’s main character. It was pretty awesome.

Frotee.2634:

See, this baffles me. You do know that there is currently some new content in the game, so why don’t you just spend a couple of days logging back in and experiencing said content?
Also, if you keep looking into the forums from time to time, you will see when there’s new content around, so you don’t even need to log in to play on a daily basis so you don’t miss new stuff.

I’m not going to because I don’t want to play right now. I’ve hit burnout on this game and new content isn’t going to fix it. Playing the same game for such a long time wears you out after awhile. The only way to mend burnout on a game is leaving it be for awhile, a good long while. Right now, I could care less that there’s new content. However, I will care months down the road, when I pick the game up again.

The whole point is I shouldn’t be able to miss new stuff at all. Locking players out of content due to when they play is similar to locking players out of content due to time invested into the game, something the devs said they never wanted to do.

Xriah.5743:

Locking players out of content due to when they play is similar to locking players out of content due to time invested into the game, something the devs said they never wanted to do.

Tell me about it. I missed the Karka event because my brother’s wedding was occurring at the same time. It was later that I was told about a “chest” that dropped precursors for all who attended. Needless to say, making content “one-time” was a huge letdown for me that time.

I understand that problem. I know some other people that stopped playing this game, because they did everything they could do. Whenever I see them, and they ask how GW2 is doing, the only thing I can say is: “there was an event, that didn’t leave any new content”, or an “empty island got added in the middle of the sea” or “the living story temporarily added 2 new instances that I finished in around 20 minutes”.

Since they can’t “replay” an event that isn’t active, why would they sit through updating a game (that they didn’t bother updating for several months), just to play the current “living story” for like 20-30 minutes?
I like that idea of the “library” (so they can actually play these event for themselfs).

Although I do wonder: How would you be able to do finish that karkas event without a lot of people? That ancient karka is way too though to beat, unless you have at least 50 or 60 people with you. (that’s even ignoring that at a certain point the reinforcements killed 90% of the players on the overflow server I was on :p )
So they might have to turn those “library-events” cross player/server instances or something. I mean it’s a shame that events that where actually fun to do, aren’t available anymore.

Guild Wars 1 had expansions every 6 months, or so for the first couple of years, before they decided to make Guild Wars 2.
With all of that content, there is always something to do, even today, years later.
In Guild Wars 2, you can complete everything in a month or so.
Adding content that takes a few minutes to do part of, then have to wait weeks, or months to be able to do the next part, or the next part, is paramount to not adding anything at all.

You surely don’t understand the point. The point here is not whenever the game has history or not. The point is whenever it has content, and needless to say, content is what makes the game attractive. Content is a major selling point in a MMO, and is what makes players stay in the game, buy new expansions, items, and ultimately keeps the game afloat.

Right now, GW2 has content, sure. But how many of that content is locked away from you if you were to buy the game right now?

The blowing up of the Lion’s Arch statue. Mad King quest and related achievements (do I need to say it will disrupt leaderboards as it gives early players a permanent advantage on new ones?). Mad King sigils, skins and gear. Mad King clocktower, and his realm. Mad King minigames.

Karka event. The destruction of the lighthouse. The first time visit of the Lost Shores, with the 2 hour long event. Exotic Lion’s Arch gear.

Wintersday event (again!). Wintersday quest and related achievements . Wintersday sigils, skins and gear. Wintersday jumping puzzle. Wintersday minigames.

And what do you have to respond? That it gives background to the world? That new players will need to ask veterans to know what the hell happened to the lighthouse? To begin with, will they actually figure out the lighthouse was destroyed? I think they will just assume it was like that to begin with. Let’s not forget that Tyria is a virtual world and no one actually lives there, so until they actually first log on, they will not have seen the world of Tyria, and the TV news won’t mention Lion’s Arch Karka invasion.

And it’s not just new players. I also suffer from this. I loved Halloween’s and Wintersday minigames. Now I can’t play them. Same goes for Super Adventure Box. At the end of this month, puff will go one of the most brilliant ideas of a minigame I have ever seen in a MMO.

What this leaves us is that, while the “Living Story” idea is an honourable one, it brings problems that aren’t present in a more traditional MMO, where (nearly) all content is permanent. Until Arena Net manages, or just allows, their Living Story to bring to the game growth , and not just change, then it can and will harm the game on the long term, reducing the player base to the ones that actually play this game every month, as new players will be alienated because they will only experience a portion of what the game had (emphasis on had) to offer.

I disagree with the idea that temporary content is bad for a game – Sure new players will miss things like last year Mad king and Wintersday, but they have something to look forward to this year. Its like saying we need to make all transitory events permanent – it jut won’t work – and doesn’t illustrate a living game.

For example, if tyria was to have more massive temporary flooding due to the shiverpeaks partially melting and swelling rivers, should it be here to stay? If the shiverpeaks stopped melting then I say no. The only issue comes up is whether or not players have a hand in stopping the melting in the first place (killing the great destroyer once again).

IF players have a hand in stopping an event from happening then I’d say like those above who mentioned a history book – maybe a history of tyria tab incorporated into one’s hero panel allowing players to “experience” certain events through cut-scenes at the very least, or even mini-dungeon / personal storyesque zones for players to explore. The issue is – what types of rewards will they get – limited items such as the karka shell box or the mad king drops from mobs I don’t think should come up – they should be reserved for players who did the events when they happened – maybe some karma / generic end chest or gold?

Seasonal one off events are fun – I don’t expect to be able to ride the wild mongoose roller coaster every day for all time when the state fair only is here for 1 week. Real life events are transitory – more immersion into a game means making things more like real life – one off events should be truely one off, you can relive the history through a history book but if you’ve never experienced it before you CAN’T expect to have the same experience as when it first happened.

VoxShatterfall.5470:

I disagree with the idea that temporary content is bad for a game – Sure new players will miss things like last year Mad king and Wintersday, but they have something to look forward to this year. Its like saying we need to make all transitory events permanent – it jut won’t work – and doesn’t illustrate a living game.

For example, if tyria was to have more massive temporary flooding due to the shiverpeaks partially melting and swelling rivers, should it be here to stay? If the shiverpeaks stopped melting then I say no. The only issue comes up is whether or not players have a hand in stopping the melting in the first place (killing the great destroyer once again).

IF players have a hand in stopping an event from happening then I’d say like those above who mentioned a history book – maybe a history of tyria tab incorporated into one’s hero panel allowing players to “experience” certain events through cut-scenes at the very least, or even mini-dungeon / personal storyesque zones for players to explore. The issue is – what types of rewards will they get – limited items such as the karka shell box or the mad king drops from mobs I don’t think should come up – they should be reserved for players who did the events when they happened – maybe some karma / generic end chest or gold?

Seasonal one off events are fun – I don’t expect to be able to ride the wild mongoose roller coaster every day for all time when the state fair only is here for 1 week. Real life events are transitory – more immersion into a game means making things more like real life – one off events should be truely one off, you can relive the history through a history book but if you’ve never experienced it before you CAN’T expect to have the same experience as when it first happened.

This.

Don’t forget that the living story is going to be rolling out new features and new permanent content. It’s the story of Tyria running in parallel with the content pipeline of GW2.

The living world concept is a unique feature in the genre, and it’s still in it’s infant stages. It’s clearly intended to be constantly running with the draw to keep players coming back being: “What’s going on this patch?”

This will probably be a rehash of what has been said but it’s my opinion.

First off addressing the concept of ‘Living World’. The concept is a good one on paper but in it’s current implentation its quite lacking. I found myself breezing through the recent ‘Living World’ content in about an hour or less which is very underwhelming. I also found the characters lacking, unengaging, and quite frankly boring. There wasn’t enough backstory, content, or time to emotionally connect to any new characters. Heck I’ve forgotten their names a few times already.
The fact is the content needs to be more substantial. For example in Part 2 of FLame and Frost suddenly these guys were attacking the refuges; which is in my opinion a silly thing. There should of been a slow progression of a storyline towards part 2. Like audio logs maybe appearing saying someone saw someone kidnapped by something that looks like something. And this could appear in week 2 of the update or something along those lines on a greater scale. Basically it needs foreshadowing.
Having the same situation for 4 weeks then suddenly change over and over is not a living world. And by doing this you would be expanding the content greatly without needing to make much because it would mean more devoted fans would constantly be checking back every day for ‘x’ items or ‘y’ new speech lines.

That’s just my opinion on living story, it doesn’t feel alive at all, and there is a lack of content for the most part (hopefully part 4 will be some great patch with heaps of content). There really needs to be more progressive changes during the course of the living story for it to feel alive.
Bit off topic but I would love to see the living story used to lead up to expansion packs. Way cooler then suddenly ‘Hey look new content and stuff that wasn’t there a second ago’. Maybe even have cool features like helping in the living story to build whatever the expansion uses, like a server effort to get wood to build a ship to go to cantha or something silly but cool.

Lastly there needs to be a way to go back and play through old content like the invasion of Lions Arch and the conquest of Suncove. The best way in my opinion would be to have some crazy Asuran make some time portal. But of course this would be extremely difficult to code in relation to servers but if you plan on doing alot of one time content then it’s something worth investing in.

I have to for the most part disagree.

Now is the time to do this kind of stuff and establish that the world is going to change permanently in one off events like this – if they start this now and establish that this is the game they are making, we don’t have to be disgruntled at a sudden change in direction in the future.

To make my point, I took a long break from WoW and decided to come back around the time Cataclysm was released. Having to relearn a world I had spent years becoming familiar with was the last nail in the coffin that kept me away permanently.

Ryuujin.8236:

I know quite a few players who arn’t actively playing GW2 anymore because they are waiting for “more content”; this short term content tends to fly under the radar and when they finally DO return, they see no new content, shrug and go back to playing something else while they wait.

On the other hand, I can imagine someone who has taken a break checking in, seeing another one time, game changing event and thinking I should log in for this so I don’t miss it, and actually coming back to play long before they intended too.

Xriah.5743:

I can’t help but feel like it’s a strange idea to spend development time on temporary content.

If you look back at older MMOs like Everquest or World of Warcraft or City of Heroes(RIP), they contain a seemingly bottomless pit of content. Years and years of updates and expansions stacked on top of one another make for a wealth of content that newer MMO’s can only hope to obtain in time. Even if it ends up being largely unused as the players keep up with the ever advancing endgame, it allows newer players to see and explore the past. Kind of like how the Southsun Cove is now. It’s fallen into obscurity, but newer players who wern’t around for the event have the oppourtunity to discover the area and explore it.

There are still so many areas of this game that can be filled out. Why spend time on this when you can make more permanent additions to your game and use them as selling points? Just from past updates, I get the impression that the dev team is spread thin enough as it is without tacking on tasks that only have a temporary impact. Spend those resources elsewhere like patch QA, bugfixing, mini games, new zones, polishing the personal story, balancing skills and traits, etc. I think that would be appreciated more than what were getting with the living story now.

Actually, it’s great. ArenaNet did this in GW1 as well. They have holiday events. That is whatthis is. Since we are not going to Cantha(The continent in Guild Wars Factions) in Guild Wars 2 we are missing Canthan New Year and The Dragon Festival. This replaces one of those and does so in a way that they can add more levels later on. Holiday Events are something to look forward to.

I’m all for permanent content but I think the naysayers to the temp content would be proved wrong by stats. I don’t think there has been any mass exodus of players from GW2 since launch.

ANet has always had Holiday events and they are annual. This game is what? 7 months old? GW1 came out in 2005, with Sorrows Furnace released a few months later, while GW Factions came out in 2006.

WoW was released in November of 2004. Burning Crusades came out in 2007. In that 3 year period, what new content was released? Any? Other than new gear, what new events, missions, dungeons, etc.?

I think they are making a good effort with what they are doing. Just today I played my guardian through an area I had already done with my necro weeks ago and ended up doing events that I never did with my necro. For a moment, I actually got the feeling that the world had advanced through time.

Of course that feeling imploded when I returned to the area later on with my guardian and that event was active again.

ANet is adding new content to existing areas but the new content is still locked into a time loop. The “living world” is still too shallow.

People have mentioned how new players join never knowing the significance of certain things. This is where the world’s history needs to be made available.

Now I’m going to bring Skyrim, or rather TES in general, into the mix. I know that it is a single player game but I feel that it is possible, with a certain level of creative thinking and programming, that you can have a MMO like GW but have a game world where such a game world advances as it does in Skyrim.

One of the things I’ve mentioned before was how I was standing by some NPCs and they just looped some script day and night over and over. In Skyrim, while some of the conversations were repetitive and predictable, every so often, they would talk about something new and that something was usually something your character was involved in. This is where new players could pick up on the significance of things.

The NPCs also have a day/night cycle of sleeping, working, eating, etc. when they were not directly involved in a story/mission/event.

Honestly, I would love to see GW2 work in the radiant AI system.

Something they should think about too is more player character involvement. Take a look at EVE. In null sec, it is entirely owned and run by the player base. What a player does actually matters. It has an impact. Alliances form and fall. Corporations do the same. When ANet does get around to the next expansion, and opens up new land masses, these land masses should simply be unsettled. Occupied with nothing but beasts, monsters, and the like. Allow the Guilds of Guild Wars claim the various territories, build up settlements, build walls around those settlements. Let them form alliances and go to war with each other. Let the expansion live up to the name of this game.

There seems to be two lines of argument here. Firstly, the living story has a lack of substantial content so far. Secondly, all the content is going to be wasted once the event is over. Perhaps those two thoughts are not unrelated. There may be repeatable content at the end of the living story that becomes permanent once all the scavenger hunts have been cleared away.

Sorry for my rough english.
Anyway, if any of you did’t notice yet, they release something new every month.

A new player, who log in for the first time today in the game, didn’t play the karka madness quest.
Anyway, he will play the quest related for the island in the future, and now he can enjoy frost and flame.

The game is constantly under development and they add persistent content, too.
Remember first months from release.
Everyone were only in cursed shore for karma farming. This were the endgame.

Now we can play fractal, gain laurels and new variety of daily , play 8bit world (i think it will be a persistent content in the end,’cause we can play only world1), do guild quest, and other things will come (ex: bar brawl)

i think that Arenanet have lernt from the error done in gw1.

Anyway sesonal event will come when the respectively holiday come, like every MMO (and i hope with some new feature and not a " it’s-the-same-of-the-last-year" like gw1).

“Living Story” would be to finish the story that was begun. Fill out the empty-but-named places on the map. Give us Polymock instead of a spot on the map and an asura gate to nowhere. It seems like the new content people haven’t actually looked at the game, or they arent interested that the direction of the “new content” was pretty much planned and in place, as shown on the map.

It’s appropriate to compare this MMO to other games. I played Lineage II for 7 years and watched what happened as they added stuff, after stuff, after stuff until it was unrecognizable and our inventories were full of useless game pieces. In the end, the game was a total nightmare because they were making it on the fly and without solid direction.

In this case, the direction was clearly planned. It’s on the map. New content people at ANet: please look at the map before proceeding further.

Ryuujin.8236:

I know quite a few players who arn’t actively playing GW2 anymore because they are waiting for “more content”; this short term content tends to fly under the radar and when they finally DO return, they see no new content, shrug and go back to playing something else while they wait.

I’m in this category. To me, much of Guild Wars 2 is short term content which of course, produces short term interest. Which, is why I don’t enjoy PvP or WvW, same map(s), same goal(s), ad infinitum.

Take a look at EVE. In null sec, it is entirely owned and run by the player base. What a player does actually matters. It has an impact. Alliances form and fall. Corporations do the same. When ANet does get around to the next expansion, and opens up new land masses, these land masses should simply be unsettled. Occupied with nothing but beasts, monsters, and the like. Allow the Guilds of Guild Wars claim the various territories, build up settlements, build walls around those settlements. Let them form alliances and go to war with each other. Let the expansion live up to the name of this game.

THAT wouldn’t be an expansion, that would be a total conversion to pure PvP play. Guild Wars 2 already has to much PvP in the forms of WvW and sPvP. If they had the Guild Wars 1’s GvG (guild versus guild), that would be better than the extensive PvP play that the game has now.
Of course, to my way of thinking, PvP in an mmorpg should be minimal at best, only there to settle disagreements, not as the sole reason for the mmorpg to exist. I love DDO’s PvP rooms in the back of taverns and bars. To me, that’s how PvP should be done in an mmorpg, especially in a fantasy mmorpg. Of course, GW1’s GvG wasn’t to bad either.

I agree with the above post. The name of the game is GUILD WARS 2.

As well as what they have already, there should be guild wars, too.

Guild versus Guild.

Sorry for the pun.

I’m am happy that the Devs implemented content that I have found myself continually enjoying EVERY day since its release. Content that does not reward me with new gear with bigger stats or heaven forbid more levels past 80.

This is what i had always wanted from a MMORPG, where you stop progressing/climbing vertically (new expansions, more levels, new gear stats, etc) and you start progressing horizontally – which to me is exploring more in depth where you are. Rediscovering old areas, enhancing your character through new ways that set you apart but does not make you so powerful that the game becomes too easy.

New expansions with more levels does not work. The content is consumed faster with every new expansion and we the players and the Devs are left with empty zones, unused raids and dungeons.

taugrimtaugrim spoke a little about this a while ago. I agree with a lot of what he says but not all of it. Check it out.
http://youtu.be/0Zn81sY7pqI

this aint there first mmo, they know what there doing nuff said

Personally, although people might hate me for saying this, I think they should implement phasing just like Blizzard did. It’s the ideal solution for supplying temporary content that can only be done once whilst combining it with the fact that new players can do it also.

this is how I view it. Imagine your reading the harry potter series when it comes out. You read the first three books right when each comes out. You end up not reading 4-6 right when they come out. You return to wanting to continue the series when the 7th book comes out, but they took books 1-6 off the shelves. Now the only way to know whats going on is to ask someone who’s read it or read an online summary. Does this make any sense to you? I already live in reality, I play video games to escape that not to enter a new one with similar pressures.

ScottBroChill.3254:

this is how I view it. Imagine your reading the harry potter series when it comes out. You read the first three books right when each comes out. You end up not reading 4-6 right when they come out. You return to wanting to continue the series when the 7th book comes out, but they took books 1-6 off the shelves. Now the only way to know whats going on is to ask someone who’s read it or read an online summary. Does this make any sense to you? I already live in reality, I play video games to escape that not to enter a new one with similar pressures.

Shrug, i see where you are coming from, but books and games a very different mediums. Additionally, MMO’s are a very very different form of entertainment than a book. MMO’s center around community and the environment (I do like a good story to them too). Books are not at all centered around community and environment.

Therefore, I am not inclined to agree with your analogy.

I think it is very cool that you can take a break from the game and come back and have the world changed from when you left it. I do not think it’d be cool to not be able to access harry potter books because I took a break though. That’d have sucked.

Rewiinded.9401:

Personally, although people might hate me for saying this, I think they should implement phasing just like Blizzard did. It’s the ideal solution for supplying temporary content that can only be done once whilst combining it with the fact that new players can do it also.

But it also separate the community. Go figure why every Wow zones with phasing feel empty. In the other hand, maybe they will eventually make a time traveler character who will let us do the events we missed. They could also make it gemmes based just so it won’t be exploited. Just an idea.

Deamhan.9538:

WoW was released in November of 2004. Burning Crusades came out in 2007. In that 3 year period, what new content was released? Any? Other than new gear, what new events, missions, dungeons, etc.?

Burning crusade came out in January 2007, 26 months or so after WoW released, much closer to two years than three and they introduced so, so very much in that time! They added 3 battlegrounds (the game launched with none), 4 dungeons, 5 raids, numerous world bosses (the dragons), a new zone, new quests, world events like the gates of Ahn’Qiraj, and countless tweaks and improvements (like dynamic weather, cross realm battlegrounds and so on). You can criticise them for many things (and people will) but your implication that they added nothing is just flat-out incorrect.

As for the OPs point I agree, I don’t think that making these one time only is such a great idea, they should make it accessible through some means after the fact, in GW1 Winds of Change allowed us to take a quest that let us “remember” the world as it was. It would be nice if they found a way to do that something like that in GW2 too, they have the technology, they could keep a single “overflow” server instance for both Wayfarer Foothills and Diessa Plateau and have it running Frost and Flame for people who want to relive the content in the future.

That way they could change the world whenever and however they wanted but people could, for example, talk to a Durmand Priory historian and live through the timeline whenever they join (or rejoin) the game.

Actually, it’d be a shame if the magnificent tower of light that contains all those tablets and scrolls at the heart of the Durmand Priory didn’t serve a purpose like that:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:The_Durmand_Priory_loading_screen.jpg

ScottBroChill.3254:

this is how I view it. Imagine your reading the harry potter series when it comes out. You read the first three books right when each comes out. You end up not reading 4-6 right when they come out. You return to wanting to continue the series when the 7th book comes out, but they took books 1-6 off the shelves. Now the only way to know whats going on is to ask someone who’s read it or read an online summary. Does this make any sense to you? I already live in reality, I play video games to escape that not to enter a new one with similar pressures.

I think viewing a game as a book to read isn’t the right analogy. Instead view the living story initiative as more like a real life community – temporary events such as world fairs / natural disasters you CAN’T go back to really experience. The beauty of a game is that we CAN have a history book to “virtually relive” the experience – but this hasn’t yet been added to the game.

I think the meat of the content is actually going to be permanent. I doubt the living story instances with Rox and Braham are going anywhere. They seem like permanent additions to me. The only stuff which I think will be temporary are the BLC weapon skins, the refugee related achievements, the sonic periscopes, the spy hunt thing and the Molten Alliance dynamic events. None of that is substantial content, most of it would have been easy to make and it almost entirely copies already existing content and mechanics in the game.

Even once they remove the open world elements of the content (which are in no way substantial) the new enemy NPCs and the mechanics they use will be available in the much meatier living story instances. I think the open world content they’ve added is almost completely forgetable, so much so that once it’s gone I don’t think many people will miss it or feel like they missed out.

They only need to change the open world content, the instanced stuff can stay around forever just like personal story.

Pifil.5193:

That way they could change the world whenever and however they wanted but people could, for example, talk to a Durmand Priory historian and live through the timeline whenever they join (or rejoin) the game.

Actually, it’d be a shame if the magnificent tower of light that contains all those tablets and scrolls at the heart of the Durmand Priory didn’t serve a purpose like that:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:The_Durmand_Priory_loading_screen.jpg

+9999 to that idea

Also +1 to whole thread, its good that they try to bring some players to old zones for harge event. But I guess they forgot that people will leave this zone as soon as they finish event, especially if they cant repeat it after a month or few.

idk, it’s not like these are epic events. the lighthouse being destroyed, the lion, the karka event… it was cool because it was a one time thing. In reality that karka event was a terrible lag fest with a chest at the end that people freaked out about. Would you really feel bad if you had missed any of it? It was exciting at the time, but if they reran the event without the chest, would you even go? Like people said earlier, the holiday stuff will come around again as well… it doesn’t feel like a bad thing to me.

The holiday events will repeat, so everyone will have another chance at them. Since this is the first year, they just have to get them into the game.

I do think the living story isn’t all that great, though. I wish the devs working on it were fixing bugs, instead.