Guild Wars 2

So just to be clear, I’m NOT talking about bugs. Bugs happen, I don’t really care so long as they get fixed. This thread isn’t about that.

What I want to address is the state of the open world portions of the Living Story missions (the green star stuff from the journal).
They were bad.
The story, being a story, is something you actually want to focus on and experience. The fact that it was in the open world was a great hindrance to that. This is the case for several reason:
First, the zergs. Zerg content is not compelling. I won’t say it doesn’t have a place in the game, but when you want to get your players interested and engaged, running around in a blob of 50 people spamming abilities is not the way.
Second, the distractions the open world brings. When there’s other events going on and players running around, it draws your attention away from the story. Zergs amplify this greatly, and zergs are inevitable when tons of players are drawn to the same spot upon the release of something new.
Third, the nature of dynamic events. You can show up half way through and miss portions of what’s going on. They also don’t cater to your individual pace, and while this is good in many places, it doesn’t work when you’re trying to follow a story.
Last, the lack of immersion:
“Yea Eir, I’ll go do this alone”, you then travel to your objective and find a hundred players running around in a big blob, destroying the objectives in the event that’s half way through it’s chain before you can even get to them or figure out what’s supposed to be happening.
There where a bunch of dolyaks at one point. Why? don’t ask me, I have no idea.

Now the distinction needs to be made. I don’t think all Living Story Journal missions need to be kicked out of the open world. If you’re just talking to an npc, it’s good. If you’re finding a trail of notes in the desert, it’s good. If you’re just picking up crown fragments, it’s good. These are things that would be outright annoying if I had to pop into an instance every time. What’s bad are portions that feature gameplay/combat. Those can’t be exposed to the open world because of the reasons I outlined above.
Furthermore, there’s no benefit to be had by putting these events in the open world. If I want to play with others, I have that option by inviting people to the instances. If I want more events, the way they were handled in Dry Top was great. There’s no inherit benefit to putting these story bit in the open world VS putting them in instances, but there are many detriments.

The story itself was cool, the instanced portions were fun and over all well done, and the items you collect through the story and then refine (Mysterious Seed, Sacred Glacial Water, etc) were interesting. But the open world portions of the story were bad, and it’s a lesson I thought was already learned back during the original launch of Southwsun Cove.
Adding events to the world is fine, but that’s something that needs to be handled separately from the story. My hopes are that this isn’t repeated in future content patches.
Thanks for reading

I agree with you on point 3. It’s kind of disappointing jumping into the middle of the story event, especially after being disconnected. What they could’ve done, was made some of these Living Story chapters into short dungeons, that requires at least 3 people, sort of like what they did with their Halloween and Christmas events.

No, no dungeons. They can’t do that stuff right anyways.

Like what the opening post said, if it’s talking to an NPC, finding clues, or going to a place, fine. Otherwise, keep it in the instance.

We need Dungeons like the frost & Flame – that was amazing.

The bit with the pieces of the crown was good? are you kidding me? If anything, fishing a supposedly legendary, magical item out of piles of rubble ABOVE GROUND is very poor, lazy story telling that feels like a filler at best and as if it was thrown in there at the last second. That should have been instanced aswell and take place in actual ruins of some sort. Because it would actually make sense to find them in such a place rather than in something that might aswell have been a trash can for all i know. The instanced bits were actually quite nice. The whole zerging, boring stuff not so much.

I think the problem is more in the way NPCs react to us.

In general, I do not like instanced storytelling.
It makes no sense. Especially now with LS2, the NPCs consider me “our boss”, and I’m frequently presented as the hero. Huh? Me and the other thousands of players? Are you that short of memory that you forget each of us 0,1 second later, Kasmeer? Really?

It just totally breaks immersion for me. I know there’s lots of other players around. I mean come on, it’s why I’m playing a MMORPG instead of a single-player RPG in the first place.
Yet this instanced story, especially now LS2 (earlier story tried to put the hero-focus on a NPC, which didn’t work but was a pretty cool idea), is trying to make me think it’s me who is important. It gets even more weird when you group up for it, because the NPCs obviously cannot acknowledge two bosses.

Anyhow, back to open world. The issues are in execution, IMO. I’d make the following changes:

• Any “hero-moment” should be based on a NPC. That is someone who you only got one of.
• NPCs need to acknowledge the amount of players. If you genuinely are alone, they’ll say something about “finally” someone showing up to help. And remember you personally and then call you by name. Also summon some NPCs to help.
• OTOH, if there’s 3-5, they might still address you by name but start talking about "everyone needing to work together2.
• At larger numbers, they address the players like you would a battalion in an army. They might talk about each being individuals, but having to all follow through with this plan for it to work.

Basically, stop pretending the other players don’t exist. If I want to be the sole hero, I can play Skyrim or Divinity Original Sin or so. I don’t need my MMORPG to try replace my single-player RPG. I’d rather want my MMO to feel MMO-y

AysonCurrax.3254:

The bit with the pieces of the crown was good? are you kidding me? If anything, fishing a supposedly legendary, magical item out of piles of rubble ABOVE GROUND is very poor, lazy story telling that feels like a filler at best and as if it was thrown in there at the last second. That should have been instanced aswell and take place in actual ruins of some sort. Because it would actually make sense to find them in such a place rather than in something that might aswell have been a trash can for all i know. The instanced bits were actually quite nice. The whole zerging, boring stuff not so much.

Let me clarify:
When I say “the bit with the crown pieces was good”, I mean that an action as simple and singular as picking up an item is better left in the open world, and doesn’t need an instance all for itself.

Over all, the crown section could have certainly been improved. I felt the locations themselves were appropriate, but they should have put a lot more into it. Make a small struggle to acquire each piece, stash the pieces somewhere more appropriate then a rubble pile, add some dialogue/books revealing some history behind why the piece was there.
Or perhaps they could have instanced one of the outdoor mini dungeons or jumping puzzles and re-purposed them for the crown fragments, adding appropriate enemies and NPCs/books.
It didn’t have to be anything grand, there doesn’t have to be an epic struggle or long winded search behind every thing we do, but it felt too excuse-plotty and they certainly missed a chance to add some interesting information/lore.

Carighan.6758:

I think the problem is more in the way NPCs react to us.

In general, I do not like instanced storytelling.
It makes no sense. Especially now with LS2, the NPCs consider me “our boss”, and I’m frequently presented as the hero. Huh? Me and the other thousands of players? Are you that short of memory that you forget each of us 0,1 second later, Kasmeer? Really?

It just totally breaks immersion for me. I know there’s lots of other players around. I mean come on, it’s why I’m playing a MMORPG instead of a single-player RPG in the first place.
Yet this instanced story, especially now LS2 (earlier story tried to put the hero-focus on a NPC, which didn’t work but was a pretty cool idea), is trying to make me think it’s me who is important. It gets even more weird when you group up for it, because the NPCs obviously cannot acknowledge two bosses.

Anyhow, back to open world. The issues are in execution, IMO. I’d make the following changes:

• Any “hero-moment” should be based on a NPC. That is someone who you only got one of.
• NPCs need to acknowledge the amount of players. If you genuinely are alone, they’ll say something about “finally” someone showing up to help. And remember you personally and then call you by name. Also summon some NPCs to help.
• OTOH, if there’s 3-5, they might still address you by name but start talking about "everyone needing to work together2.
• At larger numbers, they address the players like you would a battalion in an army. They might talk about each being individuals, but having to all follow through with this plan for it to work.

Basically, stop pretending the other players don’t exist. If I want to be the sole hero, I can play Skyrim or Divinity Original Sin or so. I don’t need my MMORPG to try replace my single-player RPG. I’d rather want my MMO to feel MMO-y

All it takes is one simple assumption by the player for instanced story telling to make sense. You recognize that your character is the hero and that other players aren’t in your story. It just takes a very brief suspension of disbelief (so to speak). From there, it doesn’t matter how many million people go by, because that didn’t happen in your story. Not to mention that the instancing means that that whole scenario with Kasmeer forgetting doesn’t happen in the first place.

A story that simultaneously incorporates every player that walks by in an MMORPG as a character? Yea good luck with that. It would be an incoherent mess to even begin to try to recognize multiple players in the story. It would be a fantastic display of convoluted story gymnastics.
I do think the examples you provided would be cool for quiet a few events. Having an NPC address a group when a group is present is really cool. But to incorporate that into the main story narrative? I just don’t see that as reasonable. Nor do I see the removal of the player from important roles, and diminishing them to cannon fodder foot-soldiers that come by the dozen, as being appropriate. MMO or w.e else, this is still an RPG, and I am still play a role within it. Because while the MMO need to be MMO-y, it also needs to be RPG-y.

And this really doesn’t address any of the concerns I brought up about the player’s experience of the story. Zergs will still be a detriment to my experience of the story. Passerbys and open world distractions will still be a detriment. And the pace of the events being outside of your hands will still be a detriment. What’s the alternative to instances that would fix these problems while keeping you in the open world? Phasing? a rather complex fix when something as simple as instancing can do the job. Not to mention all the other problems phasing brings with it.

Agree. Story needs to remain in instances. I don’t want anyone around my story it takes away immersion. This chapter is just one big zerg run. Nothing more, nothing interesting.

Arewn.2368:

All it takes is one simple assumption by the player for instanced story telling to make sense. You recognize that your character is the hero and that other players aren’t in your story. It just takes a very brief suspension of disbelief (so to speak).

The problem is that given that I play a genre which’s distinguishing design element is that a nontrivial amount of other players are constantly around me, this is the one assumption you should not ask me to make.

Spacegoats in WoW? Fine.
Lasertech in my fantasy MMO? Fine.
But being the sole hero in a massive-multiplayer game? I wouldn’t be playing the genre in the first place then, would I?

Someone complaining to get open multiplayer content in a MMO instead of instanced singleplayer crap which seems to be designed for kids and teenagers?

I always thought it would be very ironical to address what is mostly instanced content as “living world”-stuff in a MMO but this OP clearly beats it.

If an MMO’s mechanics are able to comfortably accomodate dozens of players in one event, it’s fine. But if a zerg removes any need for tactics and and thinking, replacing it with mashing autoattack, then the MMO should stick to the mix of moderately large groups and instances.

Open world content is fine, when it works, and when it’s well designed. Not this kind of stuff, where I can get all pieces of the crown just by walking over to the green star and pick them up, because the triggering events were all done some time before I got there. Rytlock might have send a cub to do this task, and the cub would’ve asked him why he had to do something that pedestrian and unchallenging.

Things like you mentioned with coming into Dynamic events half way through are part of the reason I gave up on this games story back at launch. Now I honestly don’t care what they do story wise to this game. I would have definitely preferred the game staying instanced like GW.

Nilkemia.8507:

No, no dungeons. They can’t do that stuff right anyways.

Like what the opening post said, if it’s talking to an NPC, finding clues, or going to a place, fine. Otherwise, keep it in the instance.

The Flame & Frost dungeon was actually really fun. After a day or two pugs generally had it down and I farmed it for Sentinel’s gear (that I then sold for a gold. I sooooooo regret that).

I think people are way too nit-picky about what NPC’s say and what the zergs are like and honestly about content releases in general. I swear, they could release new content every other day and you’d still complain. At least they do SOMETHING to keep the game fresh and going forward so you don’t get bored and just log out.. If you can’t imagine your way past an NPC referring to players in the singular or plural and that seriously poses such a problem that you have to complain about it.. Then I worry about you ever finding any kind of satisfaction in gaming or in life for that matter.

there wont be zergs when next story comes out. and evens wont end fast. it is probably balanced for then

Carighan.6758:

Arewn.2368:

All it takes is one simple assumption by the player for instanced story telling to make sense. You recognize that your character is the hero and that other players aren’t in your story. It just takes a very brief suspension of disbelief (so to speak).

The problem is that given that I play a genre which’s distinguishing design element is that a nontrivial amount of other players are constantly around me, this is the one assumption you should not ask me to make.

Spacegoats in WoW? Fine.
Lasertech in my fantasy MMO? Fine.
But being the sole hero in a massive-multiplayer game? I wouldn’t be playing the genre in the first place then, would I?

Well you are the hero.

Technically all the other players besides you are just wandering adventurers. I’ve always seen it as that perspective in any game I play, even City of Heroes where everyone was a Hero.

Also, having an NPC represent the main hero while we sit back will give everyone Kormir / Trahearne memories. Not that I cared for either one of them, I understand that we couldn’t be a God nor the leader of the Pact.

Asmodeus.5782:

If an MMO’s mechanics are able to comfortably accomodate dozens of players in one event, it’s fine. But if a zerg removes any need for tactics and and thinking, replacing it with mashing autoattack, then the MMO should stick to the mix of moderately large groups and instances.

Have you actually fought any of the Mordem Champions in the Iron Marches? You stand there, stupidly ‘mashing autoattack’ as you say, and the vines that come out of the ground will down you, then a short time later, kill you with zero chance of rallying.

Carighan.6758:

The problem is that given that I play a genre which’s distinguishing design element is that a nontrivial amount of other players are constantly around me, this is the one assumption you should not ask me to make.

Spacegoats in WoW? Fine.
Lasertech in my fantasy MMO? Fine.
But being the sole hero in a massive-multiplayer game? I wouldn’t be playing the genre in the first place then, would I?

For the story, assuming that you’re the only canonical “hero” is an assumption you can’t make? If you want a sensible RPG story, that’s the assumption you’ll have to make.
This is still an RPG, and your character holding an important role within the story is non-negotiable, so you can’t reduce the player to “generic faceless footsoldier” while the NPCs are the only real characters. On the flip side, you can’t have a large, undefined, changing number of “important heroes” solving the story’s problems. As I mentioned before, that would be a convoluted mess to write.
You’re still in the social environment of the MMO, you can still play with others even if the story content is instanced, but you can’t expect the story to be built around a narrative for a large, undefined, and changing number of players. I won’t even get in to the fact that solo play is still an important element of the game even in an RPG.

Furthermore, you STILL haven’t provided any counter arguments to the gameplay experience concerns I brought up originally, and brought up again in my response to you earlier.

I don’t understand why everyone wants everything to be instanced. It sort of takes away the point of being an MMO, doesn’kitten

Katai.6240:

I don’t understand why everyone wants everything to be instanced. It sort of takes away the point of being an MMO, doesn’kitten

Guild Wars did just fine that way.

Guild Wars wasn’t an MMO. It was basically Diablo 2 with an online market.

I actually didn’t mind the Open World parts of the episode. Sure you can argue that it kinda minimizes your character from the “main hero” role he is suppose to play, but from a gameplay point of view it was kinda refreshing to see the Devs experimenting.

Having an excuse to run around an area other than world completion progress or leveling wasn’t unenjoyable. It didn’t really as forced as I initially thought it would be either. Could be improved on making it flow a bit better like it did in Frostgorge Sound though.

Not to mention that a few portions of the living story are rehashed content! talk about recycling! I liked a few tidbits here and there , especially figthing the statue at the end, that should have been a meta event in my opinion!

Also agree, open world missions are a mess, talking and the like are ok, but sheesh, between the bugs and the chaos it is hard to get immersed.

Katai.6240:

I don’t understand why everyone wants everything to be instanced. It sort of takes away the point of being an MMO, doesn’kitten

Not everything. Specifically just the story parts that would benefit from being able to concentrate on them and do them at your own pace.

World bosses, new dynamic events, new zones, dungeons, jumping puzzles, guild events, gathering, etc. All the other stuff can be open world/group oriented.
I’m only asking that the parts that benefit from being alone are instanced. And when I’m trying to read dialogue and progress a story, the distractions of the open world are a very clear detriment that can be avoided through the benefits of instancing.
There’s nothing about 10 other people running around me that enhances my gaming experience when I’m trying to have a conversation with an NPC.

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

Asmodeus.5782:

If an MMO’s mechanics are able to comfortably accomodate dozens of players in one event, it’s fine. But if a zerg removes any need for tactics and and thinking, replacing it with mashing autoattack, then the MMO should stick to the mix of moderately large groups and instances.

Have you actually fought any of the Mordem Champions in the Iron Marches? You stand there, stupidly ‘mashing autoattack’ as you say, and the vines that come out of the ground will down you, then a short time later, kill you with zero chance of rallying.

What do you mean? I went through my regular attack rotations in melee (I play a Berserker Guardian, so I went through GS and then Sword/Focus rotation) then popped Shelter to heal when I needed it and then proceeded through attack rotation again. The ample water fields also helped out.

Arewn.2368:

This is still an RPG, and your character holding an important role within the story is non-negotiable

How does one follow from the other? What you say sounds like what I expect from a single-player RPG. But that’s the thing, MMORPG. Thousands of “heroes”. Make something of it instead of cheapskating it and having to pretend everyone is a solo-player!

This “You are the hero” is effectively just lazy MMO design. Can’t do it properly, do it like a single-player RPG, at least you can copy&paste their solution.

Katai.6240:

I don’t understand why everyone wants everything to be instanced. It sort of takes away the point of being an MMO, doesn’kitten

Becouse if you want to have qualite story telling you need to have instances. This open world content doesn’t provide what immersive story need.

Personally, i feel the link between the events and the living story wasn’t bad at all. and that i actually would have enjoyed them if there weren’t 100 other people running around during the events doing the same thing i was doing. It made it too easy, was zergy, and broke all immersion.

two or four weeks from now, barely anyone will be doing that portion of the story, and the events would have less traffic, and i can guarantee that it will be 100 times more fun to do those portions of the story then.

Zayd Akira.1942:

Personally, i feel the link between the events and the living story wasn’t bad at all. and that i actually would have enjoyed them if there weren’t 100 other people running around during the events doing the same thing i was doing. It made it too easy, was zergy, and broke all immersion.

And then Eir compliments you for doing all of it alone. Laugh out Loud! Immersion needed a mercy killing at that point.

daros.3407:

Katai.6240:

I don’t understand why everyone wants everything to be instanced. It sort of takes away the point of being an MMO, doesn’kitten

Becouse if you want to have qualite story telling you need to have instances. This open world content doesn’t provide what immersive story need.

Didn’t you get enough instanced storytelling via the actual instanced parts?
Not everything needs to have some 5 minute scripted intro with NPCs puking exposition left and right. I feel the mix of instance and open world was pretty fair and balanced in this episode.
If the zergs of 100s of people steamrolling the events weren’t there, i might have actually enjoyed it.
Anet should have planned for that.

Carighan.6758:

How does one follow from the other? What you say sounds like what I expect from a single-player RPG. But that’s the thing, MMORPG. Thousands of “heroes”. Make something of it instead of cheapskating it and having to pretend everyone is a solo-player!

This “You are the hero” is effectively just lazy MMO design. Can’t do it properly, do it like a single-player RPG, at least you can copy&paste their solution.

You still have yet to address the perfectly legitimate qualitative experience issues I brought up.
It’s all nice and pretty to say “it’s an MMO! so just MAKE it have multilayer story telling”, but you still have to deal with the logistical issue of making that a reality.

“Just refer to the player as a group” isn’t good enough to magic away all the problems.

Zayd Akira.1942:

Didn’t you get enough instanced storytelling via the actual instanced parts?
Not everything needs to have some 5 minute scripted intro with NPCs puking exposition left and right. I feel the mix of instance and open world was pretty fair and balanced in this episode.
If the zergs of 100s of people steamrolling the events weren’t there, i might have actually enjoyed it.
Anet should have planned for that.

How do you plan for “people wanting to do new content”? You can only split people up so much, and you still need them to all touch each piece of content.
There’s also the problem of the events happening independently of the player, causing you to miss things.
Events related to what’s going on is cool. It’d give you something to do on your way to the story instance, keep the world feeling “alive”, contain extra tid-bits of information to discover, and give a source for patch related items to drop. But once again that’s not the best platform to deliver story through.

Katai.6240:

I don’t understand why everyone wants everything to be instanced. It sort of takes away the point of being an MMO, doesn’kitten

Let’s put it in different terms…

You buy GW2 about 6 months to a year from now.

You break out the credit card and get yourself 2000 Gems ($25) and unlock 10 chapters of Living Story Season 2.

Chapters 1 and 2 are ok since those chapters can be completely solo’d.

Now you are on Chapter 3 and you have to do Open World Group Event stuff to progress any further.

NOBODY is playing LS: S2: C3 and trolls just pop up and scale up the events.

You spend another 6 months STUCK on this part.

You paid for Chapters 1 through 10 and you can’t get past chapter 3 because it is Open World Group instead of instanced for solo play.

It is like buying an expansion and getting 20% of the expansion done and not being able to see the rest of what you bought because you NEED other players to help you and they are playing the rest of the game elsewhere. Most likely champ farming in Frostgorge Sound, Kessex Hills, or Edge of the Mists. Or just farming Cursed Shore.

Now you tell me that won’t leave a bad taste in your mouth. Remember, for this example you PAID for the content instead of grinding out the gold to convert to gems and obviously you didn’t log in during the FREE time since you just bought the game AFTER Living Story Season 2 ended.

Carighan.6758:

Arewn.2368:

All it takes is one simple assumption by the player for instanced story telling to make sense. You recognize that your character is the hero and that other players aren’t in your story. It just takes a very brief suspension of disbelief (so to speak).

The problem is that given that I play a genre which’s distinguishing design element is that a nontrivial amount of other players are constantly around me, this is the one assumption you should not ask me to make.

Spacegoats in WoW? Fine.
Lasertech in my fantasy MMO? Fine.
But being the sole hero in a massive-multiplayer game? I wouldn’t be playing the genre in the first place then, would I?

You do realize that the whole setup for Isle of Thunder in MoP is instanced for solo play, right? You also know that the whole text you get in missions is directed a single player aka you, right? In the main in WoW, in DCUO, in TOR, the story is about the player, not huge bunches of players. In fact I’ve seen the bleep fests from the last raid on the Lich King, where an npc rather than players get to land the final blow…

And the screams about Treahane stealing the spotlight from the player?

The whole point of even MMORPGs it to try and make the player feel at the center of the story as much as possible, because it gives connection. It’s a hard balance, but it’s there and it’s needed.

Ravion Hawk.4736:

Katai.6240:

I don’t understand why everyone wants everything to be instanced. It sort of takes away the point of being an MMO, doesn’kitten

Let’s put it in different terms…

You buy GW2 about 6 months to a year from now.

You break out the credit card and get yourself 2000 Gems ($25) and unlock 10 chapters of Living Story Season 2.

Chapters 1 and 2 are ok since those chapters can be completely solo’d.

Now you are on Chapter 3 and you have to do Open World Group Event stuff to progress any further.

NOBODY is playing LS: S2: C3 and trolls just pop up and scale up the events.

You spend another 6 months STUCK on this part.

You paid for Chapters 1 through 10 and you can’t get past chapter 3 because it is Open World Group instead of instanced for solo play.

It is like buying an expansion and getting 20% of the expansion done and not being able to see the rest of what you bought because you NEED other players to help you and they are playing the rest of the game elsewhere. Most likely champ farming in Frostgorge Sound, Kessex Hills, or Edge of the Mists. Or just farming Cursed Shore.

Now you tell me that won’t leave a bad taste in your mouth. Remember, for this example you PAID for the content instead of grinding out the gold to convert to gems and obviously you didn’t log in during the FREE time since you just bought the game AFTER Living Story Season 2 ended.

Its not a bad thing that it cant be soloed. LFG tool is there, they ckittene that, also, not to mention that by the time it is 6 months from now and that person has just bought gw2, add more time for them leveling to 80, surely they would have gotten a guild or a few friends by then that can help you. if not, then like i said, there is LFG.

There are plenty of other MMOs that have “walls” that keep players from progressing past a certain point if they dont find a group and work cooperatively to complete the content that is preventing them from progressing,. it is the nature of an MMO to work with other people. If you dont want to work with other people, then you’re not playing the right genre, go play a single player RPG.

I didn’t like the zerk-content either.

SPOILERS!

When the events didn’t run and you talked to the NPC’s it was just dull:
The wolf: “You just missed it, but it won’t stay down for long.”
Especially the event where you got to save the lumberjacks from the vines. Seriously, the NPC just says that it will happen again, the vines pop out, his men try to cut them, they get trapped, rinse and repeat. He describes it in this way.
Not the slightest hint of imminent danger. Not the slightest hint that anything was achieved.
Wow, you killed that evil monster! Now get lost, there are a thousand other guys waiting for that thing to stand up, dust off and get beaten down again.

Zayd Akira.1942:

Ravion Hawk.4736:

Katai.6240:

I don’t understand why everyone wants everything to be instanced. It sort of takes away the point of being an MMO, doesn’kitten

Let’s put it in different terms…

You buy GW2 about 6 months to a year from now.

You break out the credit card and get yourself 2000 Gems ($25) and unlock 10 chapters of Living Story Season 2.

Chapters 1 and 2 are ok since those chapters can be completely solo’d.

Now you are on Chapter 3 and you have to do Open World Group Event stuff to progress any further.

NOBODY is playing LS: S2: C3 and trolls just pop up and scale up the events.

You spend another 6 months STUCK on this part.

You paid for Chapters 1 through 10 and you can’t get past chapter 3 because it is Open World Group instead of instanced for solo play.

It is like buying an expansion and getting 20% of the expansion done and not being able to see the rest of what you bought because you NEED other players to help you and they are playing the rest of the game elsewhere. Most likely champ farming in Frostgorge Sound, Kessex Hills, or Edge of the Mists. Or just farming Cursed Shore.

Now you tell me that won’t leave a bad taste in your mouth. Remember, for this example you PAID for the content instead of grinding out the gold to convert to gems and obviously you didn’t log in during the FREE time since you just bought the game AFTER Living Story Season 2 ended.

Its not a bad thing that it cant be soloed. LFG tool is there, they can use that, also, not to mention that by the time it is 6 months from now and that person has just bought gw2, add more time for them leveling to 80, surely they would have gotten a guild or a few friends by then that can help you. if not, then like i said, there is LFG.

There are plenty of other MMOs that have “walls” that keep players from progressing past a certain point if they dont find a group and work cooperatively to complete the content that is preventing them from progressing,. it is the nature of an MMO to work with other people. If you dont want to work with other people, then you’re not playing the right genre, go play a single player RPG.

GW2 isn’t other MMOs, and another thing, would you people please stop telling the rest of us how to play the game. It’s insulting.

The concerns are valid, but all these concerns get in response is “go play a single player game.” Yes you can LFG, but by the time the majority of season 2 is past, it’s going to be a lot harder to get a group that’s interested. It’s the same with the PS and the final push on Zhaitan.

I don’t like the “zerg kills everything before I can get to it!” effect, but that’s attributable to the initial rush of interest whenever new content comes out. It’s nice to see existing content get woven into the current LS, but I do agree that having broken/bugged events are inexcusable. The only saving grace of these bugs is that sometimes they draw attention to events or content that have been bugged for ages (e.g. the Slaying potions making you take MORE damage rather than less), resulting in them finally getting fixed.

Ariella Goldstein.3562:

Zayd Akira.1942:

Ravion Hawk.4736:

Katai.6240:

I don’t understand why everyone wants everything to be instanced. It sort of takes away the point of being an MMO, doesn’kitten

Let’s put it in different terms…

You buy GW2 about 6 months to a year from now.

You break out the credit card and get yourself 2000 Gems ($25) and unlock 10 chapters of Living Story Season 2.

Chapters 1 and 2 are ok since those chapters can be completely solo’d.

Now you are on Chapter 3 and you have to do Open World Group Event stuff to progress any further.

NOBODY is playing LS: S2: C3 and trolls just pop up and scale up the events.

You spend another 6 months STUCK on this part.

You paid for Chapters 1 through 10 and you can’t get past chapter 3 because it is Open World Group instead of instanced for solo play.

It is like buying an expansion and getting 20% of the expansion done and not being able to see the rest of what you bought because you NEED other players to help you and they are playing the rest of the game elsewhere. Most likely champ farming in Frostgorge Sound, Kessex Hills, or Edge of the Mists. Or just farming Cursed Shore.

Now you tell me that won’t leave a bad taste in your mouth. Remember, for this example you PAID for the content instead of grinding out the gold to convert to gems and obviously you didn’t log in during the FREE time since you just bought the game AFTER Living Story Season 2 ended.

Its not a bad thing that it cant be soloed. LFG tool is there, they can use that, also, not to mention that by the time it is 6 months from now and that person has just bought gw2, add more time for them leveling to 80, surely they would have gotten a guild or a few friends by then that can help you. if not, then like i said, there is LFG.

There are plenty of other MMOs that have “walls” that keep players from progressing past a certain point if they dont find a group and work cooperatively to complete the content that is preventing them from progressing,. it is the nature of an MMO to work with other people. If you dont want to work with other people, then you’re not playing the right genre, go play a single player RPG.

GW2 isn’t other MMOs, and another thing, would you people please stop telling the rest of us how to play the game. It’s insulting.

The concerns are valid, but all these concerns get in response is “go play a single player game.” Yes you can LFG, but by the time the majority of season 2 is past, it’s going to be a lot harder to get a group that’s interested. It’s the same with the PS and the final push on Zhaitan.

It’s just honest advice. MMORPG has ‘massively multiplayer’ in it for a reason, and its not just so we can stand around in towns and gab. I think its perfectly reasonable to expect that by the time someone is at this stage of the living story, that they have a few friends, and a guild whom can help them out. Heck; its not even that hard to join a guild, there are so many recruiting and many will bend over backwards for you just to get you to join them.

The episode had a good balance between story-driven instanced content, and open world events, and it did it in a way that they were connected to each other. Though the open world events aren’t dependent on the story instances, so people whom haven’t done those story instances can still participate in the events and not feel completely lost.

Were there no glitches, i think the bulk of the complaints would be how zergy it is in open world. (which i agree with, though i admit that the zergs will be gone in a few weeks and it will be pretty sweet).

Zayd Akira.1942:

It’s just honest advice. MMORPG has ‘massively multiplayer’ in it for a reason, and its not just so we can stand around in towns and gab. I think its perfectly reasonable to expect that by the time someone is at this stage of the living story, that they have a few friends, and a guild whom can help them out. Heck; its not even that hard to join a guild, there are so many recruiting and many will bend over backwards for you just to get you to join them.

You do realize that the Guild Wars franchise is supported by the casual gamer that likes to have the Multiplayer option, but normally plays solo due to real life. Not everyone is here to make friends and join guilds.

Enough of that part of the argument though.

You OBVIOUSLY missed what the biggest deal WILL be later on. Paying REAL MONEY to unlock the Living Story parts well after they are over and getting blocked by a World Group Event that can’t be done because no one else wants to do it anymore. Or worse, players “Sell” their groups just like players “Sell” Arah including “Victory or Death” which will in turn upset someone who paid a lot of money for content that can not be played.

How much does that price tag have to be for it to sink in? Make it 20 Living Story chapters and you got roughly the same price tag as an expansion ($50) that you get stopped at the third chapter. That is 85% of roughly an expansion that you paid for that you can’t play.

I have 10 characters WAITING for Arah. And yes I’m upset that I paid for this game to have the last part of the main story gated by a dungeon that gets sold by players which ANet refuses to ban. But if I were to miss $25-$50 worth of Living Story and get stuck 3 chapters in because it can’t be solo’d since no one wants to do it anymore, I’d be FURIOUS!!!

Ravion Hawk.4736:

Zayd Akira.1942:

It’s just honest advice. MMORPG has ‘massively multiplayer’ in it for a reason, and its not just so we can stand around in towns and gab. I think its perfectly reasonable to expect that by the time someone is at this stage of the living story, that they have a few friends, and a guild whom can help them out. Heck; its not even that hard to join a guild, there are so many recruiting and many will bend over backwards for you just to get you to join them.

You do realize that the Guild Wars franchise is supported by the casual gamer that likes to have the Multiplayer option, but normally plays solo due to real life. Not everyone is here to make friends and join guilds.

Enough of that part of the argument though.

You OBVIOUSLY missed what the biggest deal WILL be later on. Paying REAL MONEY to unlock the Living Story parts well after they are over and getting blocked by a World Group Event that can’t be done because no one else wants to do it anymore. Or worse, players “Sell” their groups just like players “Sell” Arah including “Victory or Death” which will in turn upset someone who paid a lot of money for content that can not be played.

How much does that price tag have to be for it to sink in? Make it 20 Living Story chapters and you got roughly the same price tag as an expansion ($50) that you get stopped at the third chapter. That is 85% of roughly an expansion that you paid for that you can’t play.

I have 10 characters WAITING for Arah. And yes I’m upset that I paid for this game to have the last part of the main story gated by a dungeon that gets sold by players which ANet refuses to ban. But if I were to miss $25-$50 worth of Living Story and get stuck 3 chapters in because it can’t be solo’d since no one wants to do it anymore, I’d be FURIOUS!!!

woooaaaahhhh. Calm down, mate. First off, I don’t like your tone :P. I responded pretty calmly and honestly and you just go and ALL CAPS me like this, brah? Calm it.

Next, I feel the argument of content being locked behind a “possible impassable” part in episode 3 of season 2 was answered by my comments about LFG and guilds, but if we must consider the die-hard solo player: They are open world events, they scale to who ever is there. If you are the only one there, i think you can win it. It’ll be difficult, of course, but it is solo-able. That’s the point of the scaling of events in the first place.

And before you even try to say that they’re too hard to solo, you have no proof they are, and neither do i have proof that they aren’t. Only time will tell

Next, you talk about those awful people whom sell dungeon runs for money. I agree, that’s wrong, and they should be banned. But isn’t that point a bit counter to having everything instanced? It would be a lot easier to sell if it were instanced, if you ask me; while in the open world there is still that chance of others walking by and helping out.

If we are so worried about players getting trapped and stuck behind content that is too hard, instead of challenging; then getting rid of the open world sequences isn’t the answer. It doesn’t even have to deal with the same issue.

The events likely scale down enough that soloing them isn’t a problem. But if the only way to get the full enjoyment out of them without the detriments brought by the open world is to wait till no one else is around, then why put them in the open world in the first place? Might as well be instanced.

Carighan.6758:

Arewn.2368:

All it takes is one simple assumption by the player for instanced story telling to make sense. You recognize that your character is the hero and that other players aren’t in your story. It just takes a very brief suspension of disbelief (so to speak).

The problem is that given that I play a genre which’s distinguishing design element is that a nontrivial amount of other players are constantly around me, this is the one assumption you should not ask me to make.

Spacegoats in WoW? Fine.
Lasertech in my fantasy MMO? Fine.
But being the sole hero in a massive-multiplayer game? I wouldn’t be playing the genre in the first place then, would I?

No, you have to see it as, the other 2,000 players are the everyday citizens of tryia, the pact grunt soldiers, or low ranking officers at best; your personal friends and alts, would be other heroes that adventure and acomplish great feats with you; and your primary cbharacter is the main character of the story… otherwise, it doesn’t make sense. Plane and simply, 2000 people can’t all kill scarlet, they can all join in to fight her army and corner her, but in the end, inly one person can delivor the final blow, and that’s the main character, the hero, you. It is impossible to create a narritive in which there is no main character, but 2000 people are given equal footing, it would be pure chaos and not resemble a story in the slightest.

I have no problem with the Open World Events inside the story. It gives you the sense that there is a larger world moving around you and its not just you running around. I am a little worried about the event scaling in the Iron Marches, but the events everywhere else are quite easy to do alone. I have soloed the event chain in Frostgorge Sound before, and its kind of easy when there’s only 3-5 veterans instead of 3-5 champions scaled to 100+ players. Those 4-5 vigil guys are still useless because they aren’t even half as strong as a regular player, but its still doable with 1 person.

I also have no problem with the single player focused instances. It gives you a chance to breath and play the game for awhile instead of pressing 1 to win, like in those open world events. And besides, wasn’t the game heavily advertised with a single player only personal story, something that is so rarely done in MMO’s? Why would they get rid of that? Its one of the reasons that many people bought this game.

I actually think it is nice to have a mix of instanced and open world play, as it tailors to more players wants, giving them a chance to present to us a balanced flow of solo player and multiplayer content. With this, those who love big open world events that require couperation and organization like the twisted marionete, and those who enjoy soloing, or prefer playing with their guild or small group of friends can all be appeased. certainly, not every event/instance will be for everyone, but by mixing it up like this they can meet a variety of player preferences.

I look forward to a living story that bounces back and forth between:
-solo~party of five (based on player preference) instances
-open world events that can be soloed or completed by a small group, but scale up in dificulty with more players
-massive multiplayer group events that require numerous players and firm couperation
-dungeons

If the group events become impossible to regularly get past in a few months, ArenaNet will fix them, much like they rebalanced the personal story in places soon after release. Since these episodes now persist, they pretty much have to do that.

Sky not falling yet!

In general the open-world stages seemed like an interesting idea, but had enough problems I’m not sure they were worth it – I kind of had the opposite problem – multiple stages where I basically didn’t have to do anything because I got there just after the event had already been cleared. Walk up, click, oh, looks like I get credit, next objective. Including the Sons of Svanir event – pretty much strolled into an empty camp, vandalized a totem, saw the instance indicator pop up, proceeded to get a “see I knew you could do it by yourself!” from Eir. Kind of funny after meeting about as much resistance as a trip to Safeway.

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

and that’s the main character, the hero, you. It is impossible to create a narritive in which there is no main character, but 2000 people are given equal footing, it would be pure chaos and not resemble a story in the slightest.

Yes, but what I question is why there is need to create the illusions that I am this hero?
Because that in turn adds the difficulty of making everyone think they’re the hero, and that sounds mighty stupid as soon as you group up.

While I didn’t like Trahearne much for reasons of his VO and cheesy dialogue, I saw nothing wrong with letting a NPC be the hero. It’s a pretty nifty idea. Removes the need to have all this hero-illusion bloat just to pretend you’re a single-player RPG.

Simple: We’re a group~battalion of adventurers. For purposes of needing a singular character for say, a killing blow, have a known and established NPC do that.
It’s pretty easy. The issue with Trahearne really wasn’t the idea, just the execution. Tree-horn was a terrible character. The dialogue was really bad, the voice acting was spotty at best and to non-sylvari he was never introduced. But the concept still worked, so I’m stumped why they’d abandon it.

Well, except ofc the endless whine on the forums how they could dare to not make each PC their own little-mind-world hero

Zayd Akira.1942:

Ariella Goldstein.3562:

Zayd Akira.1942:

Ravion Hawk.4736:

Katai.6240:

I don’t understand why everyone wants everything to be instanced. It sort of takes away the point of being an MMO, doesn’kitten

Let’s put it in different terms…

You buy GW2 about 6 months to a year from now.

You break out the credit card and get yourself 2000 Gems ($25) and unlock 10 chapters of Living Story Season 2.

Chapters 1 and 2 are ok since those chapters can be completely solo’d.

Now you are on Chapter 3 and you have to do Open World Group Event stuff to progress any further.

NOBODY is playing LS: S2: C3 and trolls just pop up and scale up the events.

You spend another 6 months STUCK on this part.

You paid for Chapters 1 through 10 and you can’t get past chapter 3 because it is Open World Group instead of instanced for solo play.

It is like buying an expansion and getting 20% of the expansion done and not being able to see the rest of what you bought because you NEED other players to help you and they are playing the rest of the game elsewhere. Most likely champ farming in Frostgorge Sound, Kessex Hills, or Edge of the Mists. Or just farming Cursed Shore.

Now you tell me that won’t leave a bad taste in your mouth. Remember, for this example you PAID for the content instead of grinding out the gold to convert to gems and obviously you didn’t log in during the FREE time since you just bought the game AFTER Living Story Season 2 ended.

Its not a bad thing that it cant be soloed. LFG tool is there, they can use that, also, not to mention that by the time it is 6 months from now and that person has just bought gw2, add more time for them leveling to 80, surely they would have gotten a guild or a few friends by then that can help you. if not, then like i said, there is LFG.

There are plenty of other MMOs that have “walls” that keep players from progressing past a certain point if they dont find a group and work cooperatively to complete the content that is preventing them from progressing,. it is the nature of an MMO to work with other people. If you dont want to work with other people, then you’re not playing the right genre, go play a single player RPG.

GW2 isn’t other MMOs, and another thing, would you people please stop telling the rest of us how to play the game. It’s insulting.

The concerns are valid, but all these concerns get in response is “go play a single player game.” Yes you can LFG, but by the time the majority of season 2 is past, it’s going to be a lot harder to get a group that’s interested. It’s the same with the PS and the final push on Zhaitan.

It’s just honest advice. MMORPG has ‘massively multiplayer’ in it for a reason, and its not just so we can stand around in towns and gab. I think its perfectly reasonable to expect that by the time someone is at this stage of the living story, that they have a few friends, and a guild whom can help them out. Heck; its not even that hard to join a guild, there are so many recruiting and many will bend over backwards for you just to get you to join them.

The episode had a good balance between story-driven instanced content, and open world events, and it did it in a way that they were connected to each other. Though the open world events aren’t dependent on the story instances, so people whom haven’t done those story instances can still participate in the events and not feel completely lost.

Were there no glitches, i think the bulk of the complaints would be how zergy it is in open world. (which i agree with, though i admit that the zergs will be gone in a few weeks and it will be pretty sweet).

It’s also an rpg, which means you should be able to play as fits your character. Telling someone to “go play a single player” isn’t good advice or even honest advice. It’s just a semi polite way of telling people who see things differently that they can’t hack YOUR gamestyle.