Orr: Over a year later and still unchanged

Orr: Over a year later and still unchanged

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Posted by: Devildoc.6721

Devildoc.6721

Why isn’t Orr phased between a version of the land that exists for people who have completed the main story and a version for people who have completed it?

It doesn’t feel much like a “living world” when you’ve killed Zhaitan and cleansed the source of Orr over a year and a half ago, and yet the land remains the same: crawling with Zhaitan’s minions?

It’s also not the hot end game open world zone anymore, it’s pretty much dead as a zone, very few people do the cathedral events anymore, the camps are always contested and the waypoints inaccessible throughout the zone. It’s 3 zones designed to have zergs running through it round the clock but those zergs have dissipated.

Orr needs a redesign for those who have completed the story that #1. Addresses the facts at the end of the story and reflect that, and #2. Either bring the crowds back to Orr to keep it functional, or altering the zones to be functional with fewer people.

Zapp – 80 Asura Afromancer

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Posted by: ShibVicious.9681

ShibVicious.9681

When you bare in mind that they didn’t (I assume were unable to) even keep a undestroyed version of LA running alongside this LS version, for the story instances that take place in it, the idea of them running 2 different versions of Orr at the same time (especially as it’s larger and so much more goes on there) doesn’t seem feasible.

Also how would they implement this? If my Orr maps are different because I’ve finished the story on my character, then I wouldn’t be able to play in the same Orr maps with friends that haven’t finished the story. It’s not like they’d instance the 3 maps that make up Orr.

If they could find a way to do it, I’d love that, as it does annoy me some what that even though I teared through Zhaitans armies and went on to kill him there are swarms of risen controlling the place. But theres no way (I can think of) in which they can do this whilst keeping it accessible to everyone.

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Posted by: Devildoc.6721

Devildoc.6721

When you bare in mind that they didn’t (I assume were unable to) even keep a undestroyed version of LA running alongside this LS version, for the story instances that take place in it, the idea of them running 2 different versions of Orr at the same time (especially as it’s larger and so much more goes on there) doesn’t seem feasible.

Also how would they implement this? If my Orr maps are different because I’ve finished the story on my character, then I wouldn’t be able to play in the same Orr maps with friends that haven’t finished the story. It’s not like they’d instance the 3 maps that make up Orr.

If they could find a way to do it, I’d love that, as it does annoy me some what that even though I teared through Zhaitans armies and went on to kill him there are swarms of risen controlling the place. But theres no way (I can think of) in which they can do this whilst keeping it accessible to everyone.

Guild Wars 1 did it, there were 2 versions of Cantha, before the Afflicted were purged and after.

Zapp – 80 Asura Afromancer

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Posted by: Levelord.5746

Levelord.5746

When you bare in mind that they didn’t (I assume were unable to) even keep a undestroyed version of LA running alongside this LS version, for the story instances that take place in it, the idea of them running 2 different versions of Orr at the same time (especially as it’s larger and so much more goes on there) doesn’t seem feasible.

Also how would they implement this? If my Orr maps are different because I’ve finished the story on my character, then I wouldn’t be able to play in the same Orr maps with friends that haven’t finished the story. It’s not like they’d instance the 3 maps that make up Orr.

If they could find a way to do it, I’d love that, as it does annoy me some what that even though I teared through Zhaitans armies and went on to kill him there are swarms of risen controlling the place. But theres no way (I can think of) in which they can do this whilst keeping it accessible to everyone.

Guild Wars 1 did it, there were 2 versions of Cantha, before the Afflicted were purged and after.

Check and mate.

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Posted by: ShibVicious.9681

ShibVicious.9681

Guild Wars 1 was instanced -_-
Guild Wars 2 is not.

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Posted by: bullyrook.2165

bullyrook.2165

here is a good question: should Orr be given back to humanity? It was something of a draw between the Charr and human when it came to Orr.

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Posted by: Devildoc.6721

Devildoc.6721

Guild Wars 1 was instanced -_-
Guild Wars 2 is not.

GW2 is also instanced. The instances are persistant, but it is instanced, with a loading screen between zones, all you have to do is build a version of Orr not populated by dead, and possibly more solo/small group oriented rather than zerg oriented, when a player loads into one of those 3 zones, it will be dependent on whether they’ve completed the story or not which version of the zone they go to.

Possibly you can make an NPC that allows you to travel to the old version of Orr similarly to how you can talk to an NPC to let you revisit the old version of Cantha in GW1.

Either way, I go mining in Orr every day and I just think to myself.. Zhaitan is dead, why do I still see so many undead? Why is Orr still corrupt and uninhabitable?

Zapp – 80 Asura Afromancer

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Posted by: Jinn Kazuma.2163

Jinn Kazuma.2163

I kind of feel like we are underestimating just how corrupted Orr is. Sure we reversed the continuing corruption. But Zhaitan (the lore version, not the actual in game version) was immensely powerful and one would assume the corruption at the heart of his domain runs deep. For all we know, it could take anywhere from a week, to a hundred years to become habitable again. As for the undead, just remember how many thousands he threw at us and how many we found in Orr. The undead will likely linger on for awhile, especially while who knows how many of his lieutenants are still out there.

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Posted by: Lyanna.9875

Lyanna.9875

I kind of feel like we are underestimating just how corrupted Orr is. Sure we reversed the continuing corruption. But Zhaitan (the lore version, not the actual in game version) was immensely powerful and one would assume the corruption at the heart of his domain runs deep. For all we know, it could take anywhere from a week, to a hundred years to become habitable again. As for the undead, just remember how many thousands he threw at us and how many we found in Orr. The undead will likely linger on for awhile, especially while who knows how many of his lieutenants are still out there.

Yes but i think only Zhaitan could create them not his lieutenants. So we should be able to see a decreasing on the number of undead…
Also we should be able to see some change… At least near the site where we uncleansed Orr with Trahearne.

I totally agree with the op on this. It is possible, also for the problem of LA in personal story.

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Posted by: Randall.7306

Randall.7306

It’s a complex problem. Dividing the zone in instances for personal story completed/personal story uncompleted characters may provoke both zones to be deserted.

Living Story could be used, making a chain of LS events dedicated to Orr reconstruction, with events tied to different races/Orders claims over zones, fortress, resources… main problem here is that those LS events would be opened and accessible (or logic) to characters who completed the Personal Story.

I’d think there could be a rethink of the zones. The zone could be closed to all characters who didn’t completed the PS, changing it for instanced versions to fit in the PS events. After Zhaitan is defeated, those players should be able to access the zones in the “new” state: Rebuild.

There could be shortcuts to allow alts to skip the whole PS, something similar to the items that allow to level up to level 20. The shortcut could be something you buy ingame or a (instanced) mission with cinematics that explain the whole affair.

So, a big % of players could play a whole LS season in which Orr is being reconquested, still dangerous of course, but not as annoying as in it’s current state. There should be some previous announcements in order to encourage people to finish their PS, and then some changes in the PS itself, like a new “path” or something that derives from the original, but not sure how this can be done.

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Posted by: Devildoc.6721

Devildoc.6721

I kind of feel like we are underestimating just how corrupted Orr is. Sure we reversed the continuing corruption. But Zhaitan (the lore version, not the actual in game version) was immensely powerful and one would assume the corruption at the heart of his domain runs deep. For all we know, it could take anywhere from a week, to a hundred years to become habitable again. As for the undead, just remember how many thousands he threw at us and how many we found in Orr. The undead will likely linger on for awhile, especially while who knows how many of his lieutenants are still out there.

That’s a cop out and you know it.

This game was heralded to have lasting change based on player actions. This is one of the biggest character actions in the game and there is no change that derives from it. Even taking the cathedral events replaces the undead with spirit creatures for awhile until the event cycle starts again. Surely killing Zhaitan A YEAR AGO (I guess since nobody else is using spoilers there’s no point spoilering) has an effect on the world.

Zapp – 80 Asura Afromancer

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Posted by: Windwalker.2047

Windwalker.2047

The scepter of Orr is still out there with Livia and she controlling the undead and the new and improved tequatl. In other words:
THERE MUST ALWAYS BE A LICH KING!

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Posted by: Devildoc.6721

Devildoc.6721

The scepter of Orr is still out there with Livia and she controlling the undead and the new and improved tequatl. In other words:
THERE MUST ALWAYS BE A LICH KING!

Come on now, you know they won’t tie it into something from GW1. Guild Wars 2 Devs have done their kitten dest to separate the game from GW1 as much as possible so they pretty much share the same game name, same world name, and some of the same locales but that’s about it.

Zapp – 80 Asura Afromancer

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Posted by: Naetell.3815

Naetell.3815

The game currently doesn’t have the framework available to make this happen. It’s one of the major things the developers have to work on behind the scenes. Worst is, once it’s finished most people won’t even notice the difference despite the year(s) of work that will have gone into it because it is a supporting system.
If you’ve been paying close attention to the game client’s behaviour, you can already notice some of these changes to the engine, but they’re very subtle.

It’s probably the least rewarding programming job between the different teams working at Arenanet in terms of player gratitude.

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Posted by: Stooperdale.3560

Stooperdale.3560

“Why isn’t Orr phased between a version of the land that exists for people who have completed the main story and a version for people who have completed it?”

It’s so that friends can play together regardless of their completion of the story. That’s an excellent reason for Orr to stay as it is. It’s far more important than Orr not feeling right to experienced players. MMO players get repeatable content by repeating stories and repeating zones.

Orr had the original end games zones when the game was released and new players passing through the zone would pass through the war with experienced players running events. That was fine as an idea but the rewards and events have been (clumsily) reworked and the endgame players are in Queensdale killing champions instead.

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Posted by: Master Yi.6129

Master Yi.6129

Just an extra fact here: LS hasn’t touched Orr. At all. In fact, The only changes it had were the loot buffs and nerfs that revived, then killed all interest in Orr.

As for a “cleansed Orr”, it will never happen. Zhaitan isn’t dead (he clearly faked his death; he died too easy in that scene), teq’s rising proves that the risen are regaining its strength (or something), and Orr will never change. Why? 5 answers: Balthazar, Dwayna, Melandru, Lyssa, and Grenth. These are meta events that the most loyal of players visit daily.

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Posted by: DarcShriek.5829

DarcShriek.5829

When you bare in mind that they didn’t (I assume were unable to) even keep a undestroyed version of LA running alongside this LS version, for the story instances that take place in it, the idea of them running 2 different versions of Orr at the same time (especially as it’s larger and so much more goes on there) doesn’t seem feasible.

Also how would they implement this? If my Orr maps are different because I’ve finished the story on my character, then I wouldn’t be able to play in the same Orr maps with friends that haven’t finished the story. It’s not like they’d instance the 3 maps that make up Orr.

If they could find a way to do it, I’d love that, as it does annoy me some what that even though I teared through Zhaitans armies and went on to kill him there are swarms of risen controlling the place. But theres no way (I can think of) in which they can do this whilst keeping it accessible to everyone.

Guild Wars 1 did it, there were 2 versions of Cantha, before the Afflicted were purged and after.

Check and mate.

It only took six years to come up with the second version of Cantha.

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Posted by: SlothBear.9846

SlothBear.9846

As for a “cleansed Orr”, it will never happen. Zhaitan isn’t dead (he clearly faked his death; he died too easy in that scene), teq’s rising proves that the risen are regaining its strength (or something), and Orr will never change. Why? 5 answers: Balthazar, Dwayna, Melandru, Lyssa, and Grenth. These are meta events that the most loyal of players visit daily.

This is actually the perfect band aid. Make an LS update with “oh hey we found Zhaitan, he’s still sorta hanging on there, let’s go finish him off.” And then Orr gets all pretty. As for the events, just make them attacks being led by remnants of Zhaitan’s forces. Or like…quaggans or pirates or quaggan pirates or something. Doesn’t really matter what the enemies look like players just want the loot.

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Posted by: Imperios.2543

Imperios.2543

Even my four year old sister commented on that.

“We killed the main zombie dragon, why are there still zombies?”

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Posted by: Jimmy JimBob.2801

Jimmy JimBob.2801

My understanding is the LS and PS are running at pretty similar time periods? Hence LA changing during the PS quests.

To me therefore there should be a complete cut off with the PS and LS season 2. Whatever happens in that living story doesnt effect the PS and instanced maps frozen in time can be accessed for PS if the map is changed by the next LS updates. This would allow us to see what work the reformed Destiny’s Edge and everyone’s favourite Sylvari are doing post Zhaitan. I’m assuming the latter is helping to cleanse Orr, while DE go off on their dragon slaying adventures.
An idea I had which could allow this to happen is for Anet to realease a complete paid expansion with the start of the LS season 2. The expansion could deal with DE who go off and fight one dragon with a brand new PS system. This would replace the old one and all new characters created once this expansion has been bought would start on this new storyline. The way the level scaling works means it wouldn’t be a problem for those already at level 80, they could just skip the 0-20 quests. This would allow us to see changes to Orr as the corruption there fades/is cleansed.

It is of course purely academic as I imagine if we were to see a new expansion anytime soon it would have been announced formerly rather than just hinted at

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Posted by: Silvercyclone.1462

Silvercyclone.1462

I kind of feel like we are underestimating just how corrupted Orr is. Sure we reversed the continuing corruption. But Zhaitan (the lore version, not the actual in game version) was immensely powerful and one would assume the corruption at the heart of his domain runs deep. For all we know, it could take anywhere from a week, to a hundred years to become habitable again. As for the undead, just remember how many thousands he threw at us and how many we found in Orr. The undead will likely linger on for awhile, especially while who knows how many of his lieutenants are still out there.

Yes but i think only Zhaitan could create them not his lieutenants. So we should be able to see a decreasing on the number of undead…
Also we should be able to see some change… At least near the site where we uncleansed Orr with Trahearne.

I totally agree with the op on this. It is possible, also for the problem of LA in personal story.

Actually in the personal story “Ossuary of the Unquiet Dead” it shows his lieutenanants can create undead. also in GW1 Svanir wasnt created by Jormag but Drakkar.

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Posted by: Brother Dulfite.5793

Brother Dulfite.5793

Maybe it’s because we didn’t actually KILL the dragon. Or maybe it’s because just because you kill the dragon doesn’t mean you eliminate it’s power. When we killed Abaddon, someone else had to take up his power. Maybe it’s the same with the dragon and there is a new lord of the undead?

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Posted by: Aeolus.3615

Aeolus.3615

here is a good question: should Orr be given back to humanity? It was something of a draw between the Charr and human when it came to Orr.

Wait for the sylvari dragon, catch it and transport to Orr, problem solved.

1st April joke, when gw2 receives a “balance” update.

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Posted by: bullyrook.2165

bullyrook.2165

lol good idea, sort of…

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Posted by: SlothBear.9846

SlothBear.9846

My understanding is the LS and PS are running at pretty similar time periods? Hence LA changing during the PS quests.

No, all the LS stuff occurs after the PS.

So after we heroically struggled to defend and retake lion’s arch and tracked down the guy who did it and killed him in his home some dumb GMNPC just shows up and wrecks it all anyway.

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Posted by: Devildoc.6721

Devildoc.6721

When you bare in mind that they didn’t (I assume were unable to) even keep a undestroyed version of LA running alongside this LS version, for the story instances that take place in it, the idea of them running 2 different versions of Orr at the same time (especially as it’s larger and so much more goes on there) doesn’t seem feasible.

Also how would they implement this? If my Orr maps are different because I’ve finished the story on my character, then I wouldn’t be able to play in the same Orr maps with friends that haven’t finished the story. It’s not like they’d instance the 3 maps that make up Orr.

If they could find a way to do it, I’d love that, as it does annoy me some what that even though I teared through Zhaitans armies and went on to kill him there are swarms of risen controlling the place. But theres no way (I can think of) in which they can do this whilst keeping it accessible to everyone.

Guild Wars 1 did it, there were 2 versions of Cantha, before the Afflicted were purged and after.

Check and mate.

It only took six years to come up with the second version of Cantha.

That’s because it took 6 years to actually have a purge of afflicted.

Zapp – 80 Asura Afromancer

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Posted by: LanfearShadowflame.3189

LanfearShadowflame.3189

When you bare in mind that they didn’t (I assume were unable to) even keep a undestroyed version of LA running alongside this LS version, for the story instances that take place in it, the idea of them running 2 different versions of Orr at the same time (especially as it’s larger and so much more goes on there) doesn’t seem feasible.

Also how would they implement this? If my Orr maps are different because I’ve finished the story on my character, then I wouldn’t be able to play in the same Orr maps with friends that haven’t finished the story. It’s not like they’d instance the 3 maps that make up Orr.

If they could find a way to do it, I’d love that, as it does annoy me some what that even though I teared through Zhaitans armies and went on to kill him there are swarms of risen controlling the place. But theres no way (I can think of) in which they can do this whilst keeping it accessible to everyone.

Guild Wars 1 did it, there were 2 versions of Cantha, before the Afflicted were purged and after.

Someone already mentioned that GW1 was completely instanced (so much more so than GW2)

I’d also like to point out that this change did not happen until GW:Beyond was introduced. Specifially the 3rd arc: Winds of Change. In 2011…

In other words…. give ’em time. Maybe it will take a few years before the cleansing of the Source has any effect in Orr.

Don’t look at me like that. Whatever you’ve heard, it’s probably not true.

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Posted by: Paraka.9724

Paraka.9724

Either way, I go mining in Orr every day and I just think to myself.. Zhaitan is dead, why do I still see so many undead? Why is Orr still corrupt and uninhabitable?

Just cause a certain dragon no longer exists doesn’t mean all undead Risen grow wing and flutter away to the stars and the land grows increasingly green over night. Hell I wouldn’t say a year would mend that zone in the slightest. Pretty sure the undead will still carry out their master’s will without him, they ARE mindless drones, after all.

Though, there should be signs of EFFORTS being made to cleanse it. A fort stronghold build with new events of cleansing. somewhere. Just a small sign.

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Posted by: kgptzac.8419

kgptzac.8419

If you’ve been paying close attention to the game client’s behaviour, you can already notice some of these changes to the engine, but they’re very subtle.

It’s probably the least rewarding programming job between the different teams working at Arenanet in terms of player gratitude.

What about these subtle changes and how do you know it’s there? I still remember having a good laugh at Tybalt and his apple stand in the invaded version of LA.

a shard of crystal in the desert.

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Posted by: Xillllix.3485

Xillllix.3485

Orr was at its best when people were farming champs in events, before the nerf. It felt alive, there were tons of players all over the place. Now it’s empty, beside for people doing map completion or temples.

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Posted by: Johnny Boi.4980

Johnny Boi.4980

Just came up with this idea off the top of my head, but maybe there could be different large instances of the same map (so all of Tyria that we have accessible) and maybe ANet could create 2 or 3 clones of it, in which you can choose which one to enter upon selecting your character. One being pre living story, so for personal story and new players, then one for season 1 where it remains as it did at the end of its LS – and another for season 2 (then 3, 4 and so on)? That way large scale changes could be made to each story map w/o effecting the newer players. As well as players in each season map could potentially re-live iconic parts of that specific living story event, for each of the seasons’ maps. And maybe (or maybe not, depends) there could be restrictions. i.e. Finish personal story before entering season 1 world or whatnot.

Keep in mind veterans could go back in maps to help newer players, or play casually & explore or RP or etc. with friends. Or even just go back to re-live a favourite moment from one of the last seasons.

(edited by Johnny Boi.4980)

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Posted by: CaptainVanguard.4925

CaptainVanguard.4925

I do agree that the idea of having a restored Orr could be do-able, what I personally feel they should do is like Lions Arch, permanently alter the shape and face of Orr with new permanent safe zones when before it wasn’t so safe.

Essentially this could lead to adding heart quests to Orr for the first time, giving it some extra end game accessibility.

We could also see “some” patches of restored Orr where the encrustation around the architecture has been cleaned off and polished to restore it to its original glory.

However, I would believe that even with Zhaitan’s death there are probably quite a number of undead still left to destroy.

Have a few small towns established by the pact, with maybe one “major” area being fort trinity, rebuilt and expanded into a solid dependable garrison with some refugee wards for the natives.

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Posted by: Camarell.5648

Camarell.5648

Dont forget that we allready did get “some” evidence of Orr cleansing. After the devs officially told that zhaitan was defeated they cut the risen population in Orr significantly. I will never forget first few months i played my PS in Orr and it was impossible to run around in Orr without engaging Risens, and when u killed one, more spawned like five sec later :P.

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Posted by: Retsuko.2035

Retsuko.2035

I’d love to see orr getting updated with signs that orr is being cleansed from zhaitan’s corruption. I’m sure gw2 can make a new updated map of orr, accessible to those who finished the personal story line. Just like in GW1, it should be an area that you only get access to by finishing content. Of course, Arah dungeon is accessible from both cursed shore maps.

Retsu ~ Inner Monkey [IM] ~ Piken Square

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Posted by: Will.6210

Will.6210

I did some PS on an alt the other day, involving joining the Order of Whispers. I thought it was interesting that I was meeting my secret contact in the smoldering ruins of Lion’s Arch, with unnamed citizens wandering around the debris like nothing happened. I’d wager that’s confusing for new players.