Guild Wars 2

Living Story Season 2 is approaching and after looking at the aftermath of Living Story Season 1 and how little permanent content was really added over the period of 18 months, and providing much criticism for this, I think we should all hold very high standards for Anet in Season 2.

Obviously the biggest flub of Season 1 was the joke of temporary content. The amount of permanent content added to the game in 20 months of being released is below MMO standards. Personally I am expecting new zones, new modes for spvp and perhaps an entirely new mode all together, new weapons, new dungeons and perhaps a new type of PVE content kind of how guild missions were new but something that is more endgamish. An expansion on fractals would also be nice. I don’t expect a new race though :P

To be honest none of these expectations are high for MMO standards for how long the game has been out, it just feels like that because Arena Net has promised so much “big” content in the past with so much hype that it turns out to be disappointing.

I agree to a certain extent.

While I don’t mind temporary content – since I think they Work well from a story-telling perspective – they should always bring something permanent to the game that isn’t just skins.

For example:

I wouldn’t mind another Molten Facility type of dungeon, where it ends up being shut Down or destroyed as the players complete it.

However it would be nice if new weapons or skills were introduced with it. So while the area itself is temporary, we will now permanentl have, trait skills, new abilities and gameplay mechanics always Associated with that patch.

On a more permanent note – I would like to see 1-2 new permanent dungeons and of course new zones – complete with Vistas, Waypoints and Renown Hearts.

If Mordremoth is hiding somewhere in the Maguuma Wastes for example, I would love to see a Living Story patch once per 1-2 months – but a new zone is permanently added to the game in that area each subsequent time.

I’m not sure how constantly adding permanent content affects the game system though. Would having more zones increase the amount of assets ANet needs to run the game smoothly (more servers = more cost, etc)? Though it’d be really nice to visit the Bazaar of the Four Winds again – I think it’s such a pity that the devs put in so much hard work to get a zone up and running and have to scrap it two weeks later.

And I believe ANet’s reasoning behind it was to make sure there wouldn’t be too many dungeons available – imagine if you wanted to do a Living World dungeon but couldn’t get a PUG to join you because the amount of players wanting to do the same dungeon would be spread thin?

I think the biggest let down was the story. Its finished now and I don’t feel anything when I think back on it. It was just – bland.

I have high expectations now though. If its more of the same I can’t see myself playing for much longer.

I’m hoping that Mordremoth is NOT part of the living story and actually part of an expansion to the personal story. It would be a waste to have one of the main dragons as temporary content, this is my biggest fear moving forward.

That aside, I have super high standards/expectations for this next LS. It seems as if ANet were learning from their mistakes since it started. We all remember the Signs and Posts adventure… They’ve improved in event design and even cinematics since then.

I hove high hopes too but also even bigger concerns.
There is a reason why the game is like it is.

-For any reason they took out the deeper experience of GW1.
Every Race, every class is the same. A Charr ranger has same skills or stats like a sylvary ranger as example.
A Necromancer is doing similar damage to a warrior and a warrior is doing similar condition as a necromancer.
Everything is the same. You just take the look of a character you like and play exactly the same as every other class would. They just dummed it down.
I’m not really sure why they did that

-But even more important that leads to the developers are not forced to create something special. With most events in LS1 i thought to my self, you could even use a black block as monster in a white room without landscape or anything and the game experience wouldn’t change. Most people wouldn’t even notice it.

-What i try to say is as soon as they give players the tools to be creative they have to match the creativity. And honestly this is why i have huge concernes that nothing changes.

Don’t wanna bore people with GW1 here but there are great examples….

-The big Jellyfish to open the Jade Sea.
You needed planning to beat it. You needed to interrupt it at some point to make it possible to defeat it.So you needed A- at least one interrupter B- someone to slower his ability charge C- someone to keep the minions off…………….
This fight was incredible entertaining and led to awesome game experience.
If you just took a big jellyfish and a horde warriors were just banging the sword against it for 15 minutes would totally destroy this experience

-The Lava Worm under Eye of the North
There was nothing like direct damage, you had to carry explosives while surrounded by fire….. again, this led to people making different builds because it was needed
and again you had an awesome gaming experience.

To make it short… this is where the problem is.
They took the options away to create a role with matching weapons, armor, skills to chose from.
This leads to a bunch of people standing in front of a boss, pressing button 2
and hope for the best.
The only thing A-Net does is to include a 15 min timer to beat to pretend there is any skill or pressure involved.

I honestly don’t see this way is changing somehow because the basics are not given

Just my 2 cents

SkylightMoon.1980:

Living Story Season 2 is approaching and after looking at the aftermath of Living Story Season 1 and how little permanent content was really added over the period of 18 months, and providing much criticism for this, I think we should all hold very high standards for Anet in Season 2.

Obviously the biggest flub of Season 1 was the joke of temporary content. The amount of permanent content added to the game in 20 months of being released is below MMO standards. Personally I am expecting new zones, new modes for spvp and perhaps an entirely new mode all together, new weapons, new dungeons and perhaps a new type of PVE content kind of how guild missions were new but something that is more endgamish. An expansion on fractals would also be nice. I don’t expect a new race though :P

To be honest none of these expectations are high for MMO standards for how long the game has been out, it just feels like that because Arena Net has promised so much “big” content in the past with so much hype that it turns out to be disappointing.

i think they’re working on something big, like a time machine made by asuras to revisit all old content

to tell the truth might as well keep expectation low otherwise you get ticked off. i expect a little better then last ls season. hopefully an area or two. keep the expectations low so your happy when its better then what came but not disappointed when it doesnt live up to what you expected

Shpongle.6025:

SkylightMoon.1980:

Living Story Season 2 is approaching and after looking at the aftermath of Living Story Season 1 and how little permanent content was really added over the period of 18 months, and providing much criticism for this, I think we should all hold very high standards for Anet in Season 2.

Obviously the biggest flub of Season 1 was the joke of temporary content. The amount of permanent content added to the game in 20 months of being released is below MMO standards. Personally I am expecting new zones, new modes for spvp and perhaps an entirely new mode all together, new weapons, new dungeons and perhaps a new type of PVE content kind of how guild missions were new but something that is more endgamish. An expansion on fractals would also be nice. I don’t expect a new race though :P

To be honest none of these expectations are high for MMO standards for how long the game has been out, it just feels like that because Arena Net has promised so much “big” content in the past with so much hype that it turns out to be disappointing.

i think they’re working on something big, like a time machine made by asuras to revisit all old content

Ive made this exact same suggestion as before. Just expand on the current fractals system to let players go back in time to all previous events.

Heraldusluminare.2946:

I’m not sure how constantly adding permanent content affects the game system though. Would having more zones increase the amount of assets ANet needs to run the game smoothly (more servers = more cost, etc)? Though it’d be really nice to visit the Bazaar of the Four Winds again – I think it’s such a pity that the devs put in so much hard work to get a zone up and running and have to scrap it two weeks later.

And I believe ANet’s reasoning behind it was to make sure there wouldn’t be too many dungeons available – imagine if you wanted to do a Living World dungeon but couldn’t get a PUG to join you because the amount of players wanting to do the same dungeon would be spread thin?

Thats generally Anets hesitance with expanding their world, because they think it will thin out the population. The megaserver will help this problem, but at the same time putting so much temporary content has already lost them players, oh the irony.

In terms of dungeons, its already hard sometimes to find a group for a certain path in lfg, which is why people join PVE guilds to do dungeons with. I honestly doubt adding another 3 dungeons with 3 paths each in them will make a difference.

Again Anet is being cowardly because they fear they will fall into the same trap they did in gw1 with spreading the playerbase, but what they’ve done so far has already alienated certain players.

Personally, I’m sitting on the fence right now. I (as MANY other people have) have waited years for this game to be worthy successor of GW1.

First the story in LS1 simply sucked. It wasn’t interesting or even logical to any extent, though it did improve a little towards the end. As a huge lore fan I felt a big blow to my interest in the game.

Now the Megaservers practically killed my interest in RP. In any other game it would mean an autoquit reaction. However since I am a huge fan of GW1 (can’t say I’m a fan of GW2 anymore, though I want to be!) I’m waiting for LS2, and if the story will be similarly reta… lackluster, then it’s good bye for me. Yes you can have my stuff :P.

I don’t care about new zones, races, or whatnot, as long as the story is good, and I can enjoy roleplay. If it isn’t, then well, plenty of fish in the sea.

i really want to be enthusiastic about this game, but after nearly two years with all things considered, i can’t bring myself to hold high expectations.. they might as well release guildwars3 or come up with an entirely new standard..
someone said to me the other day “good luck with mordremoth, or whatever”
it wasn’t sarcasm, they simply know i play this game.. and now that i think about it, arena net is going to have to deliver “or whatever” if they want to meet industry standards

SkylightMoon.1980:

Heraldusluminare.2946:

I’m not sure how constantly adding permanent content affects the game system though. Would having more zones increase the amount of assets ANet needs to run the game smoothly (more servers = more cost, etc)? Though it’d be really nice to visit the Bazaar of the Four Winds again – I think it’s such a pity that the devs put in so much hard work to get a zone up and running and have to scrap it two weeks later.

And I believe ANet’s reasoning behind it was to make sure there wouldn’t be too many dungeons available – imagine if you wanted to do a Living World dungeon but couldn’t get a PUG to join you because the amount of players wanting to do the same dungeon would be spread thin?

Thats generally Anets hesitance with expanding their world, because they think it will thin out the population. The megaserver will help this problem, but at the same time putting so much temporary content has already lost them players, oh the irony.

In terms of dungeons, its already hard sometimes to find a group for a certain path in lfg, which is why people join PVE guilds to do dungeons with. I honestly doubt adding another 3 dungeons with 3 paths each in them will make a difference.

Again Anet is being cowardly because they fear they will fall into the same trap they did in gw1 with spreading the playerbase, but what they’ve done so far has already alienated certain players.

Pretty much. The problem is that they’re concentrating on the relative sizes of the pieces of the proverbial pie at the expense of making a bigger pie. You need new content, or sooner or later people will grow bored of the content you have and leave, and the principle of concentrating the player base in the existing zones falls down because you’ve got a smaller player base to concentrate, and thus still end up with the same shortages in some areas. And for the same amount of work, permanent content contributes more to retention in the long run – people might play the heck out of temporary content while it’s available because it’s temporary, but permanent content is something that can keep bringing people back to play it well after it was introduced.

The megaserver system and improved groupfinding tools are probably good initial steps towards permanent expansions of the map, though – with the megaserver, instances of zones are likely to remain reasonably populated unless the population really does drop so low that it can’t even reasonably fill a single instance of the zone. So hopefully that’s a sign of laying the groundwork for more permanent content.

They need to find a good balance between the permanent and temporary content.

Always getting permanent content sounds good on paper, but how long does interest last for it though? The longest mmo I’ve played was WoW, and they have added in a lot of new areas and quests to the game over its life, but how populated are those areas really now? I know once I finished with a quest hub or area, and I’ve extracted all the rewards I can from it, I basically leave that area and never come back.

The times I did run through those areas again, usually leveling an alt if I found the time, at most I’ve found is maybe one or two other people. All the added permanent content, especially the faction quest hubs, are dead. The only interest they get now is from achievement seekers, since there isn’t much reason to visit old sub-level content.

Temporary content, on the other hand, is the opposite. It’s much more of a flash/bang approach. It generates a lot of interest in the players, but once it’s gone, it generates a bitter taste on the tongue. I can understand, from a storyline PoV, how temporary content fits into the game. Event’s only happen once, but that approach alienates the players a bit. Because if they missed the event, they missed the event, and there is no way to redo it again.

Getting the right balance is something hard to get. If they leave the stuff there too long, it just dies a slow painful death, and it kinda become wasteful to keep it around. If they take it away too fast, it upsets the players who weren’t able to do the content.

we really don’t need yet another dungeon or fracture, we need new zones.
dungeons are for ppl who enjoy dungeons, same for fractures, but there has never bin a proper new zone in the game.

we have bin asking to add the crystal desert for almost 2 years and we still hear nothing about that, all we get is a lvl 80-only zone and a poor one at that.
i would like to see several zones added, not just lvl 80 but also around lvl 50 so we have new places to enjoy while leveling up a character.

sorudo.9054:

we really don’t need yet another dungeon or fracture, we need new zones.
dungeons are for ppl who enjoy dungeons, same for fractures, but there has never bin a proper new zone in the game.

we have bin asking to add the crystal desert for almost 2 years and we still hear nothing about that, all we get is a lvl 80-only zone and a poor one at that.
i would like to see several zones added, not just lvl 80 but also around lvl 50 so we have new places to enjoy while leveling up a character.

Ye but honestly I wouldn’t want a new zone if it was just a zergy mess like end-game zones are now. Ive said this many times but open world content is bound to be zergy simply because difficult content that isn’t zergy requires coordination and open world groups cannot and will not ever be able to coordinate. You can’t throw a bunch of random people in a map, expect them to get along, to get in ts, to coordinate to get a boss killed. Teq and the wurm to this day have made it obvious how the only difficulty behind the bosses is getting the coordination there.

SkylightMoon.1980:

sorudo.9054:

we really don’t need yet another dungeon or fracture, we need new zones.
dungeons are for ppl who enjoy dungeons, same for fractures, but there has never bin a proper new zone in the game.

we have bin asking to add the crystal desert for almost 2 years and we still hear nothing about that, all we get is a lvl 80-only zone and a poor one at that.
i would like to see several zones added, not just lvl 80 but also around lvl 50 so we have new places to enjoy while leveling up a character.

Ye but honestly I wouldn’t want a new zone if it was just a zergy mess like end-game zones are now. Ive said this many times but open world content is bound to be zergy simply because difficult content that isn’t zergy requires coordination and open world groups cannot and will not ever be able to coordinate. You can’t throw a bunch of random people in a map, expect them to get along, to get in ts, to coordinate to get a boss killed. Teq and the wurm to this day have made it obvious how the only difficulty behind the bosses is getting the coordination there.

a map without champs reduces the zergy part, there will always be a type of zerg but they can at least prevent one kind from happening.

Kurrilino.2706:

I hove high hopes too but also even bigger concerns.
There is a reason why the game is like it is.

-For any reason they took out the deeper experience of GW1.
Every Race, every class is the same. A Charr ranger has same skills or stats like a sylvary ranger as example.
A Necromancer is doing similar damage to a warrior and a warrior is doing similar condition as a necromancer.
Everything is the same. You just take the look of a character you like and play exactly the same as every other class would. They just dummed it down.
I’m not really sure why they did that

-But even more important that leads to the developers are not forced to create something special. With most events in LS1 i thought to my self, you could even use a black block as monster in a white room without landscape or anything and the game experience wouldn’t change. Most people wouldn’t even notice it.

-What i try to say is as soon as they give players the tools to be creative they have to match the creativity. And honestly this is why i have huge concernes that nothing changes.

Don’t wanna bore people with GW1 here but there are great examples….

-The big Jellyfish to open the Jade Sea.
You needed planning to beat it. You needed to interrupt it at some point to make it possible to defeat it.So you needed A- at least one interrupter B- someone to slower his ability charge C- someone to keep the minions off…………….
This fight was incredible entertaining and led to awesome game experience.
If you just took a big jellyfish and a horde warriors were just banging the sword against it for 15 minutes would totally destroy this experience

-The Lava Worm under Eye of the North
There was nothing like direct damage, you had to carry explosives while surrounded by fire….. again, this led to people making different builds because it was needed
and again you had an awesome gaming experience.

To make it short… this is where the problem is.
They took the options away to create a role with matching weapons, armor, skills to chose from.
This leads to a bunch of people standing in front of a boss, pressing button 2
and hope for the best.
The only thing A-Net does is to include a 15 min timer to beat to pretend there is any skill or pressure involved.

I honestly don’t see this way is changing somehow because the basics are not given

Just my 2 cents

This is the point. Good post.

Kurrilino.2706:

I hove high hopes too but also even bigger concerns.
There is a reason why the game is like it is.

-For any reason they took out the deeper experience of GW1.
Every Race, every class is the same. A Charr ranger has same skills or stats like a sylvary ranger as example.
A Necromancer is doing similar damage to a warrior and a warrior is doing similar condition as a necromancer.
Everything is the same. You just take the look of a character you like and play exactly the same as every other class would. They just dummed it down.
I’m not really sure why they did that

-But even more important that leads to the developers are not forced to create something special. With most events in LS1 i thought to my self, you could even use a black block as monster in a white room without landscape or anything and the game experience wouldn’t change. Most people wouldn’t even notice it.

-What i try to say is as soon as they give players the tools to be creative they have to match the creativity. And honestly this is why i have huge concernes that nothing changes.

Don’t wanna bore people with GW1 here but there are great examples….

-The big Jellyfish to open the Jade Sea.
You needed planning to beat it. You needed to interrupt it at some point to make it possible to defeat it.So you needed A- at least one interrupter B- someone to slower his ability charge C- someone to keep the minions off…………….
This fight was incredible entertaining and led to awesome game experience.
If you just took a big jellyfish and a horde warriors were just banging the sword against it for 15 minutes would totally destroy this experience

-The Lava Worm under Eye of the North
There was nothing like direct damage, you had to carry explosives while surrounded by fire….. again, this led to people making different builds because it was needed
and again you had an awesome gaming experience.

To make it short… this is where the problem is.
They took the options away to create a role with matching weapons, armor, skills to chose from.
This leads to a bunch of people standing in front of a boss, pressing button 2
and hope for the best.
The only thing A-Net does is to include a 15 min timer to beat to pretend there is any skill or pressure involved.

I honestly don’t see this way is changing somehow because the basics are not given

Just my 2 cents

Everyone wants this type of content because it would be amazing in Guild Wars 2. Season 2 has to achieve things like this. Anet has said multiple times “we don’t need an expansion, we can do all this through the living story.” I call BS and so did everyone else after the first season completed. They can prove themselves in the second Season or lose more of the playerbase.

People want these in depth experiences like guild wars 1. They don’t want to do petty pieces of content every 2 weeks and achievement farm, thats such a joke.

Do not want LS S2.
Do want expansion.

Gimmie Cantha, The Crystal Desert and Elona!

just to show how GW2 is compared to GW1, see GW2 as the now and GW1 as the 1999.