Guild Wars 2

Before I begin, let it be known…

… that for over a decade I was a fiercely loyal fan of Blizzard, one of your biggest competitors, Anet. They made quality products, without ever sacrificing the story or the continuity of their product. Even you guys have to admit that with Warcraft in particular, they did a phenomenal job re-envisioning the lore for Warcraft III, from a predecessor that was made back in 94 with pixels, elbow-grease and love. And again, in World of Warcraft at its beginning. But as WoW dragged on, and the story became increasingly more bizarre, less consistent, and cartoony in many cases, I lost my faith. The story was uninteresting anymore, the characters less relatable, even laughable, and the content of the game kept gravitating away from where they initially promised to go. That was when I swore off MMO’s, subscription or otherwise, because it was just not worth my time. I’ll leave their other titles aside, but let’s just say that WotLK was the last Blizzard product I purchased for myself.

…that after many years of wandering the gaming landscape, searching for something to fill the massive void left by my once-immense love for WoW, I found Guild Wars 2. I had always heard positive things of its predecessor, but seeing as my time and loyalty was already invested elsewhere during that game’s zenith, I never tried it myself. I watched the gameplay videos for this sequel, listened to the podcasts and the interviews with developers, and I found myself increasingly interested in playing an MMO again. When I finally installed it for myself, and played, and played, and played, and lost myself in it… After all this time, I thought I had finally found ‘the one’ again, that I could pledge my loyalty to another franchise again and really get into this game. I was already shelling out money in support through your gem store, voicing my support on the various forums, stretching my tendrils into the community and just soaking it all in. I found a new home.

So do not misconstrue what I’m about to write as purely hostile. Yes, it will be critical. Yes it will be brutally honest and blunt, but I must be. I’m just not happy with things anymore, and I want you guys to know why, and what I, and many many other players, believe is going wrong. You’ve crafted a wonderful product, a great game that has occupied almost ALL of my gaming time for the last year solid, but it has begun to unravel. And very, very quickly at that.

Contd

Firstly, let’s touch on my biggest beef with the game right now: temporary content.

I do not believe in it. I do not feel inspired to participate in it. I struggled to keep up with it when it was new, and have all but given up hope of doing so now. You guys advertised this game as a “casual-friendly MMO with depth and challenge when you go looking for it”, with no obligation to the latter whatsoever. That people with rigorous schedules or infrequent playing time could still enjoy almost every facet of your game to its fullest, without worrying about dedication or regularity in their gaming. But temp content flies in the complete opposite direction of that. It is just that—-content that never gets reinstated, save seasonal stuff(which I’ve never minded, because it is what it is—holiday content). It is entirely unfair to the player who is as dedicated as any other, who buys gems to support more content, who devotes a great deal of their available free time to the game, to log in and be told “oh man you missed the best patch!”. To know that, unlike permanent content(implemented via expansion or otherwise), where it will always be there for them to go back and experience, they missed the boat. That’s just silly. That’s not taking care of your customers. And don’t get us started on the gamut of achievements for each Living Story patch which feel like a treadmill to get the best items and content out of the patch.

As a player with very irregular playing time, I feel cheated out of content that I COULD have enjoyed, WOULD have loved, but life got tough on me in the wrong spots. And unlike every other major online game I’ve played til now, that content is gone forever. It is not static and in place long-term for me to go back and experience with friends, and see what they were raving about. To enjoy when I can get to it, even if I’m late. I’m not talking years and years, but a few weeks, maybe months down the line, where I can go see where the game has progressed in my absence. I cannot even do that—four weeks and it’s gone. And what of new players? What are we to tell them? In other games, you can always backtrack, follow the trail all the way through the content that’s existing. See it for yourself. But not in GW2. I feel quite utterly robbed, Anet. I feel betrayed. What’s your answer going to be, that your business model doesn’t include casual players, or new players, like them? I’m honestly trying to think of reasons, and I cannot come up with any. I’m very VERY frustrated, guys.

Contd

And now for the big hot button topic of the moment: Scarlet Briar

Scarlet: a deep shade of red.
Briar: Aha! That’s a plant word!

Just the name feels uninspired. Cliche. Does not bode well…

Okay guys—honest. You made a mistake. You thought you’d introduce a nice, clever arc about a character you believed we’d enjoy. But we didn’t. We REALLY didn’t. And I understand that this content has been in development for awhile, so there’s a bit of delay between that and release. But at a certain point you have to be in a position where you KNOW you’re just working on something that is going to hurt your player base, upset them, and just need to stop and perform some emergency surgery on it to save its life. Sometimes even cut the content altogether. Quality assurance, aye? Sometimes you have to know when enough is enough.

Look, you’re not bad people, I’m certain. Absolutely sure of this. You’re just as passionate about games as I am. I’d probably love to sit down at a burger joint and BS about retro gaming, and Star Trek vs Star Wars, and all sorts of gloriously geeky topics with you, for hours. You guys made a mistake, it’s okay, you’re human. It’s not the end of the world, the end of yours, or ours. Life will go on.

But we don’t want any more Scarlet. Even her fans are starting to get a little tired by how frequently she’s incorporated in every single thing in the game, to an absurd degree. It’s being force fed to us with every patch. Scarlet is involving herself in EVERYTHING, even things she literally could not have physically been involved in I’m guessing. Would she have traveled back in time in the Abbadon fractal, should that have won? Gone with Garrosh to tame Abbadon and ride him into the gates of Valhalla and toilet paper Odin’s drinking lodge? Races that cannot and will not ever work together, but they do. Impossible incongruencies with the established setting and lore(graduated all three colleges anyone? We haven’t forgotten that one, and what it originally said). And on top of it all? She doesn’t feel interesting.

From a player’s perspective, I am not motivated to participate in content involving her, even if it is pushed towards my face every time I log in. She does not interest me, she is not captivating or memorable, only infamous. I do not enjoy her character, I do not enjoy the content made for her, or altered for her, and I personally feel that she does not fit the setting at all. If you guys had implemented her in a separate game built around that character, she’d do fine. She would fit the setting of such a game! But she does not fit Tyria as the game existed at release. Her arc has spiraled out of control into, quite bluntly, saturday-morning-cartoon-villain fanfiction levels of absurdity. Because that’s what she is.

Contd

A cartoon villain. Always behind every little thing, always commiserating in the background, super devious and evil and unstoppably powerful, and yet she’s thwarted every weekend. But lo, she always gets away! And she comes back next week with ANOTHER devious, evil plan that will destroy the world! I’m just not interested in her motivations, or some half-hearted, kinda-really-unfitting explanation for why she’s up to no good.

I’m sorry but that’s the feeling I get from the Molten Alliance, the TOXIC alliance(Hmmmmmmm………), the entirety of her character and every evil plot she’s been involved in. (The Aetherblades were awesome, but again, this was before we realized the connection) You guys will be fine, you just made a mistake. You goofed. The gamble didn’t pay off. It’s okay. We’re only human. We can forgive you, if you’ll just stop pushing so much content with her and give us a moment to breathe. For the love of Big-Nosed Ted, just give us a breather.

Enough Scarlet. I beg you. Let’s go back to the magic of the game we had at the beginning, which is one of the most visually stunning, wide-open, exploration-friendly games I’ve ever seen outside of sandboxes. And even compared to those games, kitten this is fun! Dragons, oh my! Dead gods awakening, oh my! Power struggles and intrigue! The possibility of revisiting old areas from the first game, and seeing what has happened in our extended absence. Think of what’s been going down in Cantha and Elona and —- endless, fulfilling, INTERESTING possibilities.

Which brings me to my two pleas to you ArenaNet: No more temp content. I don’t mind if we never see an expansion, or if EVERYTHING isn’t kept from month to month, but please. This is just a super-depressing, demotivating business model that saps any will of mine to log in, because I’ll have three days to accomplish everything, and might not even get that much regular time in.

Contd

And PLEASE! NO MORE SCARLET! No more! -cries- I’m tapping out! I’m done! I cannot participate in Living Story the way it keeps tweaking and tweaking the game and the lore to its needs. Every…single…patch… I’m just worn out. I feel no more motivation to log in and play this charade in a circle anymore.

And the scary thing, Anet? I’m not the only one who feels similar. Not every single bit of my post is going to be agreed with, but I think I speak for a majority of the current playerbase when I say: please, enough is enough.

Please take stock of your game’s quality at launch, and at present. Please take stock of where your devs are headed with this game. Please see how upset and confused you’ve made the players, and how exhausted we all are of this cycle. I apologize for the blunt criticism, I only want this game to revive its former glory, and head back in the direction we all hoped for. I want what’s best for this game, its world, its community. And I don’t believe it is going that way.

Thank you for your time.

I don’t agree on the temporary content thing, but I can see people not liking it…but Scarlet, which I notice 2 out of three pages pointing things out were about, yes. Very yes.

wookiee.4631:

1. “We” means nothing. You can’t know how every other player feels. Speak for yourself.
2. Scarlet’s not going away, no matter how many “pleases” you tack onto your demand. And apparently, her story is largely set in stone now.
3. Why is this it’s own thread? It could have easily been posted here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/Does-anyone-actually-like-the-living-story/first
4. Maybe you should have read the CDI – Living World thread (it’s locked now, sadly) before making such a long series of posts that contain complaints that dozens of others (even including me) have made, much shorter in length, on these forums.

EDIT: And no, I’m not trying to minimize your opinion, I just see no point in it being so long and it’s own thread.

1. No, I can’t know. That’s why I said “I think”, because I may be wrong in my assumption and statement. I never claimed infallibility on that.
2. That’s what scares me. That’s why I’m speaking up.
3. Thank you for the link. Forgive me if I just wrote this up and felt like sharing it in its own thread. My frustration levels are running quite high.
4. Why? It’s locked, right? So I can make myself feel even worse? Look at all the negative feedback and cry more deeply on the inside?

werebeagle.8537:

I don’t agree on the temporary content thing, but I can see people not liking it…but Scarlet, which I notice 2 out of three pages pointing things out were about, yes. Very yes.

I’m with you on this one. The temporary content is fine with me but Scarlet has to go, she’s basically a steel wool pad scratching off all the shine this game has. A horrible character, disgustingly juvenile dialogue, ridiculously amateurish pacing of the story arc’s.

The Design/Art team are doing a fantastic job, the music is epic. Everything looks and sounds great but the writers are ruining it. How many more months of constant complaints from the player base do you have to receive before you finally get it?!

Yeah Traherne, Canach, Scarlet – we get it. You writers are quite proud of the sylvari. Enough of them already or at least make them so they are not hated. Actually I don’t mind Canach as much at least he’s an anti-hero.

wookiee.4631:

And no, I’m not trying to say your opinion is wrong or anything, I just see no point in it being so long and it’s own thread.

He was obviously very passionate about it, taking the time to write such a long post with not flaming or yelling at Anet…I think the least the devs can do is read it. He’s taking time and effort to help them improve their product…it could be helpful to them. Even if it was said many times before.

Scarlet may not be going away, true. But i still think it shud be said, and said again, and preferably with supporting points, about the failure that is scarlet. At the very least, im hoping, really really hoping, that the feedback might help devs make better choices and designs in other things and not repeat this scarlet debacle.

Mind you I dont really hate the type of character scarlet is suppose to be. I guess a maniacal, chaotic, insane villains can be fun. But i do feel they (devs) are trying too hard to with scarlet that its quite annoying. its like… if they could, theyd likely say it’s scarlets fault for global warming (im exaggerating, i know :P ). For me, Scarlet was at her best when we never really know her. When she was mentioned but little else. While i dont object to her showing her face once in a while, but having her go all over like a teenager on social media sites fishing for more “likes” and “friends”, it will just keep going downhill.

Fun fact: Several of the lead designers of Warcraft 3 founded Anet. They left Blizzard during the production of WoW.

Less fun fact: All of them left Anet during the production of Guild Wars 2, except for Mike O’Brien.

We <3 you Mike. Please rescue Guild Wars.

They could redeem Scarlet Briar, and make her less lame. I’m thinking something like…poor young newly born Scarlet became a vessel for the essence of Lazarus the Dire, whose ancient and awesome power broke her mind. Lazarus used this new vessel to acquire the knowledge he’d missed out on during his self imposed exile, and is now using Scarlet to prepare the world for a return of his full power, whereupon he shall wreak vengeance upon “countless generations” as promised at the end of the quest “The Justiciar’s End”. Now we have a Scarlet that isn’t all powerful because of her thooper thmarth, but rather because she’s a puppet for an ancient and absurdly powerful entity. Her inherent nuttiness is due to her brain not being able to contain said essence, and her peek into the eternal alchemy further broke her mind, sheering away even the veneer of sanity.

Now, instead of an annoying mary sue villain, we have a villain that is in fact a victim, and thus, we can feel sympathy for, which makes her more interesting. And as a bonus, we have a return of one of the classic villains from GW1 lore (The Mursaat…what’s left of them, anyway. Which may in fact be just Lazarus, but perhaps not). Tie ins with current content are obvious, really, and easy to expand upon. (all the references to the Mursaat, the Seers, and the Forgotten are already there with Fractal gear…infusion, ascension, [spectral] agony, etc…)

Jerron Blacksilver.8629:

They could redeem Scarlet Briar, and make her less lame.

They could redeem her by answering some questions about her to give her some depth. We need motives, we need to understand her plan so we feel compelled to stop her. We need to understand the reasons for her strange personality. Also we need this in-game, not some short story tucked away somewhere in this website. Just reveal something solid about her.

Even though you still could make Scarlet a decent villain the problem is not only in the character but the poor pacing of the storytelling.

Jerron Blacksilver.8629:

They could redeem Scarlet Briar, and make her less lame. I’m thinking something like…poor young newly born Scarlet became a vessel for the essence of Lazarus the Dire, whose ancient and awesome power broke her mind. Lazarus used this new vessel to acquire the knowledge he’d missed out on during his self imposed exile, and is now using Scarlet to prepare the world for a return of his full power, whereupon he shall wreak vengeance upon “countless generations” as promised at the end of the quest “The Justiciar’s End”. Now we have a Scarlet that isn’t all powerful because of her thooper thmarth, but rather because she’s a puppet for an ancient and absurdly powerful entity. Her inherent nuttiness is due to her brain not being able to contain said essence, and her peek into the eternal alchemy further broke her mind, sheering away even the veneer of sanity.

Now, instead of an annoying mary sue villain, we have a villain that is in fact a victim, and thus, we can feel sympathy for, which makes her more interesting. And as a bonus, we have a return of one of the classic villains from GW1 lore (The Mursaat…what’s left of them, anyway. Which may in fact be just Lazarus, but perhaps not). Tie ins with current content are obvious, really, and easy to expand upon. (all the references to the Mursaat, the Seers, and the Forgotten are already there with Fractal gear…infusion, ascension, [spectral] agony, etc…)

Ugh, no. Just adding something from GW1 does not make it automatically good. I’m happy that we’ve seen the last of most of the GW1 villains. Their time is past. Our time is now!

OP this was 10/10.

I agree. Ditch Scarlet. Cut her from the game completely or at least resolve her. Just… end it. If she’s in any content she shouldn’t be (read: Wintersday) take her out. Just… do it. I’ve done game development before. I know you can take her out of content in a matter of days. Maybe a day. Just… leave her out of our precious, beloved, sacred wintersday. Please…

And on the temporary content… The temporary content is good, as long as it’s nature is based entirely around story and is non-instanced. Maybe leave some remnants from stuff like this. Things like dungeons should stay in the game, while things like the big change to Kessex Hills should probably go away or have a progressive removal.

The problem we’re seeing is they’re in… and then POOF they disappear. It doesn’t feel like a living world if suddenly those things go away, with nothing left behind to show it existed.

WoW has a story? o.O

Ravenmoon.5318:

WoW has a story? o.O

it did, but that was a long time ago.

wookiee.4631:

1. “We” means nothing. You can’t know how every other player feels. Speak for yourself.
2. Scarlet’s not going away, no matter how many “pleases” you tack onto your demand. And apparently, her story is largely set in stone now.
3. Why is this it’s own thread? It could have easily been posted here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/Does-anyone-actually-like-the-living-story/first
4. Maybe you should have read the CDI – Living World thread (it’s locked now, sadly) before making such a long series of posts that contain complaints that dozens of others (even including me) have made, much shorter in length, on the forums.

EDIT: And no, I’m not trying to say your opinion is wrong or anything, I just see no point in it being so long and it’s own thread.

He spoke pretty well for me on Scarlet. So that makes ‘we’ perfectly accurate.

Thobek.1730:

They could redeem her by answering some questions about her to give her some depth. We need motives, we need to understand her plan so we feel compelled to stop her. We need to understand the reasons for her strange personality.

Unfortunately none of that would make her less annoying. I don’t understand this preoccupation for “if we just knew more about her background!” That is totally secondary to a good character. Han Solo is one of the most fun, cool, flavorful & memorable characters & he has ZERO BACKGROUND. If JarJar binks had Citizen Kane as his backstory it wouldn’t make his actual personality more tolerable. Some of the best characters never have their backgrounds & motivations revealed because it adds to the mystique of the character. If I ever have to “wait for the motivation & backstory” to enjoy a character, something is wrong.

My opinion on Scarlet is, meh. Suppose that’s my biggest problem, I see her pop up throughout the story and the character just doesn’t resonate w/me. I may pay attention to a new scene, but wouldn’t care if I missed it.

First thing that comes to mind when Scarlet pops up is a Harley Quinn knock off from the Batman animated series.

Like the op my “main” mmo was WoW, vanilla to the end of wrath. The questing imo was just that, questing. What held & brought me to the lore and story was the raiding, such good times.

Rienhart.4137, the problem w/breaking away from the Living Story is the Gem store imo. The Gem store and two week intervals of content “Living story” are bound to each other. It would be a undertaking like any other mmo changing its financial model. This is not just Anet game and decisions, we have to remember NCsoft.

It may happen but no time soon, just take a look at the recent marketing.

“You deserve to live in a constantly evolving online world, which is why we add free new DLC every two weeks. You deserve to explore a massive, immersive world where there’s never a subscription fee.
You deserve Guild Wars 2.”

The Great MMO Migration

Most of us know that Scarlet and the LS content has already been produced, in production or will be soon. Anet will continue the story per their road map. I just hope that either they will wrap it all up quicker since a lot of people don’t care for it or stop planning for her to be the central theme as soon as it’s possible. It was o.k for a few content updates and I think Anet could make her still work perhaps in a supporting role of sorts but for Guild Wars she is terrible at best as a main story character.