Guild Wars 2

Do I got bored with the game and left in January, and recently returned. I don’t get the living story, I come back and there’s still nothing to do – i’m in the same position I was 10 month ago, bored, nothing to do all the same. They latest addition to this amazing new living story lasted what, perhaps 2 days – why can’t you leave the stuff in? The adventure box seemed cool, sure I can look at the entrance in Rata Sum, but that’s not really fun.

Without all this content I feel it’s just the same thing every day.

You create amazing content, from what i’ve seen, and then you just remove it – why?! It’s less for the player to do and a somewhat waste of Anet’s talent.

this is what I tough when I returned………….
I wonder how many returning people will stay without real content……

blue.8629:

Do I got bored with the game and left in January, and recently returned. I don’t get the living story, I come back and there’s still nothing to do – i’m in the same position I was 10 month ago, bored, nothing to do all the same. They latest addition to this amazing new living story lasted what, perhaps 2 days – why can’t you leave the stuff in? The adventure box seemed cool, sure I can look at the entrance in Rata Sum, but that’s not really fun.

Without all this content I feel it’s just the same thing every day.

You create amazing content, from what i’ve seen, and then you just remove it – why?! It’s less for the player to do and a somewhat waste of Anet’s talent.

Yupp, I feel exacly the same. Been away for a yearisch~ and there isn’t alot of new stuff to do. Sure we got activities and such.. But.. New maps? Skills? No I guess I can always start a new character on a new race? ….

The concept behind Living World is neat, but the application is a staggeringly bad design decision. ArenaNet is basically holding their players hostage, because if they take a break they’ll miss out on content that they will never see again.

As someone who took a long break myself in light of all the issues plaguing the game at launch, this has really killed my enthusiasm to stick around. The fact they’ve included actual, tangibly useful items like weapon recipes in Living World content and then removed from the game only makes it worse.

soooooooo when we will get a real dev response on this issue ?

Zoltreez.6435:

soooooooo when we will get a real dev response on this issue ?

Sorry i don’t have a link handy, but in multiple places, including these boards and in videos, they’ve said they’re aware of this issue and are planning to add more permanent content. In fact, the last 2 updates have been permanent content.

Play it now or never. The more players leave the game because of this, the sooner it gets real content; or it gets shut down.

panzer.6034:

Zoltreez.6435:

soooooooo when we will get a real dev response on this issue ?

Sorry i don’t have a link handy, but in multiple places, including these boards and in videos, they’ve said they’re aware of this issue and are planning to add more permanent content. In fact, the last 2 updates have been permanent content.

we all know that they are “aware” im talking about a REAL answer from a dev that basically tell us what are they planning and they WILL do something……

I don’t see new zones…
oh you mean the 2 REMAKE ? they didn’t add anything just remade them…..

Jaga.2084:

Play it now or never. The more players leave the game because of this, the sooner it gets real content; or it gets shut down.

Once enough people are upset and off on other games THEN they’ll change things. By that time people will be so fed up it will be years before they even consider giving it a chance again. Their approach is not only baffling, but unique in the fact that they were filling us in on all the details and then some at one time and I greatly appreciated that. The first few months of the game, we not only had updates, but we had an idea of their direction through Facebook, Reddit and some other means. I was grateful that they shared with us their intentions for the game, now it’s even tough to sift through the update notes, let alone get a non-public relations response. The communication on their side has done a complete 180.

I still chuckle every time I come to the forums and see that note about these forums being a temporary form of communication, because I wonder if we may have two different definitions.

Completely agree. I took a long break from the game as well… and I missed: Flame and Frost, Dragonbash, Bazaar of the Four Winds, the Sky Pirates, and the Queens Gauntlet. I’m sure I missed more, but those are the ones that sounded pretty cool.

Why the hell weren’t they just added to the game as new areas of content? Why did they have to be temporary?

I too feel like when I came back to the game, NOTHING had changed. No new zones, no new skills, no new legendaries…

Pretty much all I had to do after that amount of time was get caught up on ascended trinkets, because they didn’t have earrings before my break.

I love the temporary content. I’m glad they remove stuff, and I hope they continue to do it.

Living story means that new things come, and old things go. Living = change. The removed content adds to the lore of the game. It is, quite literally, the history of the game. It’s something that no other game has the balls to do, and I think it’s awesome.

I get that you are disappointed that you missed some stuff, but that was your choice. You didn’t care enough to play it when it was in the game, but suddenly you care now? The game is free. Play whenever you want, as much as you want. But if you decide to skip content, that’s your choice.

Bookmark this page:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/

Check it every couple of weeks or so. If you like what they’re doing in the game,

LOG IN AND DO IT!

jsduke.6537:

I love the temporary content. I’m glad they remove stuff, and I hope they continue to do it.

Living story means that new things come, and old things go. Living = change. The removed content adds to the lore of the game. It is, quite literally, the history of the game. It’s something that no other game has the balls to do, and I think it’s awesome.

I get that you are disappointed that you missed some stuff, but that was your choice. You didn’t care enough to play it when it was in the game, but suddenly you care now? The game is free. Play whenever you want, as much as you want. But if you decide to skip content, that’s your choice.

Bookmark this page:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/

Check it every couple of weeks or so. If you like what they’re doing in the game,

LOG IN AND DO IT!

I think you may miss the point that some of us are trying to make. I view it like this: I will treat GW2 as a service that I pay/have paid for while not having a monthly subscription I am allowed to have an opinion on such matters of where the game is going, and so is every other player of the game. You treat it like people are fools and imbeciles for trying to post their opinion on the forums in hope that the developers will look at it and see something they maybe hadn’t taken into consideration. It is not wrong to want to see the game go in a direction so that you may enjoy the game for years to come.

While GW2 is free to play I understand you can’t hold it to exactly the same standards, but I’ve said before if the content was something I enjoy I’ve usually spent some money on the gem store during that 2 week phase to let them know that it was something I liked, I am okay with this method, setup. They can continue releasing content that not everyone likes, but it would be wise of them to keep as many players as they can because that means more potential revenue, if people are leaving they miss out on that option. I don’t think most of the people here are demanding that they make a sudden change, they just want to see the game go in a direction that they’d enjoy and there are some pretty good suggestions on here about how to do so.

I don’t think you or the other posters here are “fools and imbeciles”. You absolutely have a right to your opinion, and I’m not telling you otherwise.

I’m responding to OP. He left the game for 10 months, and now he’s complaining that he missed some stuff during the 10 months that he didn’t want to play.

You see how silly that is? He left the game. For 10 months. Were we supposed to wait for him to get back before moving on?

If you don’t play, you miss stuff. Don’t want to miss stuff? Check in once in a while and see what’s going on.

That’s all. It’s not even a big deal.

In nearly every other MMO, you can leave for 10 months, and when you return, the content will still be there waiting for you to complete it (with the exception of occasional one-time events).

I don’t mind GW2 having occasional one-time events, but the idea of having something released every 2 weeks that you have to play on ANet’s schedule or miss out on is a complete deal-breaker for me.

Also, just because someone wasn’t able to play through the content when it was first released does not mean that someone didn’t care enough to do so. Many people have life commitments that do not afford them the luxury to prioritize a video game. That does not mean they should be punished by being forced to miss out on content. That is silly.

minbariguy.7504:

In nearly every other MMO, you can leave for 10 months, and when you return, the content will still be there waiting for you to complete it (with the exception of occasional one-time events).

Sure. So if that is a game feature that is important to you, then maybe those games are more your style. That’s okay. GW2 is doing something different, though.

I hope that you will acknowledge this: If you like “Permanent Content Only” games, then you have TONS of options available to you. But if you like “Living World Content” games, then you have precious few choices. I like the Living World Content better. That’s my cuppa. I hope GW2 doesn’t change that, because if they do then I have nowhere else to go to get it.

minbariguy.7504:

I don’t mind GW2 having occasional one-time events, but the idea of having something released every 2 weeks that you have to play on ANet’s schedule or miss out on is a complete deal-breaker for me.

You’re not the only one. I’ve complained about this myself, and suggested that they move to something more like a monthly rotation, rather than every two weeks. There are a lot of advantages to that kind of schedule. I agree with you. Keep in mind, though, that a lot of that content is actually recurring content and will be back at some point.

minbariguy.7504:

Also, just because someone wasn’t able to play through the content when it was first released does not mean that someone didn’t care enough to do so. Many people have life commitments that do not afford them the luxury to prioritize a video game. That does not mean they should be punished by being forced to miss out on content. That is silly.

You’re right about that, too. But OP said that he “got bored with the game and left”, so I have no sympathy for him. As with your last point, I think that extending the time frame (to a month or so) is a reasonable solution, and one that we might see in the future.

How about you? Do you have any ideas on how to make it better? Would the monthly schedule I suggested work better for you, or do you have other ideas?

jsduke.6537:

GW2 is doing something different, though.

I hope that you will acknowledge this: If you like “Permanent Content Only” games, then you have TONS of options available to you. But if you like “Living World Content” games, then you have precious few choices. I like the Living World Content better. That’s my cuppa. I hope GW2 doesn’t change that, because if they do then I have nowhere else to go to get it.

How is anything about “Living World” content unique aside from the fact that Arenanet removes it from the game after two weeks? It’s the same post-release content expansion you get in any other MMO. It’s not like Twilight Assault can end in defeat, with Scarlet’s minions taking over Tyria. The endings are predetermined. World of Warcraft could delete every new raid instance or dungeon after two weeks and have as much claim to a “living world” as Guild Wars 2 does. Read about what SOE wants to do with Rallying Calls in Everquest Next. That would be a genuinely evolving online world, not what we have in Guild Wars 2.

Arenanet is expending hundreds of man hours on content that no new or returning player is ever going to see. It perplexes me they think this is a good idea, and I fail to see what it brings to the game aside from a sense of superiority to those who manage to finish LW content before it’s removed. The reason you don’t see many games follow this model is because it’s a bad idea. As far as I’m concerned it amounts to Arenanet trying to keep their customers loyal through ransom.

There’s that. They want to “incentivize” people to continue logging in, but I also think there’s another reason which I tried to start a discussion about here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Living-World-vs-Expanding-World/first#post3003980

From what I’ve observed, they’re afraid to expand the game and would rather remove something every time they add something else. This keeps us all penned up together so we see more people on the set of maps that we have and activities that already exist in the game.

I think New Permanent Zones has been one of the top requested additions to the game, yet it hasn’t happened (aside from Southsun) for this reason. And I think it’s going to be the Achilles heel of GW2 unless they find a better solution then their current one, which is to try and change up old maps/dungeons. People want more options, a literal expansion!

I don’t understand why they’re so afraid of certain areas becoming abandoned. I see people complain about it on these forums, too, but that’s the way every online game is – people outlevel zones, or in GW2’s case, people get bored of doing the same thing over and over. That’s a bad reason to avoid adding new areas to the game.

I’m very disappointed Arenanet has said they want to avoid proper expansions and instead stick to this two week “Living World” update nonsense. I’d hoped we’d eventually continue the personal story and defeat all of the other Elder Dragons, and as is now I can’t help but feel it’s going to be very underwhelming if they use “Living World” releases to do it.

There is also another side to this. Some players like me are beginning to feel so stressed out about having to logg on everyday (which you have to do to complete the achievements for living world before it ends) that i think more and more of us feel we are forced to play. I am so feed up with this I am not logging in anymore just to protest. I think its the only way players can show Anet that we are feed up with this.

jsduke.6537:

I hope that you will acknowledge this: If you like “Permanent Content Only” games, then you have TONS of options available to you. But if you like “Living World Content” games, then you have precious few choices. I like the Living World Content better. That’s my cuppa. I hope GW2 doesn’t change that, because if they do then I have nowhere else to go to get it.

And if I had purchased a “Living World Content” game, I might agree with you. But I didn’t. I purchased a game with permanent content that made no mention of switching to this format a few months into it’s lifespan. This was a “bait and switch” type of situation. They sold me one type of game and then turned it into another. If I had known this would happen, I would have spent my money on one of those other games you mention.

As to your proposed monthly Living Story schedule.; to be honest, I just don’t know. It would be an improvement, certainly. Would it be enough to get me to log in? I might try it, but to be honest, I still think I would resent being pushed to play through content on ANet’s schedule. To me, the entire advantage of purchasing a no-subscription game is that you can take breaks whenever you like without punishment. Living Story completely negates that advantage.

Now, if they were to switch to a 2-month schedule, that would be six one-time events per year (and that still doesn’t include additional holiday events and rotating events) That is still much more than most games do, and it would give them time to make those events really special as opposed to the “click this and press F” grindfests that Living Story chapters are currently.

Maderas.9741:

How is anything about “Living World” content unique aside from the fact that Arenanet removes it from the game after two weeks?

That is the unique thing that I am trying to defend and protect. I know not everyone gets it, and I know not everyone appreciates it, but I think it’s awesome that the game has a continuously evolving history, and I don’t want to lose it.

Maderas.9741:

It’s the same post-release content expansion you get in any other MMO. It’s not like Twilight Assault can end in defeat, with Scarlet’s minions taking over Tyria. The endings are predetermined. World of Warcraft could delete every new raid instance or dungeon after two weeks and have as much claim to a “living world” as Guild Wars 2 does. Read about what SOE wants to do with Rallying Calls in Everquest Next. That would be a genuinely evolving online world, not what we have in Guild Wars 2.

I agree that ANet could handle Living World and Temporary Content in lots of ways, and that some of them could be better than what they’ve tried so far. My point is that I want them to get the chance to try it. They’ve only just started and although it hasn’t been perfect, it has great potential and I wanna see what they do going forward as they hammer out the kinks.

Maderas.9741:

Arenanet is expending hundreds of man hours on content that no new or returning player is ever going to see. It perplexes me they think this is a good idea, and I fail to see what it brings to the game aside from a sense of superiority to those who manage to finish LW content before it’s removed. The reason you don’t see many games follow this model is because it’s a bad idea. As far as I’m concerned it amounts to Arenanet trying to keep their customers loyal through ransom.

I can tell that you don’t appreciate what it does add to the game. What you have complained about in this post is EXACTLY the stuff I want ANet to do more of. I do get it. I do appreciate it. I do want more of it.

It’s not about feeling superior. I joined the game in April, and I missed out on a lot of stuff. I didn’t really get involved with the Living World side of the game until after Flame and Frost. So I’m in the same boat. The difference is this:

1) I’m not bothered that I missed content. I’m totally okay with that.
2) I LIKE the fact that the game has a history and lore that predates my involvement in it.

In most games, the history and lore is static. It all already happened before the first player ever logged in. But in GW2, the history and lore is ALWAYS HAPPENING. There is new history and lore added in every content update, and we get to be a part of it for however long we are in the world.

I think that is so awesome, and I’m sorry you don’t appreciate it like I do because it is really just the coolest thing ever.

The worst part about this whole debate is that there really is no compromise. It’s an all-or-nothing sort of deal. Some people are going to get what they want, and some people aren’t.

Whatever they end up doing, I hope that it doesn’t ruin your enjoyment of the game. It’s a great community, by and large.

Maderas.9741:

I’m very disappointed Arenanet has said they want to avoid proper expansions and instead stick to this two week “Living World” update nonsense.

The two-week Living World update is the expansion. It’s all the expansions, all the time. It’s actually really cool once you get your head around it. This release schedule of theirs, all this stuff their putting out, is the stuff you would get in a traditional expansion. There are some very important differences, though:

1) You don’t have to wait 2 years for the expansion to come out. It’s constantly coming out. It literally just came out, and will be coming out again real soon.
2) You don’t have to buy the expansion when it comes out. It’s included in the initial purchase of the game, just because you keep playing!
3) With an expansion, if you don’t like it then, well, you’re really screwed because they aren’t going to change it for you after all that time and effort. But with this Living Story release schedule, if they put something out and the community rejects it, then they can change/fix/amend it. Which I think is something that a lot of people are overlooking.

This release schedule allows ANet and the dev community to be much more responsive to the desires of the community than a traditional “expansion release” schedule. For that reason alone, I think it’s a hands-down winner.

jsduke.6537:

The two-week Living World update is the expansion. It’s all the expansions, all the time. It’s actually really cool once you get your head around it. This release schedule of theirs, all this stuff their putting out, is the stuff you would get in a traditional expansion. There are some very important differences, though:

1) You don’t have to wait 2 years for the expansion to come out. It’s constantly coming out. It literally just came out, and will be coming out again real soon.
2) You don’t have to buy the expansion when it comes out. It’s included in the initial purchase of the game, just because you keep playing!
3) With an expansion, if you don’t like it then, well, you’re really screwed because they aren’t going to change it for you after all that time and effort. But with this Living Story release schedule, if they put something out and the community rejects it, then they can change/fix/amend it. Which I think is something that a lot of people are overlooking.

This release schedule allows ANet and the dev community to be much more responsive to the desires of the community than a traditional “expansion release” schedule. For that reason alone, I think it’s a hands-down winner.

So… tl;dr- It’s cool and awesome if you’re a glass-half-full type of guy?

Pity I’m not that way, though. I pretty much left a year ago with just about the same reason OP has. Nothing to do, bored, etc

And since I also have other things needing taking care of, I just took a break from the daily achievement and log routine, expecting more content to be added later.

Good news: They did.
Bad news: They removed it.

MKKR.9401:

jsduke.6537:

The two-week Living World update is the expansion. It’s all the expansions, all the time. It’s actually really cool once you get your head around it. This release schedule of theirs, all this stuff their putting out, is the stuff you would get in a traditional expansion. There are some very important differences, though:

1) You don’t have to wait 2 years for the expansion to come out. It’s constantly coming out. It literally just came out, and will be coming out again real soon.
2) You don’t have to buy the expansion when it comes out. It’s included in the initial purchase of the game, just because you keep playing!
3) With an expansion, if you don’t like it then, well, you’re really screwed because they aren’t going to change it for you after all that time and effort. But with this Living Story release schedule, if they put something out and the community rejects it, then they can change/fix/amend it. Which I think is something that a lot of people are overlooking.

This release schedule allows ANet and the dev community to be much more responsive to the desires of the community than a traditional “expansion release” schedule. For that reason alone, I think it’s a hands-down winner.

So… tl;dr- It’s cool and awesome if you’re a glass-half-full type of guy?

Pity I’m not that way, though. I pretty much left a year ago with just about the same reason OP has. Nothing to do, bored, etc

And since I also have other things needing taking care of, I just took a break from the daily achievement and log routine, expecting more content to be added later.

Good news: They did.
Bad news: They removed it.

I’m not sure what your glass-half-full comment is referring to, but for the rest of it:

1) A lot of the content they added is still in the game.
2) A lot of the rest of the content is recurring content and will be coming back eventually.
3) You missed some stuff. Big deal. Move on. The rest of us moved on. You should join us in moving on.
3) There’s new content right now that you can do.
4) There’s new content coming out in two days that you can do.
5) There will always be new content coming out that you can do.
6) We’re sending more minerals because you clearly haven’t built enough pylons.

I know it sucks that you missed out on some stuff. I missed out on some stuff, too. But honestly man, if you didn’t care enough to check in and see what was going on with the game, then why are you so upset that we did stuff while you were busy not caring about what we were doing in the game?

Stillkin.2859:

There is also another side to this. Some players like me are beginning to feel so stressed out about having to logg on everyday (which you have to do to complete the achievements for living world before it ends) that i think more and more of us feel we are forced to play. I am so feed up with this I am not logging in anymore just to protest. I think its the only way players can show Anet that we are feed up with this.

Sorry to hear that. It’s not the only way to communicate with ANet, but it certainly does send a message.

I agree that the pace of the Living Story schedule is too fast for a lot of people. I’d like to see them slow it down to a monthly release schedule and see how that goes. They could keep the 2week release schedule for all the other content, but the Living Story TempCon deserves more time.

They design their content updates to make you feel like you can’t take 10 months off without missing out. They don’t want you to leave for 10 months – that 10 months where the user base is down a players, it’s 10 months where they are receiving no money from microtransation sales.

They want to pressure you into staying, into jumping through the meta achievement hoops every two weeks, not because it’s fun, but because it’s gone forever if you don’t.

They want you to be unhappy that you took 10 months off. They hope that unhappiness will lead to you not taking another 10 months off and instead jumping through the meta achievement hoops like everyone else.

The fear of missing out is the replacement for fun as your motivation to play GW2 with the Living World’s current design.

Shiren.9532:

They design their content updates to make you feel like you can’t take 10 months off without missing out. They don’t want you to leave for 10 months – that 10 months where the user base is down a players, it’s 10 months where they are receiving no money from microtransation sales.

They want to pressure you into staying, into jumping through the meta achievement hoops every two weeks, not because it’s fun, but because it’s gone forever if you don’t.

They want you to be unhappy that you took 10 months off. They hope that unhappiness will lead to you not taking another 10 months off and instead jumping through the meta achievement hoops like everyone else.

The fear of missing out is the replacement for fun as your motivation to play GW2 with the Living World’s current design.

I disagree. I’m sorry that you feel that way, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the motive at work, here. I think I understand why you dislike it so much, though, if that’s what you think is happening.

I just don’t think that’s what is really happening. I think you’re missing the point, and that’s too bad because what they’re trying to do is really cool.

The thing is, watching videos the content is like amazing, and I can’t see a benefit of removing it, ANET gain nothing, the game is pay once – and the fact they don’t want people to take time off will just push people away from the game for good.

Well, they did say it was a experiment…

But, it is dumb, why remove content, why force everyone to do everything in 2 weeks?

The modern world is hectic, with lots to do…people work, go on hoidays, unexpected events occur etc, etc…having content around for such a short time, deleting content altogether it just does not fit the modern world.

I have seen dozens of those threads from returning players, saying nothing has changed and they are correct in the main..come on Anet its just putting players off…

You know what? The answers are here:

http://guildwars.incgamers.com/blog/comments/guild-wars-2-living-story-interviews-and-lots-of-them

If you want to know why ANet is removing content, go read some of those interviews. If you want to know why Living World is so special and unique, go read some of those interviews.

Here’s a Chris Whiteside quote from the massively.com interview:

“I think once people start understanding what it is we’re doing, then they’ll start to get seriously excited about it. But for a player, if you miss something and you really wanted it or you hear about it afterward and you wanted it, there will be some disappointment. That’s the nature of the living world. It comes in and it’s exciting because it’s a limited-time thing, and then it goes away. If we don’t have that paradigm in the living world environment, I’m not sure how much of a living world it actually is in terms of an evolving narrative that synergizes with gameplay. I think it’s a huge bone of contention because it revolves around rewards, but we are always looking for ways to improve rewards.”

That’s basically it in a nutshell. It’s temporary because it’s a Living World, and things that are alive, have to change. If it doesn’t change, then it’s not a Living World, it’s just another typical MMO.

I know when we talk about these things that it can be hard to see past the things that you don’t get to have. But if you can, if you can put that aside and see past it, then you can start to see how amazing and rewarding the Living World can be. And once you get that, you understand that TempCon is a necessary part of it.

It does need to slow down, and i agree, molten facility which i missed and bazaar which i didn’t would be awesome as permanents. The problem is that it’s becoming work to keep up with the ls, not fun. My day now goes thus: login, check dailies, map to wayfarer, kill x types, do x events, swim and kill x creatures, map to home instance, harvest crystals, map to wayfarer, create charged quartz, map to lion, make mithrillium and glob. do mystic forge/salvage dailies if needed. Go do ls daily. After all this: i can start playing and having fun.

jsduke.6537:

I don’t think you or the other posters here are “fools and imbeciles”. You absolutely have a right to your opinion, and I’m not telling you otherwise.

I’m responding to OP. He left the game for 10 months, and now he’s complaining that he missed some stuff during the 10 months that he didn’t want to play.

You see how silly that is? He left the game. For 10 months. Were we supposed to wait for him to get back before moving on?

If you don’t play, you miss stuff. Don’t want to miss stuff? Check in once in a while and see what’s going on.

That’s all. It’s not even a big deal.

He was gone for 10 months and during that time lots of things were added to the game. Most of them are gone now. You see how silly that is? I’ve been here the entire time and I still think its silly.

While I get that they are doing something new and we need to get on board or row off to a new ship we like better, I’m disappointed that’s the way its turned out.

@Talissa Chan — I’ve made the same complaints myself. Started a whole thread about it, in fact:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/Maybe-after-I-finish-my-chores/first#post2991019

But that whole list of “chores” isn’t Living Story content — it’s dailies and time-gated content. Those are different matters altogether. I think slowing down the pace of the Living World content would satisfy most people’s concerns.

@Katz — “He was gone for 10 months and during that time lots of things were added to the game. Most of them are gone now. You see how silly that is?”

No. I don’t think that’s silly. I think that’s the nature of the game we play. The Living World content is going to continue with or without you. That’s the intention and purpose of the LW TempCon — that it keeps going. That is why it is so cool. That is what makes it so cool. If the ANet team could stream content updates into the game in Real Time they would, and it would be awesome.

GW2 is NOT a static game that you can just hit pause and walk away and come back whenever you feel like it. It’s NOT that kind of game. In GW2, the world is constantly changing and if you walk away from the game, it’s going to be different when you get back. That’s the game we play, and it is kittens awesome.

I can see where you’re coming from, jsduke (and I actually admire your passionate defense of it, in a way), but I’m afraid I’m still firmly in the other camp who doesn’t see any reason why the Living Story has to be temporary. Take the new Aetherblade path in Twilight Arbor, for instance. ANet could have left the original dungeon as is, and then added in a new dialogue option with the NPC outside to say “We’re here in response to Lionguard Turma’s call for help.” This then puts you into a new Elite Dungeon Path where you play through the Aetherblade path, but the original TA dungeon is still available for those who haven’t seen it yet.

A similar approach could be done with the other dungeons so that the world is constantly evolving (the feeling you talk about that “the world is different when I get back”), but newer players aren’t subjected to the feeling of “I missed out”. In the long run, that kind of feeling only drives new players away, which is something ANet can’t afford to do as new games come out and older players get drawn away.

All that said, I do acknowledge that ANet has clearly taken on feedback from earlier Living Story events, with Tequatl Rising and Twilight Assault clearly focusing more on permanent content. They’re not quite there yet, but I’m encouraged by the direction things are going in.

blue.8629:

Returned after 10 months, why remove stuff?

The same reason Zynga caps your free water in Farmville…to make you feel on a psychological level like you’re missing out if you’re not logging in on a regular basis.

@Zaxares You are right that it doesn’t have to be temporary. I think that’s where a lot of people are getting stuck. It’s not that ANet goofed up and wasn’t able to find a way to make the content permanent. It was a conscious decision to do something different.

Maybe that will turn out to be a bad call, and ANet will have to roll back and do something more traditional. I hope not, because I think the Living World goals are ambitious and amazing, but maybe that’s what will happen.

Or maybe the players who leave the game because they don’t like the Living World concept will be replaced by new/returning players who do like it, and it will continue. We’ll see, I guess.

The thing I find most frustrating is that I can tell from peoples’ posts that most of them don’t actually understand Living Story. They have no idea what it’s about. They don’t even know what it is they are saying “no” to.

I’ve pretty much said all I have to say on the subject, now, and am just sending people here for the answers:

http://guildwars.incgamers.com/blog/comments/guild-wars-2-living-story-interviews-and-lots-of-them

I hope people will take the time to find out what Living Story is before they reject it because it really is just the coolest thing ever.

jsduke.6537:

I love the temporary content. I’m glad they remove stuff, and I hope they continue to do it.

Living story means that new things come, and old things go. Living = change. The removed content adds to the lore of the game. It is, quite literally, the history of the game. It’s something that no other game has the balls to do, and I think it’s awesome.

I get that you are disappointed that you missed some stuff, but that was your choice. You didn’t care enough to play it when it was in the game, but suddenly you care now? The game is free. Play whenever you want, as much as you want. But if you decide to skip content, that’s your choice.

Bookmark this page:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/

Check it every couple of weeks or so. If you like what they’re doing in the game,

LOG IN AND DO IT!

I don’t want to take the time to go over all of your points and why they don’t make sense, so I’ll just say that your logic is very different than most and leave it at that. I’ll also post this simple equation.

New content + old content > New content

darkace.8925:

blue.8629:

Returned after 10 months, why remove stuff?

The same reason Zynga caps your free water in Farmville…to make you feel on a psychological level like you’re missing out if you’re not logging in on a regular basis.

Which basically means that they are focusing on forcing you to play instead of focusing on making the game good. They need to drop this quantity over quality mentality, and get back to the GW1 style that made them popular in the first place.

New class skills, new areas to explore, new quests. That right there would bring back more players than some random event like they have been doing.

One major reason why I loved and still love GW1 to bits is its business model. Buy the game and its expansions once, and be done with it. Play at your own pace, all new content is permanent (excluding seasonal events of course), play all content as long as you like. Want to move on? Easy, just ignore the bits you don’t like, and let everyone else play whatever they want and what they paid for.

I never played a subscription based MMO and I never will, because I know that when I pay for a subscription on a monthly basis, I would constantly feel like I’m not getting my money’s worth when I’m not playing. That would make me waste way too much time on the game, not only in hours per day, but also in days per month. Walking away from the game for a whole month? Even longer? Unthinkable for me, if I know that some clock is ticking. That’s the whole reason I stay away from WoW & Co., and a big part of the reason why I’m still an active GW1 player. In GW2, the ticking clock is not a monthly subscription, but a) Inflation, driving the gem price only upwards, as it is intended to, and b) content that flat out disappears after a while.

All that “Living World” rhetoric is just marketing BS. They want to accumulate as many player hours as possible, to drive up the price of gems as high as possible, to drive the real money sales of gems as high as possible.

GW2 is becoming a lot like any other MMO, just from a different direction. It has the grind, it has the gear treadmill (unless you make your life easier with the in-game gold trader), it has mechanics that compel you to return – not because you simply enjoy the game, its mechanics, characters, lore, or whatever, but because you feel like you’re simply missing out.

GW2 takes many things to new heights – unfortunately, also some of the bad things, and removing content that doesn’t hurt anyone if it stays in is definitely an extremely bad thing. They knowingly sacrifice good game design for profit, and that is one of the key differences to GW1.

If Guild Wars was people, then GW1 would be a reliable friend that is always there and always ready to do whatever you feel like doing, and GW2 would be the pretty girlfriend that is both distant, because she does whatever she wants to do with or without you (no repeats), and passive-aggressive clingy in that she makes you feel that you missed out on the fun because you were not there. Also she has steadily increasing demands to let you have the good stuff.

I know which I’d prefer.

Stx.4857:

I don’t want to take the time to go over all of your points and why they don’t make sense, so I’ll just say that your logic is very different than most and leave it at that. I’ll also post this simple equation.

New content + old content > New content

My arguments make sense once you understand what the Living World is. Go read those interviews I posted. Don’t reject Living Story until you know what it is.

jsduke.6537:

Stx.4857:

I don’t want to take the time to go over all of your points and why they don’t make sense, so I’ll just say that your logic is very different than most and leave it at that. I’ll also post this simple equation.

New content + old content > New content

My arguments make sense once you understand what the Living World is. Go read those interviews I posted. Don’t reject Living Story until you know what it is.

In 7 days, LS will be exactly 1 year old. Don’t tell people that they don’t know or don’t understand a “feature” that’s 1 year old, that’s just insulting and not in the least helpful.

The Living Story model has a similar analogy in programming: Agile Development. Only, in Agile Development, you don’t remove features after you’ve added them. Of course, it seems that things that should stick around are staying around. It’s nice to see that the last two Living World achievement packs are permanent, even if the LW Meta is going away. And the current content will have elements that recur yearly.

The issue I see is not that the ability to do the content is going away, but rather that there’s no lasting trace of what happened. The Lion’s statue looks awesome when you first see it, but there’s nobody talking about what happened to it last Halloween, and that’s quite sad. An NPC talking about the world would have been awesome. It’d be simple permanent content, and make Lion’s Arch feel just a bit more populated.

jsduke.6537:

How about you? Do you have any ideas on how to make it better? Would the monthly schedule I suggested work better for you, or do you have other ideas?

For me the problem with the living story is that I dont think it is actually living. There is very little change happening as a prelude or consequence of the living story.

As such, my suggestion to make it better is to make it matter. And to make it leave behind more then it takes away, instead of being a zero sum solution (adding a path to a dungeon? Better to also take one out!!). Both Southsun events did that well, but were hamstrung by other issues. I want them to look what F&F and the Southsuns did well and build on that.

jsduke.6537:

Stx.4857:

I don’t want to take the time to go over all of your points and why they don’t make sense, so I’ll just say that your logic is very different than most and leave it at that. I’ll also post this simple equation.

New content + old content > New content

My arguments make sense once you understand what the Living World is. Go read those interviews I posted. Don’t reject Living Story until you know what it is.

I know what their design philosophy behind LS is, but that is irrelevant to this topic. This topic is a discussion based on player opinions and perceptions of LS.

Temporary content is bad design no matter how you slice it. Simple addition…

New content + old content > New content

Stx.4857:

jsduke.6537:

Stx.4857:

I don’t want to take the time to go over all of your points and why they don’t make sense, so I’ll just say that your logic is very different than most and leave it at that. I’ll also post this simple equation.

New content + old content > New content

My arguments make sense once you understand what the Living World is. Go read those interviews I posted. Don’t reject Living Story until you know what it is.

I know what their design philosophy behind LS is, but that is irrelevant to this topic. This topic is a discussion based on player opinions and perceptions of LS.

Temporary content is bad design no matter how you slice it. Simple addition…

New content + old content > New content

Nope. You still don’t get it.

It would be like if I complained about PvP in WvW. If I complained about people attacking me in WvW, and suggested that WvW would be better if we removed the PvP element, it would be clear that I just don’t get WvW.

WvW without PvP is not WvW anymore.

Living World withough TempCon is not a Living World anymore.

HackworthGW.8251:

jsduke.6537:

Stx.4857:

I don’t want to take the time to go over all of your points and why they don’t make sense, so I’ll just say that your logic is very different than most and leave it at that. I’ll also post this simple equation.

New content + old content > New content

My arguments make sense once you understand what the Living World is. Go read those interviews I posted. Don’t reject Living Story until you know what it is.

In 7 days, LS will be exactly 1 year old. Don’t tell people that they don’t know or don’t understand a “feature” that’s 1 year old, that’s just insulting and not in the least helpful.

I’m not trying to be insulting. Sorry if you felt insulted.

But yes, you can tell by reading a lot of these posts that there are still people who don’t know what Living World is. The feature may have been around for 1 year, but not all the players have. Some people are still struggling to get their heads around it. The idea of Living World is not at all straight forward and obvious. It’s subtle, it’s a bit meta, and it’s a very different way of thinking about MMOs.

The problem I have with the living story is it feels like the simpsons. What I mean by that is that what happens in one episode has no relevance to what happens in the next. The entire arc we had leading up to the jubilee felt like the people working on it were making it up as they went along and then trying to write the lore connecting it in as an after thought. There’s been some enjoyable content (my favorite was the Bazar) but it’s episodic in the worst way. It does not form a coherent whole when I look back at it over it’s first year. In addition I can’t help feeling is there is too much focus on living story and not enough on moving the core story forward, isn’t it about time we started getting back to the elder dragons here, you know, the reason we’re fighting this war?

jsduke.6537:

HackworthGW.8251:

jsduke.6537:

Stx.4857:

I don’t want to take the time to go over all of your points and why they don’t make sense, so I’ll just say that your logic is very different than most and leave it at that. I’ll also post this simple equation.

New content + old content > New content

My arguments make sense once you understand what the Living World is. Go read those interviews I posted. Don’t reject Living Story until you know what it is.

In 7 days, LS will be exactly 1 year old. Don’t tell people that they don’t know or don’t understand a “feature” that’s 1 year old, that’s just insulting and not in the least helpful.

I’m not trying to be insulting. Sorry if you felt insulted.

But yes, you can tell by reading a lot of these posts that there are still people who don’t know what Living World is. The feature may have been around for 1 year, but not all the players have. Some people are still struggling to get their heads around it. The idea of Living World is not at all straight forward and obvious. It’s subtle, it’s a bit meta, and it’s a very different way of thinking about MMOs.

You’re still doing it. You suggest that for “some” people, LS is too “subtle”, and “not obvious”, which is another way of saying that they don’t get it, which seems to be the only reason you can accept that people reject LS. That way, you exclude any rational discourse because you simply brand everyone’s rejection of LS as lack of mental capacity.

What you can’t or don’t want to understand is that most of those people might weigh all pros and cons of LS and come to the conclusion that they don’t like it, and the reason for most is simply that they don’t want content removed.

I’ve seen many good arguments against removal of content, and how the LS system is basically an elaborate way of making players log in all the time under the guise of “the next big thing in MMOs”. All I see of your arguments are repetitions of what ANet marketing says in interviews, basically “it’s awesome because the guys at ANet said it is awesome”. I really haven’t seen a single convincing argument in favor of LS. You may find LS for whatever reason, but if you can’t put forward any convincing reason why, then at least don’t call people stupid for not understanding what isn’t there.

Tell you what, you and ANet may be right in the long run, really. Living Story, a.k.a. making all content except the core content temporary, might very well be the next big thing in MMOs.

Except it might only be the next big thing for MMO monetization, not the next big thing for MMO players.

il hope Anet reading these it makes more and more people leave

lots of people like this game bicous they say its B2P you can go away and come back anytime well yeah and loose every freaken content that was added back then……

If anyone recalls the Historian dude in GW1 who allowed players to revisit history and play missions as many times as they wanted, whenever they wanted and still receive the rewards.

I don’t see why they can’t replicate that process of revisiting a “packaged” living story, obviously the open world content can be left out, but the instanced content and various achievements should be available at any time.

I hate missing things, and unfortunately when I’m busy I tend to miss everything