GuildMag: Some folks are really bummed that their parents took away their Super Adventure Box. Is there anything that you can tell them that will cheer them up for going back to school?
Devon Carver: You want to… you want to deliver the news?
Matt Wuerffel: Sure. Yeah, I mean, when we are talking about the Living World and the Living Story, you can see that we are moving towards a much more focused narrative, and that is focused on your relationship with Braham and Rox and some of the other characters that we have introduced. And that means that there is less, one, there is less space to do something where you kind of take a break and say: ‘And now for something completely different’ – which is what Super Adventure Box was. I think the other part of it is that we look very carefully at how much people played and how much people enjoyed certain portions of content that we put out, and so that also weighs into the factor of ‘Well, okay, what are we going to do, and when are we going to bring back things? What do we do, how much time do we put into different festivals, Halloween and Wintersday.’ And so, Super Adventure Box has a ton of people that were really excited about it, and it also has that difficulty of, it is something that’s really different from Guild Wars 2 in a lot of ways, and it doesn’t easily fit into the narrative structure of Living World. And so, I think it would be very unlikely that you would see it as part of a Living World season release, as to whether or not we come back to it, whether or not in some other form, you know, I can’t really say, I don’t know how likely that is and that is really all I can say about it. We know that there are a ton of people that really enjoyed it, and we had a lot of fun playing portions of it, but it’s difficult to fit in within the narrative structure that we have now and I think that makes it very much less likely that it will appear in a Living World season going forward.
GuildMag: But will it come back after the current season?
Matt Wuerffel: We can’t really comment about what our long term plans are for the game, and so, you know, it is a similar answer if you ask me what was gonna happen in the upcoming episodes of season 2. Like, I really can’t say. But it is a very much different game in a lot of ways than Guild Wars 2 – a game within a game – and we’re trying to focus already in World v. World and PvP and PvE and Fractals. There are lots of systems that we have and we want to focus first on getting those to a state where we’re really happy with them and we’re fully supporting them and then we could look into… ‘All right, now that we have those up to a quality that we’re really happy with and fans are really happy with, what other projects can we take on, and what things can we look at doing?
I get that it’s very different than the rest of the game, but that was part of what made SAB so much fun. It was a complete departure and a really unexpected adventure within the game.
If you guys are thinking you might not finish world 3&4 after all, can you please just reopen world 1&2 for us? At least then we’d have some use for out Infinite Continue Coin we bought and for people who just enjoy it as an interlude, it’ll be there for us.
So… they want to focus on the Living World but they forget one very important factor. In real life there are millions of different things happening at once. Just because a dragon is attacking doesn’t mean everyone is going to be involved in that. It’s like telling a chef to put bombs in his cakes because a war just started. SAB is a feature, a feature that already exists and it happens to be one that brings many people happiness. It won’t be hard to throw in what already exists inside a feature pack (something totally separate from the Living World already…).
The very fact that it isn’t involved with the rest of the world is all the reason it should be put back in. It can’t be game breaking in any way, shape or form. All that matters is that people love it, those who dislike don’t matter because it doesn’t affect them at all. This is a huge slap in the face to the loyal players that loved SAB and those who paid for continue coins.
I’m only here because sometimes I just like to watch things burn.
Well they make the game for us right? So maybe if enough people express the emotion that they want it back even if it doesn’t fit in with the story they will reconsider?
I agree, please just give us SAB back if your going to abandon it.
Also that interview was a disappointment they said no to everything players want; but the worst is the no SAB news. Especially given all the kitten breaks we are going to get now every other month or whatever. I think it could fit in with the Xmas stuff too.
#OccupySAB2014 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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They should just add it onto the Feature Packs. Since SAB doesn’t contribute to the overall story at all, the best time to rerelease it is during the break time between the LS segments. It would give us something to do for those 2+ months, because the stuff added in the Feature Packs don’t take up all that time.
Deeply disappointing by this news. I’m not asking for new SAB content if they feel this takes focus away from the LS and upcoming PVP features. Just opening World 1 and 2 for replay and tribulation-mode would be more than enough for me.
The reply itself too strikes me as a odd or ill formulated. After all, its not as if Fractals of the Mists fits with the LS or anything.
Deeply disappointing by this news. I’m not asking for new SAB content if they feel this takes focus away from the LS and upcoming PVP features. Just opening World 1 and 2 for replay and tribulation-mode would be more than enough for me.
The reply itself too strikes me as a odd or ill formulated. After all, its not as if Fractals of the Mists fits with the LS or anything.
Gotta read between the lines, of course it has nothing to do with the “narrative coherence” reason they gave. That’s just a silly excuse; the entire point of SAB was that it existed outside of the narrative. How can they not get that if they made it in the first place?
I’ll add my name to the “wanting SAB back” party. Whether or not it fit with the living story narrative for me is irrelevant. It had its OWN story independent of the main story… A story, I might add, that is still unresolved.
There are still two more worlds that need to be introduced, and I for one would love the chance to explore them, and relive the first two worlds.
When I played SAB, it was not a constant, over and over playthrough. It was a detour from my “mundane” GW2 life by doing something different. I ran through it, had a blast, or cursed at the screen in the case of world 2, but I enjoyed it.
I’d like the opportunity to do that again, AT MY OWN LEISURE! Even if the story behind it is never progressed, I’d still like that 8 bit goodness to break up the every day Tyrian adventure.
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For me the SAB was the most memorable content they have released thus far and not seeing it in their priorities is very disappointing.
And what the heck do they mean it “doesn’t easily fit into the narrative structure of Living World”? Is the living story now limited to the adventures of the biconics who I’m sure many of us grew tired of before season 2 started? Focusing on more characters, including Motto and his adventure box project, would do nothing but improve the narrative of the living story.
I couldn’t agree more. Within the SAB I had the most fun and entertaining hours of my entire Gw2-life. (God bless the dev who came up with it.)
It simply isn’t intended to fit into the current narrative, but thats what makes it rather refreshing. A real break, so to say. And I dare say that because it IS so very different to the normal game we can enjoy it so much I guess. The idea alone that we may not see the SAB again strikes me speechless, surprised and disappointed at the same time…
So, basically, the problem with Season 1 wasn’t season 1, it was that all the best parts of season 1 were the parts that had nothing to do with the main story line. So, if they cut out the good stuff that happened during breaks from the main story and ram the story down everyone’s throat in every single live content update, “win”?
Another instance of “what should we as game developers actually do, then do exactly the opposite, just to be edgy”? More likely.
They should have made SAB a permanent part of the game a year ago, then had a small team doing nothing but developing new levels for it. That would have been edgy. Of course, if more people played GW2 for SAB than Living Story, that might have been a bit embarrassing.
I didn’t enjoy SAB, but there’s no reason to take it away! Seriously, I’d pin it down as one crazy Asura’s idea of combat training and there’s enough merit in that to have it remain on a permanent basis. Maybe it’s down if a dragon decides to eat Rata Sum, but other than that, kitten the narrative! Bring back SAB! Long may she live and all who sail in her..! ... or something.
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So… they want to focus on the Living World but they forget one very important factor. In real life there are millions of different things happening at once. Just because a dragon is attacking doesn’t mean everyone is going to be involved in that. It’s like telling a chef to put bombs in his cakes because a war just started. SAB is a feature, a feature that already exists and it happens to be one that brings many people happiness. It won’t be hard to throw in what already exists inside a feature pack (something totally separate from the Living World already…).
The very fact that it isn’t involved with the rest of the world is all the reason it should be put back in. It can’t be game breaking in any way, shape or form. All that matters is that people love it, those who dislike don’t matter because it doesn’t affect them at all. This is a huge slap in the face to the loyal players that loved SAB and those who paid for continue coins.
You bring up a very good point. Mordremoth is not stopping the world from turning. They even put it into episodes that the world is functioning, with other issues in the way of all the leaders of all the races. Not everyone in the world is dropping what they are doing and fighting. Yes they realized how big a threat he is by the end of the mid season finale, but that isn’t going to stop the rest of the world from going about their business. The cities will still function, the citizens will still go about their days, so on and so forth.
SAB, while initially an April Fools joke, still functions as a training program for young asurans. There isn’t any reason atm that would stop them training their young; if anything, it’s more reason to do so.
I see no reason why, since we are already getting a break from the LS until the fall, that we can’t get SAB in the mean time. We are already going to be getting Mad King and Wintersday events. If citizens can celebrate those, I don’t see how this can’t fit in as well.
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They apparently locked a four page thread about it in the main discussions forum. I didn’t see a post saying why it was locked either :/ That’s pretty disappointing.
They apparently locked a four page thread about it in the main discussions forum. I didn’t see a post saying why it was locked either :/ That’s pretty disappointing.
The main thread is open. Reading the 4 page one…it is fairly obvious why they locked it considering the tone of some posts. I agree SAB to stay, but there is a means and a way to presenting the arguments, many of which were somewhat lacking there from the start…
Oh there’s another thread? I had been told that was the main thread for it. If there is another thread then that makes sense. Still wish they had said something when they closed it but oh well.
Since there is now a main thread for the current SAb discussion, please post your comments on the topic in the thread linked above. Thanks for providing the link, Randulf!
