Guild Wars 2

http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/editorials/guild-wars-2-bring-end-living-world-permanently

After reading this article, and already having an opinion before reading it that matches up.

I personally feel this throw-away content is kind of a running joke by this time, and although it is nice to have that “new content rush” it only seems to last for a few initial days, then becoming stale for a lot of players and only really sticking for a few.

Personally I would much prefer balance and polish patches every 2 weeks, and full content releases attune to expansion packs every 6m-1yr.

And honestly, this would let their currently rushing devs work on solidifying the core game, adding fluid and sensible events, and making the zones we have worth re-visiting.

What is everyone elses take on the current trend of the Living World an content additions in general?

I think the Living World should continue, but not as merely as a grand scale as we’re seeing them attempt.

Example: SAB is one of those Living World events that should exercise the periodic content that, when the Living World progresses, becomes a grander scale of an experience. The build up to the Giant Wurm would been nice addition as well, since it bares more to the world’s events as a whole.

The issue that the content given to us now is trying to be a grand-all thing that should be worked and loved more. Where the build-up to an experience seems to please the gamer more than the first week. These experiences are then fragmented and less enjoyed.

I just wish we could get some metrics on how many people are actually enjoying ( not just playing, but actually enjoying) Living Story. If Living Story is such a success, then prove it to us. Show us the overwhelming support for it. If not — and the majority of players do not want Living Story — then admit you made a mistake and put an end to it. Stop trying to shove it at us whether we want it or not.

I won’t hold my breath, though. ANet loves to seek feedback, but seldom admits to making mistakes and rarely changes direction once they’ve committed to a course of action, no matter what their customers say. Sure, they will incorporate player suggestions whenever possible, but not to the point of reversing something they had already planned.

They seem to be pretty convinced that Living Story is what the players want. For their sake, I hope they’re right. Because I’m sure I’m not the only one who never looks back after they’ve decided to leave a game for good.

Eh.

I’m not impressed with the article. I’ve read much better editorials here on the forums. He has a very narrow and personal assessment of the game and Living World (which is understandable). I have read similar sentiments on these forums, but for what it’s worth I don’t agree with him at all.

GW2 is doing something very unique with the Living World. No one else is doing this. It’s a really cool idea, I like it a lot, and I’m excited to be a part of it.

It’s flawed. I can admit that. But it’s a brand new thing they are doing, and it’s going to take some time to work out the kinks, and really make it live up to its potential. I think there has been tremendous improvement over the early months of the current Living Story, and I’m eager to see where we end up when it’s all over.

The real test of Living World, though, will be the next Living Story. With the next LS, we have every right to expect that ANet will take what they have learned from the Scarlet LS and really deliver some top-notch content and story.

I think they are going to do just that.

Living World isn’t going to appeal to all players. ANet gets that. But you know what? It appeals to me. I love it, and I’m glad someone has the balls to do it.

minbariguy.7504:

I just wish we could get some metrics on how many people are actually enjoying ( not just playing, but actually enjoying) Living Story. If Living Story is such a success, then prove it to us. Show us the overwhelming support for it. If not — and the majority of players do not want Living Story — then admit you made a mistake and put an end to it. Stop trying to shove it at us whether we want it or not.

I enjoy it. Living Story is the #1 reason why I’m still playing GW2. And I don’t know what “the majority of players” want, but I won’t assume that the majority of players agree with my opinion. You’d have to be some kind of egomaniac to do that.

ANet just needs to refine the Living Story. They should work towards creating exclusive portions of Living Story releases with enough value to draw people in every two weeks, while opening up repeatable ways to experience the story portions of these temporary content releases shortly after the content goes away.

That’s the strategy, it just needs to be executed.

minbariguy.7504:

I just wish we could get some metrics on how many people are actually enjoying ( not just playing, but actually enjoying) Living Story. If Living Story is such a success, then prove it to us. Show us the overwhelming support for it. If not — and the majority of players do not want Living Story — then admit you made a mistake and put an end to it. Stop trying to shove it at us whether we want it or not.

I won’t hold my breath, though. ANet loves to seek feedback, but seldom admits to making mistakes and rarely changes direction once they’ve committed to a course of action, no matter what their customers say. Sure, they will incorporate player suggestions whenever possible, but not to the point of reversing something they had already planned.

They seem to be pretty convinced that Living Story is what the players want. For their sake, I hope they’re right. Because I’m sure I’m not the only one who never looks back after they’ve decided to leave a game for good.

Agreed.

Living Story was a good idea, just very poorly executed. There isn’t enough variety in it. SAB and two holiday patches are really the only breaks we’ve gotten from the main story arc (which has been very poor). The 2-week schedule, the temporary content, the shallowness of each update, etc. it’s finally gotten to me.

LS is not what has kept me playing. The fact that I am an altoholic who loves map completion has. (Though admittedly I have participated in almost every LS update solely for the achievement points.) But now I have an 80 of every class, multiple characters with 100% map completion, got my 10k achievement chest (so the ‘carrot on a stick’ to even do LS for achievement points is gone) and since then I’ve found myself to be very bored.

GW2 didn’t have much competition in 2013, but 2014 has at least 3 MMOs I’m interested in and with only these paltry LS updates and no expansion planned I can’t see GW2 holding my interest much longer. Like you, once I quit an MMO I don’t go back either.

minbariguy.7504:

I just wish we could get some metrics on how many people are actually enjoying ( not just playing, but actually enjoying) Living Story.

I don’t know.
Personally I don’t play stuff I don’t enjoy, and I was under the impression that it was a rather common line of thinking, but maybe I was wrong.

Getting metrics on how many people enjoy content would be rather impossible, seeing as it would always be a biased result (while metrics show an unbiased, absolute, result).

lordkrall.7241:

I don’t know.
Personally I don’t play stuff I don’t enjoy, and I was under the impression that it was a rather common line of thinking, but maybe I was wrong.

It really depends on what the rewards are. There are plenty of people who will grind their way through content they don’t enjoy to get the shiny at the end. Personally, I agree with you, though; if I don’t enjoy it, I don’t play it.

lordkrall.7241:

Getting metrics on how many people enjoy content would be rather impossible, seeing as it would always be a biased result (while metrics show an unbiased, absolute, result).

Impossible? How so? I recall that there was some discussion in the Living World CDI about in-game polls similar to what was in place during the beta. This would be a rather easy way to get these metrics. When people on the forums give feedback stating that they don’t like Living Story, they are often shouted down by people who are quick to remind them that forum posters are a minority of a game’s player base. So why not let the entire player base speak, then?

jsduke.6537:

I enjoy it. Living Story is the #1 reason why I’m still playing GW2. And I don’t know what “the majority of players” want, but I won’t assume that the majority of players agree with my opinion. You’d have to be some kind of egomaniac to do that.

I am glad you are enjoying Living Story. For me, it is the #1 reason I haven’t logged in for months.

I agree that it isn’t wise to assume what the majority of players want. Hence my call for metrics.

minbariguy.7504:

Impossible? How so? I recall that there was some discussion in the Living World CDI about in-game polls similar to what was in place during the beta. This would be a rather easy way to get these metrics. When people on the forums give feedback stating that they don’t like Living Story, they are often shouted down by people who are quick to remind them that forum posters are a minority of a game’s player base. So why not let the entire player base speak, then?

Because it would be a biased result.
Either you would be able to skip the polls, and thus people not everyone would post opinions and thus make it useless. Or you would be forced to do them, which would annoy people who might then give worse grade than they actually want just for being annoyed and thus making it rather useless as well.

Everything that is built on direct player input will always be biased one way or another.

I’ll admit that I come back for the Living Story. I’ll also admit that the shallow-content 2-week rotation was causing some major burnout. Especially when it seemed like they were more excuses to sell special RNG-chests on the Trading Company.

I appreciate that there’s fresh content. But once per month, thanks. It gives me a strong reason to come back, poke around at something new, then go do other things. Like farm mats for Ascended gear or peek my head in WvW. Or play another MMO without feeling bitter that GW2 is baiting me. (I’m close to “done” with one of them, and I’d like to finish that soon. :P)

I also enjoy the Living Story and it’s current format. I’ve honestly never had an issue with it at all. It’s great to have new content streaming in to make the game fresh and enjoyable week after week.

I’ve played SWTOR and DCUO before GW2. Both lost my attention pretty quickly once I got to end game. Why? The raid grinding was a little meh and once you did your weekly raid, there was just about nothing else to do…

Put me under ‘big fan of LS’. It definitely keeps me playing.

minbariguy.7504:

I am glad you are enjoying Living Story. For me, it is the #1 reason I haven’t logged in for months.

And if the LS wasn’t there, then you still would not have logged in for months. Or are you boycotting PvP, Fractals, and WvW because LS exists?

The Living Story was a good idea but the implementation has been rushed and lazy.

And it’s getting worse and worse. For next week, they’re simply taking a WvW map that’s been in development, dumping Scarlet in there, and pasting a big Living Story label on it.

That’s why people hate it so much.

I think the problem with LS lies with the primary thing it was intended to do: replace expansions. I would have no problem with the LS if it lived up to that goal.

1 year of LS needs to provide the same volume & type of content we got from a year of GW1
IT’S NOT EVEN CLOSE

That’s my problem with it. All the hype about “an expansions worth of content” is totally bogus. It’s not even a 1/3 an expansion & it’s been 1 1/2 years. This “feature patch” coming later this year will be nothing more than what we would have normally gotten from Jan-Mar from LS features.

We’ve been hearing about “We have a couple of really big Guild Wars projects cooking in the background” for almost a year. They told us they were doing Dungeon revamps a year ago. we got 1 path & minor tweaks. I don’t know how long they expect people to stick around when they say that. They haven’t even figured out how they are gonna release it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not happening.

I’d rather they focused on making new races, massive sets of gear & redo the dungeons & world bosses, then on this not-good story.

if they end up providing material the size of an exspansion outside of ls id say it should continue but learn from their mistakes are needed terrible. short stories mixed in with larger bigger stories. not make the second year be all one persons fault is one put a few regional stories in with the main story. side stories in other regions with a mix of hints on the main story to keep us occupied while we are helping other in urgent need. so when they are doing side stories we get minor details related to the major story going. example im thinking main story we are exploring new territory to set up bases to move toward jormag(several chapters related to this ) then centuars do something to side track us which must be taken care of before we can go on but with a hint(that has nothing to do with centuars) that tells us where jormag is at to be exact setting up next few chapter for us picking up a site to estabslish such base much like in gw1 where we had to set up the sunspear base then a chapter with us preparing top go against jormag strong spots ooops human charr relation something wrong we must go take care of it to keep our forces together for the attacks against jormag. some chapter are just emergencies other working toward a goal. along with breaks just to give us stuff we want(quality of life stuff) and giving ls breaks from now to then completely

Fluffball.8307:

And if the LS wasn’t there, then you still would not have logged in for months. Or are you boycotting PvP, Fractals, and WvW because LS exists?

Not true. Living Story just frustrated me enough that I no longer found logging in to GW2 a fun or pleasurable experience at all. If Living Story hadn’t made me feel so stressed out and pressured all the time, I would still be logging in.

minbariguy.7504:

Fluffball.8307:

And if the LS wasn’t there, then you still would not have logged in for months. Or are you boycotting PvP, Fractals, and WvW because LS exists?

Not true. Living Story just frustrated me enough that I no longer found logging in to GW2 a fun or pleasurable experience at all. If Living Story hadn’t made me feel so stressed out and pressured all the time, I would still be logging in.

I guess it we all have different reactions to it. It’s slowly driven me away too. Mainly it seems temporary, time gated pressure, and repetitious to me. It seems to have a bad effect on me. For example, I was enjoying WvW until it had the list of tasks and achievements. Then I felt pressured, even though it was 7 weeks long and I finished the meta, I still felt pressured. After it was over I quit playing WvW for a long time. Never have gotten back into like I was before.

Oh well, I played GW1 for four years. In fact, my friends and I continued with GW1 until we felt that it was going to wind down due to GW2 being developed. This one doesn’t have the hold on me. I felt connected to the stories in GW1. Here, I feel no connection. I don’t know what the fundamental differences are that make me feel disconnected from this one. I like a lot of the mechanics of the game. I like the movement and the ability to not compete for resources and mobs and to act like a group with out being in the same party. But …something is missing that I need in a game. :/

Hmm, more bad press for the Living Story. Not entirely surprised.

I agree with a lot of what was said in the article. Most of the writer’s criticisms are obvious to all but the most hardcore of players.

I don’t agree with everything, though. For example, I do not believe that:

“sPvP is skeletal in its implementation with balance all over the place, WvW maps are too small and encourage zerging (still), dungeons awful…”

The problem with WvW, dungeons, sPvP and other sectors of the game is that they aren’t getting enough development. We need more maps and game modes for sPVP. We need more dungeons. But of course, the majority of development is being dumped into Living Story instead, which is throwaway content.

The game needs content that enriches the game and adds longevity, bottom line.

lordkrall.7241:

Getting metrics on how many people enjoy content would be rather impossible, seeing as it would always be a biased result (while metrics show an unbiased, absolute, result).

But they could get SOME information, even if it was inaccurate to a degree. People were presented with a poll after completing personal story chapters during the beta. They were asked how much you liked each chapter on a scale of 1-5. The code to implement something similar for the Living Story is therefore already made and could be used with little additional development time.

That would at least give them some idea of how much people enjoyed it, right?

Unlike the people who always feel like running to the forums and complain about every little bit, the people who actually like the content are too busy playing the actual game.

I won’t say you guys’ arguments are completely invalid (well some of them are but most certainly not all), but plenty of people who like the content exist, and you really need to stop acting like they don’t. I absolutely loved the Tower of Nightmares and its raid dungeon-like feel.

That said, I hope they throw every splintergroup a bone every once in a while. They don’t need to stop Living Story, they just need to cater to the different splintergroups in turn.

Shockwave.1230:

ANet just needs to refine the Living Story. They should work towards creating exclusive portions of Living Story releases with enough value to draw people in every two weeks, while opening up repeatable ways to experience the story portions of these temporary content releases shortly after the content goes away.

That’s the strategy, it just needs to be executed.

Considering the first living story hasn’t been completed yet wouldn’t it make sense that the entire thing would be packaged together like my story to be completed at your leisure.

I like the LS, I just wish they’d stop making content temporary when it doesn’t need to be. SAB, the Queen’s Gauntlet, activities only popping on certain days. So much gameplay variety that just doesn’t get used most of the year, and when it does you have to rush it all at once. It also makes the events that actually should be temporary (Halloween, Wintersday) feel less special.

If someone who had quit a year ago asked me what was new for them to try out I’d be kind of stuck, even though in actuality a LOT has been given to us for free. I’d love to be able to log in and actually be spoiled for choice on what to do, which would be the case if they’d left in SAB (a completely different experience with unique rewards), Queen’s Gauntlet (a challenging solo area), and activities (highly varied, though should be playable with friends).

It’ll bite them in the rear in a few years time, when they have very little content to show off from the first couple years of the game’s existence to new or returning players.
One thing that continuously attracted new people to WoW or other succesful MMO even deep into their lifetimes is that after several years of development the game would feel even bigger and more packed.
Well, I guess that doesn’t apply with GW2.
I guess ANet is like a child with a burning hot plate. Has to learn on it’s own.