Guild Wars 2

The Living World is becoming more and more of a player trap than a progression of the game.

And it isn’t even trying to disguise itself anymore.

Yes, there is some background story to what’s happening, and it’s all framed in the context of “gameplay”, but the gameness (this word was the best I could think of) of GW2 is increasingly becoming a pretense to capture players’ time, and less of being a game experience.

Look at the Crown Pavilion. A thinly veiled attempt at trapping players. It’s a tiny enclosed space (tiny relative to what Tyria could be), appearing out of nowhere, filled with all the behavioral tricks available.

The lower layer: a mind-numbing continuous farm for the zerg, with perfectly timed event spawn rates, such that the player will always be thinking “one more champion, one more champion”. Coupled with the new champion reward system, and the never-before-seen mob density, it’s a fantastic incentive to keep going. It’s a giant hamster wheel laid out horizontally. And it’s not even disguised as new open world content (like Southsun was). It’s not even disguised as a “natural” occurrence in the world (there’s no lore associated with the events, they just spawn like clockwork (watchwork ). It’s the Southsun instigator farm distilled.

The upper layer: challenging battles for the player who demands difficulty. Challenging for some, utterly frustrating for some. Again, a trap for players who enjoy a challenge, who are completionists, who want the Liandri minipet, or those who just want that ego boost. There is no dungeon here, no Aetherblade Retreat, no Molten Facility—no illusion of a game, no larger immersion. Just a series of disjointed encounters to challenge/frustrate you, and to make you sink repair, waypoint and gauntlet ticket costs into.

Now, I understand that a game has to capture the attention of players. But a game does that by being a game. ALL games use behavioral tricks to keep players occupied, but they make a game out of it.

I feel that with the Living World, content has become less of a game experience, and more of a stream of unapologetic behavioral manipulations, with very little game.

Not really, for starter the Queen Jubilee isnt strictly speaking part of the living world, its more like hybrid, mainly a festival much in the vein of Halloween and wintersday with just a bit of living story sprinkled in.

But more then that you have to understand different people like different things. The game has to throw stuff for all the different types of people. Some people like farming, just look at Orr when the game launched. That was the most profitable place and you could find tons of people farming there. Then it moved to FotM and CoE P1 etc…. The lower part of the pavillon is content for those players.

Again the challenging battles is for people who want challenging content. etc..

Now your issue seems to be mostly with the presentation of said content? I mean if the same 12 solo boss fights you get in the queens gauntlet were set in a dungeon would that still be what you call a behavioral trap? What is it that makes it a trap exactly? providing the content player wants? Cause if so, whats the solution? content players hate to play? I dont think that would be better do you? As for the setting its just what fits the theme of the event.

This is about a celebration, the lower layer is basically re-enactment type games. Robots disguised as iconic enemies through mesmer magic. This is the type of thing you want contained. You dont want these simulated enemies to attack villagers / children… The queen wants this to be fun not a slaughter of innocence.

As for the upper level, thats like gladiator fights. Their whole point is one of one challenges that can be witnessed by everyone. If you put them in the open world you cannot keep them one on one, if you make them instanced they cannot be experienced by everyone. The single small bio-dome like arena is just the solution to that problem. It fits the event perfectly. Think of it like jousting / actual gladiator fights. Was that a behavioral trick?, Did the actual fighters and spectators have a bad experience because it was an enclosed space rather then open world? No, everything has its place based on the theme at hand. If this was flame and frost, an assault on the molten alliance HQ taking place as a sequence of boss fights in this kind of bio-dome Arena would feel very bad and in that circumstance you would be absolutely right in saying game experienced was sacrificed in favor of content. But in this instance it makes perfect sense and it fits imho.

These are interesting observations. OP, I think you would really enjoy WWW.nickyee.com, its right up your alley. Especially the Daedalus project he worked on a few years back.

That being said, I honestly believe that GW2 is by far the greatest MMO of all time, when it comes to giving you the ability to choose not to play and focus on real life. Any game that keeps your attention for literally years, MUST have a hook. GW2’s is so nice in that it allows you to play as often or as little as you are able to from one week to the next. I probably would not be gaming right now if it wasn’t for this game’s design allowing for that.

axiology.5807:

I feel that with the Living World, content has become less of a game experience, and more of a stream of unapologetic behavioral manipulations, with very little game.

I dunno, I’m not quite as resigned as you seem to be. I think if anything the CP is a test by the devs to see how popular farming really is. I think that if the numbers show that this is what players want, they’ll go in that direction.

So how popular is it? Well, I can only go by my own experience. The CP is a hell of a lot of fun in bursts. I’ve been logging on every day to do a bit of CP and QG, but after a while it does get boring. The nice thing is you can zip out of it at any time and move back into the open world to do whatever else you enjoy doing – and that’s what I do. I move between the open world and CP quite a lot.

I don’t know if it’s the same for most players. If it is, then I think we’re safe, and Anet will continue to develop content all across the board. But if the majority of players really are stuck in CP and QG during this festival, I fear that the game will proceed as you suggest. It’s always going to be easier to make farming content than it is to make complex, interesting DE, and if experience tells the devs that the thing that’s easier to make is what most players want, they WILL go in that direction, manifesto or no (not saying they’ll abandon the more interesting content altogether, but it’s a cost/benefit thing for them).

Let’s not forget, people farmed the last Southsun event almost nonstop too. With the 200 bonus magic find buff and the run between events/chests (or just farming sharks), people made a whole lot of money farming Southsun.

If Anet could keep the farming contained to smaller areas so the rest of us could enjoy the world, that would be a pretty good thing.

agree with OP 100 %

Agree with OP. From the dailies, time gating, “one time only,this is never coming back” content, blatant cash grab one-week only baby minis, it feels like a cigarette company trying to get the nicotine level just right. I’m convinced that the 2 week update cycle came from some meeting where someone pulled out the player stats and saw that people were “taking a break for a month” and never coming back.

I still play for now (yeah, some of the nicotine probably worked on me). I prefer the open world and enjoy the lore, world, races, random dialogue humor hidden throughout.

All MMOs are hamster wheels by design.

I think that the nostalgia we sometimes feel (“they used to make better games”) is related less to rose-coloured glasses and more to the fact that old games were less hamstery than modern products.

A trap… I would rather consider it a bait and hook.
Every MMO has them and GW2 is no different and for a very good and simple reason.
Without such hooks players login times will ultimately dwindle as repetition of the same things over and over will cull enthusuiasm and without it the game fails to profit.
Players seem to always forget the fact that GW2 is nothing more than a product for the end user.. to create the product cost money and the only way to make that money back and build a profit off it is to get players to play it, but no one is forcing players to do anything other than make their own choice of want to/what to play or not.

Without such hooks there would, in fairly short timeframe, be.. a reduction of new content, longer delays between new content, stunting of the content, maintenance mode and then OFF SWITCH.

What we call a game, ANET/NCSoft call $$$BUSINESS$$$ plain and simple and LS is just another tool put in to keep promoting and selling the game to us – nothing new, every commercial enterprise does it in their own ways if they want to keep generating a healthy return.

/sign

0987654321

I have yet to see a deep and well narated story in LS. Its been months now, story is still full of holes and nothing is really happening, if it is i just cant feel it, and ive been playing every LS release from start.

Personally i dont care about cheap novels, i would watch ER or some lawyers tv series if i were into those things. I am however interested in well written fantasy adventures, drawn from lore, well integrated into world. That is LS I would like to see, not queen tea party and holliday resort pest problems…

The thing with the pavilion is that it is a guaranteed place to get items/mats/gold that people need to either breakdown for crafting, or selling to make money to buy parts of their legendary or upgrade gear. Up until now they have gone out of their way to make sure there were no areas like this. So when one is introduced it’s no big surprise that it is packed day and night with people trying to get as much as they can before it goes away.

That being said, it’s kinda fun, it’s not very deep as far as content goes but it is fun. It’s actually the first living story events I have chosen to do yet.

no matter how hard I try I just can wrap my mind again this concept “I’m convinced that the 2 week update cycle came from some meeting where someone pulled out the player stats and saw that people were “taking a break for a month” and never coming back.”

Its being repeated by many people but it just doesnt compute.

So lets see, if you dislike the game to the point of wanting to leave would you keep playing just cause there is new stuff to do? I dont know personally I played a lot of MMOs that were just not my thing. All of them had content release but so what? I dont enjoy the game I am not going to force myself to play that new content why should I ?

Another possiblity is you like the game, quit for a month and then forget about the game. If weekly updates keep you playing a game you enjoy, why is that a problem? Isnt it actually a really good thing?

I am sorry but this theory of they’re releasing 2 weeks content so people keep playing instead of quiting either doesnt fit (if we’re talking about players who dont like the game) or is actually a really good thing, if we’re talking about players who like the game (who exactly wants people to quit the game just because there is nothing to do?)

Poledo.3256:

The thing with the pavilion is that it is a guaranteed place to get items/mats/gold that people need to either breakdown for crafting, or selling to make money to buy parts of their legendary or upgrade gear. Up until now they have gone out of their way to make sure there were no areas like this. So when one is introduced it’s no big surprise that it is packed day and night with people trying to get as much as they can before it goes away.

That being said, it’s kinda fun, it’s not very deep as far as content goes but it is fun. It’s actually the first living story events I have chosen to do yet.

It reminds me of the gator zergs in Southsun, which (unfortunately, perhaps) were (in my opinion) the most fun part of that whole thing.

Galen Grey.4709:

no matter how hard I try I just can wrap my mind again this concept “I’m convinced that the 2 week update cycle came from some meeting where someone pulled out the player stats and saw that people were “taking a break for a month” and never coming back.”

Its being repeated by many people but it just doesnt compute.

To clarify some thoughts – I view the “taking a break for a month” crowd as slightly different from the “this game just isn’t for me crowd.” Whereas the latter are goners no matter what, the month break crowd is more on the fence. They probably do enjoy some parts of the game and have invested a decent amount of time and possibly money in characters that makes it difficult to just cut ties. There are two options to trying to retain these players:
1. Create content that builds upon the parts of the game that these players do like or
2. Create limited time or time sink (i.e. Legendary presser of F) content tied to achievements/minis that says to the player “hey, if you don’t do this now, you’ll never get to do it”. Toss in time gated stuff to add the subtle “you’ll be a month behind if you don’t log in daily” message and you get what many people are upset about.

The second option relies on tapping psychological motivations (neuroses?) of MMO players such as completionism. Someone who would otherwise take a break may feel compelled to play because if they did decide to come back, there would be empty mini slots, unobtainable weapons or fewer achievement points or whatever. If you are immune from this thinking and can say “who cares”, congratulations. Many MMO players are not. It is kinda ugly when you look at it and is looks a bit like addiction. I think it rubs some people the wrong way when it appears that devs are tapping this psychology.

In the end, yes it is a business aimed at making money. It is ultimately your decision whether you want to support the business model by making continued gem purchases. I have chosen to not spend anything beyond the initial game purchase price.

I see someone finally saw through what Anet was doing. I stopped playing awhile ago in the hopes that, when I came back a few months or years later, Anet would actually be producing new content instead of the same content they do with every event. Examples? Go get 100 of x. Press F 200 times on these. Now go play minigames for 5 hours. It’s the same with every new patch. The only thing that impressed me was the Zephyr Sanctum Sprint, and even that got boring after the 100th run trying to get the wind catcher. Other than that patch, I haven’t been on since.

I know they have limits on what they can do in a certain amount of time, but wouldn’t it be cool if a dragon landed in LA or Divinity’s Reach and started destroying the town? I guarantee that would bring more players back to the game. Or wouldn’t it be cool if a new land was discovered and your job was to explore the dangerous territory? Even a freaking castle that spawns in an unpopular area that belongs to an ancient evil even more powerful than the elder dragons would be cool.

Even if the events were half as cool as the ones I just listed, I’d come back. But Anet has to stop sending me out into the world to press F one thousand times on boring items before I come back.

We went from

‘You have been playing for 1 hour. Please take a break.’

to

‘You snooze, you lose!’

Tachenon.5270:

We went from

‘You have been playing for 1 hour. Please take a break.’

to

‘You snooze, you lose!’

Hahaha I had forgotten all about those messages. ‘You have been playing for ’x’ hours. Please take a break.’ Like, if I wanted a break, I’d get up and take one, now shut up!

So, I’m all fine with ‘you snooze, you lose.’ Of course, I only play like 6-10 hours a week, and I get thru everything pretty decently, and still have time to work through story/progress on other chars.

Galtrix’s post reminded me of something.

Particularly this…

Examples? Go get 100 of x. Press F 200 times on these. Now go play minigames for 5 hours. It’s the same with every new patch. The only thing that impressed me was the Zephyr Sanctum Sprint, and even that got boring after the 100th run trying to get the wind catcher.

And you played the mini games dozens of time in that 5 hours too I bet. I know I have.

It’s why these events are grinds.

I’d much rather do one thing that takes 2 hours. Instead of doing something that takes 10 mins 12 times. Rather than thinking up engaging content, they come up with a list of little repeatables and they drag it out by setting the number of times you have to do it. Short repeatable content who’s core concept is nothing new and can be found in older MMOs.

Galtrix.7369:

I see someone finally saw through what Anet was doing. I stopped playing awhile ago in the hopes that, when I came back a few months or years later, Anet would actually be producing new content instead of the same content they do with every event. Examples? Go get 100 of x. Press F 200 times on these. Now go play minigames for 5 hours. It’s the same with every new patch. The only thing that impressed me was the Zephyr Sanctum Sprint, and even that got boring after the 100th run trying to get the wind catcher. Other than that patch, I haven’t been on since.

I know they have limits on what they can do in a certain amount of time, but wouldn’t it be cool if a dragon landed in LA or Divinity’s Reach and started destroying the town? I guarantee that would bring more players back to the game. Or wouldn’t it be cool if a new land was discovered and your job was to explore the dangerous territory? Even a freaking castle that spawns in an unpopular area that belongs to an ancient evil even more powerful than the elder dragons would be cool.

Even if the events were half as cool as the ones I just listed, I’d come back. But Anet has to stop sending me out into the world to press F one thousand times on boring items before I come back.

Yes, it would be very cool if a dragon attacked LA. However, it wouldn’t be very cool if a dragon attacked LA every month. We already have 3 dragon dynamic events and they’re meaningless because they’re on a timer.

The problem is, a dragon attack LA is an event, but if I had to repeat it all day for two weeks, it would be no different than mini games.

thehipone.6812:

To clarify some thoughts – I view the “taking a break for a month” crowd as slightly different from the “this game just isn’t for me crowd.” Whereas the latter are goners no matter what, the month break crowd is more on the fence. They probably do enjoy some parts of the game and have invested a decent amount of time and possibly money in characters that makes it difficult to just cut ties. There are two options to trying to retain these players:

snip…

Not really, or at least I dont really see it myself.
If they’re really on the edge of quiting if the biweekly updates make them choose to stay its because they’ll enjoy doing them or find them engaging. If they’re already frustrated and close to the edge if they dont find the updates engaging at all and rather find them a chore they’re forced to do this is not going to anything other then give them the final push over the edge. Even if somehow this is true, how many of those people who feel frustrated and unable to leave because of psychological chains are going to give money to arenanet? if a player isnt happy enjoying the game s/he is highly unlikely to spend money.

Besides there is a bigger downside. people who do enjoy the game, love all about it but find this a chore and consider quiting because of it. These are happy people who are highly likely to spend money on the game. I am pretty sure in that regard this is more likely to loose them money then make it for them.

Galen Grey.4709:

Not really, or at least I dont really see it myself.
If they’re really on the edge of quiting if the biweekly updates make them choose to stay its because they’ll enjoy doing them or find them engaging. If they’re already frustrated and close to the edge if they dont find the updates engaging at all and rather find them a chore they’re forced to do this is not going to anything other then give them the final push over the edge. Even if somehow this is true, how many of those people who feel frustrated and unable to leave because of psychological chains are going to give money to arenanet? if a player isnt happy enjoying the game s/he is highly unlikely to spend money.

Besides there is a bigger downside. people who do enjoy the game, love all about it but find this a chore and consider quiting because of it. These are happy people who are highly likely to spend money on the game. I am pretty sure in that regard this is more likely to loose them money then make it for them.

Well, there are people who’ve basically completed the game and are bored. Perhaps Anet thought this was an idea to keep people who’ve done just about everything busy. Of course the down side is that it can have the opposite effect on other players. My guess is that Anet, just like many other game companies, don’t actually understand their players as much as they’d like and therefore a lot of trial and error happens.

I think they are adjusting their plan now because they realised this idea helped on one hand and backfired on the other.

They did something similar in GW1 with war in kryta and all that stuff…but it stayed in game. It just reminds me of that phrase where they said “we take everything you love from GW1….”. I think they have some translation issues because there are more good ideas that they had in GW2 that completely got botched up here.

They don’t want to do expansions as it looks….so this is supposed to keep people busy instead….well, uhm, in that case don’t let it come and go but let it stay.

I have to agree with the OP on a few points. Consider lore for example and the Crown Pavilion. Are all those mobs really just clockwork mobs resembling centaurs, ogres, etc.? If they are all just clockwork soldiers run amok then why would a benevolent Queen keep manufacturing them and tossing them into the Pavilion to kill her subjects? If they are actual Mobs what kind of cruel monarch would go out and capture centaurs and ogres just to toss them into an arena and see which side can survive the longest? The ogres are especially perplexing in that case because in your personal story you go out to get the ogres as allies in the fight against Zhaitan. So once the dragon is dead the Queen sees fit to toss the ogres into a arena to die?

Although the Pavilion makes a perfect farming spot for those who like farming at least in the open world a farming spot would have some sort of reasonable logic behind it. Sadly there is no logic behind this continuous respawn, multiple champion area.

Theftwind.8976:

I have to agree with the OP on a few points. Consider lore for example and the Crown Pavilion. Are all those mobs really just clockwork mobs resembling centaurs, ogres, etc.? If they are all just clockwork soldiers run amok then why would a benevolent Queen keep manufacturing them and tossing them into the Pavilion to kill her subjects? If they are actual Mobs what kind of cruel monarch would go out and capture centaurs and ogres just to toss them into an arena and see which side can survive the longest? The ogres are especially perplexing in that case because in your personal story you go out to get the ogres as allies in the fight against Zhaitan. So once the dragon is dead the Queen sees fit to toss the ogres into a arena to die?

Although the Pavilion makes a perfect farming spot for those who like farming at least in the open world a farming spot would have some sort of reasonable logic behind it. Sadly there is no logic behind this continuous respawn, multiple champion area.

Actually, because rezzing is part of the lore they could very well be clockwork creations with illusions on them, and fighting them is what people come to do…to hone their skills for fighting the real things in the wild.

We’ve seen other places were people “die” during contests. They just rez. It’s part of the lore.

What bothers me is when characters die in the story and they can’t be rezzed. That should be explained somehow.

Vayne.8563:

Actually, because rezzing is part of the lore they could very well be clockwork creations with illusions on them, and fighting them is what people come to do…to hone their skills for fighting the real things in the wild.

We’ve seen other places were people “die” during contests. They just rez. It’s part of the lore.

What bothers me is when characters die in the story and they can’t be rezzed. That should be explained somehow.

So that begets this question. Why create a self repairing, self rezzing, self replicating mechanical mob capable of taking on any shape or disguise? Is the Queen really flesh and blood or has she been replaced by a clockwork machine? Since they have run amok would not the total annihilation of anything and everything clockwork be paramount at this point in time? Yet we are now finding recipes so everyone can make things that are clockwork in design. It sort of reminds me of the clone wars in Star Wars.

Galtrix.7369:

I see someone finally saw through what Anet was doing. I stopped playing awhile ago in the hopes that, when I came back a few months or years later, Anet would actually be producing new content instead of the same content they do with every event. Examples? Go get 100 of x. Press F 200 times on these. Now go play minigames for 5 hours. It’s the same with every new patch. The only thing that impressed me was the Zephyr Sanctum Sprint, and even that got boring after the 100th run trying to get the wind catcher. Other than that patch, I haven’t been on since.

I know they have limits on what they can do in a certain amount of time, but wouldn’t it be cool if a dragon landed in LA or Divinity’s Reach and started destroying the town? I guarantee that would bring more players back to the game. Or wouldn’t it be cool if a new land was discovered and your job was to explore the dangerous territory? Even a freaking castle that spawns in an unpopular area that belongs to an ancient evil even more powerful than the elder dragons would be cool.

Even if the events were half as cool as the ones I just listed, I’d come back. But Anet has to stop sending me out into the world to press F one thousand times on boring items before I come back.

/Insert [mmo X here, which ever one you enjoy and find as close to perfect as possibe]

think of all the updates it did and use your same logic on it…

wouldnt it look something like this:

every expansion is the same:
its go talk to some dude with ! on top of his head
that sends me to kill stuff which is pressing keys 1 – x for 100x of times
Sometimes they send me to deliver stuff to another npc which boils down to holding W down for seconds
they have me doing quests for days
do raids / dungeon for days
etc….

Every mmo akittens core is repeating the same core activities.

why is go play a mini game for a few hours and different then run dungeon / raid for well much longer

Even the press f 200 times thing… how many time do you press an attack button in a dungeon / raid.

what I am getting at is its not type of activity, its not what button you press that makes a difference its the variety.

Sure a few of the achievement might involve taking part in mini games but every 2 weeks you get 1 – 3 new ones.

Sure sometimes achievements are extremely simple like interacting with something 30 – 150 times but they’re entirely optional, you dont find them interesting.. great choose from the stuff you do find interesting.

Sure, it would be definitely great to get new lands to explore and new challenges to face etc..

Different people like different things. Arenanet try to do content for everyone. ITs not like Arenanet didnt release the type of content you seem to crave.

You got a new lands to explore in southsun cove, the fractals, some of the guild missions and the bazaar. In terms of more combat oriented content we got southsun cove… twice, the fractals again, 3 jp/mini dungeons, 50+ new dynamic events, 3x new spvp maps, the guild missions, 2 story instances and 3 dungeons. Even the latest update had the queens gauntlet that offers some pretty epic fights.

You cannot exactly say you got none of the content you enjoy.

but it seems its much easier to remember the exact number of key presses one achievements you totally hate took then all the content you liked that was put in.

Seriously is it that hard to focus on what one likes then what they dislike?

ANet were not the first to come up with “mini-zones” to murder stuff, and they most definitely did not come up with the concept of a boss rush.

at the end of the day, what matters is “is it enjoyable?”. i personally dislike farming like a madman, but if a boss with a drop chance of an item i want shows up and i’m not doing anything else, i fight it. on the other hand, i found the gauntlet very fun and rewarding.

Vayne.8563:

Galtrix.7369:

I see someone finally saw through what Anet was doing. I stopped playing awhile ago in the hopes that, when I came back a few months or years later, Anet would actually be producing new content instead of the same content they do with every event. Examples? Go get 100 of x. Press F 200 times on these. Now go play minigames for 5 hours. It’s the same with every new patch. The only thing that impressed me was the Zephyr Sanctum Sprint, and even that got boring after the 100th run trying to get the wind catcher. Other than that patch, I haven’t been on since.

I know they have limits on what they can do in a certain amount of time, but wouldn’t it be cool if a dragon landed in LA or Divinity’s Reach and started destroying the town? I guarantee that would bring more players back to the game. Or wouldn’t it be cool if a new land was discovered and your job was to explore the dangerous territory? Even a freaking castle that spawns in an unpopular area that belongs to an ancient evil even more powerful than the elder dragons would be cool.

Even if the events were half as cool as the ones I just listed, I’d come back. But Anet has to stop sending me out into the world to press F one thousand times on boring items before I come back.

Yes, it would be very cool if a dragon attacked LA. However, it wouldn’t be very cool if a dragon attacked LA every month. We already have 3 dragon dynamic events and they’re meaningless because they’re on a timer.

The problem is, a dragon attack LA is an event, but if I had to repeat it all day for two weeks, it would be no different than mini games.

Oh yeah, I totally agree. It wouldn’t solve anything if it happened more than once. What I’m saying is that it would be cool if we had awesome one-time events that pop up out of nowhere to surprise the players. I honestly don’t know if it’s within Anet’s power to do, but one of those events at least every month would make everyone extremely happy. I mean, Anet would have to buff the boss’s health massively so word can get around that there’s an event going on at a certain place and so the players would have enough time to run over there and complete that event. Even just making it an all day event wouldn’t be too terribly repetitive. If you miss it, you can repeat it later that day.

If that’s too difficult, Anet could create multiple events that use RNG. What I mean by that is, Anet could create at least 5 vastly different events that spawn randomly throughout the world. One day you could be fighting a dragon from a village, the next day you could be fighting an army of undead soldiers hellbent on destroying everything in sight.

Anyway, those are just a few of my ideas. Again, I really have no idea if these are even possible but it would be extremely cool.

Gehenna.3625:

Well, there are people who’ve basically completed the game and are bored. Perhaps Anet thought this was an idea to keep people who’ve done just about everything busy. Of course the down side is that it can have the opposite effect on other players. My guess is that Anet, just like many other game companies, don’t actually understand their players as much as they’d like and therefore a lot of trial and error happens.

I think they are adjusting their plan now because they realised this idea helped on one hand and backfired on the other.

They did something similar in GW1 with war in kryta and all that stuff…but it stayed in game. It just reminds me of that phrase where they said “we take everything you love from GW1….”. I think they have some translation issues because there are more good ideas that they had in GW2 that completely got botched up here.

They don’t want to do expansions as it looks….so this is supposed to keep people busy instead….well, uhm, in that case don’t let it come and go but let it stay.

One issue, your whole argument rests with everyone, or at least the majority of the players disliking the biweekly updates. How can anyone claim if thats the case or not? I have no doubt for some players especially completionists but likewise I also have no doubt for others having something new to do every two weeks in an MMO is an amazing perk

no one can say for sure who has the bigger numbers. But personally I think its likely that the ones who want constant new content are greater in numbers. why? well because complitonists arent your average players while new stuff to play all the time in an mmo has been one of the holy grails for quite long.