Guild Wars 2

Let me preface this with saying that I really like a lot about GW2, and I actually like the idea of a"living world". I’m finding in practice however, that it’s making it difficult for me to get re-engaged with the game after taking a break.

I took a break for a while because work was crazy and I needed less involving games (like Android apps I can play for 5 minutes and put down). I’ve been sort of itching to come back now that things have calmed down a bit, but each time I’ve logged in, it’s been halfway through a living story event, and I’m so far behind on why things are actually happening (Who’s Scarlet again and why do we all hate her?) I’m just having trouble engaging with it.

I don’t care about the achievements and I can handle missing holiday or infrequent one time events just fine. Holidays will roll around again next year in some form and the one time events are easy to get up to speed on what happened and what changed. I think it’s the frequency of the living story content that’s putting me off.

It makes me feel like I have to pay way more attention to the game that I’ve got the bandwidth for, and runs counter to why I liked the game so much in the first place, which is that I could pick it up and do whatever I felt like doing, harvesting, crafting, jumping puzzles, dungeons, etc. and still feel that I was making progress. Now I feel pressured to do particular activities when I log in because if I don’t I won’t have another opportunity to experience them later on.

An example might express it better. The original Woodstock was a one time event that can never be recreated and significantly influenced the US. I can’t go back and experience it the same way the folks that were there experienced it, but I can watch video of it and listen to the music and get some idea of what it was like to be there. The living story events are gone completely once they’re over (or at least that’s my perception of it) and there’s no way to go back and experience the content even partially other than reading about it.

Yes I could ignore the living story entirely, but I would really rather not. I don’t want to feel pressured to play a particular way at a particular time. There’s a fine balance between encouraging players to be more active and pressuring them.

I don’t have a solution – just expressing my frustration a little bit. I’m probably more sensitive to it than most folks – I get really stubborn when I feel like someone is nagging me to do something lol. Although, maybe a cinematic summing things up at the end of each event would be enough now that I think about it. When I’m ready to get caught up, and can go through the cinematics and feel more connected to what’s going on.

http://bit.ly/1bTelE3 Take 5-10min to read that and than POOF <3
Although, I dont how someone doesnt have >30min over the course of 2-4 weeks to do 1 story mission.
And if you want to do all of the dungeons that have been added, take an hour or two on a weekend to run a level 1 fractal and roll for the molten facility and aetherblade retreat

Don’t like the Living World because you don’t like missing content? YOU, the player, are the problem.

Problem solved.

Telling players how wrong they are is how better games are made.

…

N.B. Thank goodness ArenaNet actually embraces the exact opposite of this benighted philosophy [see “iteration”] and are already working on ways to improve the Living World experience, despite what some self-styled “defenders” of the GW2 status quo would have you believe.

Change is coming. Patience is counseled.

Nomin.5901:

Although, I dont how someone doesnt have >30min over the course of 2-4 weeks to do 1 story mission.

Do you have a job or a career? If you’ve only ever worked a job, I can imagine you don’t really need to prioritize your time or energy. For me, any game that I have to make a commitment to play or fall behind is off my list. I’ve got too much other stuff to do that is far more important and demands my time unpredictably.

NASDAQ decides to change their symbology to make a couple of Google executives happy and guess who’s life it ties up for the next 4 to 6 weeks. And then they realize that it was stupid to try to make such a huge change and delay, which just gives all of us more time to argue about how we should be handling it and there’s another biweekly erosion of my time and energy.

On the other hand, I’ve got plenty of cash to spend on gems, so I really can’t complain too loudly, lol. My situation is different from a lot of folks I’m sure, but that doesn’t mean I can’t give ANet my feedback about my experience with the game.

Nomin.5901:

http://bit.ly/1bTelE3 Take 5-10min to read that and than POOF <3

Yep this really gives me the flavor of the content. Why would anyone bother to play it when they can just read this.

Story
The chapter sees Captain Ellen Kiel making due on her promises during Cutthroat Politics with expansions to the Fractals of the Mists.

Character Development
Player Involvement

I have to agree the game could do with an in game catch up I’ve just come back from a break and I feel completely out the loop. While I can somewhat catch up a bit with google etc it would be nice to at least see a quick cut-scene or be able to replay the missions for no reward.

Feels weird coming back to the game where I’m suddenly thrust into the living world story on entering kessex hills and told inject this antitoxin. My mind is literally going “what for woman and didn’t I see you at dragon bash investigating the attack with me.” The content is good but its highly disorientating when you log back in after a month or so and your at the heart of some event you know nothing about.

Essentially you can’t just jump in and out of the living story which is a problem to any new or returning player, putting some method of catch up in game would be incredibly useful.

Nomin.5901:

I gave you an answer to your question, Pande, There is no need to tell me your life story or be a kitten. But if you dont have time to play the most casual MMO I know, than I dont think MMO gaming is for you.

I didn’t ask a question, I gave some feedback on my experience of the game. There’s no “answer” there’s just other folks’ opinions which I’m actually interested to hear whether they agree with me or not.

I love the casual aspects of GW2 and that’s why I’m still interested in playing it. The living story takes away the the casual aspect of GW2 for me and replaces it with pressure to log in at particular times and do particular things or miss content that actually changes the state of the world and leads into other content.

I’ve played pretty much every major MMO out there casual or not (except EVE – I stink at that one lol) I’m working my way through SWTOR again right now as a subscriber, and I’m not experiencing the same reluctance to log in even though I don’t have a lot of time, so I thought about why and gave ANet some feedback.

You said:

Nomin.5901:

Although, I dont how someone doesnt have >30min over the course of 2-4 weeks to do 1 story mission.

I explained, perhaps a little too specifically, how that was possible. The end of the year is always bad for us market data types so I’m grumpy. Sorry. Not sure how that’s more kittenish than implying that my feedback is unfounded because I should make time to play the game every 2-4 weeks. That’s my whole point – I shouldn’t have to prioritize a casual game into my schedule to be able to enjoy it.

What if I feel like playing something else that month? The Steam holiday sales have filled up my library with lots of games of various genres that I’ve been enjoying – The Typing of the Dead is remarkably fun even though it’s about as far from an MMO as you can get. Why does every MMO have to be the “one game to rule them all”?

I’m fine with never being able to own a legendary, and ascended gear isn’t even on my radar yet. Folks who invest more time should have rewards that I can’t get. I don’t even care that I miss the holiday events because they don’t change the game world permanently. But why does there have to be so much one time only content? At least with the GW1 expansions I could work through the content at my own pace.

Pandemoniac, you are by no means alone in feeling this way. Many of us have voiced similar concerns, but ANet is determined to go ahead with their 2-week release schedule regardless.

Since ANet does not understand our words, I suggest that you speak to them in the language that they do understand and take that disposable income you mentioned and spend it on something other that Guild Wars 2. If those of us who are dissatisfied with the direction the game is taking continue to reward ANet with our money, nothing will ever change.

Obviously, your mileage may vary; perhaps you are not as disillusioned with the game as I am, in which case, carry on. But I myself will not be logging in or financially supporting this game until they stop pressuring me to play on their imposed limited-time schedule.

Nomin.5901:

But if you dont have time to play the most casual MMO I know, than I dont think MMO gaming is for you.

Exactly. Not only are people who don’t see things your way the problem, they shouldn’t be playing MMOs at all!

I appreciate your confirmation of my previous post to this thread.

Thanks.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Let me preface this with saying that I really like a lot about GW2, and I actually like the idea of a"living world". I’m finding in practice however, that it’s making it difficult for me to get re-engaged with the game after taking a break.

I took a break for a while because work was crazy and I needed less involving games (like Android apps I can play for 5 minutes and put down). I’ve been sort of itching to come back now that things have calmed down a bit, but each time I’ve logged in, it’s been halfway through a living story event, and I’m so far behind on why things are actually happening (Who’s Scarlet again and why do we all hate her?) I’m just having trouble engaging with it.

I don’t care about the achievements and I can handle missing holiday or infrequent one time events just fine. Holidays will roll around again next year in some form and the one time events are easy to get up to speed on what happened and what changed. I think it’s the frequency of the living story content that’s putting me off.

It makes me feel like I have to pay way more attention to the game that I’ve got the bandwidth for, and runs counter to why I liked the game so much in the first place, which is that I could pick it up and do whatever I felt like doing, harvesting, crafting, jumping puzzles, dungeons, etc. and still feel that I was making progress. Now I feel pressured to do particular activities when I log in because if I don’t I won’t have another opportunity to experience them later on.

An example might express it better. The original Woodstock was a one time event that can never be recreated and significantly influenced the US. I can’t go back and experience it the same way the folks that were there experienced it, but I can watch video of it and listen to the music and get some idea of what it was like to be there. The living story events are gone completely once they’re over (or at least that’s my perception of it) and there’s no way to go back and experience the content even partially other than reading about it.

Yes I could ignore the living story entirely, but I would really rather not. I don’t want to feel pressured to play a particular way at a particular time. There’s a fine balance between encouraging players to be more active and pressuring them.

I don’t have a solution – just expressing my frustration a little bit. I’m probably more sensitive to it than most folks – I get really stubborn when I feel like someone is nagging me to do something lol. Although, maybe a cinematic summing things up at the end of each event would be enough now that I think about it. When I’m ready to get caught up, and can go through the cinematics and feel more connected to what’s going on.

Yes, it is off putting. People will come into the thread and defend it vehemently and say you don’t have to do it, etc. etc. etc. But no matter what they say, the only story added to the game is the LS and there is no way to experience it if you take a break. In my opinion that is a huge flaw.

Hopefully, they will make it better. Right now, its just the way it is.

When events occur in real life, do to have the option to repeat them? Living stories are tied to events that occur in the game at a certain one along the game timeline. There’s no delorien to take you back to repeat those events.

If you missed a living story, you can always watch the videos on YouTube which capture the moments. Kind of like what we have in real life with video cameras.

Ah yes, real life. That’s what we play MMOs to experience: reality.

Perhaps the best way to expose the absurdity of these arguments is to turn them into ad slogans for ArenaNet.

How about “Guild Wars 2’s Living World: Now Available Exclusively On YouTube!”

And “Guild Wars 2: Why buy it when you can watch it for free?”

I’m sure that will really pack in the new players.

Ayrilana.1396:

When events occur in real life, do to have the option to repeat them? Living stories are tied to events that occur in the game at a certain one along the game timeline. There’s no delorien to take you back to repeat those events.

If you missed a living story, you can always watch the videos on YouTube which capture the moments. Kind of like what we have in real life with video cameras.

How much “real life” do you want to see represented in your games?

How about your character growing older and getting weaker, losing stats until his or her eventual perma-death?

Or maybe our characters should become more and more fatigued until we spend 8 hours in-game having them rest?

I could go on, but you get the point. Yes, missing events in real life happens. I happen to think it’s one of the crappier things about real life. I don’t want to see it reflected in my game.

Note: Not picking on you, and your opinion is just as valid as mine. I just wanted to respond to the “it happens in real life, too!” argument that I see coming up all the time.

The only absurdity is your misinterpretation of my post and ridiculously blasting it way out of proportion (perhaps blatant exaggeration is more fitting) whether unintentional or not. Based on your tone in other posts, I’d say it’s the latter.

Not that I’m at all surprised someone would make an attack against my post in that manner. I actually expected it since that’s how a lot of people challenge others’ arguments.

If you read my entire post, and comprehended it, you would see that I was trying to establish a logical connection between how real life events occur and how in-game events occur. Being able to experience events outside of your urgent timeline just would not make sense. Some of the living story dungeons were able to be brought into fractals but in a slightly different form.

My other statements about being able to watch it on YouTube was for those that missed out for one reason or another. If you missed out on someone’s birthday party, you could always experience it through videos. While it will not be exactly as experiencing it firsthand. It will definitely not be the same experience if they were brought back into the game.

That is what I am against. There is no need to bring back past living stories into the game. There are a wealth of resources at hand that you can use to catch up and see what went on. You have the wiki which normally has the entire script of any story sequences as well as a recap. There is also of course the YouTube videos previously mentioned.

I do support the implementation of cutscenes sequences being tied to an in-game object (can think of it as a movie player). This was done with the Majory bar cutscene. Perhaps this could be done with the Tower’s explosion cutscene and others in the future. I also know they are working on a way to do a recap like done for the personal story.

These are better options than bringing the living story back in its entirety.

Ayrilana.1396:

I do support the implementation of cutscenes sequences being tied to an in-game object (can think of it as a movie player). This was done with the Majory bar cutscene. Perhaps this could be done with the Tower’s explosion cutscene and others in the future. I also know they are working on a way to do a recap like done for the personal story.

Me too, and I think that would be a much more sensible solution than blithely referring players to YouTube or the wiki, or otherwise dismissing their legitimate concerns as paying customers.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable for players — especially new players — to want to be able experience the Living World content when their circumstances permit. Nor is it impossible, or even difficult, to make that happen. Computer technology has supported this capability for decades, books have been doing it for centuries, and GW2 already does it for such features as the Personal Story, dungeons, repeatable dynamic events and many other aspects of the game — including the Living World itself.

While the nature of the Living World does involve content that may not be easily be preserved for future players, the vast majority of it is quite suitable for access via instances and other means.

Making that content available to players using technology already widely used throughout the game would solve most of the content denial problems that have led to the thousands of threads like this one here and in other forums, while causing no harm whatsoever to players who participate in it while “live”.

As this thread and its countless counterparts demonstrates, there are a lot of players who would welcome this.

Why that must somehow be seen as an attack on the game which needs to be constantly countered, argued against or waved off as irrelevant baffles me, but I do honestly consider it absurd.

The Living Story is entirely designed so that a new player (who has seen none of it before) can participate in everything, so missing a month is no handicap at all. Log on, play what you want to play, and log off happy. It’s only a perception problem that makes people unhappy about what they don’t play. Are you really unhappy that you haven’t eaten everything on the menu when you go to a restaurant? No, well think of GW2 the same way and pick you want to do.

Majic.4801:

Don’t like the Living World because you don’t like missing content? YOU, the player, are the problem.

Problem solved.

Telling players how wrong they are is how better games are made.

…

N.B. Thank goodness ArenaNet actually embraces the exact opposite of this benighted philosophy [see “iteration”] and are already working on ways to improve the Living World experience, despite what some self-styled “defenders” of the GW2 status quo would have you believe.

Change is coming. Patience is counseled.

I’m hoping they will eventually roll out some legit ways to replay past LS chapters. I didn’t really like how the Molten Weapons Facility and Aetherblade Retreat dungeons turned out in Fractals… splitting them apart just so they meet the stage/boss stage type that Fractals uses. I’d have much rather fought all the trash mobs they gutted out, as I didn’t think both dungeons were long to begin with.

I too have had some work related issues keep me away from the game at times, and have missed certain parts of the living story. Too me it’s no big deal, but I understand how it could be off putting, and frustrating for others.

Would it help you if there was a way to go back and recap what you missed in game? Without going back and replaying the story. Say for example a news boy in Lions Arch, that would give you a brief overview of what you missed Think of it as a newspaper archive. Take the end of the Nightmare Tower story for example, you pull up the archive pertaining to that specific story, and while the cutscene of the tower exploding is playing you get a voice over explaining what led to the towers destruction.

I don’t know how much work that would take devs but it’s it’s an interesting concept.

ihaveaglitch.8439:

I too have had some work related issues keep me away from the game at times, and have missed certain parts of the living story. Too me it’s no big deal, but I understand how it could be off putting, and frustrating for others.

Would it help you if there was a way to go back and recap what you missed in game? Without going back and replaying the story. Say for example a news boy in Lions Arch, that would give you a brief overview of what you missed Think of it as a newspaper archive. Take the end of the Nightmare Tower story for example, you pull up the archive pertaining to that specific story, and while the cutscene of the tower exploding is playing you get a voice over explaining what led to the towers destruction.

I don’t know how much work that would take devs but it’s it’s an interesting concept.

Tbh, this would probably be a good way to help those who for whichever reasons missed parts of the living story. Then again, seeing how getting books in the game (or just dialogues longer then a paragraph or two) is a relatively big technical issue, coupled with the amount of people who would actually benefit from this particular implementation should make this a low priority item for devs.
The solution of going to wiki/youtube if one is interested in previous patches he missed is much more efficient solution, and in the end, let’s be honest, no LW releases required more then a few hours to walk through or even complete.

@OP and people sharing same thoughts: I missed dragon bash and aetherblade retreat parts of the living story. I simply stopped playing game at that time, but I don’t blame ANet for whatever happened in my life and my inability to play the game. Instead I read about what interested me about those releases and now I even have the chance to play some of the content I missed through fractals dungeon.
Think about it this way – now that we know about Scarlet and her minions and allies, how logical would it be to still see refugees moving through Wayfarer Foothils running away from “unknown threat” all the while Scarlets Minions are attacking that same map…

Freeelancer.2860:

@OP and people sharing same thoughts: I missed dragon bash and aetherblade retreat parts of the living story. I simply stopped playing game at that time, but I don’t blame ANet for whatever happened in my life and my inability to play the game. Instead I read about what interested me about those releases and now I even have the chance to play some of the content I missed through fractals dungeon.

I don’t blame ANet for anything. I’m not even demanding that they change anything. All I’m saying is that the constant change is making it hard for me to engage with the game. I’m not opposed to living story stuff – it’s just too frequent and too short term for me.

My solution is to go play something else where I feel less pressured to do time limited content and don’t have to rely on incomplete, fan created summaries to get me re-oriented in the game world.

Pandemoniac.4739:

My solution is to go play something else where I feel less pressured to do time limited content and don’t have to rely on incomplete, fan created summaries to get me re-oriented in the game world.

There are also some official summaries of the LS available, for example this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBqw62AssWk

I don’t think I understand the purpose of this thread or your view. Tbh it seems quite hectic and detached, but to each his own.
I wish you best of luck in whichever game you pick up next, I’m sure GW2 community will embrace you if/when you decide to come back.

Freeelancer.2860:

Pandemoniac.4739:

My solution is to go play something else where I feel less pressured to do time limited content and don’t have to rely on incomplete, fan created summaries to get me re-oriented in the game world.

There are also some official summaries of the LS available, for example this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBqw62AssWk

I don’t think I understand the purpose of this thread or your view.

That youtube video wasn’t posted by ANet so it’s hardly official. I’m not interested enough in the living story to try to patch together a recap by sorting through various fan posted stuff.

The purpose of the thread is simply to give feedback about my experience with the living story. I could have just stopped playing and not said anything, but I don’t think that helps anyone.

Majic.4801:

Change is coming. Patience is counseled.

I was doing a search to see if anyone had suggested putting recaps in the Durman Priory vaults and came across this post

BobbyStein.2315:

We’re currently working on a system that will better direct players through Living World content. Eventually, it will also provide story context for LW and other content types. The first phase of the system should be ready before the end of the year.

That sounds like a solution is coming to me and I’m very interested to see what ANet comes up with.

It would be nice if there is some way to replay content.

The stuff for LS and personal story (PS) just sits there after the first run through.

In GW1, you get to replay earlier missions anytime. So I think it would be interesting here as well.

PS missions could perhaps be replayed by talking with a “historian” in the home instance.

LS stuff will be rather tricky though.

I’ve been saying much of the same for months. You can take a break from the game for a year, and the only thing that will be new to you is whatever happens to be currently happening with the living story. The game never grows or actually changes. All of the wonderful things that do get added just get removed and you never get to enjoy them again. It doesn’t matter if that content was so great that it’s something that would draw you to playing them game, it just gets removed. It is a horrible design and leaves behind a very stagnant game.

They can simply allow players to replay old content however they see fit through some type of memory reliving system. No, not fractals, because you don’t get to choose what you get to do in fractals. They can keep what they feel makes the living story so great while at the same time have a game where content actually adds up and gives people something different to do for once. I’m sure more than a few people would love to go back and run the molten facility or super adventure box again rather than constantly run the same dungeons that have been in the game since launch for the rest of time.

No matter how cool the living story sounds, the fact remains that it just isn’t fun in its current form.

Someone use an analogy with a restaurant… here:

Stooperdale.3560:

Are you really unhappy that you haven’t eaten everything on the menu when you go to a restaurant? No, well think of GW2 the same way and pick you want to do.

Which is a great analogy, except for the opposite reason you stated. If I happen to like the food at this place, I am definitely coming back to try the next best thing on the menu that I didn’t get to try the last time. Or, I will definitely come back to have the same thing again if I really liked it. If however they repeatedly removed the items I liked from the menu and instead added ones that I found bland and tasteless, I would eventually stop visiting completely.

There is no good reason at all not to add or even focus on adding permanent content to the game. Permanent and meaningful content needs to be the focus, with temporary being on the side.

wow, just love the attitude of the people here. “either dedicate your life or take a hike”
Oh, and if you turned your life away from this game, please don’t ever come back, and we will make sure you don’t.

I have to back up what Asumita says. What LS is right now not a selling point of the game; any newcomers to the game (and I know a few) are going to be introduced around Act 2, and they’re meant to, what? Read a wall of text? Watch someone else play their game? And any current players who drop a chapter are simply being told to kitten off. LS’ s audience is only going to decline. The attitude is just asking GW2 to head in the directionof many a WoW-killer.

Pandemoniac,
I too have had little to no time in the past year to keep up with the LS achievements and all in game stuff. A recommendation though, if you are interested in the lore behind the LS and game as a whole is to listen to a youtube video series or podcast. I follow WoodenPotatoes on youtube and he gives great 20-30 min videos as well as hour long podcasts with Matt Visual, 1-2 times a week about the most recent content and updates. For all the early scarlet stuff, I wouldn’t play in game but when I drive or workout I would just put the video/podcast on and still have a chance to know how the game is progressing and it is satisfying.
Don’t let these people tell you MMO’s aren’t for you

After having my progress and participation in a Temporary Story segment arbitrarily deleted halfway through a few times, I just don’t bother leaving wvw anymore which is a shame. LS feels like wasted dev time to me, disposable content that has no long term impact our game and our progression apart from new vertical power grinds.

adamryason.9817:

Pandemoniac,
I too have had little to no time in the past year to keep up with the LS achievements and all in game stuff. A recommendation though, if you are interested in the lore behind the LS and game as a whole is to listen to a youtube video series or podcast. I follow WoodenPotatoes on youtube and he gives great 20-30 min videos as well as hour long podcasts with Matt Visual, 1-2 times a week about the most recent content and updates.

Thanks for the recommendation – I figured there were probably casts out there but haven’t gotten up the energy to go look for a decent one. And don’t worry about other folks discouraging me – I’ve been gaming on-line for quite a while now and got toughened up in the deepest pits of the alt hierarchy of Usenet. If I can make it out of there with my self esteem relatively intact, I can handle anything this well moderated and fairly civilized forum can throw at me, lol.

So the Our Story So Far video came out a couple of days ago and I really enjoyed it. I would love to see more comprehensive recaps along the same lines as this video with a bit more detail on each chapter of the story.

BobbyStein.2315:

We’re putting some content in the upcoming releases that will recap the Scarlet LW releases to put it into context.

One of the devs just posted this in a thread I made because I want to get updated on the story as well. So it looks like you’ll be able to get what you’re looking for!

The devs have also hinted that they’re making changes to the Living Story “platform”. I’m personally hoping that they’re implementing a sort of “Replay past events” NPC that you can talk to and replay past Living Story content (mainly talking about dungeon and story instances here). This would enable newer players as well as older players who would like to re-experience past adventures to see it all first-hand.