Guild Wars 2

Vahkris.6847:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Can’t really spoil anything but August has no jumping puzzle and we definitely wanted to steer away from instanced mini-games.

So…non-instanced minigame? :P

Not another Belcher’s Bluff. It’s fun for a little bit, but people only play it for the achievements.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Personally, I’m a huge fan of epic open-world dynamic events and since I’ve had a hand or two in the upcoming releases, you should get ready.

As the late Captain Mai once said, watch the skies.

Mr Ordon for Co Lead Designer!
You’re my last hope! Can I vote for you somewhere? I mean it. :P

If you want a good story…read a book. I didn’t even know the living story was telling a story. I thought it was just an excuse to introduce new mini games and the jumping puzzles. I think at this point arena.net can give up the pretense of story telling because no one cares.

Serenity.6149:

PolarisNova.3867:

I personally enjoy the mini games and jumping puzzles and think it’s somewhat strange to see people who say they DON’T play them, asking them not to be added. If they are added and you don’t play them, how does that affect you exactly?

Don’t forget there are a lot of people who are “completionists”. Using myself as an example, I don’t really like mini-games or jump puzzles, but have no problem with them being in the game when I can tackle them as quickly or as slowly as I wish. The problem with the constant temporary mini-games are we’re forced to focus on them immediately, and when they’re coming at you temp content after temp content… it’s no different from a completionist who may not run a lot of dungeons being tired of all the temporary dungeons (coupled with skins and achievements). Bottom line: I think people are tired in general of all the temporary anything with skins/titles/achievements. It’s good that there’s new content, but it honestly wouldn’t hurt to have downtime between each content release so people can catch up on whatever it is that appeals to them, especially when the playerbase tends to be more casual in nature.

That’s my main concern too,each two weeks I feel compelled to focus on the mini games so that I don’t miss the achievements which mean I don’t play the free world game anymore.

I agree with the OP also. Minigames are fine as an occasional distraction, and GW2 does them well. What I feel is missing is fantasy and a sense of progression (two pillars of what I expected from GW2 as a fantasy MMO). The game has made horizontal “progression” work better than I expected, but there still needs to be some sense of progress. So far the living story seems meaningless, given what happens in one update does not affect the next. So far it’s not actual a story at all so far when you think about it, as a story requires some continuity of plot. It’s more like a book of short stories.

The next thing is fantasy. God there are enough petty council politics, refugees, trade agreements and opressive contracts on the news everyday. I play GW2 for some relief from these things, not to be reminded of them. The Aetherblades, Zephyr Sanctum and Molten Facility were great though, more of those please!

Good to hear from the devs on this one. While I actually surprisingly enjoyed the past few minigames, I really wouldn’t have liked to see more for this update. A break from jumping puzzles is needed too. A good focus on some actual story content and plot progression would be great. Maybe some new quests that aren’t completely focused on combat too.

Vahkris.6847:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Can’t really spoil anything but August has no jumping puzzle and we definitely wanted to steer away from instanced mini-games.

So…non-instanced minigame? :P

It turns out… Yes… lol

I hope a dragon comes and burns this whole celebration!

I’m hoping it’s like Obsidian Sanctum…a zone within DR, but still public.

It’s probably going to be ridiculously over-crowded for the duration of the event. I hope it is permanent so people can visit it later in a playable state.

Good to hear, Anthony. What about the new content that comes with the Pavillion? Will things like the Queen’s Gauntlet be available to players (including the ability to complete any associated achievements) even after QJ is over? Perhaps more importantly, will Watchwork parts still be available after QJ?

Lucky.9421:

It’s probably going to be ridiculously over-crowded for the duration of the event. I hope it is permanent so people can visit it later in a playable state.

That’s what the overflow is for. Hopefully they’ve set the player limit to a reasonable level.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The Crown Pavilion makes up the bulk of the content and it’s not a mini-game. It’s a public map roughly the size of Mad King Labyrinth.

The real question for me is which content is permanent and which content is temporary. The Crown Pavilion may be permanent (unless something happens to destroy it again), but is the Queen’s Gauntlet also? The Sovereign weapons?

wookiee.4631:

Vahkris.6847:

The real question for me is which content is permanent and which content is temporary. The Crown Pavilion may be permanent (unless something happens to destroy it again), but is the Queen’s Gauntlet also? The Sovereign weapons?

The Wiki has a list of things in permanent and temporary categories. Until release you’ll have to take what’s there with a grain of salt.

Oddly enough, Queen’s Jubilee doesn’t have a temporary category, it has a TBD category instead, which I assume stands for To Be Decided. Only a guess, though. The pavilion is listed under that weird category. I hope it’s permanent. Why rebuild the Great Collapse just to shut it down again?

Yup, we moved it there because we don’t actually know if it’s remaining or not…because we haven’t gotten this info yet. That’s what questions like mine are trying to find out. At first we were leaving it temporary until confirmed permanent, but it was moved to TBD to be safer.

Anything other than JP’s and forced garbage PvP mini games would be very refreshing!

Dear Anthony,

What happened to spontaneous dynamic content. Now we are deluged with boring mini games that are either PvP or king of the hill content redressed over and over. Guild wars has gotten away from its goals and reverted to a mini games and instance dungeons to provide new content. It’s just boring and not enough content for players to be able to pick and choose what they want to do. That is now a player must spend countless time doing things they would rather not do just to finish content for the living world. In Politics 2 achievements were really PvE. The other 10 were PvP or instance dungeons or mini games.

I get that you make this content and would like all the players to try it. But I did not buy GW2 for mini games and 5 man pug instance dungeon, or PvP. I bought this game for the spontaneous dynamic world.

These mini games and short term events for the past half year have turned me completely away from this game. Reading only the news on this forum has spoiled my appetite.

I would prefer to “pay” for a new expansion or the second long personal story rather than waste my time with these dazzling cheesy nonsense.

I’d rather wait longer between updates and in return get some content with depth and importance, and the minigames are particularly annoying. How many variations of the “PvP with gimmick preset skills” theme do we need?

I’m really sick of mini-games as well. I don’t want more instanced PvP that has nothing to do with my character, i want MORE, NEW, PERMANENT WAYS TO INTERACT WITH THE EXISTING WORLD. things like:

• Housing that I can build & customize
• The ability to climb & scale Tomb Raider/Persia style. even in combat.
• Destructible environments useable in combat
• a personality system that allows you to speak, be diplomatic, befriend & intimidate. maybe even change your idle animation based on your personality.
• archeology, research, treasure hunting that requires solving riddles or surveying
• More combat mixed into jumping/maze elements & ability to knock mobs off cliffs.
• More multi-class, high-level combos. (something that triggers group elites far more powerful than simple combos.)

The mini games are actually pretty lame content. Every time you say “swap out your skills with these & play something totally separate with this new rules” You make our characters completely pointless. The game doesn’t need more games in it, it needs more ways to interact with the main features.

These Mini games are stupid and boring and just fast and furious fluff that they can throw in easily without much work! Like Pug dungeon that keep a few players happy! We want the dynamic content we were promised.

Direct Support and Advanced Support would have been so much better if it was and area like Halloween that had dynamic events that culminated in 4 graduated boss fights and for killing each boss you got the four levels of achievements. A million times better. Every section of the living story should have a section like this completely devoted to dynamic play.

Bazaar of the Four Winds/Cutthroat Politics is the worst release so far in that it is gated by a platformer mini-game. It only took a minute of watching the dev livestream to understand that. And, since I don’t enjoy platforming (I’m an MMO/RPG type gamer) I decided to sit this one out. I can’t imagine why you would consciously choose to exclude people from the living story—it boggles the mind. Now, I won’t be able to get the achievements and I won’t get to vote for Evon or Ellen, which seems like a pretty big thing in terms of the story.