Guild Wars 2

One of those posts again, I know, everyone loves and hates to hear these, why cant we have expansions, or why don’t we just scrap Living Story.

The answer is this:

Living Story depends on DLC level content that comes in short and unsatisfying packages for the long term

Living Story is basically a DLC vs an expansion, the DLC is free too which is an up, but only for those that attend, which is down.

The problem with Living Story is that its story, its story that has great potential and evolution but looses the focus of what an MMO at its core should be a game, not a TV series.

If I want a TV series, I watch TV A-net, that is the cold hard truth of it, I watch Game of Thrones because its a TV series, I play World of Warcraft because its a “game”.

Living Story, has taken a concept that had an admirable idea in hypothesis, and delivered it poorly in the “long” term which is the problem here.

Adding a patch to a wound does not give people the right antiseptic and antibiotics to tackle the infection and stop its spreading.

People are tired, fed up, and need something GAME wise that they have not GOT since… pretty much the game launched.

You could say Fractals are a thing, but Fractals are just glorified dungeons with half the content.

You could say that potentially, we got at least two new zones over the course of two, long, years.

Including changes we also technically had about maybe three, four new zones within old zones that were altered to adapt to them.

How-ever…

There is a problem with this:

Arena Net’s philosophy has to this point been an idea of trying to focus entirely on the world of Guild Wars 2.

Let me elaborate where the problem lies in that:

The world, is not enough.

Why is Dark-souls a popular RPG franchise? Because its story is told through the environment, the game, the game play of the world, not through the story and dialogue and exposition of a singular cast of characters whose involvement is the only thing we ever get indulged with.

The Biconic’s are just people, people with interesting stories who we have been apart of yes, but just, people.

Our story is the one that matters and our story should never be told for us, the best story for any player to tell, is the one they tell themselves.

That, A-net, is why we need new environments, that, is why we need new bosses, new dungeons, new cities, new continents.

We need an expansion, because the story, tells us what we are supposed to learn about the world we ourselves should be choosing to learn about, at our own pace, in our own time.

Rushing people isn’t fun, nobody likes to be told to go to A-to-B-to-C.

We are the Stanley parables of the DND group, and everyone will want to go their own way.

A great narrative and a fantastic story could make for a great RPG, but this is an MMO-RPG, not just an RPG and in the end, the bigger priority is the one that gets you money, gets you players playing your game, and gives you reason to keep making content for those players to do of their own volition.

DLC, is not equal to a full blown expansion and never will be, which is why people “want” something bigger

The world is not enough A-net, we need more.

I couldn’t agree more. At this point the lack of new content has basically driven my guild to an all time low and myself away from the game. Waiting 4 months for 2 months of mediocre content isn’t worth investing time into.

You guys have valid points…….

Even if they could keep the pace of every 2 weeks it would be
1 day out of 14 to experience and underwhelming story poorly presented.
Clicking text boxes until end boss fight is just terrible

It is interesting that they label it a “Living Story/Living World” but it feels very on-rails and confined. Yes certain events does have an impact on the world, at least on the maps and zones, but for all intents and purposes the story happens in a vacuum.

I am not going to make a lengthy rant about it, but the one thing I was hoping for with the start of season 2 was to be able to go into Maguuma. As the OP says we should be able to participate in the story and gleam what insight we can from the game itself, not some lines of exposition telling us this is what we`re dealing with.

The reference to Dark Souls is fitting, but it does not need to be that well guarded, but do make us want to go look for it! The opening to Season 2 was called Gates of Maguuma after all, so let`s go there already!

Agreed that the problem behind the LW is that it is just continuous DLC. And this is an issue in many ways. DLCs just never have the same impact as expansions. They are mini-expansions.

If I had to pick a single word or phrase to explain why DLC will never beat expansion to players, I’d place it as this: publicity

You never get the same feeling of interest for DLCs as you do for expansions in the same reason you’ll never be happier for an expansion over a new game (except in cases like WoW). Amount of content is part of it, expectations is another part, and just simply how it’s publicised is another.

The ‘Living World’ – a misnomer in of itself – will NEVER be able to solely support GW2, simply due to this difference in appeal between DLC, expansions, and full games.

Any attempts to compare games to a tv series or other styles of cinema is false. They are too different to compare. The Living World is not like a tv series. It’s like a series of DLCs that have the same plot – like a game that got butchered and we’re being served it piece by piece instead of the proper wholee, which is nothing less than uninteresting and borderline boring.

The Walking Dead can manage its style because the content is bigger chunks and is an adventure game, not an MMO. And I feel that ANet had looked at that game and thought ‘we can do that too’. No, no you cannot. The games are just too different.

Guild Wars 2 needs the publicity of an expansion, and that is something that the Living World will NEVER be able to provide. Ever.

The other major downfall to the LS is the fact that right now, if i want to enjoy the content as a block of play I need to log in to unlock it, then not play a bit of it until the story has run it’s course so I can play it as one large chunk. This also means that I open myself to spoilers to that same story because its not like I can tell everyone to not talk about it because I’m waiting to play it all at once.

Awesome topic: it’s clear and well explained, kudos!

I do agree with you all and I must confess that the only thing that keeps me playing is WvW with my friends. Unfortunately, most of us are getting bored waiting for the LS to continue, as well as the problems created with the new patches (we can’t even play to only aspect we like anymore because of lag).

I really hope that ANet will kitten our mouth releasing something huge that has been hidden for months. We need a renewal of our experience: I’ve completed only one PS so far (most my characters only played till the end of the racial part). What story awaits us then? LS2! I do appreciate the story in itself and I understand it takes time to code it. But I would prefer to wait 6 months for something I know will be long and fantastic rather than having small content every two weeks.

Also, more than just the story, class development is lacking: we only got two (expensive!) useless healing skills… I need variety in my build, and I wanna be able to customize my character: so far I can only choose 3 skills, the rest of the skillbar is forced unto me just because I use them “because there’s nothing better”. Most skills are barely useful, therefore I won’t choose something that makes me weaker just for the sake of having a different build. (Sorry I went a bit off topic)

I would summarize my idea as such:
The LS is a good idea, clumsily executed, and it doesn’t bring anything thrilling beside gem store items. I’m sad the game is getting désignes for casual, uninvolved players that do not hesitate to pay for what is ripped from the game.

Since they are really slow on adding new content, I really would like to see a comeback of the S1 stuff.

They could add them kinda like fractals. The letter you got about fractals says: “Fractals of the Mists! Re-live the greatest and most exciting moments from Tyria’s past as you test your strength, speed, and skill against some of the most formidable opponents from the annals of history.”
Doesn’t S1 fit there too?

They could add the bosses next to the fractals as “open maps”. Maybe a new portal near the fractal portal that sends you to a lobby with multiple portals leading to the (boss) regions of S1 (Twisted Marionette/Escape and Battle for Lions Arch). The events/bosses could start/spawn like the world bosses on a time each day.

Of course the loot shouldn’t be the same as in S1. It should just add more variety to the (hard) world bosses we have right now. Please Anet.

Neox.3497:

Since they are really slow on adding new content, I really would like to see a comeback of the S1 stuff.

They could add them kinda like fractals. The letter you got about fractals says: “Fractals of the Mists! Re-live the greatest and most exciting moments from Tyria’s past as you test your strength, speed, and skill against some of the most formidable opponents from the annals of history.”
Doesn’t S1 fit there too?

They intend to bring Season 1 back in the same format that Season 2 currently is. However, since Season 1 was mostly open world stuff, it will take a lot of work and they’re not going to hault Season 2 just to reimpliment Season 1.

Putting Season 1 into the form of Fractals would also take a lot of work – I doubt it was a walk in the park for the four fractals that is a butchered Molten Facility and Aetherblade Retreat to be turned into fractals, and that would be amongst the easiest to be done!

I’d rather have Season 1 in the story journal, than in fractals, anyways. Especially if it takes a lot of work either way.

Sarathiel.6374:

I couldn’t agree more. At this point the lack of new content has basically driven my guild to an all time low and myself away from the game. Waiting 4 months for 2 months of mediocre content isn’t worth investing time into.

The irony of this statement is that you actually end up waiting longer if ArenaNet stopped doing Living Story content and instead focused on releasing an expansion.

zeromius.1604:

Sarathiel.6374:

I couldn’t agree more. At this point the lack of new content has basically driven my guild to an all time low and myself away from the game. Waiting 4 months for 2 months of mediocre content isn’t worth investing time into.

The irony of this statement is that you actually end up waiting longer if ArenaNet stopped doing Living Story content and instead focused on releasing an expansion.

The lack of irony in the statement is that he’d be getting more content at a single time, so it changes little.

Guild Wars 2 lacks long-term investiment other than the grind of legendary and ascended gear and dailies/monthlies. And people blame this on the breaks in the Living World, but that’s because they’ve been conditioned into feeling “Living World = new stuff to do” thanks to the temporary nature of Season 1, where you had to do the Living World… or you just simply can’t do it. Which meant “screw the rest of the game, I have to do this” thus resulting in people now thinking, with the LW at a lull, that there’s ‘nothing to do in the game’ despite how obviously false it is. They’ve been conditioned to think “nothing new to do” = “nothing to do”.

Or that’s how I view the situation, as that’s how it feels to me even when I remind myself ‘just because it’s not new doesn’t mean I did it already’ and I go out to search for more events I’ve not completed… which at this point is ever-so-fewer.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

Why is Dark-souls a popular RPG franchise? Because its story is told through the environment, the game, the game play of the world, not through the story and dialogue and exposition of a singular cast of characters whose involvement is the only thing we ever get indulged with.

Well some popularity is also attributable (I’d wager to a far larger degree) to the ‘hardcore’ title it carries around and partially also to the popularity itself… although I doubt I’d be able to adequately explain that last point.

Neox.3497:

They could add them kinda like fractals. The letter you got about fractals says: “Fractals of the Mists! Re-live the greatest and most exciting moments from Tyria’s past as you test your strength, speed, and skill against some of the most formidable opponents from the annals of history.”
Doesn’t S1 fit there too?

No need I think. Simply by adding it to the story journal and clearly stating that it takes place after Personal Story and before Season 2 should be enough. I think adding it to the fractals is simply adding an unnecessary meta-narrative.

Cure, you realize you just said “Dark Soul’s popularity is also attributed partially to the popularity itself” right?

>.>

“The sun’s brightness is attributed partially to the brightness.”

I think Cure may be referring to the tendency of games that are popular, particularly MMOs, to be able to better attract new players and thus become more popular – because of the publicity that comes with popularity, both media and word-of-mouth; because of preselection effects, and in MMOs, because of the increased likelihood that someone’s friends will already be playing or that they’re not going to end up in dead zones.

Conversely, an MMO that is seen as being in decline is less likely to attract new players, due to fear of dead zones, fear of progression being ‘wasted’ if the servers are shut down without warning (NCSoft may still be living with the consequences of shutting down CoH when it still had a pretty decent playerbase there) and so on. Of course, both of these scenarios lead to a self-sustaining cycle.

So… it sounds like a truism, but I think what Cure was trying to get across is that a game that is sufficiently popular is likely to grow, while a game that is below critical mass is likely to dwindle and die.

Which actually links back to the original topic somewhat – whether accurate or not, the impression of a lot of people is that GW2 is in the ‘dwindling’ phase. An expansion may represent the proverbial shot in the arm that builds it back up, which the LS really doesn’t seem to be doing. People can say that the LS represents the same amount of content as an expansion (I’m… sceptical) but it just doesn’t have the same ability to build hype.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Cure, you realize you just said “Dark Soul’s popularity is also attributed partially to the popularity itself” right?

>.>

“The sun’s brightness is attributed partially to the brightness.”

It may be phrased oddly, but there is some basis there. It is possible for a game to become popular less on its own merits and more because it is popular, well-known, and it’s the “in thing”.

. . . look at Minecraft, for instance. Not, strictly, an incredibly awesome game. Yet it sold a blisteringly large amount, over multiple platforms. I’d bank on part of its popularity being because . . . well, it’s popular and people want to see what the fuss is over.

That would be publicity, then. People talk about it, garnering attention and curiosity.

I had thought as much, but didn’t want to put words in others’ mouths.

draxynnic.3719:

Which actually links back to the original topic somewhat – whether accurate or not, the impression of a lot of people is that GW2 is in the ‘dwindling’ phase. An expansion may represent the proverbial shot in the arm that builds it back up, which the LS really doesn’t seem to be doing. People can say that the LS represents the same amount of content as an expansion (I’m… sceptical) but it just doesn’t have the same ability to build hype.

That’s more or less what I said in my first post in this thread.

One of the biggest issues that an expansion would solve that the Living World cannot is publicity – garnering public view, changing public opinion, etc.

Even if it delivers the same amount of content as an expansion, it will never be viewed the same by the playerbase, and it’s that view – the publicity, the popularity, the word-of-mouth, or whatever term or phrase you wish to slap upon it – that is important to have.

80% of the dungeon community i am part of have left GW2 for AA. 20% of those who left have sold or given away their accounts with no intention of ever returning. 100% of those who left have left mainly for the reasons stated by the OP. 100% of my dungeon community pays for gems. I have no intention of giving away my account which I’ve put dedication into but with the current development trends, I too am planning on leaving the game soon.

My friends list and guilds have also lost the majority of names to other games for various reasons but from those that I’ve talked to seriously about this the game becoming stagnant is the main force that drives them away. Living Story isn’t working. I realize the in-game communities I am part of do not represent the game population as a whole, however I believe the trend I see regarding players leaving is mainly a result of the issues the OP has stated.

These are my opinions on the matter based on estimated percentages and inter-player communication regarding the issue of leaving GW2.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I had thought as much, but didn’t want to put words in others’ mouths.

Thanks
But yeah I purposely phased it that way because it sounded better… (to me at least) but yeah Tobias Trueflight.8350 and draxynnic.3719 covered it. I was simply trying to indicating that popularity isn’t inherently a product of the quality of a thing (a general comment).

OP is arguing that because Dark Souls is popular it must be good, and by extension this goodness is reflected in part in the quality of the narrative. I’m simply saying that this isn’t necessarily the case, as it was primarily marketed as being ‘hardcore’ (thus placing emphasis on the mechanics) and that the popularity might be attributable to other things beyond the quality of the game.

Thanatos.2691:

80% of the dungeon community i am part of have left GW2 for AA. 20% of those who left have sold or given away their accounts with no intention of ever returning. 100% of those who left have left mainly for the reasons stated by the OP. 100% of my dungeon community pays for gems. I have no intention of giving away my account which I’ve put dedication into but with the current development trends, I too am planning on leaving the game soon.

My friends list and guilds have also lost the majority of names to other games for various reasons but from those that I’ve talked to seriously about this the game becoming stagnant is the main force that drives them away. Living Story isn’t working. I realize the in-game communities I am part of do not represent the game population as a whole, however I believe the trend I see regarding players leaving is mainly a result of the issues the OP has stated.

These are my opinions on the matter based on estimated percentages and inter-player communication regarding the issue of leaving GW2.

I would imagine by dungeon community you’re referring to those that do dungeons? I won’t say that you’re wrong (in fact I think you’re right), but OP seems to have been talking about the delivery of narrative through the Living Story (ideally following a minimal but contextually heavy narrative style of Dark Souls). Unless you’re saying that Living Story isn’t working because it’s not adding more dungeons. I guess that’s a valid argument to make (since I can definitely see how dungeoneers can be somewhat unhappy with the limit number of additions made to GW2 in this regards), although it does feel like a different discussion than this one. But I guess it’s an interesting segway (or segue but I like using segway) into the topic of what sort of content LS should be delivering (i.e. narrative / instance / new maps or more dungeons).

I guess the problem here is that the current players base is too diverse. Maybe this is because of the lack of a clear end-game? For example WoW has Raids, it’s end-game is the gear-treadmill. Oh sure it has PvP and some PvE but those are (or have always been) secondary to the Raids. In the case of GW2 there seems to be some effort to try and appeal to as many players type as possible.

I think this article is relevant to the discussion http://www.mmogames.com/gamearticles/the-tyrian-chronicle-does-guild-wars-2-need-an-expansion/

I’m not sure if it has been posted before but the author talks a bit about the pros and cons of expansion vs living story. The author ultimately settles on asking for an expansion release and I can understand that. I’m pretty sure the author could have dug deeper into the pros and cons of the options but they do a pretty good job of expressing the more well knows issues. I’m curious as to why no one has thought to address the issues with releasing an expansion in this discussion so far? I mean, every approach has considerations that are both positive and negative for different groups of players. The posts in this thread have done a pretty good job identifying how the living story is negatively perceived by some players thus far. One issue in particular that the author did bring up was how expansions, traditionally, split the player base by dividing those who wanted to pay for the expansion and those who didn’t. This was also true in GW1. It may seem inconsequential but it does have a real impact on those who appreciate the method of subsidization that Anet has adopted so far.

From what I’ve read in this discussion thus far, some people feel that the Living Story is lackluster in its delivery but not necessarily in its potential. For instance, the opinion in this thread on the potential positive impact of a DLC story seems pretty grim. 2 things on that. I’m not sure why we are using the term DLC in the context of MMOs when that is by and large the entirety of how content is delivered these days. The other thing is that DLC absolutely has the ability to create compelling stories and deliver fundamental content changes but whether or not that fails to deliver, I feel, is not inherently a fault of the delivery system which appears to be the underlying logic of the topic. People could be asking for Anet to continue with the Living Story and improve on what they choose to deliver in these releases but instead are asking to go with a system that necessitates asignificantly longer downtime in between releases. Or maybe there is an option 3 where we mix this concept of living world and an expansion system? My question is this, is a traditional expansion release a system without flaws? Who does it affect? Why is accepting those flaws more acceptable than attempting to improve on the concept of the living story? And if you truly believe that it has no flaws, why? I think these are essential questions that are probably questions Anet devs have asked themselves and may still be asking themselves in the wake of the living story criticism.

Oh, and on the subject of endgame I would recommend this opinion piece on the impact of the evolution of this “endgame” concept in mmos. http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/03/14/working-as-intended-endgame-is-the-worst-thing-that-ever-happen/

I found it when reading a bit about the trouble Wildstar has run into recently with attempting to court the end game raiding population. It certainly adds a bit of perspective to what Guild Wars has been trying to do since Guild Wars 1 and how Guild Wars 2 fits into the content delivery scheme in today’s market. It’s a fairly short article but still insightful. Take from it what you will.

The biggest issue is comparing the amount of new stuff that guildwars one regularly had.

We are all very tired of running citadel of flame path one over and over, or the same WvW map (edge of the mist isn’t wvw in its current karma train state).

Nobody likes skyhammer.

If anything the content is being reduced as even Halloween got smaller last year and elements like the orbs in WvW were replaced with something that doesn’t even give WvW xp …..and that took out the quaggans in their lake.

GW2 is just getting smaller as bits are lopped off and I do not understand why.

I agree with the description of content we need, whether it’s through expansion or bi-weekly updates is another discussion and tbh either is fine by me. What this game desparately needs is fresh replayable content. Right now the only somewhat interesting replayable content of LS2 are the endbosses really.

It also doesn’t help that they have a 6 month break and not even 2 months later they have yet another break of over 2 months…

CaptainVanguard.4925:

One of those posts again, I know, everyone loves and hates to hear these, why cant we have expansions, or why don’t we just scrap Living Story.

The answer is this:

Living Story depends on DLC level content that comes in short and unsatisfying packages for the long term

The solution is much simpler. The Living Story should deliver short and satisfying packages that contain longer term content. This means more of content like Dry Top, Tequatl, Three headed wurm, Fractals. No expansion. No level cap increase. No gear grind. No 9 month wait for expansion. No need for anyone to pay real money for the expansion.

Don’t expect good things to come in any expansion without a price. The accountants put a ‘must have’ feature into every expansion to ensure sales and these must have features are good for the accountants and bad the game. The most common ‘must have’ feature is the level cap increase and GW2 players do not want that!

nightwulf.1986:

One issue in particular that the author did bring up was how expansions, traditionally, split the player base by dividing those who wanted to pay for the expansion and those who didn’t. This was also true in GW1. It may seem inconsequential but it does have a real impact on those who appreciate the method of subsidization that Anet has adopted so far.

I would suspect that most early adopters probably expected a model similar but more sustainable than GW1’s – namely, expansions. It wouldn’t surprise me though if there are a lot of players around now whose expectations have been shaped by the reality. What the balance is, I don’t know.

Stooperdale.3560:

Don’t expect good things to come in any expansion without a price. The accountants put a ‘must have’ feature into every expansion to ensure sales and these must have features are good for the accountants and bad the game. The most common ‘must have’ feature is the level cap increase and GW2 players do not want that!

GW1 had expansions (okay, ‘campaigns’) without a level cap increase. The ‘must have’ for those was, essentially, new skills (some in new professions) – admittedly, these lead to power creep, but in a much less blatent fashion than level cap increases or new equipment tiers. And there are quite a few people crying out for an influx of new character options.

Expansions would be nice…. Especially a Realm of Torment expansion……

Of course if such an expansion were to keep the Domain of Pain, Domain of Anguish and the Depths of Madness it would likely get an M rating….. Especially since there wouldn’t be other zones in the way of the Rating board’s playthrough this time since they will literally start in the Realm of Torment rather than Elona…..

What I saw with the last living story was a push for the main protagonist, aka the player, to be seen as the main protagonist. Artificially making us find out clues was more akin to the NPC’s guiding a child. Being the Boss and deferred to for tasks that the others seemed to previously have had a plan of action or more of a solo role in a similar situation. Requiring story completion before cheeves unlock is also annoying, havn’t bothered to go back for them as many would have been obtained on the first play through.

The new zone is nice. Seems to be more about champs and chest hunting, essentially another farming zone. The delayed expansion to access more of the zone was an interesting idea and would be good to see more of with one change – faster access.

Limited content is actually neat. Being able to replay it in a way is beneficial but defeats the limited nature. Perhaps really really big events being one time would be fine with ample advertising and build up such as the destruction of LA.
Story events like the tower of nightmares were actually really interesting. These locations could be reused as a dungeon. Possible not as a short fractal but more of a Vision of the Mists, using the fractal concept and expanding it to be more akin to the normal dungeons. Could even use the fractal scaling and additional affects. And lore wise it’s the mists. To counter the ‘uniqueness’ problem secondary or unrelated stories can be told using the location as a canvas (or just here’s this thing, do stuff/kill stuff).

With all that being said what we the players have had as extra content so far has been a bonus to the initial purchase. It’s been two years since release. I’d like to see a personal story 2.0, which would give a way to introduce new races. New content more akin to an expansion. Even if it’s purchased content giving half the landmass/dungeons/etc it will expand the area to explore, find new things, and be based on everything ANet has learned so far. Coming from GW1 I’d really like to see the old lore expanded upon.

Anywho this has gotten long so ‘post reply’.