Guild Wars 2

I was extremely optimistic about this living world nonsense when I first heard about it back in may. I stopped playing guild wars 3 months after launch mostly due to not having any friends of mine playing it any more. However a couple buddies of mine decided it would be a good time to give the game another go due to the thought they were going to “churn out a lot of new content” due to the expansion of there living world teams. My first thought was wow that could be really awesome think of the things they brought to us when the game first came out south sun and 2 rather fun festivals loaded with cool stuff.

Here where the problem is. Nothing they have come out with is permanent. We haven’t seen a new zone, a zone getting reworked, anything at all. In fact we were told around june time that the content was going to be more permanent due to a larger living story team. But we still haven’t (excluding the cometic rework of the great collapse).

Looking back it makes me wonder, I bet anything south sun, winters day, and the mad king event were all completed pre launch. Just look at the evidence, have we seen anything near that large since december? Not even close! SAB is the only exception but its not hard to churn out an 8bit world.

Another thing the living world was suppose to do was evolve the world. Things were suppose to change the world “forever”. A good example would be the karka attack on lions arch destroying the tower or the mad king blowing up the lions arch statue in order to get into lions arch. Well once again haven’t seen any of that since december. And whats the kicker to that? The lions statue is back!??! out of thin air? why? so we can recycle the mad king event for this year. Its a complete joke! I remember the interview with colin johanson talking about players being able to say thing like “I remember the lion statue that used to be in lions arch”. Guess they were to lazy to stick to that.

The point is, the living world system NEEDS to get scraped and just do expansion they can’t keep up and all there doing is hyping the kitten out of content to keep people interested. Our next “big” update is a “rework” of tequatl that just makes him a bit harder and adds a couple steps, and aLFG tool that should have been in the game pre launch. This is such a joke, anyone with a brain should realize this. Guild wars 1 expansion every 6 months was way better due to people getting all these features and more (new zones, story, skills, professions).

I can’t be the only one who thinks this living world system is all a gimic.

I like the Living Story. Now, granted, I haven’t been around through much of it because I stopped playing a while back when I moved and stuff and only just picked it up again in time for the Queen’s Jubilee. But I believe they will keep it going and expanding it like they promised. Then again, I’ve always been a patient man too and not overly concerned about this because I love the game for its whole, not just the idea of having an effect on the world.

Hm?
We have permanent invasions.
We have new permanent drops.
We will (on the 17th) have a new permanent reworked version of Tequatl and big permanent overhaul of the borderlands in WvW.

We HAVE seen Southsun and the Labyrinthine Cliffs. A large part of Divinity’s Reach HAVE been reworked as have Southsun.

You’re conveniently missing out the donations to the rebuilding and to the strengthening of the Lionguard. The Lion statue didn’t pop up from nowhere, it was rebuilt and that during a longer period.
You’re failing to see that there are new permanent minigames.
You’re ranting about things you don’t even know.
You’re arguing that events are going to be recycled before you even know.
ANet has said that that is not the case.
You left and you missed it. Boo hoo. Poor you.

And if it’s not “hard” to make Super Adventure Box, you really need to read up on how game developing works. Furthermore it’s not “8-bit-stuff”. It’s a fully 3-dimensional game world that needs concept, design, textures, models, music, sounds, scripting, artificial intelligence. It needs the complete construction of the actual environment, it needs balancing, testing, rebuilding, rebalancing, retesting etc.
And I’ve still probably forgotten something.
That it contains alot of 90-degree corners doesn’t make it any easier. There are countless tools to make terrain effortlessly where you literally pull out a mountain with your mouse and it looks all smooth and nice.

Furthermore it’s alot easier to make content for Guild Wars than for Guild Wars 2.
Guild Wars lacks functions that are vital to Guild Wars 2, for example jumping. Just a small thing like that affects the whole world and makes it alot more complicated to make because you have to take it into account when you’re making the world.
“Should the player be able to jump up this hill? No? Then how do we make it natural, without invisible walls and still disallow jumping up it?”

That said.
I’m not arguing for or against ANet’s choices or priorities.
Yes, I’d like more permanent stuff and more stories and more content and better content and nice reworks etc.
But your basing your rants on stuff you have no idea at all how they work. You’re not reading up and thus missing information that you ignore. You’re pretty much the prime example of how not to argue and that’s why I’m writing this.

Read up.
Take both sides of the coin into account.
Base your arguments on fact, not fiction.

I think when the OP mentioned revamped zones or no new zone, that we haven’t seen permanent zones (Labyrinthine Cliffs disappeared) or permanent zone-wide event revamps. Tequatl is indeed coming, but only Southsun has gotten permanent events other than the invasions, which is far from a revamp of a zone.

Aside from the new Ascended drops, and the Quartz Crystals for those who did the achievement, the only permanent stuff beyond invasion and Karka Queen is some structures in Southsun and Divinity’s Reach, and 3 pointless instances.

All other events were temporary, even though they didn’t need to be. Labyrinthine Cliffs was temporary, even though it didn’t need to be. All dungeons have been temporary, even though they didn’t need to be.

Yes, there have been some permanent things, but compared to what’s temporary, they’re minute.

Mikuchan.7261:

You’re conveniently missing out the donations to the rebuilding and to the strengthening of the Lionguard. The Lion statue didn’t pop up from nowhere, it was rebuilt and that during a longer period.
You’re failing to see that there are new permanent minigames.
You’re ranting about things you don’t even know.
You’re arguing that events are going to be recycled before you even know.
ANet has said that that is not the case.
You left and you missed it. Boo hoo. Poor you.

Honestly this makes no sense at all. We had a asuran holographic display there one second, then on the next patch all of sudden its back. You can sit there and pretend that the fountain is going to be permanent but the fact is once the mad king rolls around its going to get destroyed again. the same way. Why make a new cutscene when you can just recycle the old? They did it in guild wars 1 and they will do it again… Your clearly ignorant to the fact and have obviously not been here when certain events have gone down.

I agree completely. I was so disappointed to find out that they were not going to do expansions. I don’t care how many times they claim they still can, they aren’t doing ANYTHING that is expansion worthy, and there is nothing on the horizon as far as players know since they wont tell us anything other than “oh yea uhh…we are working on big stuff sure…”

unseenone.1463:

I agree completely. I was so disappointed to find out that they were not going to do expansions. I don’t care how many times they claim they still can, they aren’t doing ANYTHING that is expansion worthy, and there is nothing on the horizon as far as players know since they wont tell us anything other than “oh yea uhh…we are working on big stuff sure…”

In a recent interview Colin said that they are still working on ways to deliver content and he said that they are not ruling out an expansion….

That’s just the problem “not ruling out an expansion” could go on for another 6 months. They need to decide what they want to do, and start delivering content. Its been a YEAR and they still have no idea what their business model is.

Impact.6213:

Honestly this makes no sense at all. We had a asuran holographic display there one second, then on the next patch all of sudden its back. You can sit there and pretend that the fountain is going to be permanent but the fact is once the mad king rolls around its going to get destroyed again. the same way. Why make a new cutscene when you can just recycle the old? They did it in guild wars 1 and they will do it again… Your clearly ignorant to the fact and have obviously not been here when certain events have gone down.

What makes no sense is you first arguing that the fountain suddenly popped into existence after being destroyed and now you’re saying that the explanation doesn’t make sense because there has been a holoprojector there that hasn’t even got anything to do with the explanation.

They deconstructed the fountain during Dragon Bash, where they had the asuran holographic display showing dragon holograms for the festival. They kept the display up due to priorities because of the chaos at the festival and could then show the election winner with it. Now that’s over and they have reconstructed the lion fountain of the stored materials. If you had any idea of the lore, the lion fountain is a main symbol of Lion’s Arch and the unification of the races. Every race contributed something to the statue. That’s why it’s important and that’s why it’s there again instead of the holoprojector.

ANet has clearly stated that festivals won’t be recycled. They will happen yearly, but they will always be renewed. Yes, Mad King Thorn may appear at the same place. By then the fountain may have been deconstructed since lessions have been learnt. Either way, no matter how you speculate, you can’t use it as an argument because it has not happened. What on the other hand has happened is that ANet has clearly said that even achievements may not return and even less they will recycle the festivals.

Call me ignorant if you wish, but at least I read up on things (or in this case, explore things and actually am there) before I open my mouth and make an idiot out of myself.
What they did in Guild Wars doesn’t matter. It’s a new game, It’s a new team and it’s a new concept, idea and policy.
Furthermore I recently sold some 7 year birthday presents in GW1 that I had gotten on my characters and I’ve been here and completed every living story achievement there was except for the 8 Liadri orbs and some gambits since the gauntlet will return with the same achievements anyways. So your accusation that I have been inactive or anything is quite wrong.
You’re conveniently ignoring everything in order to be able to rant.
If anything, I’d call you ignorant.

in gw1 they used the same festival but updated them with more stuff every year. prob new or different achievements and more stuff to do. actually i thought wintersday and mad kings day were done extremely well so i hope they do a lot the same as last year. only thing about the holoprojector ill say they could have had the projector disappear one update and have constructions materials laying around the fountain and have it completed the next patch would have made it more believable

Impact.6213:

I was extremely optimistic about this living world nonsense when I first heard about it back in may. I stopped playing guild wars 3 months after launch mostly due to not having any friends of mine playing it any more. However a couple buddies of mine decided it would be a good time to give the game another go due to the thought they were going to “churn out a lot of new content” due to the expansion of there living world teams. My first thought was wow that could be really awesome think of the things they brought to us when the game first came out south sun and 2 rather fun festivals loaded with cool stuff.

Here where the problem is. Nothing they have come out with is permanent. We haven’t seen a new zone, a zone getting reworked, anything at all. In fact we were told around june time that the content was going to be more permanent due to a larger living story team. But we still haven’t (excluding the cometic rework of the great collapse).

Looking back it makes me wonder, I bet anything south sun, winters day, and the mad king event were all completed pre launch. Just look at the evidence, have we seen anything near that large since december? Not even close! SAB is the only exception but its not hard to churn out an 8bit world.

Another thing the living world was suppose to do was evolve the world. Things were suppose to change the world “forever”. A good example would be the karka attack on lions arch destroying the tower or the mad king blowing up the lions arch statue in order to get into lions arch. Well once again haven’t seen any of that since december. And whats the kicker to that? The lions statue is back!??! out of thin air? why? so we can recycle the mad king event for this year. Its a complete joke! I remember the interview with colin johanson talking about players being able to say thing like “I remember the lion statue that used to be in lions arch”. Guess they were to lazy to stick to that.

The point is, the living world system NEEDS to get scraped and just do expansion they can’t keep up and all there doing is hyping the kitten out of content to keep people interested. Our next “big” update is a “rework” of tequatl that just makes him a bit harder and adds a couple steps, and aLFG tool that should have been in the game pre launch. This is such a joke, anyone with a brain should realize this. Guild wars 1 expansion every 6 months was way better due to people getting all these features and more (new zones, story, skills, professions).

I can’t be the only one who thinks this living world system is all a gimic.

What about the new zone Labyrinthine Cliffs? It wasn’t permanent, but it was definitely a cool new zone.

WatchTheShow.7203:

What about the new zone Labyrinthine Cliffs? It wasn’t permanent, but it was definitely a cool new zone.

Preface note: I didn’t read the wall of text you quoted for this response.

I agree, it was a cool new zone even if a bit empty on the activity side. However, the bold is why Labyrinthine Cliffs is meh.

Don’t bring Southsun as an example of a new zone. Compared to any other “proper” zone in the world, Southsun is empty and boring as kitten.

Labyrinthine Cliffs? Lol… just lol.

Count me on the side of those that consider the way the living story developed over the last 9 months as a letdown.

I dont care about the details much anymore and people are going to nitpick them anyway, but the sentiment of this returning player is exactly why I think the living story is implemented very badly: he comes back after half a year and nothing “seems” changed.

Look past the small details like the fountain being rebuilding step by step which was ok. Half a year of living story should have a player come back to find a new, completely finished zone ready to explore. He would have missed the lionguard discovering it and didnt help building the outpost and negotiating the treaty with the locals, but the zone would be there to entice him back into the game.

Whoa flashback to like 5 months ago with this thread.

Living Story is designed to have a linear timeline versus a perpetual one. Things that happened in the past stay in the past, you can’t re-experience them. That’s the whole point! They are trying something no one else has tried and I commend them for it. As someone who has played since early release I think it is awesome.

I can also understand why people who left GW2 for a long period of time wouldn’t like the Living Story, but in all honesty, you’re not really the target market for LS. I feel like the Living Story is designed to keep players who still currently play playing so that they don’t miss any of the content, versus content designed to bring people back to playing.

On more than one occasion when speaking with guildies about something in the past I’ve referred to it such as, “you know back when the Molten Alliance was attacking” or “Back during the attack on Southsun”. It gives the game more depth.