Guild Wars 2

I wish they would have just left SAB active 24/7.

I loved the first SAB release but missed the second SAB release entirely, whilst busy with uni. Pretty disappointed about that.

@Bobby or whomever, not sure why SAB isn’t just left open permanently? To stop the devaluing of the weapons or? If that were the reason could there be a version of SAB available 24/7 that didn’t drop rare weapons from the chests?

BobbyStein.2315:

minbariguy.7504:

BobbyStein.2315:

[SNIP] …Or would you like future LW releases to cover other topics? Share your thoughts, but please keep it constructive. Thanks.

Honestly, it does not matter what topics are covered in the LW releases; if I cannot play through the content at my own pace, I will not play it at all. It is so frustrating to have my play timeframe constantly dictated by ANet. You folks put a lot of work into this stuff, I know, but my enjoyment of it is completely spoiled by the stress of waiting for the carrot to be yanked away.

This is a common complaint, and one that we’re very aware of. We’re discussing a variety of ideas that will allow players more flexibility in experiencing the Living World content, but we’re not ready to announce the details since the designs aren’t finalized yet.

Would this work retroactively? There are some LW stuff I didn’t get to start/finish dew to time constraints of the LW/RL. I completely understand if it cannot happen. I was just wondering if once things are finalized, if you could let us know if it will just be moving forward or what ever the deal will be.

But on topic. I have no interest in SAB. I’d rather see the introduction of a new area like FoW/UW, or even the Deapths. Exploring Dwafen/Asuran ruins deep with in Tyria. Now that would be cool.

BobbyStein.2315:

skullmount.1758:

Something like that was suggested in the first (iirc) CDI. I do kinda wish there was some way of polling people at the end, and not just on the forum (since that is coloured as you guys put it). Then it is kinda the own persons fault they don’t fill it out and give their feedback.

We used in-game polls during the beta events a long time ago. Not sure what it’d take to get them in the live client but it’s worth discussing internally, if only to weigh the pros and cons. I’ll talk with the other leads about it soon. No promises on the outcome, though.

I would go ever farther. Don’t you want to reactivate many of those players who are simply done with GW2, who could never quite enjoy your LW version of MMO development? Do a poll related to the emails, all the players used to log on. Reach all and everyone of them. Ask useful questions, even those question you don’t really want to get answers to, because you are somewhat afraid of them. Polls tend to ask only those questions, the asking faction knows the answers already and looks for reassurance. Don’t do it this way. Do an honest poll between all those people and reach even those who never ever use a forum or social media as well. They are the not so vocal majority and listening to them might earn you results that could surprise you and everyone participating.

Such polls could earn everyone so much. I never understood why only EvE ever did such things.

BobbyStein.2315:

Or would you like future LW releases to cover other topics? Share your thoughts, but please keep it constructive. Thanks.

That’s a tough question and I will answer it once this year’s LW is complete and I see what the topic of this year’s LW is/was

So if you read the critique from between the lines there, I’d like to see shorter story spans than 12 months, especially if you plan to save the meat and bones of the story to the last few releases.

In addition, I would love to see LW story arcs that culminate in major features being released, such as whole new areas, big gameplay features like guild halls, etc. Someone could argue that the revamped dungeon paths and new dungeons are big gameplay features, but if they offer at best a couple hours of entertainment, I don’t consider them big (and running a dungeon 10+ times does not constitute entertainment for me).

Southsun was very nice, but the continent was way too bare, compared to the feature-packed areas we had been used to before.

i like the bazaar of the four winds the most because:
1) it’s a new place to explore
2.) when reading trough the lore i had hopes for a crystal desert expansion.

i think the bazaar should eventually be permanent, it would be a perfect starting point for a crystal desert LS.

BobbyStein.2315:

skullmount.1758:

Something like that was suggested in the first (iirc) CDI. I do kinda wish there was some way of polling people at the end, and not just on the forum (since that is coloured as you guys put it). Then it is kinda the own persons fault they don’t fill it out and give their feedback.

We used in-game polls during the beta events a long time ago. Not sure what it’d take to get them in the live client but it’s worth discussing internally, if only to weigh the pros and cons. I’ll talk with the other leads about it soon. No promises on the outcome, though.

Thanks for the reply. I remember the beta polls, and even knowing they were optional, I felt that giving my feedback would help make the game better. Would be nice to have those back (in some shape or form) at the end of either the month (thus about the two patches the month) or ever two weeks with the patch release.

I thought sephyr sanctum would be the most popular released last year. I loved that place. Felt like a little taste on what Cantha could be like.

BobbyStein.2315:

Actually, we have metrics on every LW release. While SAB was indeed successful in terms of participation, so were the other releases (Scarlet ones included).

Take this in the kindest way possible. The participation in the event does not necessarily mean that players enjoyed the content – remember that loot and AP and two other motivators for participation (the ol’ correlation does not imply causation ). What I would do in your case is sneak in some sneaky voting mechanism into each LS story release: allow the player to go the extra mile for absolutely zero reward (no AP, no silver, no karma, no gold, nada). If players enjoy the release they will be motivated to explore the extra content (at least, I would – I spent hours in the SAB starting area exploring because SAB was just that awesome). For example in SAB, a really difficult bonus world that gives you a 0 AP achievement – wanting that achievement shows that the players really enjoyed the content because they may want to show it off [via a screenshot] later on down the line.

What I am trying to say is that none of us really know. People on the forums tend to have opinions and we feed into eachothers’ beliefs and cause this silly feedback cycle that blow things out of proportion. Also remember your part though – statistics can give you false information.

Basically, we need to work together and that’s what the CDI is for. All I care about is effort and you guys are making plenty.

chemiclord.3978:

On top of that… honestly how long would SAB actually REMAIN interesting if you could play it constantly? It’d become just like every other non-farming zone, ignored for being “boring.”

How long would Queensdale remain interesting if you could play it constantly?

Thank you Bobby for posting here and asking for our opinion.

I hated Scarlet, for reasons that have been stated by many people, many times, in many different places. There are so many other things that are interesting from the world you helped create, in a more serious tone, that for the life of me, I cannot fathom why the writing team would purposefully focus on somethign so bland and child-like.

But I digress. Things like… the Human gods. There are some scrolls stating that they arrived from some other place, and Balthazar came through the portal “carrying his father’s severed head”. Huh? Why? How does that relate to Menzies? Isn’t there an interesting bit of lore?
Or Bahltek. Or Cantha. Or Elona. Or Jormag. Or… whatever, you probably know the story and lore a lot better than we players do!

I think a more conventional return to Guild Wars lore would appeal or at least be more digestible to a larger demographic.

Magic, Monsters, Gods and Politics might seem contrite, but I’m convinced that real human stories can be told under the pretense of the Fantasy world. Scarlet fails as a protagonist for simple reasons, she’s out of place, unneeded and force fed to us.

There is already a huge, epic, cataclysmic story of the dragons, warring nations and established heros and villans in the shipped game. Scarlet feels like Deus ex Machina of sorts, some sort of hashed up supervillain meant to tie together a bunch of separate ideas. She comes off as some sort of bad storytelling mechanic and everyone knows the character has no real place in the story, but can’t really put their fingers on why.

We spent months on Kiel’s storyline, and even Evon felt like a believable foil to Kiel by extension. If there had been a good moment for a plot twist these forgotten characters would have been ideal to expand on. Instead they feel like cheap forgotten throw aways, while we slog through more “Mechagodzilla” Living story updates.

What I’m trying to say here is, use the established lore and characters. Tell mature, real, human stories the players can relate to. I’d equate the current living story more with a bad “B” Movie than Tolkien. I feel the difference here is creating interesting, cool characters people can feel engaged with instead of writing in comic book supervillains.

Remember each, and every player in your game is trying to tell THEIR story in YOUR world. Often I feel like a nameless faceless character in someone else’s story when playing through story content. Just another militia in some vast army of other players. Having key characters recognize you and your involvement seems to help me connect with the characters.

BobbyStein.2315:

Actually, we have metrics on every LW release. While SAB was indeed successful in terms of participation, so were the other releases (Scarlet ones included). I understand that forum feedback can color perception on which releases were the most popular/best received/most enjoyed but opinions on this are largely anecdotal. Please keep that in mind.

Which metrics Bobby? Share with us.

I’m not asking for exact numbers, I’m just curious as to what metrics you’re using.

BobbyStein.2315:

Now to your question: will we see a return of SAB? That’s not for me to say, but if it were to come back, what would people like to see from it? Harder/easier content? New world? More/no Moto story?

The thing I want to see the most, by far, in SAB, like most good things related to the LW releases, is for it to stay .

SAB is lots of good fun, but, like everything else, grinding it non-stop for 2 or 4 weeks because it’s going to be unavailable afterwards sucks the fun out of it.

I want it to be around so I can play it when I feel like it. Like right now.

That’s the biggest issue with LW updates in general. As has been explained and evidenced for a year now.

I hate SAB. Shouldn’t have been in the game at all. It breaks world design, and even more with the explanation as an “asura training program for kids”. Seriously, with Fractals, giant “photorealistic” holograms and all that technology, they would come up with a Super Mario? I have nothing against a simulated world, but it should’ve been based on the “real” world of GW2 with futuristic effects making it clear it’s a simulation. Like Assassin’s Creed does with some multiplayer maps looking normal at the most part of them, but there are sides where the simulation falls apart and you can see buildings, trees with white textures or just the structure of their models with textures floating around it. Digiltal walls we’ve seen many times.

And even if it would be like this, I’d still hate SAB. For being forced to play it countless time for a single reward, while I hated go through it for the first time already.

How about… give us back the Bazaar of the Four Winds? As a perma content?

I think a more conventional return to Guild Wars lore would appeal or at least be more digestible to a larger demographic.

Magic, Monsters, Gods and Politics might seem contrite, but I’m convinced that real human stories can be told under the pretense of the Fantasy world. Scarlet fails as a protagonist for simple reasons, she’s out of place, unneeded and force fed to us.

There is already a huge, epic, cataclysmic story of the dragons, warring nations and established heros and villans in the shipped game. Scarlet feels like Deus ex Machina of sorts, some sort of hashed up supervillain meant to tie together a bunch of separate ideas. She comes off as some sort of bad storytelling mechanic and everyone knows the character has no real place in the story, but can’t really put their fingers on why.

We spent months on Kiel’s storyline, and even Evon felt like a believable foil to Kiel by extension. If there had been a good moment for a plot twist these forgotten characters would have been ideal to expand on. Instead they feel like cheap forgotten throw aways, while we slog through more “Mechagodzilla” Living story updates.

What I’m trying to say here is, use the established lore and characters. Tell mature, real, human stories the players can relate to. I’d equate the current living story more with a bad “B” Movie than Tolkien. I feel the difference here is creating interesting, cool characters people can feel engaged with instead of writing in comic book supervillains.

Remember each, and every player in your game is trying to tell THEIR story in YOUR world. Often I feel like a nameless faceless character in someone else’s story when playing through story content. Just another militia in some vast army of other players. Having key characters recognize you and your involvement seems to help me connect with the characters.

This post needs a highlight in a building sized poster above ANet HQ’s main door.

Main thing I’d like in Living story is what was originally promissed. events that change the world. 90% of what we’ve had in year 1 of living story you’d never know had happened 24 hours after it ends, apart from a few players wearing event exclusive gear. And the few things that have stayed around, like scarlet’s invasions… does ANYONE ever do those any more? I know no one in my guild has.
lets please stop with the episodic 2 weeks and all change stuff, and have stuff that forms a continuous arc leading from where we are now, to some grand goal. Maybe the start of the next elder dragon campagn, over this coming year, THAT would be good.

I felt screwed in the last Super Adventure Box release. I got to the third area and was blocked by a wall of ice. I found out from my friend that I had to save up Baubles, that I had used to make Bubbles to exchange for Continue Coins, in order to buy a Wallet, which would let me store enough Baubles to then buy an item to melt that wall. Too grind-y, gave up.
Pain Cliffs was really cool, but it felt a tad sadistic: my friend and I spent about three hours in there repeatedly dying. I did feel accomplished when I figured out the gong puzzle, though, that was neat (albeit painful).
Very much looking forward to rescuing the princess, hopefully.

I was under the impression that Super Adventure Box was a “break” from the Living Story, to “relax” and test a game within a game until it was eventually released in it’s entirety, permanently (after killing the mysterious Moto Anomaly). And that through the Living story, the other zones in Tyria would be revealed for exploration.

Who’s to say Scarlet disappears, perhaps all the thumpers were added to clear the ground work for guild fortresses, thus immersing the world into bitter combat over territory. She may very well be the patron of the new feudal age in GW2…

Concerning the living story i learned several things that i think that got to change to increase players intreset and will to play more.

Plot – Living story so far has been hints and suggestions there is no large chalk of story in it, the eurogamer artical compared it to somthing about wanting it to be song of ice and fire books, but at best its more like the trailer to the tv shot. Players said time and again that your living story is hallow shallow ith little to know plot and any sub plot in it is OUTSIDE the game , a quite unlogical notion.
Also you need to asume players did not play gw1 nor did they remember it or know every bit of lore , we need explanation direction and understanding from the ground up like babies. Some might not like it for the mass of story and find it boring but a large amount will love it and invest even more into the game.

Content that come is here to stay – SAB is my favorite patch so far, its unique intresting and different from the game, i do agree that the last was too long in tribulation mode the most but that can be fixed . Problem why is not in the game right now? its an amazing mini world that players can play for fun and get skins they luck, but why not let us get it in our own time? I quited tribulation beucase i got frustrated and wanted to return to it but no! its gone why?
What a waste of development time stuff like SAB should just stay in the game so players can do it at their own pace and get some decent rewards from it.

Rewards – this is the biggest stick in the mud i think. Like many players i want reward for my time i need a reason to do it and get some sense of achivment (and not achivment point only) Areananet so far have been realy cheap in their reward and didnt want a reward that good beucase they dont make a profit of of it. I relise as a company you make your money from the gem store thus you dont want us to get that good of a reward and buy it from the gem store or not get such good reward that will give us large sum of gold from it.

Some exsamples i can give are – Queen jubalie transofmation kit, its a unique transformation that allow you to play while looking different . The only problem it last 5 min with 30 min cooldown why? why is somthing fun beucase somthing that we just stare at and get angry. WvW season 1 reward talk for itself, Fractured reward the same. And more and more back skins we want some Fun stuff that you cant get from the gem store that will worth our time and improve the game.

In the end you need to reward players with fun item beucase there is a limit to how many skins we use ( i got alts and all of them got everything i want), so its time to say hey lets reward them somthing intresting and also put somthing on the trade post they will want also!

All in all thats my major 3 points in the living story failure so far

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

Who’s to say Scarlet disappears, perhaps all the thumpers were added to clear the ground work for guild fortresses, thus immersing the world into bitter combat over territory. She may very well be the patron of the new feudal age in GW2…

Honestly, I don’t care if she takes up knitting, as long as I never have to see her again. IMO, her story has been horrible, and the Living Story needs a fresh start with something else.

Vick.6805:

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

Who’s to say Scarlet disappears, perhaps all the thumpers were added to clear the ground work for guild fortresses, thus immersing the world into bitter combat over territory. She may very well be the patron of the new feudal age in GW2…

Honestly, I don’t care if she takes up knitting, as long as I never have to see her again. IMO, her story has been horrible, and the Living Story needs a fresh start with something else.

That you won’t elaborate on. We were asked what we want to see from Super Adventure Box or the Living Story. How was her story horrible, what would renew the appeal of the Living Story.

Her story is terrible, and not engaging at all. It would have been more exciting to me( for example) to have her entire one fo the colleges then have her earn honours(or top honours as you wish) then have politics and pride come into play so that she is denied her them and given a normal graduation. You could even have her failed or sabataged on purpose to protect asuran pride and and superiority. This could have then lead to a multitude of events from protests from her classmates about her unjust treatment. Given her charisma she could have used her plight to get help from people from the other colleges to assist in her endeavours. She does not need the multiple colleges much like the innovators in the real world do much of their genius work along side their education, not because of it. Then it could be a mystery of was she actually wronged, was she allowed into the college to expose those nasty asuran traits they like to keep hidden, was their some other reason.

From this little seed of an idea and about few minutes of thought comes amuch more fleshed out and for the lack of a better word human character rather than the 1 dimensional super amazing at everything she ever looked at twink clihe villian we have now.

When you are watching a 2 hr movie it does not matter if the reveal at the end ties together the movie cause it is 2 hrs not a year waiting. If they wanted me to care about this at all they needed to make it far more engaging with more hooks (heck even a single reason to give a kitten) than what they did. While I do have hope things will improve as it stands the LS is just a checklist for me.

Perkysaurus.2630:

Her story is terrible, and not engaging at all. It would have been more exciting to me( for example) to have her entire one fo the colleges then have her earn honours(or top honours as you wish) then have politics and pride come into play so that she is denied her them and given a normal graduation. You could even have her failed or sabataged on purpose to protect asuran pride and and superiority. This could have then lead to a multitude of events from protests from her classmates about her unjust treatment. Given her charisma she could have used her plight to get help from people from the other colleges to assist in her endeavours. She does not need the multiple colleges much like the innovators in the real world do much of their genius work along side their education, not because of it. Then it could be a mystery of was she actually wronged, was she allowed into the college to expose those nasty asuran traits they like to keep hidden, was their some other reason.

From this little seed of an idea and about few minutes of thought comes amuch more fleshed out and for the lack of a better word human character rather than the 1 dimensional super amazing at everything she ever looked at twink clihe villian we have now.

When you are watching a 2 hr movie it does not matter if the reveal at the end ties together the movie cause it is 2 hrs not a year waiting. If they wanted me to care about this at all they needed to make it far more engaging with more hooks (heck even a single reason to give a kitten) than what they did. While I do have hope things will improve as it stands the LS is just a checklist for me.

You should do some proofreading, I found it a tad difficult/impossible to understand some of your sentences and meaning.
Neat story. Not sure how it would tie together with what she saw during her out-of-body experience.

BobbyStein.2315:

minbariguy.7504:

BobbyStein.2315:

[SNIP] …Or would you like future LW releases to cover other topics? Share your thoughts, but please keep it constructive. Thanks.

Honestly, it does not matter what topics are covered in the LW releases; if I cannot play through the content at my own pace, I will not play it at all. It is so frustrating to have my play timeframe constantly dictated by ANet. You folks put a lot of work into this stuff, I know, but my enjoyment of it is completely spoiled by the stress of waiting for the carrot to be yanked away.

This is a common complaint, and one that we’re very aware of. We’re discussing a variety of ideas that will allow players more flexibility in experiencing the Living World content, but we’re not ready to announce the details since the designs aren’t finalized yet.

Bobby, with all due respect, I don’t understand Anet’s seeming infatuation with the notion that temporary content is this great, revolutionary idea. Apart from the fact that most players are just interested in more available content in general (and not interested in content being removed), it just doesn’t seem like a workable idea in a game like GW2. IMO, The Living Story in its current form just needs to be scrapped, with the already released and removed content being re-released as expansions to the PS (rename it if you want), which future development (both story and gameplay) should build on.

To my mind, Anet should be laying the ground work for the narrative that the player experiences on his or her own terms, not forcefully moving the story irrespective of the player experience. Most people at various points are going to get bored or distracted by something else and stop playing, and the fact that they immediately start losing out on content is just going to make it less likely they’ll want to return.

There are so many things that could be done to shore up the somewhat weak PS structure to make it more interesting (since it isn’t fundamentally broken) in place of wasting so much development on temporary content. You could-

- add deeper, more involved/immersive missions at various levels to fill in the gaps
- add a way to replay missions
- add recruitable henchmen/allies that you can customize and take with you in PS missions.
- make better use of the home instance (decorating, recruiting allies, NPCs to run shops, etc.)

The only workable alternative in my mind is to remove the Personal Story from the game virtually entirely and only have a living story that progresses on its own, but with a greater focus on opening new zones than on changing existing ones. However, if you do this, the execution needs to be significantly better than it was in year one (more cohesive, more epic, bigger in general) for it to be engaging or interesting enough to hold player interest and draw back in lapsed players.

That’s just my two cents.

Einlanzer.1627:

BobbyStein.2315:

minbariguy.7504:

BobbyStein.2315:

[SNIP] …Or would you like future LW releases to cover other topics? Share your thoughts, but please keep it constructive. Thanks.

Honestly, it does not matter what topics are covered in the LW releases; if I cannot play through the content at my own pace, I will not play it at all. It is so frustrating to have my play timeframe constantly dictated by ANet. You folks put a lot of work into this stuff, I know, but my enjoyment of it is completely spoiled by the stress of waiting for the carrot to be yanked away.

This is a common complaint, and one that we’re very aware of. We’re discussing a variety of ideas that will allow players more flexibility in experiencing the Living World content, but we’re not ready to announce the details since the designs aren’t finalized yet.

Bobby, with all due respect, I don’t understand Anet’s seeming infatuation with the notion that temporary content is this great, revolutionary idea. Apart from the fact that most players are just interested in more available content in general (and not interested in content being removed), it just doesn’t seem like a workable idea in a game like GW2. IMO, The Living Story in its current form just needs to be scrapped, with the already released and removed content being re-released as expansions to the PS (rename it if you want), which future development (both story and gameplay) should build on.

To my mind, Anet should be laying the ground work for the narrative that the player experiences on his or her own terms, not forcefully moving the story irrespective of the player experience. Most people at various points are going to get bored or distracted by something else and stop playing, and the fact that they immediately start losing out on content is just going to make it less likely they’ll want to return.

There are so many things that could be done to shore up the somewhat weak PS structure to make it more interesting (since it isn’t fundamentally broken) in place of wasting so much development on temporary content. You could-

- add deeper, more involved/immersive missions at various levels to fill in the gaps
- add a way to replay missions
- add recruitable henchmen/allies that you can customize and take with you in PS missions.
- make better use of the home instance (decorating, recruiting allies, NPCs to run shops, etc.)

The only workable alternative in my mind is to remove the Personal Story from the game virtually entirely and only have a living story that progresses on its own, but with a greater focus on opening new zones than on changing existing ones. However, if you do this, the execution needs to be significantly better than it was in year one (more cohesive, more epic, bigger in general) for it to be engaging or interesting enough to hold player interest and draw back in lapsed players.

That’s just my two cents.

Sounds like you just wanna play Guild Wars.

Einlanzer.1627:

Bobby, with all due respect, I don’t understand Anet’s seeming infatuation with the notion that temporary content is this great, revolutionary idea. Apart from the fact that most players are just interested in more available content in general (and not interested in content being removed), it just doesn’t seem like a workable idea in a game like GW2. IMO, The Living Story in its current form just needs to be scrapped, with the already released and removed content being re-released as expansions to the PS (rename it if you want), which future development (both story and gameplay) should build on.

To my mind, Anet should be laying the ground work for the narrative that the player experiences on his or her own terms, not forcefully moving the story irrespective of the player experience. Most people at various points are going to get bored or distracted by something else and stop playing, and the fact that they immediately start losing out on content is just going to make it less likely they’ll want to return.

There are so many things that could be done to shore up the somewhat weak PS structure to make it more interesting (since it isn’t fundamentally broken) in place of wasting so much development on temporary content. You could-

- add deeper, more involved/immersive missions at various levels to fill in the gaps
- add a way to replay missions
- add recruitable henchmen/allies that you can customize and take with you in PS missions.
- make better use of the home instance (decorating, recruiting allies, NPCs to run shops, etc.)

The only workable alternative in my mind is to remove the Personal Story from the game virtually entirely and only have a living story that progresses on its own, but with a greater focus on opening new zones than on changing existing ones. However, if you do this, the execution needs to be significantly better than it was in year one (more cohesive, more epic, bigger in general) for it to be engaging or interesting enough to hold player interest and draw back in lapsed players.

That’s just my two cents.

To be honest, having the Living World change every two/four weeks is what keeps me coming back. I’ve been 80 for along time, and fresh content keeps the game moving forward. If I don’t leave my house IRL for two weeks, read a newspaper, watch the news, I lose whatever happened in the world in those two weeks – same goes for GW2. If I don’t follow the storyline in game as well as on the GW2 page I miss out on what’s happening.

When Scarlet first appeared I had been playing other games so it took me awhile to catch up. After the Invasions started I just happened to be wandering around a zone where one was going on. At first I had no clue what was going on but eventually I was swept up by little groups of people running here and there, and I got enough clues. I then read some backstory and got back up to speed.

I like the way things are structured now. I kinda wish the events were more tied together solely in game, but that’s sheer laziness on my part. Having things change every so often is good, and if I don’t play often enough to take full advantage of them that’s on me. If I had my way, certain things would be permanent – SAB, Labyrinthe Cliffs, Molten Facility, et al. I like how certain instances are being folded into Fractals. There’s some really good content just waiting to be tweaked and re-released, and that keeps me coming back.

dogstar.4839:

SAB, Labyrinthe Cliffs, Molten Facility, et al. I like how certain instances are being folded into Fractals. There’s some really good content just waiting to be tweaked and re-released, and that keeps me coming back.

I figured Super Adventure Box had the feel of a game in it’s beta stages: weekend stress testing, two week test (“please send bug reports”), until it’s permanently released with all it’s stages (minus the mystery shadow).
You probably have a point with wanting to keep Labyrinthine Cliffs open, but obviously there’d have to be something happening there that would draw ships (your transportation) to the location.

BobbyStein.2315:

Actually, we have metrics on every LW release. While SAB was indeed successful in terms of participation, so were the other releases (Scarlet ones included). I understand that forum feedback can color perception on which releases were the most popular/best received/most enjoyed but opinions on this are largely anecdotal. Please keep that in mind.

I feel I need to +1 what some of the other posters have said, such as Lord Kuru:

Lord Kuru.3685:

What do you mean by “successful?” Number of players who participated? If so, have you considered that some (many?) who participate don’t actually enjoy the content?

Metrics are good, but only if you interpret them correctly.

I imagine that a lot of people are participating in the living story because they feel they have to, due to the breakneck 2-week schedule (i.e., “If I don’t participate, I will never get that reward!”).

What should be measured is how satisfying it is for the player. You could get that information from polls like we had in the beta – where we gave feedback on each personal story chapter – or an email poll like we had after Lost Shores. (after back-reading a bit, I’m glad to see that you’re considering this as an option).

If you’re not getting 4/5 or 5/5 from the majority of the players, it’s time to rethink the concept.

As for SAB, please allow people to get the backpacks from the previous chapters! I was reeeeally close to getting my blue backpack from the first chapter but I ran out of time. :\

We need real, substantial content; enough with these biweekly achievement point farmfests.

Boneheart.3561:

Einlanzer.1627:

BobbyStein.2315:

minbariguy.7504:

BobbyStein.2315:

[SNIP] …Or would you like future LW releases to cover other topics? Share your thoughts, but please keep it constructive. Thanks.

Honestly, it does not matter what topics are covered in the LW releases; if I cannot play through the content at my own pace, I will not play it at all. It is so frustrating to have my play timeframe constantly dictated by ANet. You folks put a lot of work into this stuff, I know, but my enjoyment of it is completely spoiled by the stress of waiting for the carrot to be yanked away.

This is a common complaint, and one that we’re very aware of. We’re discussing a variety of ideas that will allow players more flexibility in experiencing the Living World content, but we’re not ready to announce the details since the designs aren’t finalized yet.

Bobby, with all due respect, I don’t understand Anet’s seeming infatuation with the notion that temporary content is this great, revolutionary idea. Apart from the fact that most players are just interested in more available content in general (and not interested in content being removed), it just doesn’t seem like a workable idea in a game like GW2. IMO, The Living Story in its current form just needs to be scrapped, with the already released and removed content being re-released as expansions to the PS (rename it if you want), which future development (both story and gameplay) should build on.

To my mind, Anet should be laying the ground work for the narrative that the player experiences on his or her own terms, not forcefully moving the story irrespective of the player experience. Most people at various points are going to get bored or distracted by something else and stop playing, and the fact that they immediately start losing out on content is just going to make it less likely they’ll want to return.

There are so many things that could be done to shore up the somewhat weak PS structure to make it more interesting (since it isn’t fundamentally broken) in place of wasting so much development on temporary content. You could-

- add deeper, more involved/immersive missions at various levels to fill in the gaps
- add a way to replay missions
- add recruitable henchmen/allies that you can customize and take with you in PS missions.
- make better use of the home instance (decorating, recruiting allies, NPCs to run shops, etc.)

The only workable alternative in my mind is to remove the Personal Story from the game virtually entirely and only have a living story that progresses on its own, but with a greater focus on opening new zones than on changing existing ones. However, if you do this, the execution needs to be significantly better than it was in year one (more cohesive, more epic, bigger in general) for it to be engaging or interesting enough to hold player interest and draw back in lapsed players.

That’s just my two cents.

Sounds like you just wanna play Guild Wars.

Right, because other than the Living World GW2 is just like GW1. No, that’s not the point. Thanks for trying though.

BobbyStein.2315:

Now to your question: will we see a return of SAB? That’s not for me to say, but if it were to come back, what would people like to see from it? Harder/easier content? New world? More/no Moto story?

Or would you like future LW releases to cover other topics? Share your thoughts, but please keep it constructive. Thanks.

If SAB is to return, which I genuinely hope it does because I love all things that involve jumping and / or puzzling, I would like to see the following come to fruition:

- Actual rewards for completing the content that can be translated to real-game currencies and/or goals

In the first release we could play SAB and earn Obsidian Shards. This was great because it meant that we could progress our legendary progress while enjoying SAB, which made us more likely to play SAB because it wasn’t taking away from my goals elsewhere in the game. With SAB’s second release, this was removed, and the whole of SAB felt less rewarding and like it was totally isolated from the rest of the game and that I couldn’t make any progress on anything outside of SAB by playing SAB. The whole “play how you want” mentality was fragged, and it was really disappointing. I’d like to see the return of Obsidian Shards as a reward for SAB, as well as the inclusion of other things (like skill points, tomes of knowledge for leveling alts, and so forth). It would also be cool if completing SAB worlds rewarded Karma (doesn’t have to be a ton, but more than a few events at least).

- More Moto story

The Moto story pieces we got in the second release of SAB were awesome, and admittedly that story is probably my favorite of any of the LS releases. I personally want to know more about the shadow in the game and the genie, where he came from, and a bunch of other things. I love when the side game that is SAB feels like it is actually included in the grand scheme of the game’s lore.

- More easy/tough content

I love that SAB has three modes now for whoever wants to play it how they want to. Absolutely keep this moving forward, but definitely don’t be afraid to make more tough content for future worlds. Please be careful with the balance, though. TM can be tough as nails, but the average mode should not be as tough as W2 average mode was at release. I’m glad that you guys nerfed the waterfall quickly in W2-1, but please don’t let that sort of thing get into a release in the future if you can avoid it. That waterfall area right there was one of the most aggravating jumping experiences I’ve ever had!

- Shorter levels in future worlds

The levels in W2 were massive… I appreciate a lot of content, but I’d rather have more levels that are shorter than fewer levels that are massive. It drags on, gets old quickly, and really becomes frustrating when you run entire long segments without checkpoints, get wrecked, and then have to redo it all over again painfully. If you want to make really big worlds, that’s awesome and I’d love to play them, but split them up into more levels (maybe 4 or 5 in the world) as opposed to having massive levels that drag on.

Either way, SAB is my favorite LS release hands down followed by Bazarr of the Four Winds. I hope SAB returns, and look forward to it.

Flytrap.8075:

We need real, substantial content; enough with these biweekly achievement point farmfests.

Like?

Einlanzer.1627:

Boneheart.3561:

Einlanzer.1627:

BobbyStein.2315:

minbariguy.7504:

BobbyStein.2315:

[SNIP] …Or would you like future LW releases to cover other topics? Share your thoughts, but please keep it constructive. Thanks.

Honestly, it does not matter what topics are covered in the LW releases; if I cannot play through the content at my own pace, I will not play it at all. It is so frustrating to have my play timeframe constantly dictated by ANet. You folks put a lot of work into this stuff, I know, but my enjoyment of it is completely spoiled by the stress of waiting for the carrot to be yanked away.

This is a common complaint, and one that we’re very aware of. We’re discussing a variety of ideas that will allow players more flexibility in experiencing the Living World content, but we’re not ready to announce the details since the designs aren’t finalized yet.

Bobby, with all due respect, I don’t understand Anet’s seeming infatuation with the notion that temporary content is this great, revolutionary idea. Apart from the fact that most players are just interested in more available content in general (and not interested in content being removed), it just doesn’t seem like a workable idea in a game like GW2. IMO, The Living Story in its current form just needs to be scrapped, with the already released and removed content being re-released as expansions to the PS (rename it if you want), which future development (both story and gameplay) should build on.

To my mind, Anet should be laying the ground work for the narrative that the player experiences on his or her own terms, not forcefully moving the story irrespective of the player experience. Most people at various points are going to get bored or distracted by something else and stop playing, and the fact that they immediately start losing out on content is just going to make it less likely they’ll want to return.

There are so many things that could be done to shore up the somewhat weak PS structure to make it more interesting (since it isn’t fundamentally broken) in place of wasting so much development on temporary content. You could-

- add deeper, more involved/immersive missions at various levels to fill in the gaps
- add a way to replay missions
- add recruitable henchmen/allies that you can customize and take with you in PS missions.
- make better use of the home instance (decorating, recruiting allies, NPCs to run shops, etc.)

The only workable alternative in my mind is to remove the Personal Story from the game virtually entirely and only have a living story that progresses on its own, but with a greater focus on opening new zones than on changing existing ones. However, if you do this, the execution needs to be significantly better than it was in year one (more cohesive, more epic, bigger in general) for it to be engaging or interesting enough to hold player interest and draw back in lapsed players.

That’s just my two cents.

Sounds like you just wanna play Guild Wars.

Right, because other than the Living World GW2 is just like GW1. No, that’s not the point. Thanks for trying though.

All you did was list and describe features (or lack thereof) from Guild Wars. Perhaps you’ve worded your concern incorrectly.

Boneheart.3561:

Flytrap.8075:

We need real, substantial content; enough with these biweekly achievement point farmfests.

Like?

Like new zones, new Personal Story, new races, etc. How many people look forward to runing around Lion’s Arch pressing F to break 150 dragon pinatas for achievement points? I don’t know the answer to this one.

How many people look forward to exploring the Crystal Desert, engaging Primordus and his minions, or playing a Tengu? I don’t know the answer to this one, either; but I’ll bet it’s a hell of a lot more than the first group.

Boneheart.3561:

Flytrap.8075:

We need real, substantial content; enough with these biweekly achievement point farmfests.

Like?

Einlanzer.1627:

Boneheart.3561:

Einlanzer.1627:

BobbyStein.2315:

minbariguy.7504:

BobbyStein.2315:

[SNIP] …Or would you like future LW releases to cover other topics? Share your thoughts, but please keep it constructive. Thanks.

Honestly, it does not matter what topics are covered in the LW releases; if I cannot play through the content at my own pace, I will not play it at all. It is so frustrating to have my play timeframe constantly dictated by ANet. You folks put a lot of work into this stuff, I know, but my enjoyment of it is completely spoiled by the stress of waiting for the carrot to be yanked away.

This is a common complaint, and one that we’re very aware of. We’re discussing a variety of ideas that will allow players more flexibility in experiencing the Living World content, but we’re not ready to announce the details since the designs aren’t finalized yet.

Bobby, with all due respect, I don’t understand Anet’s seeming infatuation with the notion that temporary content is this great, revolutionary idea. Apart from the fact that most players are just interested in more available content in general (and not interested in content being removed), it just doesn’t seem like a workable idea in a game like GW2. IMO, The Living Story in its current form just needs to be scrapped, with the already released and removed content being re-released as expansions to the PS (rename it if you want), which future development (both story and gameplay) should build on.

To my mind, Anet should be laying the ground work for the narrative that the player experiences on his or her own terms, not forcefully moving the story irrespective of the player experience. Most people at various points are going to get bored or distracted by something else and stop playing, and the fact that they immediately start losing out on content is just going to make it less likely they’ll want to return.

There are so many things that could be done to shore up the somewhat weak PS structure to make it more interesting (since it isn’t fundamentally broken) in place of wasting so much development on temporary content. You could-

- add deeper, more involved/immersive missions at various levels to fill in the gaps
- add a way to replay missions
- add recruitable henchmen/allies that you can customize and take with you in PS missions.
- make better use of the home instance (decorating, recruiting allies, NPCs to run shops, etc.)

The only workable alternative in my mind is to remove the Personal Story from the game virtually entirely and only have a living story that progresses on its own, but with a greater focus on opening new zones than on changing existing ones. However, if you do this, the execution needs to be significantly better than it was in year one (more cohesive, more epic, bigger in general) for it to be engaging or interesting enough to hold player interest and draw back in lapsed players.

That’s just my two cents.

Sounds like you just wanna play Guild Wars.

Right, because other than the Living World GW2 is just like GW1. No, that’s not the point. Thanks for trying though.

All you did was list and describe features (or lack thereof) from Guild Wars. Perhaps you’ve worded your concern incorrectly.

Wanting a specific feature or two to be adapted from GW1 to replace things that clearly aren’t working /= wanting to play GW1. Furthermore, I offered an alternative that is based on the LW and not from GW1. If you’re finished with hyperboles, feel free to contribute to the discussion in some way.

Regardless of how they develop the overarching narrative, the main thing GW2 needs is new permanent content in the form of zones, dungeons, skins, skills, etc. Temporary content only works when it isn’t the primary focus and doesn’t comprise the majority of all development resources and content updates. That remains true regardless of what the method of delivery is.

BobbyStein.2315:

Azure Prower.8701:

… onto the compost heap.

Are we going to get SAB returning shortly after?

Because lets be honest. This is the only living world update the majority of people enjoyed.

Actually, we have metrics on every LW release. While SAB was indeed successful in terms of participation, so were the other releases (Scarlet ones included). I understand that forum feedback can color perception on which releases were the most popular/best received/most enjoyed but opinions on this are largely anecdotal. Please keep that in mind.

Now to your question: will we see a return of SAB? That’s not for me to say, but if it were to come back, what would people like to see from it? Harder/easier content? New world? More/no Moto story?

Or would you like future LW releases to cover other topics? Share your thoughts, but please keep it constructive. Thanks.

I thought SAB was cute as a one time April fool’s joke. But i think it’s enough. The SAB parody is tacky and really takes away from the immersion in the world. The content is fun but the ascetic is very off putting. Could we perhaps implement this in a less cartoony fashion? Perhaps more like the fractal ascetic?

Overall don’t like SAB

darkace.8925:

Like new zones, new Personal Story, new races, etc. How many people look forward to runing around Lion’s Arch pressing F to break 150 dragon pinatas for achievement points? I don’t know the answer to this one.

How many people look forward to exploring the Crystal Desert, engaging Primordus and his minions, or playing a Tengu? I don’t know the answer to this one, either; but I’ll bet it’s a hell of a lot more than the first group.

So no special events/holidays, just give us the dragons and huge updates. As soon as the game was released, they should’ve been working on that?

Einlanzer.1627:

Wanting a specific feature or two to be adapted from GW1 to replace things that clearly aren’t working /= wanting to play GW1. Furthermore, I offered an alternative that is based on the LW and not from GW1. If you’re finished with hyperboles, feel free to contribute to the discussion in some way.

Regardless of how they develop the overarching narrative, the main thing GW2 needs is new permanent content in the form of zones, dungeons, skins, skills, etc. Temporary content only works when it isn’t the primary focus and doesn’t comprise the majority of all development resources and content updates. That remains true regardless of what the method of delivery is.

“Or two”? You wanted four, at least, features from Guild Wars to replace features in Guilds Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 wouldn’t be it’s own game anymore, and you’re not offering anything to improve on it’s features. You just want a rehash instead of encouraging ArenaNet’s endeavor.
I am in no hurry to see the addition of playable races, cities, zones, or dungeons. These are inevitable. What ArenaNet has done in their temporary, and some permanent, content, is build zones and dungeons. They have been explorations in the extent of this world’s design and capabilities, and how best to elicit joy. So that when they do release a substantial update, someone’s complaint will be that they hate fun.

Boneheart.3561:

darkace.8925:

Like new zones, new Personal Story, new races, etc. How many people look forward to runing around Lion’s Arch pressing F to break 150 dragon pinatas for achievement points? I don’t know the answer to this one.

How many people look forward to exploring the Crystal Desert, engaging Primordus and his minions, or playing a Tengu? I don’t know the answer to this one, either; but I’ll bet it’s a hell of a lot more than the first group.

So no special events/holidays, just give us the dragons and huge updates. As soon as the game was released, they should’ve been working on that?

Einlanzer.1627:

Wanting a specific feature or two to be adapted from GW1 to replace things that clearly aren’t working /= wanting to play GW1. Furthermore, I offered an alternative that is based on the LW and not from GW1. If you’re finished with hyperboles, feel free to contribute to the discussion in some way.

Regardless of how they develop the overarching narrative, the main thing GW2 needs is new permanent content in the form of zones, dungeons, skins, skills, etc. Temporary content only works when it isn’t the primary focus and doesn’t comprise the majority of all development resources and content updates. That remains true regardless of what the method of delivery is.

“Or two”? You wanted four, at least, features from Guild Wars to replace features in Guilds Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 wouldn’t be it’s own game anymore, and you’re not offering anything to improve on it’s features. You just want a rehash instead of encouraging ArenaNet’s endeavor.
I am in no hurry to see the addition of playable races, cities, zones, or dungeons. These are inevitable. What ArenaNet has done in their temporary, and some permanent, content, is build zones and dungeons. They have been explorations in the extent of this world’s design and capabilities, and how best to elicit joy. So that when they do release a substantial update, someone’s complaint will be that they hate fun.

Hyperboles again. Enhanced PS features /= a rehash of GW1. Did you even play GW1? I did, and I like GW 2 better. You are arguing with a strawman, and it’s disrupting the overall conversation, so I’m not responding to you again.

Einlanzer.1627:

Hyperboles again. Enhanced PS features /= a rehash of GW1. Did you even play GW1? I did, and I like GW 2 better. You are arguing with a strawman, and it’s disrupting the overall conversation, so I’m not responding to you again.

You wanted “recruitable henchmen/allies”, “way to replay missions”, “missions at various levels”, “NPCs to run shops”. These are all most definitely found at the Command Post in Kourna.
You mention scrapping the Living Story and adding it to the Personal Story but combined with re-playability and a focus on the individual player, that just makes them quests and Missions.
There’s complaint about the Living Story lacking substance, but that they’re not around long enough to enjoy. Why care about their longevity, if they’re of no consequence.
You state the Personal Story is weak, yet it deals only with a single Elder Dragon out of five(six).

What I can interpret through your hardly detailed criticism is that you feel the Home instance and Personal Story aren’t as robust as they could be. Why don’t you start over and detail what you found lacking in these features, not what could be added.

Gundail.7594:

I think a more conventional return to Guild Wars lore would appeal or at least be more digestible to a larger demographic.

Magic, Monsters, Gods and Politics might seem contrite, but I’m convinced that real human stories can be told under the pretense of the Fantasy world. Scarlet fails as a protagonist for simple reasons, she’s out of place, unneeded and force fed to us.

There is already a huge, epic, cataclysmic story of the dragons, warring nations and established heros and villans in the shipped game. Scarlet feels like Deus ex Machina of sorts, some sort of hashed up supervillain meant to tie together a bunch of separate ideas. She comes off as some sort of bad storytelling mechanic and everyone knows the character has no real place in the story, but can’t really put their fingers on why.

We spent months on Kiel’s storyline, and even Evon felt like a believable foil to Kiel by extension. If there had been a good moment for a plot twist these forgotten characters would have been ideal to expand on. Instead they feel like cheap forgotten throw aways, while we slog through more “Mechagodzilla” Living story updates.

What I’m trying to say here is, use the established lore and characters. Tell mature, real, human stories the players can relate to. I’d equate the current living story more with a bad “B” Movie than Tolkien. I feel the difference here is creating interesting, cool characters people can feel engaged with instead of writing in comic book supervillains.

Remember each, and every player in your game is trying to tell THEIR story in YOUR world. Often I feel like a nameless faceless character in someone else’s story when playing through story content. Just another militia in some vast army of other players. Having key characters recognize you and your involvement seems to help me connect with the characters.

^—- This. I don’t understand the hate for the Living Story’s pace in here, though. The two week schedule has been a little bit of a pressure, but I think in a good way. As someone up thread said, it’s the main thing that keeps me returning. I have 5 lvl 80s and leveling in the same areas doing the same events is so boring — the guaranteed variety from LS is pretty awesome. This month-long Wintersday has definitely been fabulous, though. I love getting to play bell choir for my daily activity.

To answer the dev question, I absolutely would like to see more Moto story with SAB. SAB is okay (jumping puzzles are one of my biggest sources of frustration in the game, actually), but the main thing that would keep me coming back is to see his story by beating the levels I didn’t get to before. Mechanics are useless unless you make me care about them through storytelling.

To quote Jeff from Community, “We are the only species on Earth that observe “Shark Week”. Sharks don’t even observe “Shark Week” but we do. For the same reason I can pick this pencil, tell you its name is Steve and go like this (breaks pencil) and part of you dies just a little bit on the inside because people can connect with anything. We can sympathize with a pencil, we can forgive a shark, and we can give Ben Affleck an academy award for Screenwriting.”

Make me connect. That’s the thing I’m really looking for; I care far less about how often you throw content at me.

what i want from SAB.
world three: doesnt have to be harder then world two, longer maybe but broken up into smaller levels as someone else suggested.
i want it to look cool remind me of the later levels of my favorite retro games love the references in w1,w2
i want it to make me do new and interesting things to progress further in the level. maybe a higher puzzle to jumping ratio.
i want tribulation mode back. just as hard if not harder. i bought the kitten infinite coin, so gimme.
i want more Moto story. i thought that attaching a storyline to SAB was a bit awkward and still kinda do. when SAB first came out i was really excited about it. i love mini games and games within games. one of my favorite things about playing gw1 for my HoM points was doing challange missions for hero armor. the simple story explanation of educational tool was more than enough to justify its addition to tyria. when they released the story part for world two i was apprehensive that it would over complicate SABs place in tyria but the characters and such were entertaining. and as lore hungry as i was for this game (and still am) it became an appetizing morsel that needs a second course.

and make the world three weapons skins a nice rich red alil on the darkish side. gunna get me a great sword for my warrior.

No deeper story is needed, rescue princess because evil dude stole her is enough. That is all the incentive heroes needed back in the day.

Keep the costs down on the “items” that are needed to progress or hand them out as rewards. Was so tiresome to replay areas just to farm money to buy the gear needed to progress.

Boneheart.3561:

darkace.8925:

Like new zones, new Personal Story, new races, etc. How many people look forward to runing around Lion’s Arch pressing F to break 150 dragon pinatas for achievement points? I don’t know the answer to this one.

How many people look forward to exploring the Crystal Desert, engaging Primordus and his minions, or playing a Tengu? I don’t know the answer to this one, either; but I’ll bet it’s a hell of a lot more than the first group.

So no special events/holidays, just give us the dragons and huge updates. As soon as the game was released, they should’ve been working on that?

Those special events/holidays didn’t feel nearly so special when they were wedged between Scarlet events. What made them special in the past was lost when they were reduced to just another Living Story update.

For me, temporary content is something that seems like a poor choice, but also doesn’t erk me.

I have been inactive since July 2013, and recently came back. I have been able to jump back into the story and caught a video to see what I have missed. It’s similar to if I missed events in real life and just caught up on youtube/news/word of mouth.

That said, the amount of content for me to play at the moment is quite limited. I have been playing a few days reasonably actively and have already found myself out of content. Had the previous releases remained in the game, I would have much more to do and would have a lot of fun doing it. I also think that is a ‘better’ way to catch up. Catching up via word of mouth or youtube is definitely more realistic, but catching up by playing is more fun. Let’s be honest, we play Guild Wars 2 to have fun, not for it’s great amount of realism.

I think it would be a better idea to add content in the game and leave it, and concentrate more on adding great content then on how it will be able to fit in the game temporarily so that it can be removed in x weeks and not damage the game.

The main reason I stopped playing in July was due to personal reasons. However, the main reason I did not start back up again in August, or September or … is because the living world updates were not all that fun. Aetherblade is probably the best that I can think of, as the JP and the dungeon were both very fun and added hours of content for me. However, a lot of the content seemed like random mini-game achievement grinds (Dragon Bash?).

My biggest gripe with the story content is something I read earlier today, each update is similar to a sentence worth of story. So I anxiously wait 2 weeks for an update, jump in the story instance for a bit of filler dialogue to find out the bullet point of story, and then wait a couple weeks for the next update. I care less about finding presents, or dragon coffers etc in open world than I do about the story. I care less about treasure hunts that take me all over the world than the story. I care less about back skin items than the story. Please, give me story.

Other gripes/tips
- Don’t drop key characters for months without reason
- Provide player agency (don’t just have us along for the ride)
- Create twists, have those we trust betray us etc
- Add areas of grey, not everyone is blatantly evil or good. Evil characters are well written when their motives are understandable and even relatable.
- Don’t add key parts of the story on the website and outside of the game (budget is a problem? Don’t use the budget working on pointless mini games at the expense of story and character development)

Tamaki Revolution.3548:

There will be plenty of people unhappy with whatever they release after Scarlet is gone.

With that being said, bring on the SAB. Nao.

Edit: Didn’t the “majority of people” enjoy Bazaar of the Four Winds? I didn’t see many complaints about it. It was one of my favorites :P

Bazaar was awesome! By far my favorite one, and it actually had achievements that wore fun to do, not just stupid grinding.

Angel.4581:

No deeper story is needed, rescue princess because evil dude stole her is enough. That is all the incentive heroes needed back in the day.

There is a difference between the simplistic 1980’s-esque SAB story and the GW2 story of Moto, I suppose. IMO, the stereotypical damsel in distress storyline is okay for the SAB, because you uncover a plot bigger than that, which ties into the GW2 world at large (the Ketto and Yavi instance/cutscene in Ketto’s Lab). The brainless “another dude stole my chick” plot is pushed to the side when you start realizing the meta story of Moto that is being revealed through SAB play. The damsel in distress is not at all the motivating part to me of this content, as a female player in a far more complicated game in the year 2014. If I really wanted to be playing a “rescue the princess” 8bit game, I would be back to playing old SNES games. Though my statements were about loving the Ketto’s Lab cutscene, I would absolutely appreciate some other in-SAB plot being thrown in as the box expands. Or if not, I’d love for there to be something commenting on how lame it is that he’s relying on the same tired trope and then it can at least try to claim some sort of subversive angle/self critique. Maybe Ketto and Yavi hack unto him as he hacked unto them and they start glitching the box/messing with the plot.

That said, I can’t deny this implementation of an 8bit style is beautiful and fun, so that also makes it not a total point of annoyance to play. But the only reason I even tried to get as far as I did was to get to the genie for the cutscene.

Arena net need to leave some content in because this fly by night content is boring already…

ZudetGambeous.9573:

SAB 2 was awful, probably the worst patch so far in this game. We need more Guild Wars in our GW2, not less.

Yeah, I know it’s not the popular opinion but I agree. I don’t like content where all my items and skills are taken away from me. I like the fact that SAB provides polished difficult content, but let me have that in a Guild Wars setting with the combat system I bought the game for.

I miss SAB more than most of the content we have had in 2013. They’d be insane to not add it each year.
The rewards were decent and the zones were fun to play. A patch that didn’t focus mainly on some big boss that needs a decent sized server to always succeed against. No, it just required your own personal progress, alone or in your little party.

It was one LW story that made me actually want to participate and earn achievements, just like the Balthazaar content. More than I can say about the recent content. SAB made me want to fight on past the difficulty modes and I rather enjoyed the Gem store Items for SAB, as did my guildies.

Sorry, just kinda sick of hearing about Scarlett.

BobbyStein.2315:

Azure Prower.8701:

… onto the compost heap.

Are we going to get SAB returning shortly after?

Because lets be honest. This is the only living world update the majority of people enjoyed.

Actually, we have metrics on every LW release. While SAB was indeed successful in terms of participation, so were the other releases (Scarlet ones included). I understand that forum feedback can color perception on which releases were the most popular/best received/most enjoyed but opinions on this are largely anecdotal. Please keep that in mind.

Now to your question: will we see a return of SAB? That’s not for me to say, but if it were to come back, what would people like to see from it? Harder/easier content? New world? More/no Moto story?

Or would you like future LW releases to cover other topics? Share your thoughts, but please keep it constructive. Thanks.

I would like for it to return, I would like each world to have 3 levels of content:
Baby mode, medium mode, and super hard mode (tribulation). More Moto! I would like for them to be able to take the suggestions & comments from the second SAB and redo it addressing what people found problematic to re-release that world. I would like for them to have the opportunity to continue to release additional worlds.

I would like for the rewards to stay forever so that you can save up your tokens for a long time to get exactly what you want.

I would like for it to rotate in pretty often.

Its creative, its fun, and its a break from doing the other part of the game.

How about an expansion…

I didn’t care for SAB. Tried it. Really did. Did not enjoy.