Guild Wars 2

Disconnection issues
There are many who participated in todays event who missed out on seeing it to completion when the server disconnected them and they were thrown into an overflow which had already completed it (myself included). While I hate to use the word ‘entitled’, I do think that players who made the effort to participate in the event but who did not receive any items due to server issues which they could not do anything about shouldn’t be disadvantaged from those who were able to complete the event without d/c’ing.
Not jumping up and down about this, but it would be a nice gesture on Anets part. They have the logs, they know who was there.

Bugged NPC’s
I understand the desire to keep things secret to keep the surprises, but there was a lot of frustration on the state of the bugged NPCs, blocking key chains. I’m sure some thought will be put into preventing a repeat for Decembers event. Moving on…

New Commendation system
At the moment it doesn’t seem to be worthwhile to bother with this, not a lot of value here. Maybe I’m missing something.

The Lost Shores themselves
Aside from the karka shells and the new herb, what will draw us back to this zone tomorrow and the days following. The mobs are harder than Orr, there are only a couple of waypoints and events. Other than shell/herb farming, what makes this a zone that 80’s will return to?

* Fractals of the Mists*
Excellent dungeon, and alone makes this weekend worthwhile. That said you need to be very careful with the level thing so that we don’t get the waves of elitism that plague other MMO’s (refer to the evils of misused gearscore…). Resetting the level on a weekly/fortnightly basis would probably help this, otherwise it gets painful for newer 80’s.

Daily / Monthly Achievements

I do like some of the changes, but would it be asking to much to move the WvWvW monthly achievement to the PVP one. I am prefer to PVE and so this means that I usually end up at 75% complete each month. I went into WvW for map completion (a pain, but I am Ok with this), but I’m not going to do it on a regular basis (my 2c anyway).

Refer a friend
I applaud the intent here, though as implemented it has two drawbacks.
1. Limited time only ie this weekend which doesn’t give some the opportunity to try it.
2. As Kirk said “you are not exactly seeing us at our best.” Anyone coming into the game only in the last two days would have got a very skewed view of the state of the game which would have been very different to if they had logged in last week.

Overall

I don’t doubt there is some disappointment with the way this event turned out, both internally and externally, especially after the high standard set by halloween. We don’t need to slam Anet, they are perfectly aware of what the issues were here and we shall see how those lessons have been learned in December.

Overall, the event was a thumbs up for me, though not to the same standard as Octobers. I don’t doubt they will be reviewing the weekends results over the next few days.

reposting this in the official thread as I had created it in a separate thread….

Wall of text follows. Apologies in advance, some comments in no particular order which I’d love Anet to consider.

Lag
Game optimization is a lot of work and I don’t envy the devs here, but if the engine has issues with putting 200 people in one spot why not use the event mechanics to cater for it.
Instead of a zerg on the Ancient Karka, what if groups needed to attack and hold 8 defence turrets along the path simultaneously while another group with pact support were used as bait to lure it to the hive. Groups would need to control the points and then secure the next ones (leapfrogging turret to turret) as the creature moved along. It would increase the challenge / coordination of the event and would distribute the player base more evenly across the map.

Communication
Generally Anet do a good job of talking to their player base. That said we had a few problems this time around.

While twitter is a great medium for getting a message out fast, this isn’t the appropriate use for it. (ie stand near the lighthouse 10 min before event starts). Not everyone has facebook/twitter. You have an in-game mail engine, please use it for this. eg mail from Whispers Agent “PSST. I heard a rumour that you might want to be near…”

Start times.
You wont please everyone, in a world wide game, unfortunate fact. A timer on your website (hh:mm:ss) to help would simplify figuring out what time the event occurred. Again, an ingame mail say an hour before saying where and when would be good here.

One off events
With regard to the one off cutscenes, how about an asura reporter who chases around after big events, films it with an ethereal thingamabob and lets players review it for a few days afterward.
Gives people who can’t make it to the event a chance to see it and appreciate the effort of the artists who create them.

Wall of text follows. Apologies in advance, some comments in no particular order which I’d love Anet to consider.

Lag
Game optimization is a lot of work and I don’t envy the devs here, but if the engine has issues with putting 200 people in one spot why not use the event mechanics to cater for it.

Instead of a zerg on the Ancient Karka, what if groups needed to attack and hold 8 defence turrets along the path simultaneously while another group with pact support were used as bait to lure it to the hive. Groups would need to control the points and then secure the next ones (leapfrogging turret to turret) as the creature moved along. It would increase the challenge / coordination of the event and would distribute the player base more evenly across the map.

Communication
Generally Anet do a good job of talking to their player base. That said we had a few problems this time around.

While twitter is a great medium for getting a message out fast, this isn’t the appropriate use for it. (ie stand near the lighthouse 10 min before event starts). Not everyone has facebook/twitter. You have an in-game mail engine, please use it for this. eg mail from Whispers Agent “PSST. I heard a rumour that you might want to be near…”

Start times.
You wont please everyone, in a world wide game, unfortunate fact. A timer on your website (hh:mm:ss) to help would simplify figuring out what time the event occurred. Again, an ingame mail say an hour before saying where and when would be good here.

One off events
With regard to the one off cutscenes, how about an asura reporter who chases around after big events, films it with an ethereal thingamabob and lets players review it for a few days afterward.

Gives people who can’t make it to the event a chance to see it and appreciate the effort of the artists who create them.

Disconnection issues
There are many who participated in todays event who missed out on seeing it to completion when the server disconnected them and they were thrown into an overflow which had already completed it (myself included). While I hate to use the word ‘entitled’, I do think that players who made the effort to participate in the event but who did not receive any items due to server issues which they could not do anything about shouldn’t be disadvantaged from those who were able to complete the event without d/c’ing.
Not jumping up and down about this, but it would be a nice gesture on Anets part. They have the logs, they know who was there.

Bugged NPC’s
I understand the desire to keep things secret to keep the surprises, but there was a lot of frustration on the state of the bugged NPCs, blocking key chains. I’m sure some thought will be put into preventing a repeat for Decembers event. Moving on…

New Commendation system
At the moment it doesn’t seem to be worthwhile to bother with this, not a lot of value here. Maybe I’m missing something.

The Lost Shores themselves
Aside from the karka shells and the new herb, what will draw us back to this zone tomorrow and the days following. The mobs are harder than Orr, there are only a couple of waypoints and events. Other than shell/herb farming, what makes this a zone that 80’s will return to?

Fractals of the Mists
Excellent dungeon, and alone makes this weekend worthwhile. That said you need to be very careful with the level thing so that we don’t get the waves of elitism that plague other MMO’s (refer to the evils of misused gearscore…). Resetting the level on a weekly/fortnightly basis would probably help this, otherwise it gets painful for newer 80’s.

Daily / Monthly Achievements

I do like some of the changes, but would it be asking to much to move the WvWvW monthly achievement to the PVP one. I am prefer to PVE and so this means that I usually end up at 75% complete each month. I went into WvW for map completion (a pain, but I am Ok with this), but I’m not going to do it on a regular basis (my 2c anyway).

Refer a friend
I applaud the intent here, though as implemented it has two drawbacks.
1. Limited time only ie this weekend which doesn’t give some the opportunity to try it.
2. As Kirk said “you are not exactly seeing us at our best.” Anyone coming into the game only in the last two days would have got a very skewed view of the state of the game which would have been very different to if they had logged in last week.

Overall

I don’t doubt there is some disappointment with the way this event turned out, both internally and externally, especially after the high standard set by halloween. We don’t need to slam Anet, they are perfectly aware of what the issues were here and we shall see how those lessons have been learned in December.

Overall, the event was a thumbs up for me, though not to the same standard as Octobers. I don’t doubt they will be reviewing the weekends results over the next few days.