Showing Posts For Clex Mix.7624:
The big thing people miss is that expansions aren’t just expansions to explorable content and new dungeons, they are expansions to game mechanics as well. New pvp modes, new skills, new minigames, new ways to earn rewards or new types of rewards. Often games will introduce new classes or new races to play that can change the faction vs faction dynamic or make the world feel more alive. I remember playing EvE when they released the planetary survey expansion. While not the most well recieved expansion, it was still a massive, new way to play the game that was unlike anything they had already and gave a purpose to things that were in the game mostly for flavor. Planets had no use, you just warped to them and they made it look like you were in space. Suddenly, they all had types and certain types yielded different kinds of resources and you competed with other players for those resources. A whole new way to play the game opened up and people had a new set of toys to play with and learn.
We really haven’t gotten much of any of that. As someone pointed out, we are playing the same fundamental game we bought back in 2012. We have no new spvp zones. WvW has never broken free from zerg/coverage to win. We have only gotten 1 new skill per class. We are still going zerk or going home for pve. And finally, we have only had 1 new pve map (zephyr was more of a town). We have gotten new dungeons and paths but they still suffer from the same issues that have plagued dungeons and pve since the start.
We’ve gotten a lot of fluff, temp content and many folks have certainly paid more than enough gems to simulate purchasing an expansion, but the LS just isn’t one. Not when the game and world it’s in is no bigger or complex than it was at the start.
Since their most recent update just hit it’s going to be changing a bit of stuff… whether or not it fixes all the “problems” people have with a game, its going to be a pretty big update. New traits across all trait lines and all classes as well as how they are allocated. Along with what seems to be some world changes and changes to leveling and such.
Now from this exact date its hard to know what exactly they are bringing to the table and how the community will react to it, but one thing is certain…. its progress.
People fail to realize that creating content and or balancing current content and classes, is far from easy in an MMO. Making a new area alone probably takes 100+ hours on testing alone, fixing bugs tweaking hearts and enemies. Balancing classes more than likely takes at least hundreds of hours with multiple people. Fixing bugs is one thing, but revamping a class… and you have to take into account how many employees they have available to test/develop each facet of the game.
After 10 years almost of playing mmo’s you learn to ignore just about every bullkitten crybaby remark/request on current game status by people who think anything they do in the game is the most important focus the dev’s should have… but at some point you can only facepalm so much… a lot of things people say are broken just aren’t and because a certain type of playing works well with others, well obviously the game is broken and stupid….
Try being more constructive with a game’s criticism and voice your opinions in a constructive manner. Dev’s respond a lot better to someone who is level headed and sound minded with their thoughts than someone who’s full of themselves and opinionated to the point where its disrespectful.
Keep in mind, there is no kittening sub…. and kitten this kitten that, why is it kitten? so weird.
You have some seriously thin skin if you think that I was being “disrespectful” or “unreasonable” with what i posted. I posted the truth, and it’s not just me who wants the game to grow, not stagnate, in complexity.
I’ve also been playing MMO’s for 10+ years and the only thing worse than the crybabies are fanboi apologists who think people don’t have aright to voice negative opinions as paying customers and that the staff can do no wrong.
only the top part was pointed towards you
rest of it was to general public.
Forgive me if you took that personal, haven’t had my coffee yet
(edited by Clex Mix.7624)
Here’s my thoughts.
Living story is neither living nor was it a lot of story. Season one more generated investment with an intangible carrot on a stick called “temporary” people love limited time things. People also love new things. So let’s look at what ls provided next to an expansion.
Living story
It provided temporary events and event chains. It provided a lot of achievements of which most were limited time to aquire. It provided dungeons of which half were temporary. It gave us back skins some of which were limited in quantity. It Ave us a few gem shop armors and other money spenders. It gave us inconsistent content on multiple levels. And it crippled development on the other 90% of the game.
Expansions
Provide a full campaign and developed story that is not temporary and is consistently repayable. It adds new content via maps, armor, crafting stuff, dungeons, events, secrets, etc.. All of which are not temporary and can be revisited at leisure or by new players. It adds new achievements which can be earned at any time.
The the expansion seems much friendlier.
Ls failed for me because it wasn’t living. Ultimately the world is not changed beyond 2 maps, the rest of the world continues onward and has not evolved. Even tho we have moved past the death of zhaitan the world does not reflect this. The world replays on a loop just like a fractal. If a net what’s a living world then return your focus to making the world evolve. I’m eventually the century would get tired of losing and try something new some day or maybe the farmers would move or make a new Fort.. Idk..
Scarlets happened and the world feels like it was abused in far more ways than one and its not a good thing to me.. And if season 2 is similar in design then April better turn this game on its head or I may just take a break until we get an expansion..
I implore you to find another mmo, free to play or not, that has had as much added content as guild wars 2 has had and it be free and accessible to everyone at once. Whether or not the story took you through countless hours of dialogue and or instanced content, there was still story and it effected the game world to an extent most mmo’s can only deliver in full-fledged expansions or through micro transactions. Some of it seemed pretty small in scale and sure, once it was over…. it was over… but ANET has always had that model, look at gw1, a lot of the content, like holidays for instance, was for a limited time and none of it was game breaking to the point if you missed it then well you should just quit because everyone else had the opportunity that you didn’t. The model works, and while yes it sucks to miss something that you think you would have enjoyed playing, this model is going to bring so much more.
You get what you put into guild wars 2 and its a game that doesn’t have to be a grind if you don’t want it to be. If it’s going to be accessible to all types of players then it has to meet on a middle ground, and while a lot of people hate casuals because they have to be catered to, well so do hard core players. This is going to be one of those age-old conflicts where both sides just refuse to give in….
The big thing people miss is that expansions aren’t just expansions to explorable content and new dungeons, they are expansions to game mechanics as well. New pvp modes, new skills, new minigames, new ways to earn rewards or new types of rewards. Often games will introduce new classes or new races to play that can change the faction vs faction dynamic or make the world feel more alive. I remember playing EvE when they released the planetary survey expansion. While not the most well recieved expansion, it was still a massive, new way to play the game that was unlike anything they had already and gave a purpose to things that were in the game mostly for flavor. Planets had no use, you just warped to them and they made it look like you were in space. Suddenly, they all had types and certain types yielded different kinds of resources and you competed with other players for those resources. A whole new way to play the game opened up and people had a new set of toys to play with and learn.
We really haven’t gotten much of any of that. As someone pointed out, we are playing the same fundamental game we bought back in 2012. We have no new spvp zones. WvW has never broken free from zerg/coverage to win. We have only gotten 1 new skill per class. We are still going zerk or going home for pve. And finally, we have only had 1 new pve map (zephyr was more of a town). We have gotten new dungeons and paths but they still suffer from the same issues that have plagued dungeons and pve since the start.
We’ve gotten a lot of fluff, temp content and many folks have certainly paid more than enough gems to simulate purchasing an expansion, but the LS just isn’t one. Not when the game and world it’s in is no bigger or complex than it was at the start.
Since their most recent update just hit it’s going to be changing a bit of stuff… whether or not it fixes all the “problems” people have with a game, its going to be a pretty big update. New traits across all trait lines and all classes as well as how they are allocated. Along with what seems to be some world changes and changes to leveling and such.
Now from this exact date its hard to know what exactly they are bringing to the table and how the community will react to it, but one thing is certain…. its progress.
People fail to realize that creating content and or balancing current content and classes, is far from easy in an MMO. Making a new area alone probably takes 100+ hours on testing alone, fixing bugs tweaking hearts and enemies. Balancing classes more than likely takes at least hundreds of hours with multiple people. Fixing bugs is one thing, but revamping a class… and you have to take into account how many employees they have available to test/develop each facet of the game.
After 10 years almost of playing mmo’s you learn to ignore just about every bullkitten crybaby remark/request on current game status by people who think anything they do in the game is the most important focus the dev’s should have… but at some point you can only facepalm so much… a lot of things people say are broken just aren’t and because a certain type of playing works well with others, well obviously the game is broken and stupid….
Try being more constructive with a game’s criticism and voice your opinions in a constructive manner. Dev’s respond a lot better to someone who is level headed and sound minded with their thoughts than someone who’s full of themselves and opinionated to the point where its disrespectful.
Keep in mind, there is no kittening sub…. and kitten this kitten that, why is it kitten? so weird.
(edited by Clex Mix.7624)
As far as more permanent content goes I know a good number of people I’ve talked to are dying to see places like The Crystal Desert and Ring of fire areas opened up which I think could be achieved very easily with the Living Story model, and I do believe it is what ANET has in mind. There is also a want for both Cantha and Elona to be opened up as well but the problem with Living Story is that this would have to be a huge undertaking and a lot to shovel down players’ throat with that model. I think if ANET plans to bring back either of the continents it would have to be in an actual expansion model with possibly new professions and higher level cap. That being said though I think given ANET’s past with GW1 we might not see a new level cap but possibly just new race and or starting areas and stories with a new world.
I think the problem a lot of people encounter with this model of living story vs full-fledge xpacs is they both have so many pros and cons, and each cater to a different crowd, it gives very little middle ground. I believe for GW2 to stay relevant and successful though, they would need to release places like Crystal Desert in Living Stories (see southsun) and later on down the road, the old but new continents of Cantha and Elona in a full-fledge expansion model. Keep in mind though, that doesn’t have to include a new story really since that could be accomplished with Living Story.
I envisioned Cantha being released in an expansion type model and the Living Story to take place along with it as an introduction to what happened in the past 300 years in Cantha since GW1 to 2 then slowly moving players through a new adventure and story. Fractals could also be included depicting the past 300 or so years since GW1 /shrug.
Either way you look at it though you’re getting new content. Right now it may not be “a lot” but ANET seems to take more pride in trying to make their players happy than other companies do.