Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
Just because you didn’t like the skin doesn’t mean that everyone else doesn’t like it as well. Conversely, just because you like it, doesn’t mean everyone else will.
You didn’t like the ascended skin, so you transmuted it to a skin you like. Now, you’re unhappy because ‘everyone else won’t know!’ Honestly, how many people do you think care? Sure some do, but I think the majority of players probably don’t. As long you are happy with your level of stats (given what is attainable) and with the looks you chose, that’s all the truly matters, or should anyway.
Don’t look at me like that. Whatever you’ve heard, it’s probably not true.
Part 3: The Problem Cont.
Right. Okay. Let me put things in to perspective:
Pre-Ascended Gear:
Played since Beta and 3-day Head Start. I took my time leveling and enjoying the wonderful world created, immersing myself in my character and the story. It took me a bit longer to get Exotic gear compared to my friends because it took me longer to level up, but I was okay with that.
I finally got level 80 with my Mesmer! I got her, her level 80 Exotic gear! That moment was exhilarating for me, because I knew I never had to worry about her gear again. I started looking at what awesome weapon and armor skins I wanted, cosmetic stuff to make my character look awesome. I even kind of started planning what Legendary I wanted, if I wanted any from this batch or if I wanted to wait.
Sure things could of been a bit polished here and there, but the game was still brand-new! All launched games aren’t 100% perfect day one and forward, but that’s okay!
I was having fun with the game.
Then… the Lost Shore content came along.
Post-Ascended Gear:
I played along, ever so casually getting the Ascended gear on my terms. But on my terms meant I would be getting it one-two months after ‘hardcore’ people had theirs. I didn’t do dailies every-single-day. I didn’t do FotM every-single-day. I didn’t ever level past level 10 FotM for the longest time.
I knew I was falling further and further behind those who already have the released Ascended gear. What would happen when the rest of it finally came out, since I didn’t adhere solely to what was required to get the first few?
I, was going to get left behind. It was already happening.
That put me off since I felt shafted. I already had the words of “This is just the beginning.” lingering in the back of my mind and it wasn’t helping. I felt out-dated, despite playing the game every day or nearly every day. What if Ascended gear progressively became more of a pain to obtain? What if Ascended gear wasn’t the end of it? Then I would really be falling further behind and not just by a few items; instead by an entire tier.
One of my fears have come true.
Now, In Present Time…
I’m a concerned player that worries about the road that the game I love and supported way before it was even made, has taken. Am I the only concerned player? Of course not! There are many others as well.
But I’m considered to be a part of a minority now? Because we asked questions?
The only ‘grind’ I wanted to do was for cosmetic items(EX: Legendary’s), titles and the like. Because you know that’s what we were told would be the case.
(edited by Irrodesia.3907)
Part 3: The Problem
Pulling three quotes from Is it Fun? Colin Johanson on how ArenaNet Measures Success
When your game systems are designed to achieve the prime motivation of a subscription-based MMO, you run the risk of sacrificing quality to get as much content in as possible to fill that time. You get leveling systems that take insane amounts of grind to gain a level, loot drop systems that require doing a dungeon with a tiny chance the item you want can drop at the end, raid systems that need huge numbers of people online simultaneously to organize and play, thousands of wash/repeat item-collection or kill-mob quests or dailies with flavor text support, the best stat gear requiring crazy amounts of time to earn, etc.
But what if your business model isn’t based on a subscription? What if your content-design motivations aren’t driven by the need to create mechanics that keep people playing as long as possible? When looking at content design for Guild Wars 2, we’ve tried to ask the question: What if the development of the game was based on…wait for it…fun?
- ‘loot drop systems that require doing a dungeon with a tiny chance the item you want can drop at the end’ CHECK!
- ‘raid systems that need huge numbers of people online simultaneously to organize and play’ WORK-IN-PROGRESS!
- ‘thousands of wash/repeat item-collection or kill-mob quests or dailies with flavor text support, the best stat gear requiring crazy amounts of time to earn, etc.’ CHECK!
- Fun impacts loot collection. The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.
Ooh really? Isn’t Ascended gear basically prestigious gear, now? Considering the obscene amount of materials, effort, time is loaded in to it? Two weeks for one weapon, for one character? I have 8 weapons on one characters…so four months to get all her weapons? Maybe longer since I don’t spend 16-18 hours a day on the game. I mean you are making us jump through all because people want having their final tier of gear to be a time&money sink so they can feel like it’s special? So much for that being reserved for cosmetic and legendary items.
Oh and by the way, I have three max level characters. So close to a year to get all three characters their weapons.
If our model was subscription based, we might be spending all this time racing to add as much filler content as possible to keep players chasing the carrot, but as content designers with the goal of making fun, we get to spend this time refining our content and making it amazing. As designers this is both liberating and refreshing in an industry where so rarely do developers get time from publishers to actually polish their games. (High-five, NCsoft!)
‘…we might be spending all this time racing to add as much filler content as possible to keep players chasing the carrot…’
Why yes, yes indeed you are racing to add as much filler content as possible! What am I referring to? The Living Story of course! Was a good idea, but honestly it went from mildly entertaining to straight out bland and washed out.
Keeping players chasing the carrot? If I may, I’d like to point out the slow drip of Ascended gear.
Part 2: The Dreaded Grind
Ascended gear is being slowly dripped in to the game, for what I believe the reason is, to make it an illusion of gear progression for a certain target group. Ascended gear is completely tedious in mind-numbing to get compared to getting Exotic gear. I get my back-piece and rings, I have a month to enjoy the game and do as I please! Then comes the amulet and I have a month or so to do as I please. Then comes trinkets and I have a month or so to do as I please. There is a pattern here.
Exotic gear, despite what many might think, did require some effort to get:
- Buying Exotic gear from the Trading Post: You had to accumulate the money from doing dungeons, events, WvWvW, jumping puzzles and the like in order to get gold. Unless someone converted heaven knows how much of their IRL cash to gems, then turned those gems in to gold.
- Obtaining Exotic gear from Karma Vendors: You had to accumulate the karma from doing events, dungeons, WvWvW etc. etc. etc.
- Obtaining Exotic gear from Dungeon Vendors: You had to accumulate the dungeon tokens from whatever dungeon you wanted your gear from; by actually doing the dungeon.
- Obtaining Exotic gear from WvWvW Vendors: You had to accumulate the badges by actually doing WvWvW!
So yes, we were required to play the game to get our gear. Clearly, we didn’t ‘log-in-to-win’, as we actually had to play the game to get the Exotic gear. The people that got their Exotic gear and hit level 80 and finished the entire game all within the first 3-4 days of launch are what is called ‘Content Locust’. They are the best of the best gamer’s out there, they breeze through games left and right and logically it was bound to happen to GW2. Some of those players complained the game was too easy, etc. etc. etc., things happened and here we are. Not all of these elite players are bad! Majority are the kind souls that give us walkthroughs, find bugs/errors in the game and contribute on how a dungeon or boss can be made better.
Two weeks to acquire an Ascended Weapon you say? Alright. That two weeks to get a single weapon for one of my characters equals the same amount of time it took me to FULLY gear my character in exotics once they hit level 80.
Guild Wars 2 has turned in to an endless grind to update our gear. Why do I say it is a grind? It’s not because we have to play the game, it’s because we are being FORCED in to doing certain aspects to update our gear and in the time frame FORCED onto us. I’ll give you some examples:
- 500 Pile(s) of Bloodstone Dust: A required element in order to craft a Vision Crystal, is only acquired through Champion loot bags. Guess what that means? You are going to be farming the heck out of some champions!
- 500 Dragonite Ore: Another required element to craft a Vision Crystal, is only acquired through Temple chests, Megabosses, Keeps/Castles. Prepare to farm Temples, Megabosses or pray to the Six Gods of Tyria that your server does a lot of Keep/Castle captures! (Hope you are on a good WvWvW server, WvWvW players!)
- Crafted Vs Rare Drop Chance: You can A) Kill a bunch of stuff over and over again or do certain tasks over and over again to obtain the materials to craft OR B) Kill a bunch of stuff over and over again or do certain tasks over and over again with the rare chance of obtaining a box where you pick the weapon you want with stats.
- Time-Gated Recipes: Oh, did I mention that certain recipes are only available once per day? Oops!
I feel like a guy on T.V. is trying to sell me a new cleaning product bundle or something.
“You can have your Ascended weapons for the low cost of 20 Skill points, 21k Karma, 5 Laurels and 3 gold! All you have to do is go farm Champions, Temples and Megabosses right now! Are you strictly a WvWvW player?! NO PROBLEM! In this special offer you can obtain everything you need by farming Keeps, Castles, Camps, Towers, Champions and Jumping Puzzles!
These Ascended weapons can be obtained by crafting if you level it up to 500! But hurry because those recipes will only available for a limited time!
BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!
Don’t like crafting?! In this special offer you can go anywhere Ascended materials drop and for a rare chance, obtain a weapon type that you not only get to pick but pick the stats as well! (College of Dynamics Professor Warning: These weapons are in no way guaranteed to drop. This method only offers the mere chance of obtaining it.)
Grind now! :D"
Sounds like something I should be doing for the cosmetic look of a weapon or armor. Not for my final tier of gear.
Just saying.
Edit: Took out the the crafted only parts. Players have the rare chance of also obtaining Ascended weapons anywhere Ascended material drops.
(edited by Irrodesia.3907)
Disclaimer:
My thoughts/views may or may not differ from those of the reader. My personal opinions in no way shape or form are meant to insult or offend those who support Ascended gear or the direction the game is taking.
Brace yourselves, this is a long post.
Part 1: Is Ascended Gear Required?
First and foremost before I get deep in to all of this, is Ascended gear required? Does the player have to go out and get the gear? A point made by another poster (I’m sorry I didn’t write your name down, but I give full credit to you), to a player that wishes to be at their very best in the game yes Ascended gear is required.
I’ve seen many people make the argument that players can easily run around in White/Blue/Green gear and do just as well as people in Exotic gear since this game is apparently ‘solely skilled-based’. While I don’t agree with this thought at all, for the sake of argument let us say that this is true; that a player in White/Blue/Green gear can go in to any dungeon/in-game content, or go up against any Exotic/Ascended gear player in WvWvW of equal skill and not be out performed at all!
In this scenario let us say that Exotic gear is the highest and permanent final gear (Legendary not counted, since it is cosmetic only for bragging rights). The players that are complaining about Ascended gear, overall, aspire to be at their very best. So in this sense Exotic gear is ‘required’ to have, even in a completely so-called-skill-dependent game! Because we want to be at our very best and perform at our very best.
It is safe to say that nearly everyone wanted to get their Exotic gear to maximize their stats to the fullest in combination with their skill and ability to come with trait/skill combos.
How is Ascended gear all of a sudden just ‘optional’? Because it has AR added to it and AR can only be used in FotM?
A ‘few extra stats’ doesn’t matter when you only have a back-piece and amulet. It might not even matter with a back-piece, amulet, two rings and two trinkets. With full Ascended armor, weapons, trinkets, rings, amulet and back-piece it does actually kind of matter now. Why? Those ‘few extra stats’ are alllll combined and rolled up in to one. All of a sudden someone who has full ascended gear has the edge over anyone who doesn’t have a full set.
So in the sense of the player performing at their very best, yes, Ascended gear is ‘required’.
And for clarification on my opinions about how come someone in none-Exotic/Ascended gear going up against someone in Exotic/Ascended gear is at a disadvantage. In sPvP they bump you up to level 80, everyone has exotic armor/weapons, everyone has access to the same runes/sigils. Why? Even playing field. So no, one opponent has an unfair benefit over another just because of gear alone, which makes it purely skill based.
Why for some reason, doesn’t an even playing field apply to WvWvW? Do people forget that you are going up against different players? That even a highly skilled player in WvWvW can get bested because another player has a few extra stats. Because when a mob of 50+ in just green gear clash with another mob of 50+ players in Ascended gear, the side with all Ascended gear has the advantage.
Why does this for some reason not apply to PvE? Just because we aren’t going up against players doesn’t mean anything. We are battling it out with World Bosses etc. etc. etc.! Sure a player in his White/Blue/Green gear can go out there and fight, but compared to a player in full Ascended gear he isn’t going to have that extra damage or survivability. In a dungeon, a player in White/Blue/Green can’t contribute the same amount the other players are and what if that player got caught by a rather deadly skill? He’d either instantly drop or have dramatically more health drained from him compared to those in their Ascended gear.
(edited by Irrodesia.3907)
Our posts are now being time gated. :/
For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards,
for there you have been and there you will long to return.
for there you have been and there you will long to return.
Assuming that I were willing to play the game slavishly to be able to craft a weapon every two weeks, it would take me 94 weeks to get back to where I was before this patch — that being that I would have all BiS weapons for all my level 80’s.
Warrior (9); Guardian (6); Elementalist (4); Mesmer (5); Necromancer (6); Thief (8); Ranger (6) and Engineer (3). (47 weapons * 2 weeks each) = 94 weeks.
Has ANet advertised this would be the case, I would not have bought the game. But that’s not what they advertised, now is it?
So, things changed. However, why did they change? Players bought the game and wanted stuff to grind for, and complained. That’s what the people who dislike the changes are doing now. If you don’t like complaints, then you should also have been on the case of those who complained about nothing to work towards.
But that’s not what you want, is it? You just want people you don’t agree with to shut up. Ain’t happening.
I just need to craft 20 wepons before i can start to actually play this game. Of course after that there will be ascended armors. Now i need to do things like auto attack champions, keep alts in jp, do orr temples (of course not baltha because there is some chance to fail). In www when you get inside tower/keep you can’t stay and defend door because you need to rush in and hit champ so you get materials.
Nice drama. You’d make a good tv writer.
Just play the game, you’ll see why you’re wrong.
I’ve been playing the game for a year now, and I still don’t have the materials needed to craft even one ascended weapon. You know why? Because in the course of playing this game for a year now I’ve used the materials and gold I acquired in the course of playing this game for a year to to play the game. For a year now. I’ve crafted gear and spent gold on gear (and gold on crafting mats) for my many characters, so that they aren’t running around in the game in their starter gear (slight hyperbole used to illustrate the point), because useful gear drops are so few and far between in this game.
And here we are a year after launch, and I see I’ve been playing the game entirely wrong, focusing on fun. Fun – pfft! See where it’s got me. I should have been farming! Grinding! Flipping!
Perhaps a warning label on the box: Don’t play for fun! And don’t use those mats! You’ll need them later!
How’s that for drama.
The table is a fable.
I never realized how much I hated the idea of the “gear treadmill” until today. I thought it might be fun to boot up GW2 and kill stuff as I haven’t been able to play in a couple months, been at the police academy.
It was at that point I realized that all the weapons on my warrior that I spent so long running dungeons for were now the equivalent of what rares used to be……………..do you know how crushing that is? What do I have to look forward to? An extremely large grind for just a single weapon, forget the fact that I’m warrior and use like a dozen.
This isn’t an I quit post or anything, it’s just a post from a guy that is extremely disappointed with the path you (Anet) has chosen to take this game. I know my sole opinions means little, but hopefully I’m not alone in my sentiments.
When ANET says we listened to the players they really mean: We looked up the graphs stating x amount of people did y in z time. So lets try and please those players.
Its like this is not even a game company any more. Their original game has been completely trashed by such horrible design decisions over the course of the last year.
Where the core values at game launch were:
Fun, build variety, storytelling, action combat
They are now:
Progression, time gating, farming, zerg fests
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike O’Brien, President of Arenanet
-Mike O’Brien, President of Arenanet
just farm
Kinda disappointed that this is what is considered “new content” instead of more dungeons, events, boss, etc.
Ascended Weapons.. ascended Gear.. buff for more HP and other stats in WvW..
@Arena-Net.:
Please do not destroy this game!Please no things like in World of Warcraft, no itemspiral!!! Guild Wars 2 is a wonderful game for PvP (WvWvW), because there is no itemspiral, no buff you get when you play more PvP (WvWvW) than others. It’s a wonderful game because you need skill! And thats why I play this game. I have a chance when I play three times a week against players who played every day five hours. And that makes Guild Wars 2 be one of the best MMO’s ever! So please Arena Net, don’t destroy the game with those alterations!
Why do you tout with this, and now you want to take it in the game? The reasons below were the reasons to buy this game. And now you change it? In my opinion the game will be destroyed with this.
So guys, don’t let this happen. If some guys want an itemspiral than why you play GW2? Make no sense. Arena Net, you had created a game which is different than normal MMO’s. And thats why I love it.
And whats next? Healers and Tanks? You cannot advertise with something, and then after a Year add things you never want to!
At least, sorry for my bad english :P
Momekas
Momekas Namu
Momekas Namu
(edited by MandJ.8965)
They study every aspect of the game carefully and consider changes based on how it will affect everyone, not just you.
I disagree with this statement. This game has been rife with blunders and errors since day 1. Remember the Lost Shores event? That wasn’t very well thought out. Remember when they added the loot boxes for world champs, then nerfed them when the market got flooded with ectos? Oops. Or take a look at the more recent addition of celestial stat gear crafting (with MF stats), followed closely by the announcement of the abolishment of the MF stat. Notice the history of PVE nerfs, due to PVP imbalance. I don’t think they study much, or consider much when it comes to how changes will affect players in this game. It all seems rather knee-jerk and reactionary to me. Just my $.02.
We need to have selectable difficulty levels for Hero Point Challenges
Maybe anet should just GIVE ascended weapon for you?
Yes. Why not. I don’t want to work in a frigging game to play the actual frigging game.
Emptying out your bank of materials and syphoning your gold into the TP to sit at a crafting table every day isn’t my ideal version of playing the game. Unless ascended crafting utilises completely new crafting resources that are unrelated to existing ones (and it’s possible this will be the case as far as I know), this goes against the stated design of ascended gear “to ensure we have a proper progression for players from Exotic up to Legendary”. It’s not progression when the resources are the same, that’s competition. Players pointed out that the ascended back item recipes directly competed with legendary acquisition and one of the devs commented that they agreed and were looking at that. From what I’ve seen, nothing has been done about that.
Let’s be honest here. You aren’t going out to slay a dragon here. You’re not exploring some dark dungeon or uncovering lost treasures. You’re standing at a crafting table every day. Obtaining the materials might involve playing the game (it’s been stated that jumping puzzles and mini dungeons will award the new crafting mats – you can do this for a level 400 recipe though), but actually levelling up a crafting profession doesn’t add gameplay, it just gates you from level 500 and drains resources on the way there.
What items of value will you be making between level 400 and 500 that justifies adding 100 new levels? Is it really just for a time gated levelling process? What gameplay experience does that add to the game?
It’s also sad to see that ArenaNet have abandoned the “play how you want” model. Exotic gear was obtained from the TP, purchased with karma, dungeon tokens or badges and you could even craft it. You could opt out of any of those methods and still obtain your equipment (accessories were the exception for a long time). Now, if you want ascended weapons, you have to craft. There doesn’t appear to be a way around it.
Yeah, and if you are unable to farm properly, like me apparently, you are kitten out of luck.
If there is somehting coming that costs an insane amount of gold…That only people who could farm 10 gold / hour can get. Byeeeeee
Im sitting in these events on my necro..wellmancer..TONS of AoE. With boosts and food, Im over 300% MF. In one event, I might be able to amass two or 3 gold at max. How are people getting nearly 10? In some cases more?
Karma is as abundant as air, and as useless as the Kardashians.
Enjoy? Repeating something over and over and over again? I don’t enjoy any. I just need the money and I do what’s currently most profitable about twice a day for 1h or maybe 2h.
I doubt anyone really enjoys farming/grinding.
I enjoy dungeons and fractas (fractals get boring quickly too). But even that is starting to get boring. No new permanent dungeons after one year since release. It’s a shame.
The people that actually get away from the zerg ball that is purposefully spawning loads of champs and slowing down the event get rewarded much less, even though they are contributing much more by actually going out and making sure the events finish.
I’m starting to think that champion reward bags were a huge mistake. They’ve been causing nothing but problems since they were implemented. People should be rewarded for actually completing the events. (The mini event circles, not the meta, that already has a decent reward.)
Why is the reward for completing events so pitiful? A few silvers and a pittance of karma and exp? As it stands people are incentivized much more for purposefully making sure the event is stretched out as long as possible or fails so that it spawns more champions.
This is flat out broken. It’s compromising the entire event system the game is built on. This needs to be fixed. Players need to want to WIN the event.
To start off, I’d like to say that I really do appreciate this update. Zones felt like an awesome battlefield and I enjoyed the story cutscenes. A lot of things were done well and I do feel that some parts of the living story have improved over time.
However there are also a lot of problems that this update has brought. My main problem is the issue of zerging champions during invaSions and ignoring the entire goal of the event. While participating in map chat, I was disappointed to see how the community reacted to calls to actually doing the event. Instead, people were opening telling people to just ignore the event and farm. It has really brought out what is to me the worst of the community in this game.
As this is the internet, it is only natural that there are hordes of people that aim only to zerg and get the most profit out of an event rather than playing it how it was intended. This means that the only solution is to develop content in a way that discourages or prevents such behavior. The invasions and champion loots together, while both good ideas, combine to make farming zergfests. As someone who wants to actually play the game and finish events, I feel that such zergfarming behavior being at the core of a huge game update is a step backwards for this game.
While I doubt that much will change as devs are already working on the next living story release, I hope that future releases will find ways to prevent and avoid the behavior that is occurring right now.
I would prefer no dueling in the open world.
I like Logan. I don’t like you. Does that mean that I have to wish for your death now?
Glorious Human Master Race
The day I stop caring about the quality of GW1 is the day I stop playing online games forever.
Sylvari Elementalist – Mystree Duskbloom (Lv 80)
Norn Guardian – Aurora Lustyr (Lv 80)
Mia A Shadows Glow – Human Thief (Lv 80)
Norn Guardian – Aurora Lustyr (Lv 80)
Mia A Shadows Glow – Human Thief (Lv 80)
Hi,
I am curious how people feel about instrinsic rewards vs extrinsic rewards with regards to MMO, specifically Guild Wars 2. We are bathed in rewards for everything we do right down to achievement points. Do you feel that this type of behavior detracts from people playing the game to simply have fun or not?
Quick facts:
An intrinsic reward is an intangible award of recognition or a sense of achievement motivation, in any endeavor when one feels conscious satisfaction. It is the knowledge that one did something right, or one made some body’s day better.
An extrinsic reward is an award that is tangible or physically given to you for accomplishing something as recognition of ones endeavor.
So it is a matter of “I did XYZ because it was fun and that was a really cool event!” vs “i did XYZ because Im gaining better crafting materials, better loot, more minis, currencies, etc”.
My opinion:
The game cannot be void of reward entirely, but being showered in it as much as we are does detract from people playing the game to have fun. The sheer amount of rewards, and the diversity of rewards, encourages this behavior. I think reducing the amount and diversity to a small number of different rewards would yield a more positive expreience.
Forum-discuss on with your thoughts.
Karma is as abundant as air, and as useless as the Kardashians.
I actually enjoy the small scale fights in GW2 quite a lot.
However, the problem becomes when people zerg and we reach a so called ‘critical mass’ where people simply tap W to move forward while spamming AoE skills with no sense or meaning.
Summoning a big firestorm when dangerously close to your own allies or yourself has no consequence, the abilities have no real weight behind them that punish stupid or careless use.
I love chaotic fights, including big fights in games like Chivalry or Planetside 2, but in Guild Wars 2, it’s just a button mash :/
It’s not like I risk accidentally chopping the heads off my teammates on my Charr warrior if I swing my sword around like a maniac, there’s no real ‘danger’ to using any of my abilities(unless you charge off a cliff) which encourages me to spam to my heart’s content, creating a rather ‘brainless’ large scale PvP experience.
+1
But I’ve noticed a lot of mmorpg players seem to prefer plain boring graphics and effects. Thus the “get all these particles out of the way” crowd. Guess some people want their war without all the chaos. Me personally – I live for those huge zerg fights where you have to really concentrate and stay sharp to see what’s going on while lightning bolts, explosions and magic particles fly everywhere around you.I hope Anet comes out with skins that have more unique animations and effects when channeling skills. Bigger effects would be cool too.
I love a good explosion.
But when all I see of the enemy is a giant, shining ball of light, flame, lightning etc, it goes from being “Cool!” to being ridiculous.
(edited by SinerAthin.2374)
Limited anything is bad for an MMO as far as I’m concerned. Discourages new blood while offering little in the way of prestige. No, nobody is impressed over somebody shelling out a hundred bucks trying to score a rare weapon skin from the RNG chest.
That said, it probably works wonders for their gem shop.
At request of Fabri the Suspicious, a suspected Order of Whispers member, Innkeeper Klement needs to retrieve dwarven artifacts from False Lake to prevent the local pirates from potentially unleashing trouble on the area. As players we dive into the lake to collect the artifacts guarded by skelk, sharks, and other dangers. Upon collecting them the Innkeeper thanks us and returns to the inn. Should you follow you’ll learn that one of the artifacts found is of Stone Summit make, an old summoning stone that should be dealt with. Unfortunately, the local pirates followed you and have other plans for the artifacts. Should they succeed, they use the artifact and get turned into incinerated husks and you as the players must defeat them to save the inn. Should the pirates fail, you are sent on an escort mission with the artifacts to Vanjir’s Stead. After successfully escorting the caravan the Asura from the priory who helped with the escort offers to aid is disposing of the summoning stone, as it is “risky business”. If you follow the asura you find out that to destroy the artifact we must kill the demon bound to it. The demon, Lord Ignis, is summoned and we as the players must defeat it to complete this chain of events successfully. Doing so spawns a new merchant
This is an example of one of my favorite and memorable dynamic events in Guild Wars 2. It’s what I think dynamic events should be. Events that have a story, a chain of consequences that can lead an event to multiple outcomes, characters that exchange dialogue with each other to help provide exposition, characters that allow for players to interact with them to provide exposition should they have missed the story so far, changes that mean something to the world (different enemies appearing, new merchants, destroyed buildings… even a bear skin rug made me smile after helping a norn hunt a veteran arctodus). Other things I enjoy that this event doesn’t have are multiple branches that start in separate areas, but join for an epic conclusion (e.g., Ogre Wars). I also think events should be challenging, but that is not the point of this post.
I’d like to contrast these events with the events added in the latest patch. Scarlet’s Invasion does have story, but it’s largely disconnected from the invasion events, and when this phase of the living story passes it will be gone completely. The invasion lacks purpose, as none is provided during the event or prior to it for why Scarlet is attacking these zones. The only information provided through the UI is that she is indeed attacking them. When in these zones she isn’t gathering resources, attacking important objectives, or even killing people (intentionally). In fact the zone acts as if she isn’t even there at all. In Blazeridge the ogres still want you to help them get pets despite the aetherblades teleporting right outside their doorstep and the outposts carry on their day to day business despite steampunk creatures attacking the local wildlife in their vicinity. Without these elements Scarlet’s Invasion comes off as just cartoon villainy… evil for the sake of doing evil (while being highly inefficient about doing that evil). Without these elements the event lacks effect on the world both prior, during, and after the event is completed. Without these effects on the world the dynamic events in Guild Wars 2 lose what sets them above and beyond what other games offer in their versions of dynamic events, which are largely just portals opening with monsters coming through in random locations across the map. The portals must be sealed to stop the monsters. (cont’d)
ArenaNet expected too much from players. They had a built in audience that would have ate the game up as designed. A very dedicated fanbase. But that fanbase was probably not large enough to sustain GW2.
So they drew in the general MMO crowd. And honestly, we are dealing with types of players and behavior that we never really had to in GW. If UW were in GW2 now, as it was in GW, the only people that would touch it would be veterans. The forums would explode with complaints about how it takes too long, the rewards are random and not good enough, its too kittenly specific builds and classes can farm it, Dhuum isn’t “real difficulty”, Dryders are OP, and many many more. Yet, that was a brilliant piece of content that GW players enjoyed for over half a decade and would still enjoy.
Unfortunately Anet needs more than just their fans and the content we know and love from them as a studio isn’t well received by the influx of players that want hard content that doesn’t require effort, want progression that doesn’t require time, want rewards that do not require investment. So we go from 40+ events that add depth and activity to world, to being thrown into an instance and told to just kill all the things.
I can understand what Anet has done to GW2 and why. But what GW2 did to Anet sort of makes me sad.
The Kismet
Dragonbrand
Dragonbrand
Sadly, the Guild Wars 1 versions are way superior.
Just who the hell do you think I am!?