(edited by Jennalee.2906)
Showing Posts For Jennalee.2906:
Most of the feature patch is entirely based on feedback. The wardrobe/town clothes have been in development since the wallet – a reversal or coding change this close to patch is probably unfeasible from a workload point of view, especially as they have put out a pretty reasonable and well articulated reason why it is, how it is.
The forums make up a tiny proportion of the community and the devs have to make changes based on the wider game, not just a few people who will be put at a loss. Are they going to please everyone? No, but that’s life and business.
None of that bears any relevance to what was posted which is more to do with business ethics.
1. ANet knows at the time of the one day March sales how the wardrobe system will function in a month or so’s time. They put up ‘time limited’ skins for sale again.
2. Release absolutely no information as to why it’s a bad idea to double up on these skins. People buy duplicates assuming that’s how they’ll get more copies of the skin since this has been the way it’s worked in the past.
3. Release this information very shortly after people have already doubled up on skins during the sale.
4. Say nothing about what they’re going to do about it with regards to compensation, if any. You could get ~20 transmutation uses for the cost of one of the weapon skins.
Essentially, bait and switch.
Sure, there may be information coming but they already had a policy up with regards to how costume items will be handled given their functionality will be changing. The concerns over how duplicates will be handled is a known issue but nothing official has thus far been communicated as to how this will be handled. I’m holding hope that the response will reflect common decency but the cynical side says nothing will happen and you will be down those gems spent.
PS: I’d like options to refund, exchange or gift duplicates.
(edited by Jennalee.2906)
They do take feedback, but apparently some topics seem to be off-limits. Such as that tad controversial one on refunds for duplicate skin sets where Gaile has been patiently advising people to can requests until the patch drops on the 15th and to post in the relevant feedback thread which, strangely, there isn’t really one (the change in fuctionality of costumes is a somewhat separate topic and so long that anything can get lost) while they close any threads deemed not in the relevant (not really existing?) feedback channel. Meanwhile, the hype train keeps going with the flashing lights and loud noises keeping people distracted while there is dead silence from ANet officially about any policies with regards to this and the only reassurances are from players citing past refunds of gathering tools etc while there is a clear policy up already with regards to costume items.
So, why the PR circus and no clear answers? I mean, I’d have liked to known beforehand as soon as it was decided that gem store skins would work this way with the new wardrobe system because it would affect the way I would choose to spend currency bought with real money instead of potentially being seriously ripped off. I would think that it’s a reasonable place to draw the line as to when information about future patch content is released as opposed to being kept to the hype train schedule i.e. where it will affect how I choose to spend real money. Especially when you have one day sales at the same time that you have employees dropping hype bombs about the feature patch and presumably, this information is already known. Or releasing the information just days after such a sale. It would have saved a few of us from stocking up on more of single use skins at the same price as ~20 xmute stones per skin.
Failing that, something, anything that isn’t soft censorship and tight lips, would have been nice at all after the fact. eg. a policy still being worked on, etc. As it stands I’m not happy at how this has been handled thus far and I’m wondering why I’ve chosen to spend hundreds on this game when seemingly there have been no qualms about potentially ripping people off in this situation and complete silence as to how they will remedy it, if there is to be compensation.
I’d like to think that some things, even controversial, could be handled with a little more transparency and respect towards customers and their concerns.
(edited by Jennalee.2906)
If the charges are about the same as what transmutation stones cost right now, they’re FAR cheaper than getting multiple copies of some of the gemstore skins, especially some of the single use skins like Marjory’s Dagger.
I’ve doubled or triple bought a number of these as they got reintroduced with the March sales and I would have held off had I known this was coming. I’m going to feel very very ripped off if there isn’t some form of compensation since they knew this system was coming in and there was no prior warning not to buy more of them if you already had them.
(edited by Jennalee.2906)
Wow, a lot of content in this thread already…
Temporary vs Permanent Content
LW content motivates players to log in to experience the content while it is fresh. The time limit on the content temporarily concentrates player activity, which smooths the open world experience (e.g. dynamic events). Once the LW cycle progresses, however, some great instanced content (dungeons, story arcs, …) is essentially lost. Rather than increasing the amount of content available to players, one piece of content is swapped for another. Essentially, this leaves players with the same number of content options they had before, which causes a feeling of stagnation. Though individually small, these portions of LW content would accrue if made permanently available, offering players a greater variety of choices when they have tired of other content.I think this raises an interesting question, what do you consider to be “temporary” content, and what qualifies (in your mind) as content that occurs and drives the living story forward it makes sense to have go away, vs. that which remains?
There is a thin-line between content that drives the story forward, which if it lasts forever feels like the story never really progresses, vs. content that all goes away and ends up feeling like the world never actually progresses.
…
Another food for thought: Back when we invaded Southsun, we did a lot of “one time” events with the story content. Folks complained that one time wasn’t fair because they would miss it, so we extended the “story” style content so you now have 2-4 weeks to experience it. Does having it around this long take away from the sense of story progression, and make it feel like it should be permanent when it’s taken away? Or would simply having (using the TV analogy) something like TiVo that allows you to see the story you missed balance out this issue?
For a cohesive feeling that the world has changed and progressed, the overworld should reflect that change and what’s come to pass. There are things that have happened during the story are done, the world has moved on and it wouldn’t make sense for them to be there still in the overworld eg. if the initial Southsun invasion kept playing in the overworld. The wreckage of the lasers at the fight scene and the desolate carcass of the defeated Karka by the lava pool hint at the epic struggle fought there.
That said, having some way to replay these events shouldn’t break the sense of a history progressing if it’s made clear that these things happened in the past (and GW1 incorporated ways this was achieved, as others have pointed out). At the very least, instanced story content could remain accessible permanently in some form and it would not break a sense of world progression.
The time an ‘episode’ of content persists, two or four weeks, or whatever timescale is appropriate for that content (some say, could persist for an entire arc and overlap) does not affect the feeling of whether content should be permanent or not if that content is then accessible in a way that isn’t impacting the current course of events. I.e. replaying the past.
I think a question which needs to be asked is if there’s actually any point in changing and progressing the world. Does it enhance the gameplay experience of the players? Does making content a one-time only feature and not letting players do it again no matter how much they crave for it make the game fun?
Also I think being able to replay past content is absolutely essential to being able to build a meaningful story. There’s no good book which one can start from page 204 and get the same quality if experience as reading from page 1.
The reader won’t experience the build up, they won’t have a clue who all the characters are and certainly won’t grow to like or hate them. The only kind of tale which one can just pick up from the middle is that of caper comic books, the really shallow kind.
Progressing and changing the world does serve a point. It does to some extent give the feeling that the world is ‘living’ and emulates some the ephemeral nature of RL where things change, as opposed to the static frozen-in-time snapshots that never change. As well, as a player, I’m part of that story and journey (although how involved we may feel depends on how it’s done).
As I’ve tried to hint at I don’t feel that this concept necessarily means content needs to be a one-time, unreplayable and later inaccessible and could quite easily be permanent and replayable without disrupting a living world concept. If everything could be replayed and as much as possible, everything still be attainable in some way later which does not enforce ‘limited-time-only’ restrictions on players then most of the grief and complaints over the system would be resolved.
Favourite release: Bazaar of the Four Winds
The Labyrinthine Cliffs were magical. I stepped foot in the area and five hours flew by without me even realising with a grin plastered over my face the entire time. The area was new, interesting, beautiful and refreshing and a change of pace from the rest of the game world. The ambience was wonderful – the soft golden light, creak of the bamboo and music which was reminiscent of Cantha for someone who played GW1. You could easily absorb yourself in the scavenger hunt while slowly ascending the cliffs to the Zephyr Sanctum, and watch others doing that as well. I’d fall off the area around the middle of the ascent trying to get to some of the crystals (water was later patched in here which was a very nice touch) and usually get ressed. This release also tied in with the GW1 lore.
Least favourite release: Boss Week
I didn’t get much of a sense of story; Rox made a token appearance to try and advance her goals to join Rytlock’s warband. The achievement objectives seemed to exist only to pad out that living story chapter and felt meaningless. Dragon leavings mysteriously appeared with few clues as to how to find them, and just as mysteriously disappeared after the event.
(edited by Jennalee.2906)
Wow, a lot of content in this thread already…
Temporary vs Permanent Content
LW content motivates players to log in to experience the content while it is fresh. The time limit on the content temporarily concentrates player activity, which smooths the open world experience (e.g. dynamic events). Once the LW cycle progresses, however, some great instanced content (dungeons, story arcs, …) is essentially lost. Rather than increasing the amount of content available to players, one piece of content is swapped for another. Essentially, this leaves players with the same number of content options they had before, which causes a feeling of stagnation. Though individually small, these portions of LW content would accrue if made permanently available, offering players a greater variety of choices when they have tired of other content.I think this raises an interesting question, what do you consider to be “temporary” content, and what qualifies (in your mind) as content that occurs and drives the living story forward it makes sense to have go away, vs. that which remains?
There is a thin-line between content that drives the story forward, which if it lasts forever feels like the story never really progresses, vs. content that all goes away and ends up feeling like the world never actually progresses.
…
Another food for thought: Back when we invaded Southsun, we did a lot of “one time” events with the story content. Folks complained that one time wasn’t fair because they would miss it, so we extended the “story” style content so you now have 2-4 weeks to experience it. Does having it around this long take away from the sense of story progression, and make it feel like it should be permanent when it’s taken away? Or would simply having (using the TV analogy) something like TiVo that allows you to see the story you missed balance out this issue?
For a cohesive feeling that the world has changed and progressed, the overworld should reflect that change and what’s come to pass. There are things that have happened during the story are done, the world has moved on and it wouldn’t make sense for them to be there still in the overworld eg. if the initial Southsun invasion kept playing in the overworld. The wreckage of the lasers at the fight scene and the desolate carcass of the defeated Karka by the lava pool hint at the epic struggle fought there.
That said, having some way to replay these events shouldn’t break the sense of a history progressing if it’s made clear that these things happened in the past (and GW1 incorporated ways this was achieved, as others have pointed out). At the very least, instanced story content could remain accessible permanently in some form and it would not break a sense of world progression.
The time an ‘episode’ of content persists, two or four weeks, or whatever timescale is appropriate for that content (some say, could persist for an entire arc and overlap) does not affect the feeling of whether content should be permanent or not if that content is then accessible in a way that isn’t impacting the current course of events. I.e. replaying the past. I just don’t see how content being made permanent is mutually exclusive with the concept of a progressing, changing world.
(edited by Jennalee.2906)
My main issue with the Living Story model is the focus on temporary, limited time content and associated achievements and rewards. While missing out on these doesn’t affect your ability to participate in any content, they will add up to a very long list of ‘things you can’t have, and can never do’ for players potentially joining in future, or current players who have interrupted play periods due to real life commitments. Is it going to be worth their disappointment and potential resentment to create so many ‘was here’ exclusivity/status symbols? It also feels manipulative in forcing you to play during certain time blocks if you want a LS exclusive reward, compared to playing when you’d like and missing generic time-based rewards such as laurels.
There is also now pressure to just get the Living Story objectives done as a priority should you care for them or any rewards, which may mean time you’d like to spend in game doing other things is squeezed, such as leveling an alt. This may mean you don’t get to play the game as you’d like, especially if you have very limited play time.
If the main idea behind the removing so much of the content is to concentrate and corral players into new content areas instead of having them too spread out over the world, then I don’t believe this is a good way to go about it. Is it really a bad thing to leave a lot of ‘non-current’ content be and let players choose if they want to be playing it or not instead of forcibly removing any choice in the matter, or only letting it be played during certain periods which may not be convenient for the player even if they’d find the content really fun (eg. SAB)? How fresh or enjoyable any piece content is to me seems to be entirely individual and different for every player and not based on a fixed time schedule for temporary releases, and permanently expanding on content and leaving it to be explored at leisure at the player’s choice seems to ultimately be a far more productive than removing so much. Besides, players are naturally going to be drawn to the new and shiny anyway and I don’t think that it needs to be ‘forced’ to have enough people playing it to be viable.
In essence, I feel the whole temporary content idea is deeply flawed and goes against many of the principles which made this game awesome.
(edited by Jennalee.2906)
I was under the impression that the achievements would be returning as part of the recurring festival; there was no living story temporary content thing going on at the time, this used to be outside of that category, and so left some of the less fun things for next time. If I had known they wouldn’t be returning i.e. some word of that I’d have finished more of the achieves at the time. I’m guessing now we won’t be seeing a lot of the old Wintersday stuff either, shame.