Guild Wars 2

Becka Williams.4978:

Kaaboose.3897:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

Community isn’t just guild/friend list. Community is essentially everyone on your server, and that is being messed with.

One of the most exciting aspects of the new system is that it gets you playing with members of your home server more often.

THIS. Why do people assume this will seperate them from their own server? The only way that is going to happen (if the system is implimented correctly) is if you have friends/guilds on otehr server AND you are joining an area with MANY overflows. Which is exactly what would happen with the current system anyway.

I play with people from my server ALL the time NOW? How will this system allow me to play with people from my own server MORE often. Explain that, please.

By ensuring when an event is so populated it causes overflows that you end up in an overflow for your sever and friends ratehr then randoms.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

Community isn’t just guild/friend list. Community is essentially everyone on your server, and that is being messed with.

One of the most exciting aspects of the new system is that it gets you playing with members of your home server more often.

THIS. Why do people assume this will seperate them from their own server? The only way that is going to happen (if the system is implimented correctly) is if you have friends/guilds on otehr server AND you are joining an area with MANY overflows. Which is exactly what would happen with the current system anyway.

YES! Anet thank you for this! I have been absent from GW2 since the Bi-weekly living story updates began as all the features and patches just seemed to be more of the things I either did not care for, or fixes that should have already been implimented.
But this is your first annoucement (yes I HAVE been keeping an eye on them) since then that has filled me with excitement for an upcoming patch.
The implications of what can be done with the Megaserver system in the future are staggering. Obviously things will start slowly but I once again have high hopes for this game because of this.
Anet please do not forget one of your original goal for GW2. A living breathing world that reacts to individual player choices.
I get accused of hating on your game all the time because of the critism I give it so i think it’s only fair I leave a post when I believe you are doing something right. Looking forward to this patch and the future it may bring.
For those of you interested in the potential this system has please check out this video made over a year ago on the subject (Be sure to start 17mins 49 secs as the video covers more):

http://youtu.be/XMEq4PAFmnI?t=17m49s

cranos.5913:

Kaaboose.3897:

cranos.5913:

3. Much of your problems here are solved by joining a helpful guild. You can’t expect random ppl from LFG to teach you the dungeon paths. Also, as for one shot mechanics, do you have an idea as to how to do it better WITHOUT introducing the trinity?

Sure do, Anet themselves stated how they would do it: http://gw2101.gtm.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/
And if that’s not detailed enough for you here’s how I would do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBxStGB6-UE

I see all that. First of all, the GW2 trinity exists. Every class can do DPS, support and CC. Not sure why this is always up for debate. Again, what’s the alternative for one shot mechanics? I always see “fast undodgeable attacks” as the main idea here on the forums. That requires a healer, maybe even a tank => boring original trinity.

Mechanics that require control instead? Of course this would require AI in our foes to deal with these mechanics, but instead of going that way Anet gave boss mobs Unshable and Defiance, essentialy removing control from their own Trinity.

cranos.5913:

3. Much of your problems here are solved by joining a helpful guild. You can’t expect random ppl from LFG to teach you the dungeon paths. Also, as for one shot mechanics, do you have an idea as to how to do it better WITHOUT introducing the trinity?

Sure do, Anet themselves stated how they would do it: http://gw2101.gtm.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/
And if that’s not detailed enough for you here’s how I would do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBxStGB6-UE

DinoToss.4810:

I’m glad you brought up gems because I dont know how to address this issue. I understand the fact that having a F2P game running with this kind of overhead must require some income. Especially considering the massive amount of development that has still gone into the game since its release and yet people get this content for free (think of DLC/ pay to play based business models. Arenanet is a value king). Yet it is important to keep the game content fun. I dont mean i dont enjoy GW2, i just find myself at that point where I have dont the content all once and am looking for that “next step”. To work on my legendary I find myself faced with a long road of grinding relatively repetitive and simple things. Here is where I relate back to gems, If the content was the things that felt less like a chore, I would enjoy my road to the legendary. Almost no players enjoy the road if it requires mindless farming for endless hours, it makes the reward sweeter, but nonetheless is an un-enjoyable road. So if the “fun” has been lost, and with the item I receive being purchasable with gold(gems), I feel cheated having spent my time and effort doing so to get there. If say I instead never touched guild wars, farmed a real life minimum wage job, and purchased gems, I could get the item with a much smaller time sink. this to me makes me sad because it seems like a waste of all their great content and all their innovative recent boss improvements. If the rewards to do them are not there, there’s no point in ever repenting them.

Try the video. It goes into how the gems should work in a good Risk vs. Reward enviroment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtvwXFLNCIQ&list=UUJTE1U_RsWh9Nl2hMZxMu5w

Algreg.3629:

Kaaboose.3897:

I was recently considering coming back to GW2 since I heard there was going to be no more living story. I’ve since learnt that we can expect more Living story in the upcoming updates and all the thing you outlined here are still an issue.
Your post all comes down to Risk vs. Reward, Something Anet seems to have no idea how to manage. Odd because they seemed to have it worked out to an extent in GW1.
If you are interested Dino I went into this 9 months ago here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions/Risk-Vs-Reward-in-GW2-The-Underworld/first#post2170821
Or you could try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtvwXFLNCIQ&list=UUJTE1U_RsWh9Nl2hMZxMu5w if you prefer to listen over reading.

their problem is their “include all types of players”-approach. If they give reasonable rewards for harder content, they will exclude a big part of their playerbase. “Casual players” will play their “I have a job and a familiy” routine (because better players simply cannot have that too as everybody knows…) and demand the same rewards regardless of skill/dedication – massive uproar expected. When GW1 was released, there barely was a casual MMORPG playerbase, so it didn´t matter there.

I went over this in the video and previous post but I really can’t expect people to off thread for that so I’ll say it again here.
Anet already succeded in this with GW1. The Underworld/Fissure of Woe/Domain of Anguish. Very difficult dungeons that only catered to players determined enough to beat them. So how did that not exclude everyone?
Because the rewards for these places, minus titles, were not Bound to the characters and could be sold. If a casual player really wanted something that was beyond their skill level they could buy it. Yes they’d have to farm to get an item from there but if they REALLY wanted to they could get it.
Look at the Arbraces of Truth from the Domain of anguish. They were literally worth more gold then you could carry. And yet the domain required such an investment from the parties doing it the market was never flooded with them. If you wanted one you etheir needed to save a tonn of plat or get a really well orginased and commited group to run the domain.
Also consider that in GW2 you can legitamtly buy gold through gems. A casual player could always fork out some real world currency for items they wanted. You can’t really call it pay to win either as you would be paying for looks.
Granted this means Anet would have to get their risk vs reward and combat tweaked for this to work but it seems worth the effort.
Honestly if you have time check out that video link, it goes into greater detail.

I was recently considering coming back to GW2 since I heard there was going to be no more living story. I’ve since learnt that we can expect more Living story in the upcoming updates and all the thing you outlined here are still an issue.
Your post all comes down to Risk vs. Reward, Something Anet seems to have no idea how to manage. Odd because they seemed to have it worked out to an extent in GW1.
If you are interested Dino I went into this 9 months ago here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions/Risk-Vs-Reward-in-GW2-The-Underworld/first#post2170821
Or you could try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtvwXFLNCIQ&list=UUJTE1U_RsWh9Nl2hMZxMu5w if you prefer to listen over reading.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

milo.6942:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

The upcoming big patch is not a ‘content only’ patch, but rather a features only patch, so it probably will not have a new race or new maps.

Living Story Season Two may bring us a new map(s), with the introduction of a new Dragon, though.

They’re continuing with the living story? Really?

Yep there will be a season two.

That kills off any interest I had on getting back into GW2 then.

Schizo.1375:

Forgive me if already been said but if we are going to talk about barrier for entry for new or lapsing players then I think large expansions would be a greater problem. One of the reasons I never played WoW was the amount of money I would have had to sink in just to get caught up on expansions.

While it’s a barrier I don’t see it as being MORE of a barrier. At least you can still do previous content.

Devata.6589:

In my previous comment https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Too-Much-Temporary-Content-Can-Only-Harm-GW2/page/12#post2979627 on this thread I was defending Anet for seemingly going in a better direction with the (then) last patches.

Sadly after that they turned back to the same temporary stuff. Halloween did not allow you to do last year events and the toxic stuff is also once a gain a temporary achievement and rewards grind where the content itself also seems to be temporary.

That is to bad. I hope they will still go back to a better living story and really focusing on expansions to generate income.

Sad thing is that where months ago most people that had some issues with the game said “this game still has potential” while at this moment most people say “this game had so much attentional”. Many people simply don’t believe anymore that Anet is going to make the needed changes.

Nice to see that some people (Lillium.6481) that are critical about the games state do still have confident in a change.

@cesmode.4257
“To arenanets credit, they have acknowledged this and will strive toward less temporary content, or so they say.”
True but they said that months ago and for a while it looked like they indeed where making that change but at this moment we are back where we where. Maybe even worse because the list of temporary achievements seems to be only growing.

@Facepunch.5710
I don’t think that is true. Many people who do not follow the story also don’t like the living story content. So making it go about the lore would not change that much. And the people who do follow it might even be disappointed about the way it gets thrown in the game. See the new fractal and the reactions on it.

So I hear through the Grapevine that GW2 Tempotrary Conent may be coming to an end. I was wondering if anyone here without too biased a view, maybe Devata could give me an honest rundown on how the Temporary conent ended up turning out and if it is indeed becoming less of a focus of GW2’s updates.
I’d really like to give GW2 another shot but I’m not falling into the limted time achivement grind skinner box trap again.

I have to confess I played all of 3 hours over the GW2 1 year aniversery. I am just so burnt out from previous LS events that I did not want to participate.
Not even all that amazing loot could coax me back.
At least when SAB 2.0 comes around I’ll be freash and ready. I’m looking fowards to that.

Well I must say I didn’t expect this solution to MF just because it requires so much work to make MF account wide but Kudos to anet!
Glad to hear that in a little while MF on items will be no more.

Just want to express my gratitude for this feature, Thanks anet!

Devata.6589:

Some big news.. if they keep there word.

Collin said:
“They will permanently upgrade the game and the world so everybody can experience that. The Story will go away but the change will last forever.”

This it not literally his words but it is literally what he was saying.

Have a look here: http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/c/2585362 it’s a 3 minutes.

So the story will go away but the changes and upgrades to the game will stay. Items, rewards, dungeons are for sure not ‘the story’ but are part of the upgrades / changes so they will stay. Thats great news.

Achievements are still a little in the dark. They will stay but can still be linked to the items (with exception of those that give a reward as thats part of the changes / upgrades). So with a little bid of luck they will also all be linked to the non-temporary stuff.

I still need to see it first but I hope they keep there promises. This would be great news for GW2.

They also said the MF and AR are coming back in the fractals. I do hope they will not come back as part of a the dungeons in fractals like they are now where it’s just one of the 3 / 4 dungeons, and I also hope they still have the same rewards because else it would still not be very good but they also said they would change fractals so it’s very possible that you can simply select what fractal you like to do and are not required to do 3 or 4 of them. So lets see about that.

And what gave me more trust in this statement is that they also seem to backing up to the idea of no expansion.. Where they first said they wanted to do it with the living story now it is still “undecided”.

So lets hope they decide to go for expansions. Then they can also keep there promise on only having the story itself temporary.

I like what I’m hearing there. Now I’ll just sit back and hope Anet delivers.

AntiGw.9367:

Kaaboose.3897:

AntiGw.9367:

Kaaboose.3897:

And I while I’m not expert I still am waiting for somone, ANYONE, on this thread to explain to me how a business modle that alienates new and returning players is going to work in the long run.

Such a “modle” is not going to work. Fortunately, GW2 is not based on such a “modle”.

Bad spelling aside, would you care to explain?

GW2 is based on a model where some people will like it, and some won’t. Arena.net knows how to balance it.

As for the bad spelling, you are paying so little attention to making any of your posts readable, that it looks like you are paying as little attention to the content of the post itself. After reading a zillion of them, I can’t find any of value.

We’ll have to agree to disagree there, If there’s one thing Anet has demostrated so far it’s their lack of ability to find a comfortable balance of anything in their game for me.

AntiGw.9367:

Kaaboose.3897:

And I while I’m not expert I still am waiting for somone, ANYONE, on this thread to explain to me how a business modle that alienates new and returning players is going to work in the long run.

Such a “modle” is not going to work. Fortunately, GW2 is not based on such a “modle”.

Bad spelling aside, would you care to explain?

Krosslite.1950:

Tachenon.5270:

Galen Grey.4709:

Is it that bad to play other older content for 7,8 days between LS releases?

No, I’m all for playing older content. As I’ve said, it’s the older content in GW2 that’s keeping me here. I am not against new content. I am not against new content every two weeks. I am, as I’ve said, against non-seasonal temporary content because it comes and goes and therefore does not become additional older content. Therefore, the amount of older content available to do between these rounds of new content is not increasing. I believe this is bad for the game.

There is not much more to do here today (between living story episodes) than there was at launch. Fractals, if you like that. How many different ‘dungeons’ are there in the fractals? Have any been added? Then there’s Southsun Cove, if you like the events there, which I don’t, but that’s beside the point. What else? The aetherblade jumping puzzle, if you like that. Oh, and those DEs that were added so early on that no one noticed they were new and therefore didn’t comment on their newness.

Anything else? Besides balancing and tweaking?

The emphasis on temporary content is, in my opinion, keeping the core game in stasis. Now, before someone feels obliged to point out (yet again) that the devs have said that they intend to add more permanent content along with the continuing delivery of temporary content and have four teams working on all this stuff stuff stuffy stuff, I’ll say this: yes, of course. Devs say a lot of things. A Cryptic dev once said, and I quote, “And I will continue to remind you that nothing said before launch, or even now, is a ‘promise’ and to continue to construe it as such is just playing to human nature.” And so, as far as I am concerned, anything a game developer says (not just anet – all of them, everywhere, in every game), particularly in regard to what may be in the works, amounts to little more than hearsay and rumor mongering until it actually appears in the game. Be that as it may, I maintain that they should not be adding some permanent content along with the temporary content, I say it should all be permanent content, and it should all be content with substance, something that will stick to our ribs, so to speak, and not more spam the F button junk that is the MMO equivalent of potato chips and candy bars.

So. We will see what we will see, and we will see it when we see it. See?

This statement is flawed beyond belief.
1) comparing Cryptic to Arenanet is ridiculous. The only reason Cryptic still exists is due to Perfect World .. an established F2P company bought them.
2) there is going to be new PERMANENT content added. I don’t care if it is 2 weeks from now or 2 months. it is better then any another MMO has done and that includes StarTrek: Online (since you want to bring Cryptic into this)

Which explains OPs support since it has already been established he has no concept of how this industry works

Sorry but when you have a legitimate response please feel free to supply one

EDIT: Who cares if they add permanent when they add a story element that goes away. This is how it is going to be. It is working for them and they are making money. That is the driving force of any company. “Does it make us money?” if the answer is yes .. you do it. If the answer is no you change what you are doing till you get a yes.
Hey guess what Anet has done they have changed the rules and have a “yes” answer.
So as I have said before. Sit back and enjoy the ride. We didn’t make the roller coaster we just CHOOSE to sit in it.

C’mon man, He mentioned Crytic to point out why you should take what game Dev’s say with a grain of salt.
And I while I’m not expert I still am waiting for somone, ANYONE, on this thread to explain to me how a business modle that alienates new and returning players is going to work in the long run.
Unlike a roller coaster we can jump off at any time.

Tachenon.5270:

Galen Grey.4709:

Is it that bad to play other older content for 7,8 days between LS releases?

No, I’m all for playing older content. As I’ve said, it’s the older content in GW2 that’s keeping me here. I am not against new content. I am not against new content every two weeks. I am, as I’ve said, against non-seasonal temporary content because it comes and goes and therefore does not become additional older content. Therefore, the amount of older content available to do between these rounds of new content is not increasing. I believe this is bad for the game.

There is not much more to do here today (between living story episodes) than there was at launch. Fractals, if you like that. How many different ‘dungeons’ are there in the fractals? Have any been added? Then there’s Southsun Cove, if you like the events there, which I don’t, but that’s beside the point. What else? The aetherblade jumping puzzle, if you like that. Oh, and those DEs that were added so early on that no one noticed they were new and therefore didn’t comment on their newness.

Anything else? Besides balancing and tweaking?

The emphasis on temporary content is, in my opinion, keeping the core game in stasis. Now, before someone feels obliged to point out (yet again) that the devs have said that they intend to add more permanent content along with the continuing delivery of temporary content and have four teams working on all this stuff stuff stuffy stuff, I’ll say this: yes, of course. Devs say a lot of things. A Cryptic dev once said, and I quote, “And I will continue to remind you that nothing said before launch, or even now, is a ‘promise’ and to continue to construe it as such is just playing to human nature.” And so, as far as I am concerned, anything a game developer says (not just anet – all of them, everywhere, in every game), particularly in regard to what may be in the works, amounts to little more than hearsay and rumor mongering until it actually appears in the game. Be that as it may, I maintain that they should not be adding some permanent content along with the temporary content, I say it should all be permanent content, and it should all be content with substance, something that will stick to our ribs, so to speak, and not more spam the F button junk that is the MMO equivalent of potato chips and candy bars.

So. We will see what we will see, and we will see it when we see it. See?

I… see.
Sums up how I feel pretty nicely!

zityz.6089:

If done right this can be the better way than an expansion. Now if they release small bits and pieces at a time while they work on bigger pieces to add into the game that are permanent while maintaining a story it will work out better than an expac.

Problem with expacs are the fact that not everyone will have them/ afford to dish out extra cash to experience content right away. Not always the case but a case still. If they can flesh out the idea with making all of this stuff happen in real time ( which seams like what they are doing) while still being able to make enough money through the gems store to keep the business afloat

I would rather them do that than have them make an expac for $40-60 and not have some people be able to play it or cant join your dungeon from a different server because “whoops don’t have that extra content”. To me it makes sense.

About the “hardcore” and “casual” problem? that’s a ‘simple’ fix. GW1 had a solution to this and GW2 could as well but it will take a lot more programming. They called it “Hard Mode” as dungeons are now, make them a bit easier but reduce the amount of rewards you get. Want better rewards? or the reward of finishing it? HARD MODE, its a tougher challange and you get better rewards.

Normal mode Title= Dungeon Master
Hard Mode Title= Legendary Dungeon Master

That’s an example. They could add Hard Mode to other things later on if they wanted to. Hard Mode story missions if they desired. Give it time. I think that’s the best solution for everyone. Keep world stuff the same that can be the middle ground.

Zitzy, you’re arguemnt here is on small content injections vs. an expansion pack. Not Temporary content vs. Permenent content.
It’s a good argument with lots of merit don’t get me wrong though!

Vayne.8563:

Kaaboose.3897:

Do you HONESTLY believe that more players want the choice of when and what to play taken away from them and would rather play on Anets schedual instead of their own?

Yes, I honestly believe more players want the choice taken away from them, or, more to the point, I think most players log in to relax and not think.

Well, that’s that then. I can see there is no point discussing this further with you.

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

You are defending regular updates here, not temporary content. And believe it or not but people will even get bored of being pressured in doing something every 2 weeks. Make it non-temporary and the pressure is there but the “there is something ‘new’ to do” is still there.

But then again.. the whole idea is to create the pressure because they want people to be online and buy gems, and it will work for some time.. until people get bored of being pressured into doing stuff or after completionist have missed to much or after new players get frustrated because the whole time they ask somebody “nice weapon / mini / armor, where did you get that?” the answer is “From some event last year, but you can’t get that anymore”.

They go hand in hand together. You’re calling these 2 week events as something that causes pressure cause there is not enough time to complete them, how is keeping them in game permanently going to solve the problem? If anything it will make it worst because if you’re not keeping up, keeping it in game is just going to increase the stuff you need to do and making it impossible to ever catch up.

If we get 20 hrs of content every 2 weeks and you can only play 15 of it, if its temporary next 2 weeks you’ll still have just 20 hrs to complete. in 1 years you’ll still have just 20 hrs of content to completed. if it was let in permanently next month you’ll have 25hrs to complete. in 1 year you’ll have 150hrs to complete in that 2 weeks period. How is that reducing pressure?

Simple. I can CHOOSE what content I want to do. And even if I couldn’t because for some reason it was manditory, If I really wanted to I could make the time to catch up if I had the time to spare at the point in my life.

Vayne.8563:

For those who say people are going to leave the game…it means zero. Nothing. People are going to leave the game no matter what. People are going to leave other games too. In one quarter WoW dropped from 10 million subscribers to 8.3 million. That’s a whole lot of people leaving. It’s what happens with games. No game is going to entertain everyone indefinitely.

The real and ONLY question is, what percent of the playerbase is leaving over time and how many are returning and how many will stay.

You do realise that’s one of the main points on why temporary content can’t succeed in the long run? Most players are NOT going to return because they know they’ll have missed a lot of content with no way of experiancing it.
And thoese that stay are inevetiable going to miss stuff. Some may “Deal with it” other may say “kitten it” and leave.

Galen Grey.4709:

If they keep this 2 weeks releases we’ll never going to end up with nothing to do. And permanent stuff is still being added with a promise that they’ll focus more on permanent then temporary stuff. Beyond this there is the long term stuff they’ve been working on. No doubt in my mind thats going to be permanent stuff as well.

This LS is merely them solving what was previously an unsolvable problem. How to provide enough content to keep people happy until we can release the next big thing.

BUT WHY MAKE IT TEMPORARY! Every second post here is “We’re getting new stuff every 2 weeks!” So what? It doesn’t matter if we’re getting it every 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 10 weeks or whatever, what matters is that it will be gone soon and you won’t get to experiance it if you don’t play in the timeframe Anet allocates.
Yes, we’ve been told SOME of this content will be permenent but we have not been told what or how much.
This is especially concerning when both Anet and various posters in this thread harp on how lots of permenent content has already been added since realese.
We must have VERY different opionions of ‘lots.’ Or “Content” for that matter.
Compare the first year of WoW to the first year of GW2 in terms of temporary vs. permenent. (You can see it done here: http://youtu.be/NedWPHZCcik?t=1m26s) The stuff added there was meaninful to new and old players alike.
Even WoW had some temporary content in the first year! And it was a nice touch but it was most certinly not a focus.
Remember the thread title “Too Much Temporary Content Can Only Harm GW2.” A few temporary NPC’s and/or events that are relevent to the current state of the LS I would be just fine with. But adding and remvoing game modes/dungeons/storys and zones just for the sake of immersion is going too farm IMO.

knives.6345:

GW2 takes on a different formula. Unlike other MMO – GW2 “removed” several kinds of progression – which has it’s own pro’s and con’s.

Unfortunately, the removal of this causes us to feel “stagnant” (I know, I feel it too). We reached the “peak”. So, after months of hiatus, when you come back – it is still “the same” – no progression, remember?

I left for 3 months due to work requiring me to leave my country – and when I came back, the only thing I’m probably missing are the skins and several titles – non of which is required for me to compete. I am not left behind. The same gear I own is still one of the BiS…

I am not saying this game is not for you, but this game is designed differently compared to the traditional MMO. You may want to look at this game in a different perspective.

I always felt that since there isn’t a BIS grind like WoW that constantly updates in GW2 that would be more reason to leave content in the game. My favorite raid of all time in WoW was Kharazan but once it was nerfed into the ground just before the Lich King Expansion it was never the same. Myself and my guild had some great times in there but going back now is just pointless because of the nature of WoW.
I really liked the idea of no BiS progression and scaling in GW2 becuase if a dungeon came along that I enjoyed like Kharazan it would be there forever. No Stat creep would make it irrelevent.

This is one reason why I feel some permenet, challenging content is in order. This would most likley require an overhaul of Risk Vs. Reward in GW2 but if we had something to work towards like the Underworld in GW1 it would give some a sesne of direction.
I’d love also love to see the PS expanded. By which I mean Cut the filler crap out and continue the story of tryia and the dragons through the PS (Especially if they made it effect the open world more often.)

Ronah.2869:

Kaaboose.3897:

There will be TOO MUCH content in the game in the future if it’s not taken away.
Anoteher one I just can’t get my head around. How is having a lot of content to play a bad thing? I’d call that good value for money. The only reason I ever thought there might be too MUCH content in WoW was because you were forced to grind through it when creating a new character to catch up. WoW negated this a bit by nerfing how much NEEDED to be done as time went by but GW2 doesn’t even need to do this since it’s nearly 100% grind free at endgame. Having more freedom to choose how I progress through the game is a great thing.

Five or so years ago, when I started to Play Jade Dynasty, there were only 100 levels. Now There is 300 levels. How willing to play thet game is a new player that discovers that game now?
yes, too much content scary away the players.
When a new player comes into GW2 and opens the map he will see the total amount of “quests” he has: Hearts, PoIs, Vistas, Skill Points. If he quites the game for a while for various RL reasons and comes back and sees the same amount he will feel happy. He doesnt need to catch up with anyone, but he would see those numbers increased then he will feel disappointed.
Imagine if he would quit again and come back and see even a larger number of “quests” he will quit it for good.
So, Temporary content is added content for the players who are in the game everyday but doesn’t scare away the players who come back after a while or are new players.

I see this comparison a LOT in this thread but you’re all missing something with GW2. They have not, and do not apear to have any plans to, add more levels in the future. Anet hasn’t focused on grinding to stay comeptative which is exactly what you guys are refering to in these “Too much content puts people off.”
MMO’s like WoW “Nerf” the amount of experiance to reach max level to make it easier to catch up while GW2 doesn’t need to do this thanks to the solid cap as well as level scaling.
This content does not need to be done to stay competative so if you do not like it you have the option of just not doing it. This is another thing I really love about Guild Wars 2. It Gives (or gave) you so much freedom on how you could play it. I feel that freedom is being taken away with the focus on temporary content.
Players that don’t want that freedom could simply choose to ignore it and stay with the current story developments while ignoring all past content. Why do you feel it’s okay to take this away from the players that want it?
So there is a higher poplation in your current zone?
So you can feel more immersed?
So the world doesn’t get clogged with shallow content?
In my opinion that’s no reason to be isolating the players that want this content to stay. These goals can be achived in other ways that cater to a wider audiance without restorting to making content temporary.

Vayne.8563:

Those who are saying that Anet doesn’t need to get people in the same places haven’t played other MMOs or aren’t understanding the way most MMOs are different from Guild Wars 2.

In most MMOs you don’t have this problem, because in most MMOs, everyone hangs out in the higest couple of zones and there are people around. By the same token in most MMOs the mid level zones are dead. And people have been saying the same thing about Guild Wars 2.

But because Guild Wars 2 makes all content viable and anyone can go anywhere, and because there are 26 large zones that people can explore, with caves and gullies and ways to hide from people even a short distance away, people think there’s no one playing the game. And that IS a problem in an MMO.

You’ve consistently seen threads in these forums about people saying the world is dead, my server is dead, the game is dead. That’s BEFORE the living story too.

The only place that wasn’t dead on some servers was Orr. But I don’t think Anet wanted everyone in Orr. Because new players starting out can’t go to Orr and that’s a bad look for the game and it’s not fun for them.

By putting everyone together, people see and meet other people. It’s a very festive atmosphere. I quite like it. Everyone is doing the new stuff, most people are friendly and helpful.

I saw people in the Sanctum Sprint stop before the finish line and let others win so they can get their achievements. Like it or not, I have never seen that happen in another MMO. The whole thing feels a whole lot like a party. It’s quite nice.

Now it may not be “your” personal cup of tea, but a whole lot of people seem to like it. Because some people play the game just to be in a world with lots of other people and this world is just too big to let everyone go where they want without artificially creating gathering spaces.

And moving the Living Story around lets Anet use the whole world. They’re even letting low level characters come and do the LS content, so they don’t have to level through low pop zones.

I think it’s great.

I agree and understand on why being around other players is important and it IS, It’s a huge part of MMO’s and it’s exactly why I play them.
This is exactly why I was so excited by the manifesto: “We’ve taken everything you like about Guild Wars and put it in an MMO enviroment.”
It’s those moments when you are fighting a losing battle, when defeat is certain, then all of a sudden a stranger jumps in to assit you and together you topple that foe.
It when the gate of your fortress has just fallen, You’re ragtag crew of defenders pushed to the wall, fighting for their last moments of life when the renforcments smash into the rear of enmey lines.
And it’s also that moment when, against all odds, You run into someone you met previously in the most odd, remote, or unusally location and say "The hell are you doing here?
Yes, Other players are important in MMO’s BUT with the current way content is relased everyone is ONLY in the zones that are relevant to the current LS and in most cases this is only a handful of areas. The population is also, regularly, so much that you no longer feel like a group of people working towards a goal, but part of a hive mind.
Too many players is sometimes even worse then not enough.

http://www.shifteast.com/asia-trends/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/tokyo-summerland-packed-wave-pool.jpg

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

AntiGw.9367:

Tachenon.5270:

AntiGw.9367:

Tachenon.5270:

AntiGw.9367:

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

There’s just no way to compare this to anything because it hasn’t been done before.

Probably for the same reason auto manufacturers have not embraced the concept of square wheels.

It’s not for the same reason.

Square wheels don’t serve any purpose. Living Story serves a purpose. Permanent content serves a purpose too. Anet has goals that work best with the LS instead of the traditional content patches.

Temporary content, such as has been provided by the Living Story, serves no purpose that could not be equally or better served by permanent content, which is what could have been and should have been provided with the Living Story.

Temporary content is, for anyone who happened to miss it, vaporware.

That’s your opinion. You are welcome to develop an MMO based on old principles and see if they are really better.

“That’s your opinion.” = “I can’t counter your argument.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, make your own!” = “I can’t think of anything relevant to say.”

In my opinion, of course.

“That’s your opinion.” = “Arena.net thinks otherwise.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, make your own!” = “You are here to play Arena.net’s game, with Arena.net’s rules. The LS is part of their design plan.”

And he did like the game but when Anet changed the rules he started to dislike the game, he finds that a pity for this game that has so much potential and where he already put a lot of time in.. But he knows if Anet continue like this he and many other people will stop playing so he it here to let Anet know there new rules or new way of thinking is bad.

Except that Anet actually has the metrics and based on those metrics, they’ve decided to move forward with this. Obviously they’re happy with the outcomes. If they weren’t they wouldn’t do this.

The game needed something and this is, according to Anet, the something it needed. If you’re looking for a different something, well, that’s sad, and all, and I’m not saying that sarcastically.

But to imply that Anet is losing more than it’s getting out of this is to say that you have more metrics than Anet and you know how many people are logging in.

I’m 100% convinced that if enough people were leaving over this, Anet would not be doing it.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. This WILL be effective, IN THE SHORT TERM. I can see Anet taking this route based off their metrics, but I can guarantee that it will hurt them more in the long run. By the time the realise their mistake it might be too late to rectify it. It WILL be a barrier to new players, and even if it’s only to SOME new players that is LESS new players then it would be otherwise.
The whole point of having no sub fee was so the game would be more accesable, Why take away that barrier if you’re just going to put another in it’s place?

Seems I’m just going to have to agree to disagree with those that believe Temporary content is a good thing. I have not seen one arguemnt for it that I believe justfies its current focus in GW2.
Immersion?
Sorry, but I don’t think it’s fair Content is being taken from the game just so you can say “Look! Now it’s gone! That makes the world seem so much more alive!” It alienates new and returning players, Reduces the total content of the game and reduces the relevance of having a non Grindy MMO (In WoW old raids aren’t much fun because of how badly players outlevel them, this isn’t a problem in GW2.)
Too much content is scary to players. They need that choice taken away from them so they won’t be pressured into doing it.
I’m a firm beliver that the best part of Video Games is having a choice in how you aproach them. That’s what makes this medium so special, limiting choice is a step backwards, not forwards. Even if we assume the above statement is true, all this is doing to player that feel they want to experiance all the game has to offer is forcing them to play at cetain times or miss content. And if they do miss it they just won’t play. And to those that think them not playing is a good thing you may as well abandon any defence reguarding Anet as a buiness. Speaking of which…
Temporary content is great because it keep the comunity in the same place, instead of spreading it all over the place.
This one I just don’t understand. Why is having the whole population in the one place a good thing? I thought the whole reason dailies and Daily META chests were introduced was to get people out of Orr and spread the playerbase around a little. This was so that new players would not be in ghost zones and get the impression that not many people played the game. Every time I read this argument all I can see is “I’m up to THIS point of the content and I want everybody else to be up to this point as well so I can play it with more people.”
New content always attacts more players then old. The “shiny effect” as was mentioned earilier in the thread. Why can’t you just play the new content when it’s new so you play it when most players are there? You’re already doing that now since it’s temporary anyway.
I think having the playerbase spread around the world is a good thing, especially for new players.
There will be TOO MUCH content in the game in the future if it’s not taken away.
Anoteher one I just can’t get my head around. How is having a lot of content to play a bad thing? I’d call that good value for money. The only reason I ever thought there might be too MUCH content in WoW was because you were forced to grind through it when creating a new character to catch up. WoW negated this a bit by nerfing how much NEEDED to be done as time went by but GW2 doesn’t even need to do this since it’s nearly 100% grind free at endgame. Having more freedom to choose how I progress through the game is a great thing.
Anet is a buisiness that needs to make money. Temporary content creates a sense of urgancy to keep players playing.
I can agree with the merits on this but as I stated in the OP and the Video I belive this will alienate players, new and returning, in the long run. I haven’t seen any argument broguht forth that explain why this won’t be the case.

Shadow Blade.1324:

Vayne i think your posts would be better received if you stopped stating opinions as facts when your statements essentially boil down to

Vayne.8563:

I can’t prove it, but I’d bet it’s true.

while i take your point this is a terrible example

Vayne.8563:

If you don’t get this, then you don’t get it. That’s fine. But the major reason people end up walking away from games like WoW is because they know they’ll never catch up. It’s a big big big reason why people stop. They just cant’ keep going.

you can always catch up in games like wow, they periodically do gear resets with new tiers and make the previous top tier more accessible. imo the reason people walk away from wow isn’t that they wont catch up its that the constant grinding treadmill to stay relevant isn’t entertaining and they burn out.

a better example would be GW2 where you cannot catch up as those players will always be X amount of time ahead of you (assuming they keep playing) in laurels for acquiring BIS or WvW rank unlocks etc so you will never match them because you are time gated from doing so. you can also never experience the wealth of content that’s been removed from the game

i have a few friends who have recently joined the game interested in content i enjoyed and mentioned in previous months, the answer in every case when they ask where they can do that content is “you cant they took it out of the game if you hurry you might be able to do the current stuff before its gone”

its that sense of urgency that the OP is talking about that will ultimately lead to faster burn out and players leaving, and once gone what is there to come back to? the one current event you need to race to complete before it gone?

ultimately this feedback will be disregarded if it doesn’t fit their existing plan, much like the 200 odd page feedback thread on ascended items was locked and discarded for a smaller more positive looking feedback thread in November.

That’s an excelent point on the “burn out” factor there Shadow Blade. My partner is already suffering from this and hasn’t logged in since the Bazzar began. She claims it’s because she’s sick of being pressured to play the thing and thus is put off by it.
I was feeling that burnout not long ago, but then the Sky Pirates patch came out and the AR dungeons got me pumped as it was so different from the existing dungeons. I jumped back onto my ranger alt because I wanted to try out some new things in there but sadly didn’t have enough time to get his build fleshed out before the dungeon closed.
I must say it was refreashing to go back and revist some of the old stuff as a different class and try some differnt PS options (Though I got burned out on that when thaerene showed up again as the missions that are common to everyones PS really drag and tend to be boring) and the only thing souring it for me was knowing if I took my time doing what I wanted I wouldn’t reach 80 before AR was removed (Which I didn’t, I gave in, thought “kitten it” and just played for fun.)
Long story short feeling rushed is defintly making me feel burned out. I logged back in today after listing to WP’s latest video about Glint and the LS but after standing around lsiting to a few NPC’s I was left with the option of grinding some more META or my dailies when all I really wanted to do was Play AR with my ranger.
So I came here, read the comments and wrote this instead.
Sad to say this was more compelling.

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

Temporary content sounds more like real life. If you miss it, there’s no do over!

I’m all for it. If I miss something, to bad for me!

I can’t speak for all but one of the reasons I enjoy gaming is because it doesn’t have the same limitations as RL. Even Day Z lets you start all over again when you die.

Vayne.8563:

Kaaboose.3897:

Vayne.8563:

Kaaboose.3897:

Galen Grey.4709:

Tachenon.5270:

Galen Grey.4709:

We all know such content takes time. Even if they didnt use some of the resources to create these events, you’d still expect them to take at least a year… some games take even 2.

It’s been almost a year since launch. What did GW players get a year after launch? Was it scattered remnants of recycled temporary content littering the landscape like the clean-picked bones of an unfulfilled and abandoned manifesto? No. They got a whole new campaign.

/e salute the Anet that was. Well done, ladies and gentlemen. Well done.

What the heck happened between then and now?

Its been 10 months well 10 and a 1/2 now to be fair. And what did Gw players get in that time in terms of new content as far as I know just Sorrow’s Furnace. (might be wrong feel free to correct me if thats the case)

What happened now is in the same amount of time where we got little new content (but a lot of changes, I dont mean to say gw1 developers did nothing, not by any stretch of imagination, I am just talking about new PvE content) we got literally a mountain of stuff to do but instead of being grateful that we no longer have to wait a year but instead are getting biweekly new stuff to do until the big stuff lands some people are angry because it isnt here yet.

Even if it takes them 1 1/2 years now instead of 1 year I am personally very grateful they went into the extra hassle of essentially constantly proving fresh stuff to play.

C’mon man not this again. We’re not upset we’re getting content every 2 weeks (Well maybe some are but that’s not the focus of this post.) We’re upset it is getting taken away again. They’re concerend that if they do come back in 1 1/2 years they’ll have missed the majority of the content that came out in that time span.

If everything was left in, and someone came back in 1.5 years, and we’ve had 2 week upgrades during that entire time, and continued to get 2 week content, anyone starting then or even coming back then, would have far too much content to even contemplate. The game would be a full time job.

I think that’s the point you’re missing.

They don’t HAVE to do the old stuff. That’s the point YOU’RE missing. But they’d have the OPTION of doing so if they wanted to.

Nope, I’m not missing it. Because achievement points now award chests and these events give massive achievement points, many will feel pressure/compelled to do them. It’s about the rewards for a whole lot of people.

Christ man read what you type! If achivement points are so compelling to players then why do we need to resort to temporary content to motivate them?
I went over this in the OP. Yes creating a sense of urgancy is going to work in the short term, but in the long term it’s going to alienate players. Couple that with the new AP rewards system and it is not just going to alienate them from a story perspective, but also from a rewards one.
I understand kitten well why Anet is doing this, I just don’t think they, or you for that matter, see the potential long term consiquences of this buisiness model.

The trick is to give people stuff to do, without making it so hard to catch up that people never do.

Some trick there. Temporary content doesn’t make it easier to catch up. It makes it IMPOSSIBLE.

Vayne.8563:

Making people have to keep up, even as they’re doing it now, is too much for most people…

Vayne this is exactly what Temporary content IS doing. Making people have to keep up.

But the casual audience of this game that ducks in and out, once they finish the current content would go exactly where?

I don’t know, But whereever they chose to go would be a kitten sight better then the current option: Nowhere.

Vayne.8563:

Kaaboose.3897:

Galen Grey.4709:

Tachenon.5270:

Galen Grey.4709:

We all know such content takes time. Even if they didnt use some of the resources to create these events, you’d still expect them to take at least a year… some games take even 2.

It’s been almost a year since launch. What did GW players get a year after launch? Was it scattered remnants of recycled temporary content littering the landscape like the clean-picked bones of an unfulfilled and abandoned manifesto? No. They got a whole new campaign.

/e salute the Anet that was. Well done, ladies and gentlemen. Well done.

What the heck happened between then and now?

Its been 10 months well 10 and a 1/2 now to be fair. And what did Gw players get in that time in terms of new content as far as I know just Sorrow’s Furnace. (might be wrong feel free to correct me if thats the case)

What happened now is in the same amount of time where we got little new content (but a lot of changes, I dont mean to say gw1 developers did nothing, not by any stretch of imagination, I am just talking about new PvE content) we got literally a mountain of stuff to do but instead of being grateful that we no longer have to wait a year but instead are getting biweekly new stuff to do until the big stuff lands some people are angry because it isnt here yet.

Even if it takes them 1 1/2 years now instead of 1 year I am personally very grateful they went into the extra hassle of essentially constantly proving fresh stuff to play.

C’mon man not this again. We’re not upset we’re getting content every 2 weeks (Well maybe some are but that’s not the focus of this post.) We’re upset it is getting taken away again. They’re concerend that if they do come back in 1 1/2 years they’ll have missed the majority of the content that came out in that time span.

If everything was left in, and someone came back in 1.5 years, and we’ve had 2 week upgrades during that entire time, and continued to get 2 week content, anyone starting then or even coming back then, would have far too much content to even contemplate. The game would be a full time job.

I think that’s the point you’re missing.

They don’t HAVE to do the old stuff. That’s the point YOU’RE missing. But they’d have the OPTION of doing so if they wanted to.

Shanna.4762:

I wish people would give ArenaNet the chance to actually show us what they’re doing for this type of content. It’s obviously gonna be very big, they’ve kept millions of players happy with the temporary and permanent-lite content in the interim while improving the very core features, etc. Colin has said the living story teams are just a part of their whole development team about what seems like 900 times, and a big chunk of them are working on permanent content. Imagine what that will be like when it’s ready, considering it’s been in development for a very long time. I have a feeling this allows them to deliver content now, and have a very strong stream of permanent content without huge gaps between releases in the future.

I’m getting tired of these threads popping up, there’s only about a million of them at this point. Find one that exists and keep it running, like I and many others have with the Cantha thread in my signature.

Oh Shanna, You sound just like me defending the manifesto 2 years ago. The reason these threads are popping up so often is because people are now skeptical that Colins words in this manner might be mostly PR spin.

With the agruments on whether or not the focus on Temporary content in the LS is justifiable because it can alienate new players by removing content for the sake of immersion I believe this thread deserves another look as it is More then relevant to these arguements. Imagine if our temporary content moved the LS along with this system rather then with the current.

Pointy.9308:

Oh yeah, where the heck is Tony?

You know, sooner or later every conversation turns out that way.

Yeah, just as Orr was supposedly cleansed as part of the story, but the zone is still teeming with undead. What’s your point?

Well, the Orr is and isn’t cleansed or whatever. For a character that has done the entire story it is but for my lvl 6 guardian it isn’t. But what should be done about it? Change all the areas to state after Zaithans death and put every character that killed him on different server and there use the LS element? What about those who have not completed the story? They wouldn’t get the LS at all? Is there a time table of the LS somewhere? Does it all happen after Zaithan is dead or it is supposed to be like, you know, it can happen anytime? Because that would be my point. Zaithan is dead for certain characters and LS is done for everyone and every character no matter whether you participate in it or not. No matter what part of the story sou are in right now there is the Molten Alliance threat and you either choose to deal with it or you leave it to others. And it changes both the pre and post story world.

I shouldn’t wrote all the things around. What I wanted to say, and I did say it in the end, yes we need more permanent content, I agree there. But the thing that LS is bad for GW2 isn’t true. What is wrong with new content, stories and characters every 14 days? You can do something new even though you reached lvl80, you are fully geared up, you are a dungeon master and whatever else. And if you aren’t hardcore player the content will last you for couple days at least. And like I wrote, more permanent content is comming so what is really the problem? That you do not have the permanent content right now? You guys know what patience is? Afterall, GW2 is not even a year old.

Once again. You’re defending new content, not temporary content. This pops up time and time and time again in this thread. I should probably edit the OP to explain the diffrence.
As for being able to solve the ORR and LS delemer look here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/How-to-Fix-the-Living-Story-in-Guild-Wars-2/first#post2245623

Galen Grey.4709:

Tachenon.5270:

Galen Grey.4709:

We all know such content takes time. Even if they didnt use some of the resources to create these events, you’d still expect them to take at least a year… some games take even 2.

It’s been almost a year since launch. What did GW players get a year after launch? Was it scattered remnants of recycled temporary content littering the landscape like the clean-picked bones of an unfulfilled and abandoned manifesto? No. They got a whole new campaign.

/e salute the Anet that was. Well done, ladies and gentlemen. Well done.

What the heck happened between then and now?

Its been 10 months well 10 and a 1/2 now to be fair. And what did Gw players get in that time in terms of new content as far as I know just Sorrow’s Furnace. (might be wrong feel free to correct me if thats the case)

What happened now is in the same amount of time where we got little new content (but a lot of changes, I dont mean to say gw1 developers did nothing, not by any stretch of imagination, I am just talking about new PvE content) we got literally a mountain of stuff to do but instead of being grateful that we no longer have to wait a year but instead are getting biweekly new stuff to do until the big stuff lands some people are angry because it isnt here yet.

Even if it takes them 1 1/2 years now instead of 1 year I am personally very grateful they went into the extra hassle of essentially constantly proving fresh stuff to play.

C’mon man not this again. We’re not upset we’re getting content every 2 weeks (Well maybe some are but that’s not the focus of this post.) We’re upset it is getting taken away again. They’re concerend that if they do come back in 1 1/2 years they’ll have missed the majority of the content that came out in that time span.

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

Galen Grey.4709:

Kaaboose.3897:

“Oh no! I’m in a game and I don’t know what to do!” In this day and age the rescources to overcome this scenario are almost infinite. But let me throw you the most relevenat:

ASK SOMEBODY. It’s an MMO For crying out loud.

hehe this made me laugh but I dont think thats what Vayne really meant. I think he meant there is just no answer to the question.

Lets assume all content was released permanently. Now imagine a player who bought the game finished the whole storyline in a week and quit. He just logged on again today and asked you what he should do next?

Which one is the right answer?

Halloween, wintersday, lost short, flame and frost, The secret of southsun, dragon bash, sky pirates, the bazaar?

And thats at a high level
Some will suggest specifics they like..

Ohh man you really need to go try dragon ball its a blast! forget about dragon ball guild missions are amazing!

guild missions take too much effort, now skyhammer thats an awesome pvp map you really need to experience

Nahh forget about PvP not so secret now thats a challenge.

etc… etc..

Poor guy his head would explode before he decides what to do!

Thank you. This is the problem almost every person already finds coming back and not knowing what to do. We see some people ask on the forum and get half a dozen contradictory suggestions.

Hell, I play the game every day and sometimes I’m overwhelmed by all the content. I think with content every two weeks, this game would become impossibly clogged. The player base would spread out further and further and the people who claim that we’re losing players would have more to crow about.

This way, everyone that cares about the Living Story is more or less on the same page.

Without the tragedy of the Living “Story” (oh gods, what a misnomer), they wouldn’t have to release half made content every two weeks. They could actually take their time and put out something worth playing.

Oh look killcannon doesn’t like the living story, it must be not worth playing. I guess all the people who are enjoying it are mistaken.

Oh look, Vayne has nothing constructive to say…again.

Hate to tell you, many, many, many, many, many players don’t like it. And more every day.

The one and only thing it’s good for is to make people log in due to a content treadmill.

Many many players DO like it. What’s your point? I particularly like the current content. So do lots of people I’ve talked to.

More every day? Proof? Your experience? Maybe you only hear what you want to hear.

Same proof you have I assume. Many players like it? lmao. This isn’t even close to a 50/50 split. Just some bots nodding their head to the beat.

This is like the people who are trying to get Microsoft to reinstate their DRM policies for the Xbox.

You’re not wrong there. Before I posted this, and the video that went along with it, Anets annoucement video on the Future of GW2 had 3 dislikes and any non-positive comments were thumbed down into oblivioin.
Now it’s got 92 and the bulk of the comments are people are expressing their concerns on temporary content.
You could accuse me for abusing my ‘influence’ but take one look at the size of my channel and tell me how I could possible make any difference if my view didn’t match up with the majority of the GW2 playerbase.

Tachenon.5270:

The game doesn’t need a ‘mix’ of non-seasonal temporary content and permanent content. The game needs deep, lore-rich, quality permanent content and it needs it desperately. Not more ‘thank you, drive-through’ happy meal (with toy surprise!) content.

Last time I looked, there were no golden arches in Lion’s Arch.

If you don’t mind, I’m going to steal that quote for my next video

Pointy.9308:

Snip

Game of Thrones was a perfect analogy for the context of the argument for which it was brought up.
That argument was that no matter how compelling and entertaining the Living Story was presenting it in a temporary fasion would harm it in the long run. The focus of that argument was “Compelling Story” not Video Game/Tv Series/Book.
This is why I belive the Living Story can’t succed if it’s focused too much on temporary content for the sake of immersion.
If it’s a great story you’ll eventually miss a part and be either left in the dark or forced to rely on the “Previously on the GW2 Living Story!” Dialouge the NPC’s leave behind. If it’s not it’ll be like Anime Filler, something you don’t really care about that’s just there to fill space and that begs the question:
Why write a story if nobdy cares about it?
“But some might care about it!” You say? Well you’re right back in the Game Of Thrones Scenario!
“But some don’t care about the story!” Then why the hell are they writing it? It’s pointless filler nobody cares about!
It’s an endless cycle of lose lose.
kitten it! Where is Tony.6028 when you need him!? (https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/69590/Magic_Find_Flow_Chart.png)

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

Galen Grey.4709:

Kaaboose.3897:

“Oh no! I’m in a game and I don’t know what to do!” In this day and age the rescources to overcome this scenario are almost infinite. But let me throw you the most relevenat:

ASK SOMEBODY. It’s an MMO For crying out loud.

hehe this made me laugh but I dont think thats what Vayne really meant. I think he meant there is just no answer to the question.

Lets assume all content was released permanently. Now imagine a player who bought the game finished the whole storyline in a week and quit. He just logged on again today and asked you what he should do next?

Which one is the right answer?

Halloween, wintersday, lost short, flame and frost, The secret of southsun, dragon bash, sky pirates, the bazaar?

And thats at a high level
Some will suggest specifics they like..

Ohh man you really need to go try dragon ball its a blast! forget about dragon ball guild missions are amazing!

guild missions take too much effort, now skyhammer thats an awesome pvp map you really need to experience

Nahh forget about PvP not so secret now thats a challenge.

etc… etc..

Poor guy his head would explode before he decides what to do!

Thank you. This is the problem almost every person already finds coming back and not knowing what to do. We see some people ask on the forum and get half a dozen contradictory suggestions.

Hell, I play the game every day and sometimes I’m overwhelmed by all the content. I think with content every two weeks, this game would become impossibly clogged. The player base would spread out further and further and the people who claim that we’re losing players would have more to crow about.

This way, everyone that cares about the Living Story is more or less on the same page.

Without the tragedy of the Living “Story” (oh gods, what a misnomer), they wouldn’t have to release half made content every two weeks. They could actually take their time and put out something worth playing.

This kind of brings us back to the whole expansion vs episodic content debate. Since Anet requires people constaly playing and thus buying gems to stay afloat I can see why they’ve gone for releasing cotntent regularaly over large installments.
The problem with doing so is the quality of the conetent WILL suffer. There is no debate to be had there, quality will always suffer under strict deadlines.
I CAN see where Vayne is coming from in this reguard. An oversatuartion of poor quality content IS a bad thing, but TBH if anet can’t get out good content in these timeframes they need to adjust them.
If anet really wants to impliment temporary content to make the world feel alive I honesty think they should focus on little things like NPC’s in capitals (or lions) talking about whats going on in the world or even how it’s effecting them. Maybe a few temporary dynaic events in the world. There are several ways temporary content can be put in to make the world feel more immersive without it being the primary focus.
I know Colin has told us there will be a better mix of temp/reacurring/permanent content but it’s very vauge and I really think the reason we haven’t been given more details right now is so they can judge players reactions to their announcement.
I am anxiosly awaiting these details but I felt it nessesary that the players concernd we might be getting too much temp stuff voice these concerns in the intrum.

Galen Grey.4709:

I think we have two schools of thought here and honestly They both have very valid arguments. I mean it!

Temporary content is good because it provides stuff to do, changes the world tangibly and avoids fracturing the playerbase

Permanent content is good because it allows you to play everything at your own pace, makes it so you can gain those rewards eventually, enriches the world at large.

So I’ve been thinking and I got an idea how you could merge both of these together.

What if we got a herald / historian / whatever in FotM who’s job would be to tweak the whatever machine that makes fractal work to focus on specific episodes in time, 1 month at a time. So this month you could relive the events / activities of the flame and frost event while next month it might be the lost shores story.

Now this would require some changes going forward i would assume, I mean for something like this to work the story driving events would have to be instanced. Unless Anet doesnt have the technology to create replayable instances of real world events easily.. that would be totally awesome if it would work.

I think it might be a good idea.. you talk to this npc and he asks you what you want to relive and then you choose like say Dragon Ball or you choose the effigy ceremony and you get to play that.

I think that would solve the biggest issues of both schools. Players will be able to re-experience the older content they might have missed / really enjoyed and at the same time it would still limit fragmentation as it will not all be available at the same time.

Brilliant? Idiotic? I am curious what do people think?

Have you seen this Galen?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/How-to-Fix-the-Living-Story-in-Guild-Wars-2/
You just went over this is a slightly differnt way. Glad to see I’m not the only one who thinks this way. Feel free to bump it up if you want to discuss you ideas some more tehre since it’s a bit off topic here.

Genophix.3098:

I just wanted to say that I think players should try and keep a healthy perspective on these games.

I love GW2 as much as the next player but I always feel people get a little be too fixated on the game. Just take a step back and look at all the things we DO have to do in this game. They have already said (and ofc Colin said in this thread) that they have listened to us and are working on longer lasting content.

ArenaNet are providing content every two weeks, good content. This have never been done in any western MMO, ever. Threads like this just make me think many MMO players have had it too good for too long and don’t remember the days MMOs where we had to make our own content (which was awesome).

You have to remember, this game is free to play. So they need some mechanism for getting players logging on. If a map or zone is only here for two weeks in creates a need for players to have to commit to that goal and work at it. I do sympathise with players who are, say on holiday for that two weeks, but the show must go on so to speak.

I love the idea of bringing back content via the fractals, so we do get to play old content but at the same time your not breaking the progressive story.

This is why I go over the two scenarios and try and see this from Anets perspective as well. I understand they need methods to keep players playing as that is ultimatly a factor in how the bills are getting paid.
However, as I went over in the Game of Throne Scenario, this will only alientate players in the long run.
Content every 2 weeks is good. Temporary content every 2 weeks is not.

Vayne.8563:

nethykins.7986:

Vayne.8563:

Kaaboose.3897:

Vayne.8563:

RoyalPredator.9163:

The biggest reason for permanent contents:
Casual gamers wouldn’t be forced to play in even’ts peroid, if they have time to explore it in their own speed.

“Do it now or never” is a hardcore style. I don’t get it…

Casual players would NEVER catch up. If Anet introduced content and left it there, and you were casual, you’d either do the current stuff or fall further and further behind.

And good luck in six months getting a group together for older dungeons.

But it’s about choice. A casual could STILL skip all that previous stuff and go right to where everybody is at. But say they start playing more, or they meet a character they really want to learn about. They then have the OPTION of going back and experiancing that content, even if it is solo or with a small group. As it stands a casual player most certianly can NEVER catch up. It’s not possible because the content is gone. However a casual player that doesn’t like the latest release might decide to go back and try some of the odler stuff that sounded interesting. Don’t forget about scaling events and levels in GW2. It’s far more accessable to go back and do previous content in GW2’s enviroment then in otehr MMOs.
Game are about freedom to the players and it’s something Anet stresses a lot in their manifesto. “The most important thing in any game should be the player. We have built a game for them.”

Sorry but it’s not really about choice. The number of people who want this choice are far less than the number of people who want to know what they need to do today. This is something I strongly believe.

While choice would be better for the minority, it could hardly be said to be better for the majority, who don’t want to think and just want to play.

YOU want a choice of what to do…there are enough people out there who want to log in and play without having a research paper before hand. If they can log in and just do what’s on their screen it’s better for them.

This is one of the problems Guild Wars 2 has had all along with people from other MMOs. Without a clear quest hub system that leads you around by the nose, people are lost. Some people LIKE being lost, but most don’t.

It’s sad but true. For me and you, choice is king. For most people, choice is paralyzing…at least too much choice.

I guess all sandboxes are doomed?

I get your point…too much choice can be terrible…but let’s be totally honest, too much of anything doesn’t do anyone any favours.
Although, i’m not too sure what the problem is to allow people to have the choice. People don’t necessarily hate choice, they are more likely to hate choice when being thrown it all at once.
Who’s to say ANet can’t build in a kind of gating process (for lack of a better term) to the living story?

For example..after each event has passed, why don’t they allow you to talk to the herald – because who talks to the herald now – He’ll retell/allow you to relive the story from a selected LS, then allow you to at least port to the dungeon from the respective LS event, complete it and get to see at least some closure if you missed it.
(God forbid people actually have RL living stories and can’t join in for GW2’s version)

Again look at the long term here. New content every 2 weeks. Leave it all in the game. Guy takes a break for three months, which happens. He comes back to a new thing and 11 things he’s missed. Missing stuff frustrates some people. Having too much to choose from, not knowing how to catch up would frustrate even more people.

And this might go on for a year. 104 updates for a year. Leave them all in? Not only would it divide the playerbase, but it would be completely overwhelming to most people.

Sandbox MMOs have never done was well as theme parks, probably for that reason.

“Oh no! I’m in a game and I don’t know what to do!” In this day and age the rescources to overcome this scenario are almost infinite. But let me throw you the most relevenat:

ASK SOMEBODY. It’s an MMO For crying out loud.

Vayne.8563:

Kaaboose.3897:

Vayne.8563:

RoyalPredator.9163:

The biggest reason for permanent contents:
Casual gamers wouldn’t be forced to play in even’ts peroid, if they have time to explore it in their own speed.

“Do it now or never” is a hardcore style. I don’t get it…

Casual players would NEVER catch up. If Anet introduced content and left it there, and you were casual, you’d either do the current stuff or fall further and further behind.

And good luck in six months getting a group together for older dungeons.

But it’s about choice. A casual could STILL skip all that previous stuff and go right to where everybody is at. But say they start playing more, or they meet a character they really want to learn about. They then have the OPTION of going back and experiancing that content, even if it is solo or with a small group. As it stands a casual player most certianly can NEVER catch up. It’s not possible because the content is gone. However a casual player that doesn’t like the latest release might decide to go back and try some of the odler stuff that sounded interesting. Don’t forget about scaling events and levels in GW2. It’s far more accessable to go back and do previous content in GW2’s enviroment then in otehr MMOs.
Game are about freedom to the players and it’s something Anet stresses a lot in their manifesto. “The most important thing in any game should be the player. We have built a game for them.”

Sorry but it’s not really about choice. The number of people who want this choice are far less than the number of people who want to know what they need to do today. This is something I strongly believe.

While choice would be better for the minority, it could hardly be said to be better for the majority, who don’t want to think and just want to play.

YOU want a choice of what to do…there are enough people out there who want to log in and play without having a research paper before hand. If they can log in and just do what’s on their screen it’s better for them.

This is one of the problems Guild Wars 2 has had all along with people from other MMOs. Without a clear quest hub system that leads you around by the nose, people are lost. Some people LIKE being lost, but most don’t.

It’s sad but true. For me and you, choice is king. For most people, choice is paralyzing…at least too much choice.

This… is just so flawed, not only on technicle and design levels but aslo pylosophically. But I’ll spare the ranting, mulling and terible spelling and get right to the point.

You see that Orange Star in your UI? See what it says there? That’s what you go do right now.

And for the ‘minority’ that don’t want to, give them the choice not too. Just leave the old stuff in the game.

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

Krosslite.1950:

killcannon.2576:

I think as time wears on….. and on, and on, more and more players are starting to see the negatives of the temporary content of the Living Story. And as time wears on Anet will see the faults in their design decisions, as it’s already starting now with the backpedaling we see from dev posts. If they want to keep the majority of their players, their mission statement will change.

Thank you op for your post and insight. Keep up the good fight.

Hmm killcannon…. I just went through the Dev Tracker and also no new articles or blogs.
No one is seeing this “backpedaling” you are referring too. Everything is still pointing to the current direction they are taking this game at the present.

The “biggest flaw” most are agreeing upon is Anet needing the writers to present more compelling stories and/or more writers.

I think it’s not correct to blame the writers. I do understand how it looks that way but it has more to do with there task.

Anet is not working on an expansion so focuses on the gem-store. They do that buy putting stuff temporary in the gem-store / game, creating a feel of urgency so people will buy / play it. (Not because people like it, but because if they don’t do / buy it today it will be gone tomorrow (not literally tomorrow.. always seem to have do define such statements on the Internet))

That means that basically all the writes need to do, is create an excuse to put more temporary stuff in the gem-store /game and that is what they do. And they might try to make a bigger better story as a total but in the short run Anet just needs an excuse to put in more temporary stuff to get people to play and buy.

They just do there task.

I do agree writing is a bit weak so far and thats probably because of the temporary content. Its not really possible to have along story arch if players can miss a chunk cause they were on holiday. It is also true however that such long arch content isnt suited for the “small” living story updates. Its probably something the long term teams are working on that will be more permanent. At least I hope so.

I disagree that people play the content because they’re forced by the urgency. If you really dislike the content whats the problem with missing it?

I dont like MMO X that doesnt mean I force myself to play it just so I can experiance the content before it closes right?

Same here, if someone doesnt like an update fine, whats the problem with going to play some of the other mountain of content for the next 2 weeks?

It was summed up very well earlier by The Talcmaster.7391:

Fun on someone else’s schedule is not fun

Galen Grey.4709:

Kaaboose.3897:

Galen Grey.4709:

Mathias.9657:

… snip
Amazing. I never had a dev team make my blood boil so bad, I really think you guys are clueless. Where is 2006 ANet… please come back, please.

Actually WoW is essentially all temporary content in a way. Once you finish a quest its done. You cant repeat it at all. Once you outlevel a zone, its done, you cant play there anymore. Once finish a certain tier and move to the next that content is done no reason to replay it again.

Sure if you create an alt its there for you to do again fair enough but again its do once and thats it just as good as one. In Gw2 the whole game remains relevant (with the exception of hearts of course)
Snip

Did not even bother reading any further. If that is your opening arguement no point. The fact that I can roll and alt and do it again is great. The fact that a new player can do it 1-2 years later is also great.
And everything in GW2 remains relevant? You have to remove content otherwise it will break immersion but the same events repeating endlessly is okay? I can see anet trying to spin that in a later patch note:
*To create a deeper sense of immersion we are removing all dynamic events from the game. They will now be played one more time each. Timetable is as follows…

I dont know if you ever did an event chain or if you’re one of those people who just runs away the moment a single event ends but all event chains are designed cyclic over an over all goal by the people involved. Example separatist steal cows, players get them back. Thus if the event chain is running you will either be defending the farm from having its cows stolen or you will be fighting to get the cows back. Its not perfect no doubt, Separatists are way too persistent, you’d expect they’d give up after loosing 1000s of people on the cow stealing activity but beyond that there is nothing that breaks continuity.

And like you said, talk like this is what caused the creation of temporary content I would bet on it. People complained that a village being attacked again after its been defended is not dynamic / doesnt create change etc.. even though in real life we have cities like Jerusalem which has been attacked 52 times and conquered 44 times. Not only that but various sources state that Palermo is the city thats been conquered the most even though I couldnt find any numbers to support that.

Anyhow back on subject. I’d love nothing else then more dynamic events but alas you cannot drive story forward with cyclic events. How would you do it? To have meaning full stories it has to be a narration that goes forward. The lord of the rings would be stupid if every time Frodo destroyed the ring Sauron would build another one and the whole thing repeats again endlessly (granted the concept works for Battlestar Galactica but anyhow). It works great for some stuff. If you got 2 factions sieging each other of course events will repeakittens not like any army gives up after one battle right? But not to drive story forward.

Also not sure where you get the idea by I am pretty sure arenanet are not trying to destroy the game and ergo they have no need to find a way to spin a reason in order to remove all content from the game.

I’m sure their not trying to destory their game, but that doesn’t mean that they are not. I also fear they are worreid GW2 is already on the decline and thus are now looking at short term ways to make it more successful. I could be 100% wrong there and I hope I am but I’m still going to share my thoughts on the matter.

I agree that you can’t rely 100% on dynamic events, just like you can’t relly 100% on anything, be it PvP, WvWvW, Temporary Content, Dungeons etc. My main point is that too much focus, and espically on temporary content, can only harm GW2 in the long run.

I know I’m going to get shot down for mention WoW and story but from BC onwards each patch moved the story forwards a bit more, just has each GW2 patch (or at least it;s trying to, I still get that filler feeling) it is trying to do the same thing. The difference is that WoW left that content behind once the story moved on for players that wanted to go back to it.

Why are we removing this content once it’s done? For immersion? Cmon do we rip the pages of chapters we’ve already read from books so we aren’t tempted to go back and check somethign and ruin our immersion? Or even worse are we doing that to punish those that didn’t read the book fast enough.

I can see small updates working, I can see a LITTLE temporary stuff here and there working, but I cannot see removing large sections of content, be it for immertion or for creating a sense of urgency working in the long run.

Vayne.8563:

RoyalPredator.9163:

The biggest reason for permanent contents:
Casual gamers wouldn’t be forced to play in even’ts peroid, if they have time to explore it in their own speed.

“Do it now or never” is a hardcore style. I don’t get it…

Casual players would NEVER catch up. If Anet introduced content and left it there, and you were casual, you’d either do the current stuff or fall further and further behind.

And good luck in six months getting a group together for older dungeons.

But it’s about choice. A casual could STILL skip all that previous stuff and go right to where everybody is at. But say they start playing more, or they meet a character they really want to learn about. They then have the OPTION of going back and experiancing that content, even if it is solo or with a small group. As it stands a casual player most certianly can NEVER catch up. It’s not possible because the content is gone. However a casual player that doesn’t like the latest release might decide to go back and try some of the odler stuff that sounded interesting. Don’t forget about scaling events and levels in GW2. It’s far more accessable to go back and do previous content in GW2’s enviroment then in otehr MMOs.
Game are about freedom to the players and it’s something Anet stresses a lot in their manifesto. “The most important thing in any game should be the player. We have built a game for them.”