Guild Wars 2

Its an april fools joke no doubt, however, the map looks legit, and I would not doubt it could very well have been data farmed. So while there is no expansion coming soon, that by no means invalidates this map, that will very likely come with the expansion… whenever we recieve it.

So, of the thousands, prehaps even hundreds of thousands, of gold pieces that were donated to Divinities Reach recovery, what became of it? You would think with that much cash they could:
*Errect scaffolds or implant implosive bombs to dismantanle the massive tower fragments scattered across the coast
*Have ships or constructs dredge the lake of its fragments
*Hire clean up crews to pace the terrain with anti-toxin spray.
*There could even be events were players jump in to help
Yet so far all we have is a single asura and his golem standing around at the tengu outpost south of the lake. Yet even their involvement in the process of cleansing toxin is obsured unless you talk to them.

I’ve never played with town clothes before, never had the need or desire, and I’ve always prefered majestic armor anyways, so I never realized how important a feature it is to the player base until coming across this forum… bad move Anet.

Furthermore, to do so would NOT, to use your term of phrase, ‘staple future events as the past’ for these ‘future events’ as you call them, are already known to have occured in the past. Such as how Scarlet stole her first couple of airships from the pact (yes this was stated in game) from which logic detates occured after the forming of the pact, in which our characters played a pivital role, and this but one of many post personal story references. so regardless of whether you want it or not, personal story has already been proclaimed past events by living story, and will likely continue to be dubbed so. it would only make sense for the diologue to match the story.

Bob F It.5701:

This just further inflames point #14 that Shriketalon.1937 made. The player is now made even more insignificant to the game in addition to their character because all of their past actions have now been auto-piloted. This is meant to be an interactive medium; to staple future actions to the player as past events of the character makes the storytelling anything but interactive.

And to diverge from the timeline makes it anything but linare, in affect transforming the story into a chaotic pool of plot holes and inconsistancies. As I said previously, they can inform players that personal story is in the past with a simple notice at the start of a mission. This was very effective in gw1, so I dont see why it won’t work here. And what the OP wanted was for the story to feel personalized for achievements they’ve completed in the past, this can be done through diverging points in the storyline, ie your race, choice of order, and whether to take tanks through orr or ships through orr, while a less personalized base tittle, such as killing zhaitan, can stand for those who have not yet arrived at turning points in the story. Because one way or another you become pact commander, but how you get there, and what you do with that power, is different for everyone. this still keeps the story in chronological order but allows for personalization.

Bob F It.5701:

That still doesn’t excuse how it’s a terrible delivery of exposition.

NPC: Hey there, dragonslayer!
PC: Eh? I just woke from the pale tree; only dragon I’ve killed was inside a dream.

The simple fact of the matter, is that regardless of whether you completed personal story before or after living story, the events of living story still occure after personal story, so it only makes sense for the diologue to reflect that. And yes, it is a valid method of story delivory, some expository pieces begin at the middle or end of the story and then proceed to tell how the characters got to that point. One method of making the timeline clear, was actually implimented in GW1, when you travel to another continent and enter a mission that was dated before your arrival, a text pops up, informing you that, ‘you are about to witness events that transpired before your arrival in Lions Arch’, in a similar fassion, personal story missions could state, “these events occured pre scarlet invasion” or the like, not that I think its truely nessicary, but for those of you who can’t sort it out in your minds, I think this is a viable solution to make the transition smooth and clean, and is a far better choice than trashing the timeline with inconsistancies. Furthermore, those of you who want very specific diologue tailored to your engame choices, character who have yet to join a order would not be able to be aquainted with one, in such a case they would be given the base tittle commander of the pact of dragon slayer, as regardless of what choices you make, you end up there anyways, whereas those further on in personal story could be remembered for more specific choices and achievements that are dependent upon those choices.

Lostwingman.5034:

You need to understand that it’s not about the “LS” timeline. It’s the “current” timeline. When you play the Personal Story it’s already long past happened. The PS is set in time, the open world reflects the present. It is not a hard concept.

Exactly, playing personal story is like going back and watching an old recording of your first grade play. its real life, it still happened, but its locked in the past; that’s personal story. whereas the you that puts down the old recording to go on doinging other things in you life, that’s the present, that’s living story. and just because you take a moment in the presnt to watch events from your past, doesn’t mean your past occured in the present. Its not that hard to draw out the events in your mind, then seperate and organize them to how they should be, what order they are meant to flow in, rather than the order you played them.

In a similar fasion the pretrillogy for star wars, simply because it was released after star wars, nobody is under the misconception that the events take place after the fall of the empire. Or if the first movie of a series you watch is the sequal, and you go back later to find out what happened prior by watching the first, is that not easy to conceptualize a timeline?

I’d iimmagine the reverse would work better, use living story to expand to other continents, and expansions to continue the storyline. why? because the main story won’t make sense if temporary, but new continents added with temporary introductions, can be recycled in the advance of the permanant main plot via expansions.

I don’t agree with making it personalized depending on whether you have or haven’t killed zhaitain, that breaks the timeline if you haven’t. as a player on a new character you must simply concepualize that living story occures after the personal story you have yet to complete.

Majic.4801:

Kasmeer may not be your friend, but she’s my friend, and that’s all that matters to the Hero of Lion’s Arch who, when all seemed lost, selflessly ignored the plights of hundreds of poor Lion’s Archlings to rummage through debris piles and grab enough heirlooms to earn my Selfless Potion and thus forevermore memorialize my selflessness with a golden halo.

Kuh-BRAHAM!

I love you XD

There were always construction towers on vigil HQ, so the moment living story came out and they mentioned the world evolving like a real world, I wondered if they would actually finish the consruction there… likewise I wondered if the dam by divinities reach would be completed, but hey, one out of two… at any rate it wouldn’t make sense for the dam to be finished, sense there is a quest requiring you to help with the repairs. as for the fort in brisbian wildlands, we all know it is ran by bandates, the reminants of the white mantal, and possibly their base of operations… I would love if LS went in this direction ;3

Scarlet may have been mentally insane, but we are not cellibrating the death of a mentally insane person, we are not happy because someone who was not right in her mind is no longer with us, we are cellebrating the death of a mass murderer, cellebrating the end of her destruction and slaughter. if you look at history, the deaths and demise of mass murders has always been celebrated, and probablly always will be. and to an extent, its neccisary, people need to let off steam, to express themselves, its the only way we can stand back up after falling down. And no, I don’t feel pitty for her, prior to her insanity, she was warned to tred carefully by some, to stop entirely by others, she knew what she was getting into, but she continued onwards regardless. she chose her path, chose to throw away her sanity, and thus by all means, she is a fool, and deserves to be ridiculed.

AlphaWolf.2709:

So the prestige of having a legendary is completely gone. We will see level 1 key farmers with legendary weapons and T3 cultural. Tell me ANET, what incentive do we have to keep playing your game?

Not by any means, a key farmer still had to earn the legendary weapon in the first place, the prestige is theirs simply for obtaining it, so what if they want to put it on one of their lower levels or even a key farming character, they have a right to do with their equipment whatever they will, they worked hard for it, if not crafting the weapon themselves, then earning the cash with which to buy it. I don’t know about you, but its no meager task earning 1.2~4k gold. At any rate its already possible to give a key farmer your legendary, so by no means does this change anything.

lordkrall.7241:

Because it isn’t technically a bug?
It is working exact as they have coded it to work.

It might not be the ultimate way to get it to work, but it is still working as intended, and thus not a bug.

Okay, I sumbit on that point, bug was a poor choice of words, as indeed their programing is doing exactly what it was programed to do, create a closed portion of the existing map. And prehaps to change this is outside of their engines mechanics, that the core system is programed to do such, and as such, they have no viable fix. however, it is poor planing and unprofessional to leave it this way. I believe we can conceed on that.

Sariel V.7024:

sAdam.5876:

I would be nice for Atlas to incorporate short stories like “What Scarlet saw”.

Good idea. And I expect the devs will agree.

I agree, thus far, the atlas has a couple of pieces of concept art with footnotes, a promotional video or two, and random irrelvent sound clips. I feel they could have done so much more with this, its supposed to be used to brush up on our lore, or stack our arguement for debate, but none of the events are actually documented. cut sceens and short stories would greatly improve this effort.

lordkrall.7241:

hedix.1986:

Wrong. People have been asking for a LS recap tool IN GAME.
Atlas is an external feature, a brief sentence here and there about past updates scattered across the map, but it still doesn’t adequately present the story in-game, like those blog stories.

Not specifically.
Mainly they have asked for a feature, be it in-game or out of game.

And I would assume that this is simply a temporary version, since people have been demanding to get it right now, while waiting for an in-game version to be completed.

Would people rather have nothing at all? I can almost guarantee that if that would have been the case we would have people whining about them not adding something they have “promised”.

No, since the begining of living story, be it short stories for current updates, or an expository piece on past events, we have been asking them to put story content where it belongs; in game. And they said they were working on a system to do just that. And as for whining about having nothing at all, I for one, have not mentioned the promised in-game system since they noted its developement, believing that they were indeed doing just that. and you know, I’m fine with this being a suplementary system to supply us while they work on the real deal. the problem, is that this thread was drafted to inquire and express disaproval as to why they gave us this system instead of the promised one, but rather than informing us that we are being to hasty in our judgement, they igore the issue all together. which, in its own right, all the more confirms that this is indeed the promised system. just a little bit of communication goes a long way.

Astraea.6075:

You illustrate everything that is wrong with these forums.

An Anet poster on the community team puts a note that they have changed the thread title and why, and you decide to use that to attack the company.

If you hate it, leave. I’ll even pay you.

I take it that you haven’t visited many forums outside gw2. In any other forum there are moderators who will edit or erase your post for moving off topic, yet here it seems the moderators are the main culprit. in other forums, there are moderators who take an active role in shaping and growing the debate. But here, If ever they have anything to say, if ever they grace our threads with a word of their own, its seldom anything more than a footnote, irelevent and weak at best. They brush aside our concerns, or simply fail to address them entirely -and that, from the sheppards of this community, is what’s ailing it. The issue here is a mater of integrity, they are more than willing to write us up for what they feel a demeaning title, yet will not step in to face the acusations, will not shoulder the blame if they are in the wrong, or correct us if we are. You called my post an attack on the company, however, one must first show a proper responce, to recieve a proper reception; and of that, we are left in want.

CC Danicia.1394:

Atlas.4509:

The title of this post made me sad :-(

I fixed it. It is imperative that feedback threads are respectful and offer up constructive criticism for the Development Teams. We like to point people to feedback threads, with both positive & negative criticisms.

Got to love ANet, instead of adressing the issue at hand, they give us off topic one liners such as, ‘we feel the title is rude, so we changed it.’ Never mind the fact thats its rude to: be off topic, not adress our legitiment concerns, and make promises that they don’t intend to keep. Simple statements like, ‘we appologize for going back on our word, but we lack suficiant resourses for that kind of content’, or ‘we still intend to hour our statement, this is merely a stepping stone in the right direction,’ or ’you’re mistaken, this has nothing to do with the promised in-game content, which, we are still working on’ would have surficed. No, thank you for devaluing our arguements and concerns.

This is a legitimate bug issue, why has ANet not replied???

Please don’t, ruining personal story in LA was more than enough

Seras.5702:

kuscheldrow.6415:

Everyone is scattered around the world now,

I dunno, I kinda like the idea of everyone spread out throughout Tyria and not just posting up in LA chatting and not playing.

No, a central player hub is necissary to organize events, find parties for dungeons and fractals, to simply have a place where the community can get together and interact. regardless of whether this is in LA, a cultural city, or some new place all together, a centeral hub is needed

Imbune.5497:

Einlanzer.1627:

This is only one of many reasons why the LW is simply not as good a concept as Anet management seems to zealously believe it is.

I disagree-I think it’s great concept and indeed the direction mmorpgs should be rather than a poor imitation of a story driven single player rpg. However, the problem (aside from delivery thus far…although this patch is a lot of fun imo and inspires hope for the future) is the single player rpg story came first then LS was an afterthought. Imagine if the game started with LS as the method to convey the narrative of Tyria and the PS never existed. Continuity issues? Gone. Excessive plot holes? Gone. Parallel universe syndrome? Gone…….Trahearne? Gone (<-WIN! seriously, how can you argue with that?). Imainge if Zhaitan’s blight was the LS…ah what could have been.

Would you read a book with the first half torn out? or watch a movie that has no pause or rewind feature and can only be played once? even tv shows like game of thorns, which they so regularily strive to compair, has reruns, can be tapped, and will cell CDs, the whole concept of one time entertainment Iis flawed, because entertainment is meant to be viewed and enjoyed more than once, a story, is only good, only comprehensable if you see the whole plot through, and adventure is most enjoyable experienced from begining to end, and it doesn’t make sense for someone to randomly pop up in the middle of it. no, living story should by no means be seen as a viable replacement for personal story.

It cannot stay this way, Living story might be a living, evolving world, but personal story ONLY evolves as you move through it, and once completed, it is an event in the past. And a past event simply cannot be twisted with a present one. It doesn’t make any sense that way. ANet has stated, and there have been many events in living story that confirm it, that living story comes after personal story… and while it may not bother we who have already completed personal story, what about new players? it ruins the game for them, and cannot simply be brushed aside.

^^ unless their new neighbors… or even… dragon minions, push into tengu lands launching our next campaign of salvation into isolated and unwelcoming, but beseiged territory. But that’s a long shot. either way, I see their sudden activity at this pivital point as forshadowing, or prehaps even, a turning point.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

It’s the VIP area. If you want more passes, simply buy a permanent one for each of your characters. It is cheaper to buy just one pass to share across your account, but to each his own.

Right, because I’m going to buy a pass for each character so they can have ‘exclusive’ services that all players already have for free…. think about it. its pointless. the only service it has that the vigil keep does not, is crafting stations, but you can visit any city for that, visit them for free even, if you use vigil keep’s portals.

You failed to adress the topic of this thread, that passing the ticket between characters is impractical bussy work, and an alltogether pointless excorcize.

Name in use already.7294:

Since the election I’ve remained a strong Kiel supporter. But now with everything that has happened and the dialogue with Evon Nashblade in Vigil keep. I’m seriously regretting voting for her.

tl;dr Living story season 2. Rise of Evon! plz

…this event would have occured regardless of who was ellected

First off, if all the services are available in the vigil keep, why do we need the airship?
Secondly, while the pass is acount bound, it can only be equipped on one character at a time, so what is the point of having one character drop off the pass in the bank, and then wping a second character there to pick it up, just so that second character can acess a second, more exclusive, bank, when all of the second character’s bussiness could be fullfilled at the first? There seems to be a lot of running around involved to acess this exclusive bank, when by all means the regular bank offers the same services. A wast of gems I’d say. Now it would be different if that pass was consumable, allowing all characters on an account to visit the airship at any time.

If you walk towards the Tengu door during the LA invasion, a hailstorm of arrows will rain down on the dredge there… I think this form of activeness in an otherwise invisible race, is a good sign of future involvement. Now, I realize hiding behind their door and shooting whoever gets near could simply be taken as their usual isolationism, but until now, we have never really seen them get invovled in anything, so the fact that the devs added this little touch, seems to forshadow future involvement.

Lions Arch has been destroyed and rebuilt once before, yet the video claims it “survived”, so for it to say “nothing last forever,” gives a very finite feel, as if this time, it wont be coming back. No, LA is the most important city in the game; a cultural center, the center of the story-line, and the place where all players gather to trade, socialize, and organize parties for instances, fractal, and dungeons – so there is no doubt the game will not survive without LA, or a replacement. But I do not think we will retake LA, as they have been informing us for a while now, at the end of this living story season, the world will be changed forever. You could say that rebuilding LA and giving it a new look, would be changing LA drastically, but it still doesn’t match the dire connotation of their quote “nothing last forever.”

KorKor.9452:

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

@ KorKor… have you seen this update? Maybe he has taken how players feel into consideration, and you will be immensely pleased when you finally partake. Cool it, and don’t denounce it until you’ve seen it for yourself.

The track record of the Scarlet arc isn’t very good though and the history of the larger story in general with GW2 is dubious. While the smaller type stories have often been done quite well. So they track record speaks for itself and even if abit harsh I stand by what I said. Plus even if on the off chance it is done really well one segment of a movie/book/game being amazing never makes up for the rest.

Yes, they have a track record of faults; if they were shipwrights, their craft would have sunk the moment it left the slipway. But we the player base have been all too willing to jump in and point out the holes in their boat, so perhaps they took note. Maybe they have learned from their mistakes, accounted for the holes, and graduated from amateur nautical engineering to become the true pioneers they have always claimed to be. Well, then again, maybe this release will be crap… but that remains to be seen.

@ KorKor… have you seen this update? Maybe he has taken how players feel into consideration, and you will be immensely pleased when you finally partake. Cool it, and don’t denounce it until you’ve seen it for yourself.

phys.7689:

the point of the open world isnt just aesthetics, its that you can wander over somewhere and see something exciting and interesting and participate in it. If its in an instance, that cant happen, and whatever is in the instances is not even observable by people who arent there.

You can create the planning and starting when you are ready via having pre events that start the actual mission. They already have dynamic events in game that are triggered by talking to an npc, or after doing a quick event.

I personally think large number player things should be in open world, and 5 man type stuff in instances.

I would argue, that the point of an open world is the freedom to go and do whatever you want, so you’re not boxed-in like an arcade game, so you’re free to choose your own path and explore. However, this contradicts the point of a world event, in where one must take a scripted path, and complete scripted tasks as they are presented to you. There is no freedom in that, if you don’t preform in a certain manor, you don’t win. Sure, there is an infinite amount of strategies you can devise, but you MUST let the Amber wurm eat you, or all the strategies in the world will surmount to nothing. More to the point, there is no need for freedom, after all, you’re not going to explore or leave the area until you complete the event, so the ability to do so is pointless.

Yes, you can plan during the pre-event, but its one-sided. Regardless of what you say in map chat, those who don’t want to partake in the event, wont do so. And it wont matter how much planning you attempt if the people you are talking to are ignoring you or afk. Yet you are stuck with them regardless. In an instance, you can make sure everyone is alert and ready to cooperate before you jump in, in a party, you can kick them out if they are not.

lordkrall.7241:

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

no, it wasnt, there was also a story instance, scarlet’s secret lab, and the the ability to destroy and harvest thumpers… none of these three elements were listed in the trailer, but would have been included in 2013’s style of preview pages. So what is featured in the video is NOT all we’re going to receive.

Maybe I should have added a massive sarcasm tag, because clearly my “oh wait..” wasn’t giveaway enough.

‘oh wait…’ could be “oh wait, they didn’t” or “oh wait, they did”… I took it as the former, and for that I apologize.

bad idea, because players who didn’t like those updates will find the target of their angst.

Traveller.7496:

I hope they at least try to explain why the Aetherblades work for her or where they come from. It’s implied so far she’s so powerful she can threaten hundreds and hundreds of henchmen into working for her.

She didn’t ‘get the Aetherblades to work for her’ she created the Aetherblades, and thus is in all regards their benefactor, someone to whom they own respect and loyalty. Sure the crew of pirates existed before she took the reins, but it was her tinkering that made their ambitions realized.

Simply logic really, doesn’t even need to be explained. Getting the dredge and flame legion to work together… now that’s another story.

Shiren.9532:

jsduke.6537:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Well I wish you luck during the event. I’m going to pass on this one. I have no interest in being ganked during a pve story event.

But I guess the people who like to harass/bully others in non consensual pvp need their fix too. So have fun I guess..

Yeah, I’m with you on that one. I will probably check it out, but I won’t be spending any non-LS time there. Depending on how the achieves/rewards are handled, I may not participate at all.

It figures, though. We finally get a sizable new map addition and it is PvP oriented. Oh well.

If I had to guess, the whole reason this maps exists is to cater to the WvW crowd. The fact that Scarlet has anything to do with it is simply a weak tie in to the Living Story. The map existed for WvW purposed, the writing team knew about it, so they came up with some minimal lore to tie it into the larger narrative. This map seems to have been prioritised because of the Chinese release of GW2. They don’t want players queuing to get into WvW, so they created an additional map to solve that problem before it launches in that market. Edge of the Mists has less to do with the current WvW audience or the Living Story in general and more to do with the Chinese audience of GW2.

There will be far more map additions for PvE in the future. I wouldn’t be surprised if we got an expansion by the end of the year.

On the contrary, the map was created for WvW, but the very first version that was presented to us, showcased Aetherblades, so the lore tie-in had been there since the beginning. Up til now, many aspects of living story have hinted at Scarlet’s interest in the mist, so this is by no means thrown together, LS has been leading to this map, and thus, is a core aspect of this map(at least in the manner that we are introduced to it). And if you think about it, it makes more sense that way, rather than a new map appearing for no reason other than player convenience; how does that fit into the realism of Tyria?

Nat.4029:

I said nothing about adding zones like Southsun

The following quote suggest just that

Nat.4029:

One thing that hasn’t really been brought up is the fact that Southsun was released in October of 2012 if I’m not mistaken. It was about 2 months after launch that we got our first little chunk of content. When this happened, I along with many others thought, “Wow! Anet is going to really pump out the content.”

Now, over a year later, how many new zones are opened up? That was where they failed IMO. I really was thinking they’d be releasing new zones every couple months, but I was sadly disappointed.

If you pump them out as fast as Southsun, ‘every couple of months’, you’ll receive the same results. Also, the reason Southsun was unsuccessful is because there are no missions(hearts), instances, or dungeons that regularly drag players there, so until the next major arc of personal story is ready, all new maps will likewise fail. And it is simply impossible to prepare a quality arc, every couple of months.

BlackBeard.2873:

As nice as instances might be for some content and whatnot, there is also an epic feel from succeeding with a bunch of people with no affiliation other than dedication to work together and get it done. Its also very cool when done in an open-world setting that you have explored before, and where there are actual impacts (like wurm attacks or whatnot).

Also, making instances is very technically difficult, especially when you want to allow as many as 30x the number of people in a 5-man dungeon. See they can create virtual instances for 5-man teams that use relatively few server resources, but that scales VERY quickly with number of people. Making instances also means that there could be many groups trying to fill up instances at the same time, as opposed to the current system which allows them to only make the overflows that are necessary.

Edit: To clarify, instances have many benefits, and open-world does too. Technical challenges can happen with their current setups for making more instances however, so it may not happen anytime soon, or even ever.

It would still be on the same map, only, a quarantined portion of it, similar to how personal story works. So it still has the real feel of ‘fighting in the world you’ve traveled through’. It could also operate like an overflow, only, a ‘party only’ overflow. As for that epic feeling of fighting with people you don’t know, this by no means denounces plugs as a variable, you can recruit people as you do for any other event. The only difference, is you get to talk and plan with them, and then start when you’re ready. Even if plugs die out, friends will still invite their friends, and I seriously doubt you know everyone they do.

GrayFox.2601:

lordkrall.7241:

I though it was quite clear that Edge of the Mists will be invaded by the Aetherblades and thus give us a rather clear view that it is very much tied into the Living Story.

We know Scarlet have been looking towards the Mists, and now we will see why.
It is extremely unlikely that this have not been planned since they announced Edge of the Mists.

Here’s the contents of the link announcing Edge of the Mists. There are no references to Living Story at all, so I don’t see how anyone can deduce it is likely they had it planned all along.

Edge of the Mists was supposed to be a quality of life improvement for WvW. It’s intent is clearly stated below. I was looking forward to it as a way to get back into WvW after Season 1 burned me out. It’s disappointing to see such a promised improvement is being combined with LS content that has been…less than well received by many.

It also might be in the devs best interest to take a look at the map chats in Lornar’s Pass during and after the Marionette event as a preview to how a large quantity of players participating in LS content that requires tactics and coordination…does not bring out the best in everyone.

Yes, in your example, there is no clear statement depicting the involvement of Scarlet or her Aetherblade Pirates. However, there was also a promotional video and if I recall correctly, a live stream, that displayed the Aetherblade pirates, an Aetherblade checkpoint boss, and their various camps on the map. These came out around the same time as your quote, but if you want to play ignorant to all subject matter but your own, that’s fine by me.

Shpongle.6025:

This is not World of Warcraft, mmkay? This is Guild Wars 2.

Nice, instead of countering his argument by addressing his points, lets depreciate yours with a generic statement. Good Job. He brought important issues to the table, and you simply brush them off because you disagree with the means, well played.

No, this is not WoW… but that by no means indicates that it does everything better, that there aren’t things WoW does that would benefit GW2 greatly. Like it or not, it is a fact that this big, this complex of an event, is not suited for the chaos of ‘Open World’, when this ‘open world’ by its very nature, promotes each player to do as they will. A direct contradiction to the coordination that MUST exist for the event to succeed.

Some players are afraid instances would create exclusive events, would divide the world between the Elitist/hardcore who can beat it, and the Casual players who cant. But isn’t open world content doing the same? I can’t tell you how many people complain about being stuck in overflows, weak servers, or over populated servers, blaming their losses on these facts. Who complain about not being able to fight with their friends and/or guild mates. And you know, they’re right, they shouldn’t be EXCLUDED from victory because their world is weak or they’re stuck in an overflow, EXCLUDED from playing with their friends/guild because the map is full, EXCLUDED from playing on their own server, because the map is full.

By its own design, instance play would revoke these exclusions, more than that, for those casual players who feel they’ll never win, an instance would allow us to coordinate the contrary. If there is say a 50 man cap, we can stack it with 40 hardcore players, and 10 casual, we can carry them if we must -which is far more than we can afford to do with the current system. But I honestly don’t even believe that is necessary, for as long as you gather a group of individuals who are willing/enjoy working together, it wont matter if they are casual or hardcore; they will make it through with teamwork… which, once more, is more than we can say for the current system.

Just about every battle against the marionette, win or lose(unless it was a perfect run) I hear players blaming others for the groups set backs. ‘Its the ranger’s fault’, ‘WE NEED YOU TO READ’, ‘how can you not understand, its the simplest thing ever’, ‘kittening overflows’, ‘kitten guesting system’ the list goes on until I’m sick. They’ll come up with any fault but their own, and what it really comes down to is one phase twisted into hundreds of forms, “we could have won without you.” These world events are causing hate between hardcore and casual gamers, and the sad part, is that sometimes the casual gamers are not to blame. If a group of elitist -as many players are fond of calling each other- go into an instance together, who could they blame but themselves should they fail? They chose the team, they chose the strategy, and they chose who to led… but they came up short. The fault would be their own. There is no hate in that, no division of the GW2 community, so why must you pit us up against each other in open world?

I believe all players should be able to experience and enjoy all content, that there should be no gated content. Yet I also agree that there should be content for all types of players, that hardcore players wants should not be dismissed simply to gain casual players approval. Hardcore players should have challenging and rewarding content, that makes them enjoy the game, otherwise, what is the point of playing? Or should GW2s forsake one player base for another? You could say hardcore content excludes casual players, but doesn’t it go both ways?

And really, hardcore player content is not impossible for casual players, it simply requires them to go the next step, to do their best, and possibly, even improve as players. Maybe we cant win it all the time, but would it really be fun if all victories were assured, handed to us? And when you get that ONE victory, and swear never to do it again, you still feel proud, don’t you?

Finally Fantasy 13, Mission 51… if I ever manage to defeat it… after hours and countless attempts… NEVER AGAIN! But I still want to do it.

And dully noted, there is also the option to make two versions of content, such as how fractals have levels, there could be a casual player and hardcore player mode, the latter of which more challenging and rewarding.

FrozenStarRo.7240:

They changed the format/display of the Releases page https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/ so it no longer includes the sneak preview box linking to details of the upcoming LS. I don’t like the change either, but it looks like it’s staying this way for the foreseeable future.

On a side note, I do like the new formatting

The Devs specifically stated that bosses like the wurm are made for hardcore or elite players, who desire a challenge of strategy, skill, and cooperation out of this game. That being said, this kind of content is NOT made for casual players. There are 100s of bosses in GW2, and all but one thus far can be played and defeated by casual players. Well, here’s one for the hardcore players. Is there something wrong with that; putting different kinds of content into the game to suit different player levels and interest? Or should the needs and wants of more skilled players be ignored simply because they contradict your own?

If you accept the fact that this is not for casual players, and thus cannot be won with casual players muddling it up, then you would realize that this event cannot be done without control of who partakes. We need planning, leadership, and teamwork that requires the full dedication and attention of each player; a feat, that CANNOT BE ACCOMPLISHED ON A WORLD MAP, simply because we have no control of the players on that map.

And you know, its not even a matter of casual vrs. hardcore player -in all regards, I am a casual player- and as long as the player is reading chat, listening to and following directions, it doesn’t matter that they are a casual, they will still be an asset. But with a world map, you can’t insure that everyone in the event is going to cooperate, you can’t even insure that everyone on the map is going to join in the event. Unlike a party you can’t scout and gather a crew that will work hard and follow directions even if they are not the best of gamers, to make sure they know what they’re doing before you plunge in, nor can you kick them out when you find that they are not doing their part. You cant even arrange to play with your guild-mates and friends. Many players PvEing may be taking the spot of someone who could otherwise be there fighting at your side, pounding in the DPS that would make the difference between victory and defeat.

-So give us the power, allow us to make certain that regardless of their play skill, everyone involved will do their best, will actively listen and cooperate.
-allow us to plan ahead of time; to select leaders and strategies, to give roles and coordinate teams, to make certain everyone knows what to do.
-don’t ask us to preform a task that requires 100% map cooperation, unless we can insure that 100% of the map intends to play in the first place.

These are feats that can only be monitored by an INSTANCE. You can use the same system of overflows, except a “party only” overflow. This by no means excludes players, it just makes sure that they are all organized before they jump into the fray.

You could do this is by employing a system you already have. Strengthen Commander/squad, make that into a massive party system that can enter instances together, preform raids together. Then perhaps, people would actually join squads for once, and squad chat would be a helpful feature rather than a pointless one.

Nat.4029:

One thing that hasn’t really been brought up is the fact that Southsun was released in October of 2012 if I’m not mistaken. It was about 2 months after launch that we got our first little chunk of content. When this happened, I along with many others thought, “Wow! Anet is going to really pump out the content.”

Now, over a year later, how many new zones are opened up? That was where they failed IMO. I really was thinking they’d be releasing new zones every couple months, but I was sadly disappointed. Before you say “Labyrinthe Cliffs!!!”. I don’t count that because it’s only accessible periodically. Probably one month out of the year. This Living Story content is fine and dandy for a lot of people, but to me I compare it to the holiday events and I don’t consider it content. Content in my eyes is permanent. I know a lot disagree, but it’s just the way I feel.

Oh yeah, lets pump out more maps like Southsun, because its not the least played map in game…

Jemmi.6058:

This does not confirm that you will get everything you wanted out of an expansion. It confirms that you will get content that is normally delivered via an expansion. This could be true by simply adding a new area. It definitely does not say that you will get ALL content that is normally delivered via an expansion. However, it is possible that we will, but you cannot come to that conclusion from this statement.

“but we absolutely are going to do sweeping new features that you would traditionally only get in expansions – large regions, content and progression additions to your characters in the form of growth and professions and races. Those are all things that you will see in the lifespan of Guild Wars 2.”

“Those are all” sounds like everything listed to me, and everything players want/expect out of an expansion is listed. Why are you picking a fight at every turn? Seriously, just take there words at face value, and if they don’t come through, then ill be right beside you.

Armageddoniton.8135:

Remove guesting, or come up with another way of preventing people from having to camp a region for over an hour to complete new world event/livin story achievs on there own flipping server, this is so beyond a joke and something everyone is kittening about. There is most likely many other posts of a similar nature elsewhere but i cant be bothered to find them as i am to busy headbutting my desk at the complete fail of yet another overflow to achiev anything other than a map wide argument on how we failed to defeat Mario or the Wurms.

Be done with the constant world event garbage and make some instanced encounters that Guilds thats right i said “GUILDS” can do together, though it doesnt need to be limited to those in active guilds ofcourse. Still it would be a step in the right direction as far as many seem to be concerned.

…you do realize you didn’t even touch the topic of the thread, right? At any rate, I cant help but to debunk your argument against guesting.

-Overflows do NOT = loss. If you have the right people, right numbers, planing, and leadership, then what is the difference? In some cases, overflows are the ONLY reason people win. Take TTS for example, thousands of players were able to beat Tequatl because overflows existed.
-Guesting is by no means bad. I have guessed in TC for around 20 marionette victories, but they didn’t complain, because I helped command half of them. Perhaps if I didn’t guest over there to lead, those victories I was involved in, may have been losses. At the very least, guesting encourages the GW2 community to thrive, to make friends with, and play along side friends from other servers. To merge ideas and improve strategy, until someone actually finds a way to defeat the wurm. Even without guesting, overflows will still be created when too many from your world all flood to one map, at least guesting insures these overflows are also filled.

You’ve had rotten luck, but its not inherently the systems fault. Could it use improvement, why certainly yes, but ‘overflows are bad’, ‘guesting is bad’, this is simply not true.

lordkrall.7241:

Khisanth.2948:

or there is just nothing to preview since all features got bundled into a single patch at some future date.

Ah yes, because all we got with the Origin of Madness was a Wurm and a Marionette fight just as shown in the trailer.

Oh wait..

no, it wasnt, there was also a story instance, scarlet’s secret lab, and the the ability to destroy and harvest thumpers… none of these three elements were listed in the trailer, but would have been included in 2013’s style of preview pages. So what is featured in the video is NOT all we’re going to receive.

Shiren.9532:

If you didn’t transfer to T1 before, now is your chance. Queues are no longer a disincentive to stack servers. They have a big problem with server stacking and low population servers and they are taking a massive step backwards with EotM.

No, you don’t have to hit the cap to be pushed on the overflow, you can enter the overflow map at any time.

jsduke.6537:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Well I wish you luck during the event. I’m going to pass on this one. I have no interest in being ganked during a pve story event.

But I guess the people who like to harass/bully others in non consensual pvp need their fix too. So have fun I guess..

Yeah, I’m with you on that one. I will probably check it out, but I won’t be spending any non-LS time there. Depending on how the achieves/rewards are handled, I may not participate at all.

It figures, though. We finally get a sizable new map addition and it is PvP oriented. Oh well.

Its a WvW map, the whole purpose of which being to fight other worlds, so I’m sure they’ll somehow figure this into the achievements, if not story-line. You wont be dragged through PvE any more than you already are on WvW maps, any more that we PvE’ers are dragged into WvW play for jump puzzles, map completion, and achievements.