Guild Wars 2

Goal: Improve emotional response to Living World events
Method: Adjustment to roll-out and addition of a 48-hr opt-in button

Background: GW2 is designed to have a strong Living World emphasis (refs: so many interviews and conversations that I prefer not to spend my time listing them). It is difficult to release any content of a complexity similar to a Living World event without discovering some errors, colloquially known as “bugs” (refs: again, a superfluity). Please note, this is not a criticism; bugs occur in every possible programming venue. One can infer that Living World events are likely to include bugs. In fact, we know by observation that they do. This suggestion certainly won’t change that, but it may improve the player reaction to the bugs.

Description: I suggest that Living World events be given a 48-hr “beta”. To be specific, from Tuesday to Thursday, players wishing to participate in the latest Living World event would activate a modal window: “This event is in beta. Do you wish to proceed? [Yes, enter the event/No, stay in the world]” Progress, rewards and meta-achievements would be identical (in intent, at least) to the wide-release event. From Thursday to the second Thursday following (standard 2 weeks), the event would be in “wide release”, the opt-in button would disappear, and all players would be affected by the content as usual.
During the Tuesday-Thursday overlap period, players who prefer to avoid the frustration commonly associated with bugged events could participate in the last Living World event (still on wide release until Thursday), or pursue other game goals.

Yes, players can already avoid Living World events in the early stages of release to pursue other game goals. The point here is that to make the potential for errors clearly understood. It’s a simple adjustment of the emotional framework. Hopefully, this will reduce the Migraines and Cries of Frustration among players (and devs). Games like GW2 are intended to evoke emotional response. The intent here is to improve that response by explicitly adjusting player expectations.

Based on observation of the game to date, the programming mechanisms and support for this type of adjustment appear to be in place. Players are already reporting Living World bugs, and would continue to do so. From all appearances, staff are already scrambling (particularly in the first day or so of a release) to repair bugs; that wouldn’t change.

As for timing, 48 hours seems like a reasonable amount of time to devote to the beta phase of a complex two-week timed event, and as a bonus, it stops before the weekend, when many players will experience content for the first time. This leaves the “surprise” factor unchanged (those who will be jaded by Thursday under this system are already jaded by Thursday in the current system). However, statistics on bugs and build repairs, compiled from previous Living World events, could be used as a basis for deciding on an appropriate length.

Yes, there would be a 48-hour overlap period between events, which may entail more hours of work on the staff side. However, I doubt that much adjustment is done in the last two days of a Living Story event, so it seems likely that the extra demand from the last “wide-release” would be light. Of course, there is always the possibility that bugs could be introduced by the overlap; I wouldn’t know. In that case, this is probably impractical.

As always, constructive criticism and additional advice welcome.

Another vote for allowing us to collect the pieces for the toys again this year. Even if the devs have a reason for keeping the Infinirarium, err, less rewarding than last year, I think that allowing the Festive Gift Exchange persons to reward us with glue, stuffing, etc. in exchange for our sweaters and socks would be fully in keeping with the playful spirit of the season.

I and my friends, as casual players, find “Clockwork Chaos” quite difficult. We, like many others, have yet to manage to enter an overflow with an active event. I acknowledge that the system is working for some people, but there is sufficient testimony to indicate a real problem in the way the event system is run. In particular, if you only have 1 or 2 hours at a time, one to three times a week, to play, the hit-or-miss event entrance makes it extremely challenging to complete this arc of Living Story.
At the very least, a “timer” indicating that the 10-minute window was up would be useful.

According to the latest “Looking Ahead”, we will be seeing new skills and traits as the year progresses. A “build save” function would help players manage the increasing build complexity. I further suggest adding a well-designed “notes” feature to the build save function. This would allow players to store notes on all aspects of the particular build, from preferred gear to play style. As with GW1, builds should be shareable between players.

It seems to me that this thread and New town clothes – gender discrepancy are expressing the same underlying point: a desire for greater consistency of representation and a desire for a wider breadth of choice—points which are applicable to and have been expressed with regard to town clothes, armor, “idle” emotes, etc.
Sticking to clothing for the moment, however, it seems to me that adopting Faowri’s suggestion of two sets per set, each available to each gender, would go some distance to helping the situation.
In general, it would be nice to see some more thoughtful options, designed to appeal to players of different cultural backgrounds.