Guild Wars 2

Echoing the questions above by Baltzenger.2467 and Konig Des Todes.2086 , especially that one about wanting to know when you guys illustrated that we left the Pact. I get that it’s supposed to be assumed, but that’s where a huge amount of confusion comes from. You’re expecting the reader to assume part of your story. I personally had no idea, I just started this game last November. So as far as I can tell, we killed Zhaitan and everyone was all “Rah! WE DID IT! Now we’re coming for the rest of you filthy overgrown beasts!”. Then there was silence, as far as I can tell.

But to further add to the observations here, let’s look at a recent part of the story.

So one thing that was great was in the second part where you’re allowed to observe this corpse and explain to Marjory what happened and what conclusions you drew from it. This was great, this is what I’d expect from a seasoned adventurer. Then there is a mis-step.

For whatever reason, apparently Kasmeer wasn’t listening to the people standing two feet from her (wat) and Marjory needed to repeat everything you just said to her. You know, I live in a desert. The air is pretty thin so sound really travels. What is apparently more interesting than a dead body? I can’t imagine how she somehow missed all of that dialogue. But it does do one thing. It draws the focus immediately back on to these two characters. Again.

Or just, things that don’t make sense. Inquest doohickeys that can inhibit Kasmeer from casting magic, unless you’re a big dumb and use the crystal power to rush right through the barrier and off the cliff. I know it was for the sake of not letting the player kill themselves and possibly cause some crazy bug, but it is one of those things that gives you pause.

I honestly can’t imagine “It would cost too much resources” applying to something so simple as “add two or three lines of text to a dialogue box every so often that includes the PC in the single-path decision making”.

If you’re going to railroad us in order to tell an epic story, you’ve got to make us believe we’re doing it for a reason. As others have said, the illusion of choice is everything.

I’m holding out, maybe these characters will become something greater. I really liked the original Destiny’s Edge, drama and all. But right now, my impressions since first arriving during the Toxic Alliance are that we have Rox, a Charr lady that’s got that sense of humor Charr ladies seem to be famous for, some Norn guy I’ve seen like that one time at Lion’s Arch and can’t remember the name of (seems to be a wallflower in dialogue, I know a guy just like this in D&D), an Asura girl that actually seems to be a little girl or something in a golem (she seems to have potential, kind of a likable character but I don’t know anything other than she had an intellectual obsession with Scarlet), and Kasmeer and Marjory (No idea why they’re important. They’re apparently amazing adventurers who are very well respected, but their portrayal seems to be focused more on their love interest than who they actually are. I thought for the longest time that Marjory was part of a military organization since she was given very important roles.)

Good night everyone

My opinion is that, the issue some of us (players) perceive with the characters of what is called by the community “destiny edge 2.0”, is not a narrative issue by itself, but rather a game design issue.

MMOs are not just about the social and multiplayer aspect of it, it’s also about freedom. That’s why you don’t see many MMOs that follow a single linear story, even if they allow you to play with other players.

When you create such strong characters, and you develop them, like braham, rox, marjory, etc. You take a risk, and that risk is that we, players, are human beings, and while we can relate to them, some maybe won’t, some maybe won’t like them.

Then you have the design problem. If the content on the future will follow a “main story”, that is always about them, then the illusion of choice will suffer, our freedom, will suffer. And I think this issue can be resolved by branching it even more, give us more of that illusion.
Maybe keep your branch where we “follow” the group, keep it as it is, because that’s what we are doing, we are following a group of heroes, and show us that side of the story. But also, make at least one branch (a story branch, not mechanic branch like quest, achievement, etc) where we, as the “heroes”, do something important too, something that give us enough recognition that is not linked to the other group.
Imagine if on the Zhaitan arc, we could’ve have defeated some major villain, a minion of Zhaitan, alone. A task “only us could’ve done”, and as we see the other side of the story (trahearne’s story) it is relevant, but still distant from his point of view. See too, how all the things that we, players, do on the world, are not even mentioned on our, supposed, stories. I defeated tons of bosses, completed dungeons, killed dragons and beasts all over the world, yet, we are treated as equals, or slightly less important characters, by our fellows from DE2.0, which, have accomplished nothing really, compared to us. I would rather that it was clear that I am participating in their story, and be recognized as a great help, rather than this pretend thing were we have to imagine that they are our friends, even if some of us don’t even sympathize with them.

I don’t personally dislike any of our current protagonists, but I do feel distant from them, I don’t know why I’m supposed to run around with them, I don’t need them, I rather have my real friends join me on the adventures of Tyria, and we be the real group that saves the world. And of course, I am curious about their story, I wan’t to follow them, just, not pretending theirs is my story, because I don’t even decide where to go, I feel carried.

Angel McCoy.1832:

In our minds, this is your PC’s story. Just because you can watch your spouse go through their dramas, and you accompany your spouse to the grocery store, doesn’t mean it’s your spouse’s story that you’re living.

Wait… are you saying… that Trahearne is our character’s spouse?

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Angel McCoy.1832:

Personal Story spoilers

hide spoiler

Bottom line is that, at the beginning of the Pact (almost 2 years ago in-game time), you were “The Commander.” After Zhaitan was killed, the Pact continued on and you went off into the world to do stuff. At that point, other commanders were brought on, and you become “A Commander.” And you became a commander who had lots of other things to do besides running an army that was repairing, preparing, and stocking up for the next big battle with the Elder Dragons. We could not build a story on that alone, not a good one that made sense, not considering where we want the story to take you. Any time anyone calls you “The Commander” now, it’s someone being nostalgic. It’s perhaps more correct to say you were “The First Commander.” That helps us explain why you’ve been running around the world saving people as opposed to being locked in a war room with Trahearn. I’ll see what I can do to get this explanation into the game.

Hmmm…

Firstly, we see at least two Commanders of the Pact in the initial release alone. One’s in Citadel of Flame explorable (Commander Suma), and one is in Frostgorge Sound (Commander Wik Tailbiter). There’s also a Commander (charr, vigil armor) in southern Timberline Falls, but there’s no Commander rank in the Vigil so that leads one to believe… Pact (ironically, all “Commanders” that are with or near Pact forces are charr and Vigil). So players by all appearances were always a Commander from the get go – to those who paid attention.

Secondly, I disagree that “repairing, preparing, and stocking up for the next big battle with the Elder Dragons” cannot deliver a good storyline. This is what all of Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, and Dragon Age: Origins pretty much are. The primary course of the story is about you building up your forces by solving local problems while fighting some forefront threat, before you end up being ready and take out the background threat.

This is, in fact, how most stories that revolve around some world-ending threat go. Most of the plot is about building up forces and fighting someone who isn’t actually the big bad and you know he/she isn’t, and then after beating that someone you can finally go after the big bad in a climatic battle.

And interestingly enough, those are greatly acclaimed games there. And personally? Amongst my favorite.

Thirdly, a huge problem with what you said here is that it is never even brought up that we left the Pact. In fact, in Flame and Frost when you first meet Rox, if you talk to Smodur he says, and I quote: “What’s a commander of the Pact doing here? I thought you had dragons to fight.”

There was no “I’m going on leave.” There was no “good job, Commander, now go have some well deserved R&R.” Or anything of the like. Just a vanishing act. Most militaries would consider this deserting and execute the deserter. Tyria sure is lenient!

Angel McCoy.1832:

RyuDragnier.9476:

About those last spoilers Angel, have you thought that maybe you should make it so there are multiple fronts, and that the pact is also hot on the heels of the other elder dragons?

We have lots of conversations here about the many places we could take the story, and ultimately, it comes down to what we think would be the most fun. We can only make so much content, so we have to carefully choose which content we make.

If we split our attention to two storylines, then neither one gets our full attention.

We, like you, want the most bang for your buck!

I don’t think Ryu was saying to split the storyline, but rather to have it stated in-game – perhaps shown in-game – that the Pact is fighting on multiple fronts – in the Far Shiverpeaks, in the Dragonbrand close to the Crystal Desert, and elsewhere that dragon minions can be found.

BobbyStein.2315:

Zin.1673:

The character is indeed voiced. Did you ever played your personal story ?

Warning: nerdy devspeak ahead!

The player character (PC) hasn’t had new voice recorded since the game launched, so you’ll only hear your character speak in the following circumstances: conditional chatter, in cinematic conversations in the Personal Story, and in painterly “full” cinematics. We retired cinematic conversations with the Living World, so right now the PC can only “talk” through unvoiced dialog trees.

We’re exploring some technical improvements that may allow the PC to speak under new circumstances, but it’s actually a bigger undertaking than one would imagine due to the complexity of player voice implementation (10 possible voices, currently shared lines of dialog that we want to split out, scene timing per language, etc.). That’s about all I can say at the moment.

In short, we’re looking to make the PC speak again, but it’s going to take a bit of time to redo the code and content pipelines to make it work, not to mention updating our tools to allow us to generate PC lines that deviate based on race & gender, prior accomplishments, etc. We’re not ready to announce what those changes will actually be or when they might be deployed, but we’re seriously looking into it.

As always, thanks for playing.

If this is true, then you have no idea how happy that made me to read. I had the first fan girl moment of a lifetime and I don’t normally squeee at all considering I’m usually so pessimistic.

But yay! This would be incredibly awesome if my characters can speak again. Even if it starts off as being generic dialogue at first…. but to just have a voice again and not be the invisible person holding the door for other characters to walk through.

?

?

?

Braham: Hey there.

Me: Hi, how are you doing?

Braham: Did you… just talk?

Taimi: What’s going on?

Braham: I think he just talked.

Me: Hi, shorty.

Taimi: HEY! He did talk. Hey wait a minute, did you just call me shorty? You do remember I have Scruffy here.

Me: (laughs) Never Change.

Kasmeer: Hey guys? Ready to move on? Is something wrong with our friend here?

Me: Taimi is threatening to flatten me with her Golem.

Taimi: It was only a warning.

Kasmeer: Did… he just speak?

Braham: Yeah. All this time and I thought he was a mute.

Jory: I heard talking, what’s going on here?

Kasmeer: The Commander just…talked.

Jory: Right. You didn’t just talk, did you?

Me: I might have, the verdict is still not in yet.

Jory: @#$%?! Does Rox know?

Me: Well -

Rox: Oh I knew already. Why do you think I’m sitting way over here. That guy can’t shut up for two minutes.

Me: O:-)

BobbyStein.2315:

For you, the game should be about the PC at the expense of the open world content and ambience. For me, and for Guild Wars 2, it’s about the world as a whole since it’s a cooperative, shared environment. Neither approach is wrong, but we decided to put more of our resources into bringing the world to life. I don’t regret that at all.

Anet pre-release hype: This is your story.
Anet post-release: No it’s not.

BobbyStein.2315:

For you, the game should be about the PC at the expense of the open world content and ambience. For me, and for Guild Wars 2, it’s about the world as a whole since it’s a cooperative, shared environment. Neither approach is wrong, but we decided to put more of our resources into bringing the world to life. I don’t regret that at all.

BobbyStein.2315:

Actually, it’s the reality of game development. You have limited budget and time to work with, so scope must be adjusted to fit. Features must be prioritized, and sometimes that means cutting content or systems.

While I get that there’s a limit with budget and time, I feel that you’re skipping the crux of the issue.

Go out, play the game, listen to the dialogue there is.

Now tell me, how much lore and story do you get out of those events? Those hours upon hours of voice acted lines in all those events? In all honesty, there are so very little lore in the events of the game, and most – if not all – of it comes from text box dialogue! That’s just downright silly to me.

If I were running that and saw how events were having no true context given in the spoken dialogue, I’d re-use generic line for NPCs of similar race and gender. Get 10-15 voice actors, one or so sessions (depending on how much one can get done in a session), and just record a bunch of generic lines – from “follow me” to “defend me” and so forth. And you have the dialogue for thousands of events – with no quality loss to the current set up of events. The sad thing is, most events already have generic sounding lines, but it’s an obviously different recording each time. While that is great for widespread immersion – NPCs don’t sound exactly the same everywhere one goes – it reduces one from the more story-related voice recording.

Already the system you have up forces lore related dialogue in events to be in text boxes. For example, most Orr events just talk about “finding a relic” but we never find out what the relic is or anything of the like. Only the beginning and ending voiced lines really need to be unique – and this is only to provide lore. And even then, not all have to be 100% unique. But that’s what you do. And like I said, it’s great for immersion, but then you lose your ability to go after the more story-focused lines. You lose your ability to actually let the players hear the lore of the game, and instead you force them to talk to the NPC in the middle of an event to read about the lore. And in sadly most cases, very little at that.

Now, I’m not saying “voice PCs” – instead, I’m saying “use generic lines for non-story/lore-giving stuff, because they’re practically all the same anyways.” And you can even alter tones and whatnot to have the same recorded line work for multiple NPCs (even races) and still sound different enough.

Honestly, I don’t care if the PC is voiced or not. Though I would have preferred them not-voiced from the get go except conditional lines, and having the tone for those chooseable amongst a set, and give the PC a dialogue tree – much like Dragon Age: Origins overall.

I don’t get why a voiced PC benefits me?
Most RPGs went steeply downhill with the advent of full voiceovers, displaying completely unbelievably shortened dialogue and minimal character interaction, a result of needing everything voiced.

Examples include the whole bioware lineup (good as DAO or ME might be), WildStar, Diablo, etc. Even GW2 shows this.

I somewhat long back for the days of no-voiceovers. When a lot of text was still the norm, like in Planescape Torment, and you actually had somewhat believable volumes of conversation as a result.

Why does the game have to be open world at the expense of the PC? That’s a complete cop-out.

We’re talking about Author’s Pets hogging the spotlight from the PCs, something that made World of Warcraft’s lore characters insufferable, not making the entire game revolve around the PC.

I don’t think allowing the player to have more dialogue with NPCs, and more recognition in the NPC’s dialogue is too much to ask nor is it going to ruin the “living world”.

Look, you require your players to complete the entire personal story in order to participate in the new Living World season right? I seem to remember that. That means you need to recognize those efforts by the player later on in the storyline, not act like everyone involved with Zhaitan faded into obscurity because these people over here are new.

At the very least do not make the dialogue unavoidable. It really, really kittened me off to have to stand there and wait for the Author’s Pets to finish talking so we could keep moving forward. A good story does not have the reader rolling their eyes and going “oh boy here we go again” and wishing nothing more than to thumb the pages forward.

I only came here to complain because for the most part I really, really like this game’s storytelling. I’m that guy that /does/ talk to every NPC and sign post and animal in RPGs, I love it. But good grief guys I’m starting to dread the next part of the story because my mind is already thinking “I hope they don’t make it all about those guys again…”

BobbyStein.2315:

The player character (PC) hasn’t had new voice recorded since the game launched, so you’ll only hear your character speak in the following circumstances: conditional chatter, in cinematic conversations in the Personal Story, and in painterly “full” cinematics. We retired cinematic conversations with the Living World, so right now the PC can only “talk” through unvoiced dialog trees.

Hey Bobby, just wanted to give my 2 cents. I just came back from a about 7 month break of playing GW2. I stopped mostly due to time reasons and to play other games, yet also because I was unhappy with the Living story. For once I didn’t like the character of Scarlet, but that’s another thing. The other reason is, that I didn’t feel appreciated as a player by the NPCs. Sounds weird, however I am mostly an old school RPG player. I grew up with Baldur’s Gate and Elder Scrolls, games that always managed to give the right amount of praise to my character.
Now I don’t want to sound like a spoiled brat, especially since GW2 probably does it better than most other MMORPGs (though I don’t have played too much of them, I’m generally not a fan of the genre), yet I still can’t help myself feeling shunned. It’s not just the lack of dialog, I understand the limitations, it’s more than that for example that there is no mention of my GW1 character that I put so much time into. I know, I know, not everyone has played GW1, but there still could be references to the “Heroes of Ascalon” or whatever. While I’m aware you are not responsible for this, I feel the need to throw this in. When I read Ghosts of Ascalon and the characters started to tell each other stories about heroes of their people, my stomach started tingling. Could this be the moment my deeds, even obscured behind the title “Heroes of Ascalon” are put to print. And then all the talked about was Gwen… I personally always disliked Gwen, but when they pretty much said that Gwen is the greatest hero of humanity or at least Ascalon (it was something along those lines) there was a split second when I wanted to rip the book to shreds. I calmed myself with the thought that they probably didn’t want to confuse readers and that I will get my appreciation, when the game is released via the Hall of Monuments. Too bad the HoM was disappointing too, a ruin with 3-4 Ghosts in it, only one talking about some heroes of the past.

But ok this was GW1, now it’s GW2. My old toons will always be remembered by me, this game is for my new heroes to shine. And yet they didn’t, instead the personal story got hijacked halfway through, first by the order mentors (at least they were likable) and then by Trahearne. Why do you keep doing this Anet? Why do NPCs fill the spotlight? Again, I know for a consistent story, there need to be consistent characters that are the same for everyone. That’s why Kormir became a god and I’m one of the people who does not mind that at all. I like Kormir! She was a well written, well acted and suitable character. Trahearne is not. This is what makes the spotlight theft even worse. I hoped the Living story would change that, yet again the focus is on NPCs while I’m playing the part of the delivery boy.

Sorry I had to rant there, I needed to get this off my chest. GW2 is a MMO, so I guess I can’t expect traditional RPG stroytelling. I’m not even sure how you can fix this in the future, all I can give as constructive feedback is this idea: You could place plaques (like the Marriner plaques) in areas that had story importance in GW1. So players who never played the first one can catch up with it’s story and lore without having to buy it while old players feel a little bit more appreciated. Something like “Abaddon’s Mouth: Here the mighty Heroes of Ascalon faced Khilborn, the Orrian Lich and his army of titans.”

I hope this didn’t sound like I just wanted my ego to be stroked. I just want to feel like the hero and not the sidekick.

BobbyStein.2315:

Zin.1673:

The character is indeed voiced. Did you ever played your personal story ?

Warning: nerdy devspeak ahead!

The player character (PC) hasn’t had new voice recorded since the game launched, so you’ll only hear your character speak in the following circumstances: conditional chatter, in cinematic conversations in the Personal Story, and in painterly “full” cinematics. We retired cinematic conversations with the Living World, so right now the PC can only “talk” through unvoiced dialog trees.

We’re exploring some technical improvements that may allow the PC to speak under new circumstances, but it’s actually a bigger undertaking than one would imagine due to the complexity of player voice implementation (10 possible voices, currently shared lines of dialog that we want to split out, scene timing per language, etc.). That’s about all I can say at the moment.

In short, we’re looking to make the PC speak again, but it’s going to take a bit of time to redo the code and content pipelines to make it work, not to mention updating our tools to allow us to generate PC lines that deviate based on race & gender, prior accomplishments, etc. We’re not ready to announce what those changes will actually be or when they might be deployed, but we’re seriously looking into it.

As always, thanks for playing.

Thank you for clarifying that! I guess I’d assumed you’d recorded voice to a much later point, but this makes sense. I hope you’ll be able to work it out, because it really does make me, at least, feel more connected. I don’t want to be a red shirt. I get the grim sense that I might be now.

eta: But unlike the ‘poll’ mentioned above, I do want to feel immersed, & I do prefer to have some choices. I’m not as happy to feel I’m just following someone else’s characters around. I like some of them a lot – I love Taimi, but unlike with Destiny’s Edge, I don’t really feel a connection with my character. (she prattles on about the 2 humans as ‘sisters,’ but I seem to be there as a dialogue dump.) Maybe because I did this part first on a human, & they’re a bit boring, I didn’t get as much, but she was my first character, so she gets to do new things first. A run through on the Asura might be more interesting, & have the better companion.

Well it’d be really cool if the PC could talk again like the Personal Story, but that’s not really what I’m getting at myself. Apologies if my thoughts are coming across as jumbled or rambling.

The point I’m making here outside of all of this, is that I do not feel like the PCs are being brought to the forefront as the main protagonist. Maybe we’re not meant to be the main protagonist, but it still feels like we’re not even particularly important. Like I said, I feel like we’re the sidekick characters on The Superfriends being dragged around.

Good lord, yes. I can’t handle the “doll”, “honey” etc. It’s like someone just got into their first relationship. “I saw this on TV once.”

I’m glad they took the step to put them together, that’s fine. Making their interactions as inorganic as possible? Not so good.

And yeah, it’s kinda cool to be part of the next “Destiny’s Edge” group but it does feel a bit like they’re the heroes and you’re just there to help. I did at times feel like I was part of the group and that was the idea but I can see where you’re coming from.

I can’t agree more. In fact, being a big gw1 player I remember how I used to dislike the basic heros in Nightfall (Koss and co.) because of this forced “friendship”. However they were much more legit than this “Band of brothers” coming out of nowhere.

And please Anet, if you want to introduce lesbians (‘cause lesbians are more politically correct and gay guys, y’know) I’m cool with this, but please PLEASE stop making them look stupid and cheesy as kitten.

So far, I really like the next season of Living Story. Except for one really blatant and grating detail.

Once again, it’s about these obvious GMPCs that are single-handedly hogging the spotlight from who is supposed to be important here (you).

That dialogue scene before the Festival? Where they congratulated these people I don’t care about at all for the death of Scarlet, but failed to mention the PC at all? I was hoping that’d be the end of the special snowflakes.

But here we are once again with The Superfriends while the player gets to be the goofy side characters following the real superheroes.

It’d be alright to have your GMPCs if the PCs got just as much spotlight as they did, but we don’t. We’re referred to in these off-hand ways. Last I checked we’re supposed to be the Commander of a worldwide alliance that killed an Elder Dragon. Not the GMPC’s “friend”.

As a side note, your two female characters Marjory and Kasmeer are becoming extremely grating. I absolutely do not like having to stand there for unskippable dialogue and wait for these awful pet names and painfully forced gushing to end. It’s completely incongruous to what is going on around you. In case you guys forgot, a whole lot of people died a horrible death and there’s looters all over this mass grave.

It’s getting real tiring watching the dungeon master wax on about his NPCs while we all wait for our turn to speak, you know what I’m saying? Whatever happened to those great one-on-ones from the Personal Story?

Whatever happened to us mattering at all?

SpehssMehreen.5897:

-Open pvp in a variety of WvW maps, many that utilize EXISTING pve maps

How neat wouldnt it be with a new full size WvW map with parts of the PvE world visible through the mists, connected by a series of portals/platforms. Like, one moment your in Hoelbrak, only to go through a portal and have a grand 50v50 battle inside Fort Trinity, then move through another portal and have to fight a battle against entranched foes in the Frostgorge Dredge tunnels followed by a huge battle on the open fields surrounding Fort Salma… which of course is topped by the next area that is the central part of the Black Citadel.

So yes, there is wasted potential there.

Anet keep saying that making a new map take time but come on…

They could just take entire Divinitys Reach and make a WvW map out of it. A spawn triangle (NW, S, NE) and off you go for WvW battles inside a city. Can you even fathom the awesome?!?!

I wish I understood the opening post. It seems like it would make sense.

Perhaps they’re members of a secret club or organisation. Maybe you should mimic their actions and see if a secret room appears, filled with precursors, cake, busty female elementalists, and bosses with low health pools.

PS: You may want to learn the secret handshake and password first

PSS: One of those things I listed was a lie

junkpile voted for best trolling EU.

I think if this were implemented it could make for a very noticeable change for folks, it provides some incentive for folks to come out to wubwub, and helps to reinforce good habits

Not really surprising that the most overstocked WvW server does not want more people in WvW

• would mean more queue for them
• would mean more people on the opponent side, enabling them to beat BG

But if you would read more carefully, I proposed a competition between WvW players, and as soon as PvE player notice, that they hardly belong to the better 50% in these WvW activities, such that they get nothing for their effort, they stay away.

And I proposed one that sets different foci every week, with the intention to vary the goals of WvW a bit each weak. E.g. if SM defense is selected trebbing SM, would be a strategy where the players from the other server get ahead in their achievements, not you. In a week where both dolly escort & dolly kill are selected there will be heavy small-scale battle for Dollies.

So I think with such an idea we can get:

• slightly different foci each week
• individual competition e.g. to be the best NA/EU-wide dolly slapper of the week
• achievements comparable with PvE

Vermillion.4061:

Sorry but most people that play WvW do not care for achievement points at all.

I disagree with this post. I have been trying very hard to get 6000 AP to get the radiant shoulders because I really like them. Unfortunately I really only do WvW with very little PvE. Having such unobtainable WvW achievements and the lack of anymore really sucks when trying to earn AP mainly because I have to go do content that I do not want to do to get AP. Even if the sum of the weekly achievements in WvW were 50 AP I would be happy with that since I know eventually I could earn my AP rewards just playing the gamemode I like.

I had to go do queens gauntlet to get AP because it was like 300 AP for all of the achievements. I absolutely despised doing it because its not the content I enjoy. PvE’ers get AP for every living story while the only LS WvW’ers got was the one for Edge of the mists which was abysmal.

So to address your comment im going to have to disagree with your assumption that WvWers don’t want Achievement points.

Not from me, I see EotM already as over rewarded, make your own proposal for EotM rewards, mine are meant to be doable in classical WvW only (or do you really want to have all these defense achievement hunters in EotM, a EotM tower could look like a Kodash keep then)

What else weapon skins?

Or why did so many people do the season achievements such that ANet is believing that it was a success?

Competitive achievements are a different story than check-mark achievements as well and last but not least, some rewards for doing the unwanted WvW-jobs like dolly escort, siege refresh, scouting aren’t a bad thing as well.

And of course achievements you aren’t interested in are easier to ignore than the massive balance destroying player moves due to seasons.

Do we really need seasons twice a year to get more people interested in WVW?
Does it really interest people? Is it positive for WvW or negative as all seasons so far enfored stronger server imbalances. As WvW is based on a scoring function that measures nothing elase than how many off-time player a server has these leagues aren’t a competition in any sense anyway.

The most positive point of the seasons are the achievements that come with them.
But do we need seasons to have better achievements?

I think just better achievements would do WvW better than leagues. But some competition is nice as wellso lets have competitive achievements.

Here are idea for such achievements. Each week (i.e. for each match), the system selects randomly 5-10 achievements from the list below, these achievements are equal for all server:

• Sum of delivered supplies by successful Dolly escort events.
• Sum intercepted supplies by successful Dolly kill events (Dolly’s are standing goalless in the camp do not count)
• Sum of successfully defended supplies at Camp defense events
• Sum of the successfully conquered supplies at Camp conquest events (Before the reduction by upgrade reset, i.e. full 250ziger stock = 250 pts)
• Sum of successfully defended supplies at Tower Defense events (Count the remaining supplies at the end of the event)
• Sum of the successfully conquered supplies at Tower conquest events
• Sum of successfully defended supplies at keep defense events
• Sum of the successfully conquered supplies at keep conquest events
• Sum of successfully defended supplies at Stome Mist defense events
• Sum of the successfully conquered supplies at Stone Mist conquest events
• Participation in successful mercenary defeat events
• Participation in successful mercenary acquisition events
• Participation in successful events of conquest of guards
• Siege Refresh Sum of the minutes since last siege refresh (if the timer is down to 45min at the moment you refresh, you get credited 15 min).
• Sum of the remaining refresh minutes when destroying enemy siege
• Sum of spended gold for objective upgrades

This is determined per match for all players the end of the match

• There are 2 achievement points for each of the (10) categories where you among the top 50% of the players.
• 2 more achievement points, if you belong to the top 33% of players.
• 1 additional achievement points if you made it into the top 100.

Also all ranks you reached in the 10 categories are summed up (lowest sum is best) into an overal contribution achievement

• for being in the top 50% gets 10 pts,
• top 33% further 10 points, and
• top 100 further 5 points

The top 100 players of the overal contribution are also pubklished in the leader board in the new category WVW contribution https://leaderboards.guildwars2.com/.

A very active WvW player can thus get per week of up to 75 achievements points, but in mean it is around 20 achievement point per player
This corresponds to approximately what you can achieve on average per week through the bi-weekly living story.

Laylie.5703:

O this is gold. Not only did they change the title of the thread from Thanks Anet to Wvw is dying. But they changed it yet again when I pointed out that even they are admitting it by adding an Imo at the end of the title. Clearly they actively read these threads it’s quite pathetic we get a no response to any of our frustrations. Where are the so called community managers that are supposed to interact with us. STILL waiting on the CDI for the tournaments that you guys said would happen on your livestream. You can’t just magically poof that away like you do other comments.

Honestly what happened to you guys.

probly nothing happens to them
we know that they read the posts and delete or change the title when they dont like something

maybe thet is me but those actions makes me thing that the try to make all the old players to stop the game
why?
is simply the most of them they dont realy need to spend any gems..,they have all that they need
they play long time so they have farm karma/mats and the most important GOLD so they do what ever they like
even if they play the most ofthe time wvwvvw lots of them they have gather gold

in the end is gems-new players that play a nerfing game when comes up to mats so they will spemd gems- and old players that have all and they only that they do is to QQ on forum about changes etc

who do you thing that he wins on the end?

what the server vs server issue have to do with this post??get over that and fockus on the real problem that is anet and the way that she acts to all of the players that enjoy-ors at lest try o enjoy- the wvwvw the last 6 monts

if you realise the the problem is the way that wvwvwv is at the moment..so mater will hapen betwin servers you have all the time those issues
this is not something that have to do with the servers and how the play..they just use the game…to change something they need to change the game a bit

how players can be selfish when the ask simply stufs from anet

lets see
what is the benefit of be a member in a guild?the wvvwwv bufs?
what the guild gets from wvwvwv?why not some influense when claim a tower/why not some taxes thet will go on guild bank and be only for the costs of the upgrating towers?

ok lets say that you r a member of a GvG guild and play for what?who will know and say what guild is the best?
why not GvG tournaments like the spvp tournaments?
they name the game GUILD WARS 2…were is the guild war?
why they dont add few more colors on the comander tags so we can organise on same map guild raids and pug raids?dont tell me that is so hard to do that…this is probly the most eazy thing for them to do

ppl complain about hacks…just remove the water that is under of every map and problem solve…if you go under then you start droping and drpoping and droping like you do on EOTM
but no..they leave it there and the only that they do is to remove the posts on the forum that talk about that
for what reason?to keep it secret from others?well hacks is on the game from the firsts months that game was oniline..im here from day one so ikn

its eazy to blame the players like the way that eazy to blame anet but when alot of ppl complain about the same issues and nothing change then probly we have a problem and big one

from the moment that advertise your self like a company/develops that cares about the customers and you liesen when the have something to say to you about the game and the only that customers that gets is totaly silence or difrent words from many ppl what you expect from us to thing?

THEY DONT CARE

and ppl will quit or stay in the game cose anet is a bit lucky on that…no games atm online or if the r they have some problems/bugs or what ever
but new games come on line soon and many will go and i dont see the reason for som1 to try a game that will be 2+ years old (GW2) and not start playing a fresh game

so ye ty anet for a great game..and also ty anet for doing everything you can to destroy it ,cosse with your action you make all of us to thing like that
(at least the most of us)

Laylie.5703:

I really was not going to post this because 99.9999% of the
~ snip ~
complaining.

This is a strange post. If there have been no updates for a long time, then this is exactly the same game that “you and 100’s of others” enjoyed. ANet hasn’t killed the game in this case, it’s the fickle player base who think they’re something more than customers who get loads of gameplay at fractions of a penny per hour.

Laylie.5703:

It is absolutely baffling that there has been nothing done
~ snip ~
takes longer now kind of mentality.

Not really that baffling. There was no intent to have it in the game in the first place, so players took it upon themselves to shut people out of borderland maps by having their GvGs at the windmill at south camp. On highly populated servers, that’s individuals not contributing to the game mode but taking slots away from people who want to play the game properly.

Anyway, after enough people complained/whined/cajoled/threatened/occasionally-had-a-rational-point an area was built for them. That is ANet responding to the player base. As for the game “technically” being called Guild Wars 2, if you can’t get that it’s called that because it shares a history and lore with the previous game, then nobody is going to be able to explain it to you.

And how things were a year ago with the staff and resource/hours that were available, six months was right. Since we’ve only seen one map come out in that time, that’s what Devon would have been talking about. Something more recent, with changes in staff and resource/hours? Who knows? Until they break out a new map and then tell us how long it took from start to finish there will be no comparison. So nobody lied to you.

Laylie.5703:

Honestly some of the biggest guilds that promoted the game, promoted WvW, got those new players into WvW and GvG’s and got them hooked are down right leaving the game. I have quit uninstalled the game and will not play a game where the game mode I enjoy to play is neglected so much. I loved the time I played I loved my 100s of hours as a commander and my 1000s in WvW alone but what I don’t love is the disrespect as a player.

In what way are you worthy of respect? You’re a customer, who paid a one-time price of what, $65.00? And you have had thousands of hours of playtime in WvW alone? If we take thousand*s* to mean at least two thousand hours, and we apply that for every year that GW2 has been around (two), that gives us four thousand hours of playtime. Note that is the same amount as a full time job.

That means that your $65.00 spread out over your four thousand hours of play has meant that you have been getting one hour of play for the insanely unreasonable and disrespectful rate of $0.016. Can you imagine? A cent and a half for each of those hours that you say you loved so much. Truly, you have been wronged.

Guess what? People leave games. People leave jobs, people leave relationships, people change what they do. It happens. So what? You got thousands of hours of play out of this game before you decided to uninstall. That is a testament to a solid game by any metric.

Laylie.5703:

WvW is dying and there is nothing anyone can say to tell me it is not. Yea people still go in it but you can tell, the commanders that have been around for so long have no enthusiasm no heart for it they are just playing because there is nothing else to play.

If there’s nothing else to play, then one wonders what you’re going to do instead now that you’ve uninstalled. Maybe the commanders you know are unenthusiastic because they have a bunch of unimaginative players with cookie-cutter builds whining about how the game never changes while they themselves do exactly the same thing over and over again.

Laylie.5703:

So thank you anet for making one of the best game modes that I have played in years of gaming, but also thank you for destroying that game mode.

Since it’s the same game mode (because of the lack of substantial changes you noted earlier), it’s the people who have destroyed it. Overstacking servers? Check – ruined lots of gameplay and communities. People who look up builds or ask someone to just give them a build without trying things themselves and possibly even discovering something new? Check – boring people doing the same boring things that everybody else is doing. People getting stroppy and feeling like having a bit of a public flounce when nobody would even notice if they left? Check – nothing like a “I’m going to whine even though I’m never going to play again” post to make everybody finally see the light.

ANet destroying the game? Try the selfish player base which has far too many entitled only-children types that don’t care a jot about how their actions ripple out and affect others who play the game.

Hamster.4861:

Much Like the Dailies that we complete, The WvW weeklies are similar to the Season achievements and monthlies, but designed to be completed over the course of a matchup!

Some ideas:

150-200 player kills /week
(Dont really know how many kills you see in tiers below 6 per week, this may be unfair to lower tiers)
kill 75 dolyaks
escort 25 dolyaks
capture 15 keeps
capture stonemist 5 times
capture 35 towers
capture 50 sentries
capture 25 camps
Defend 25 towers
Defend 10 keeps
Defend stonemist 5 times
Refresh 50 siege engines
Flip 25 mercenary camps
Big Spender (250 badges, x karma)

well those are all the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Anyone else think this might help get some more people in?

How about:
kill 7500 dolyaks
escort 2500 dolyaks
capture 1500 keeps
capture stonemist 500 times
capture 3500 towers
capture 5000 sentries
capture 2500 camps
Defend 2500 towers
Defend 1000 keeps
Defend stonemist 500 times
Refresh 5000 siege engines
Flip 2500 mercenary camps
Big Spender (25000 badges, x karma)

… To keep in line with the current impossible to achieve achievements…