Guild Wars 2

Always neat to see players discover stuff, either inside the game or in outside media. There was a reddit the other day by a new player that discovered the Not so Secret Aetherblade jumping puzzle and was mind blown.

He also got the opposite reaction that Zepher got here. People let the OP know what update added it and that there was stuff like that to find all over the game, then the conversation proceeded to talk about the jumping puzzle.

Gotta say, i’m a bit disappointed that an outside player community treats each other better than the players on the official forums treat each other a lot of the time.

Zepher, keep up the enthusiasm, its refreshing to see.

Are you looking for gear progression? Are you looking for something similar to Guild Wars 1 where you collect skills? The former isn’t really going to happen if you don’t count ascended gear. If ArenaNet stays true to their word, ascended gear is the highest you can ever go. The latter is something that they plan on adding as indicated by Colin’s big blog post.

If you’re looking for something completely different then maybe you should elaborate on it. Just note that ArenaNet will not give stat advantages for people that complete tougher content. Everyone will be on a level playing field.

arjeidi.2690:

hype sells, content doesn’t. Their marketing division is way better than their developing one.

Servers are still busy with people. That means content does sell, or else they would be merging or closed down.

The Living Story is a series of regular updates (every 2 weeks at the moment) which introduces new, temporary content and some permanent changes to the game.

For example we’ve recently finished the ‘Cutthroat Politics’ chapter where one of the members of Lions Arch Captain’s Council was assassinated and we got to elect their replacement (from a choice of 2 candidates). The events surrounding the election were temporary but the winner is a permanent (for the foreseeable future anyway) council member and they’re going to be making some changes – mainly introducing a new area to the Fractals of the Mists dungeon.

The current event is the Queen’s Jubilee, centred around Divinities Reach. There’s a new area – the Pavilion – with various activities going on to celebrate that the human queen has been in place for 10 years. I’m not sure yet what the permanent changes will be, that will probably come with the next update in 2 weeks time.

I just wanted to drop a line and let you know how much I really enjoy the game. Having played the original GW from open beta all those years ago, and all the expansions following, this has been one great game for me to play.

the music is just fantastic i love it, sometimes I just sit there in the game and let the music play just to hear it.

the story line for my character is really cool to. I think this is the first time I have played an MMO where I actually had this.

I love to just stop and look up. There is so much to see. I was outside a main city once, and just looked up when I was outside the zone. A buddy of mine was looking at my screen one day, and he said “Wow, where are you right now? That looks awesome.” Yeah, it does look awesome.

I am having a blast with vistas also. Whoever came up with that idea is a genius.

Great game all! Thanks for all the time and obvious effort you have put into this game.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Game came out in 2012, we should wait 2014 for something to play? Doesn’t this sound ridiculous to you? Sure this is an mmo and its more of a marathon than anything else but they had one year, nothing been done. To me this is really bad because even gw1 received TONES of awesome things in that same year.

But GW1 wasn’t an MMO and it had its separate sections developed at the same time as the first one, because all of them were different stories.
And we do have something to play. We have fractals, guild missions, none of the zones from launch have disappeared, we have a rotation of mini games established and we have new content every 2 weeks. Recently the gauntlet was introduced. I was not able to finish it, so I’m guessing it’s hard content. A lot of MMOs get less and things that this gets and you need to pay for that content on top of that.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Every day there’s more and more people are disappointed with this game but anet does nothing to change the situation, i mean why would they care about hundreds upon hundreds complaints?

Maybe because they have numbers and you don’t. And in your attempt to find people who think like you, you’re exaggerating the number of people who don’t like what’s going on.

Again, to make sure you get this…every day you post negative one liners in multiple threads, saying how the game is bad for various reasons, or acknowledging the people who don’t like what’s going on (while completely ignoring all the people, and there are plenty, who actually do like what’s going on).

But you have zero numbers. None. And I don’t. But Anet does. Obviously, the living story is producing results, if Anet has added teams to it.

I mean why add teams to it, if it’s not producing the desired result?

I’ll be honest, I rather like the smaller scale and overall lightness of the Living Story.

To me, one thing that always kinda made MMORPGs seem weird was that they kept getting these end-of-the-world scale threats so often. I mean, what kind of world is it when you beat one world-consuming abomination only for the next one to emerge a week later? And how would they explain that the heroes never get even slightly tired or depressed about it?

And really, it makes the world… more alive. While our characters might be heroes, they’re not the only people in the world. And ordinary people have celebrations, elections and stuff like that.

And of course, having a villain (group) that is not about ending the world for no apparent reason is actually pretty nice. I just hope that they flesh out the Aetherblades a bit more. There needs to be proper reason why they’re terrorizing the people. Can you imagine how hilarious it would be if the villain was terrorizing the people because they’re celebrating and not fighting the dragons? That would be so hilariously meta that I think that would result in a massive explosion of lolz on the forum.

UserError.7150:

I am curious what anet means by claiming it does extensive testing, like EXACTLY what they mean by it, word for word.

The reason why i am curious is that any other product/software/service that claims to do this does NOT have even 1/10 of the problems your game has, let alone half of them

This game really doesn’t have that many bugs, especially when compared to other MMOs. Saying other games have less then 10% of the problems that this game has is hyperbole at best.

I’m not defending the game’s technical prowess. There’s certainly lots of technical issues especially when talking about the engine and how it scales with multiple players on screen, but when you’re talking about gameplay bugs or stability, this game is pretty excellent IMO.

sinzer.4018:

Malkavian.3751:

GW2 needs to move away from small temporary boring festival content every 2 weeks, to serious permanent content updates less frequently.

I disagree in a way as i don’t see how difficult it’d be to do both.

I think we’ll see some ‘more serious’ content in the future. They have stated that personal story and dragon stuff is more of what we would see in a typical expasion; however at that time they hadn’t decided how they wanted to do expansions. They’ll let us know when they make that decision and when it becomes relavent.

The LS is the story of the world, which is something different. I expect to see festivals for the different races. Random occurrences, like the death of a council member and then subsequent politics for filling that open seat. The celebration of a queens reign. All these things make sense and the additional links between each, gives the things a little more depth. Hopefully we’ll see something for the Charr culture, and something pertaining to the Sylvari, etc in future updates.

Colin has also stated that we will see more permanent impact on the world from LS. New zones, destruction, etc. Things that require more work, more effort, and more time. It has been stated that there are larger teams beyond the 4 living world teams that are working on larger content things. We just need to have patience.

Most people already know that we won’t see an expansion in the next Time, and I’m perfectly fine with that. I’d rather have bi-weekly free updates rather than an expansion.
And I don’t fear other MMOs, they have to go through the phase first that Gw2 has already been through. You haven’t seen much of those games either, and of course they promise much, every developer promises much and doesn’t even hold on to half of that, even Anet.

To your Points:

1. The Living Story will probably take place in new Areas very soon, as Anet said that now that they have a full rotation of festivals for the next year they can focus on more permantent and Storydriven Living Story Content, so I’m really looking forward to that.

2. NCsoft is the Publisher, the wallet of this game. You put your money into this wallet, and NCsoft decides if it opens itself for ArenaNet. Thats how Publishers work, sadly.

3. As I said before, everything sounds better on Paper or looks better in Preview videos, I don’t really think that any of those new MMO’s can live up to their promises, it’s hard to develop MMO’s, I think out of all Genres of Gaming MMO’s are the hardest so succeed with.

4. Patience, Friend.

5. As said before, NCSoft is a Publisher, a Buisness, they only care about money, as expected, you need to accept that.

6. A big amount of players enjoy the Living Story, yeah, the results would surprise you

7. Yeah, and we’ll probably be soon able to walk through that.

Here’s to Gaile! May her quill stay sharp and her wits even sharper! And here’s to the rest of the team! May they continue making great content for many years to come!

I’m retired military, and I’m ashamed of the OP, and the light he cast on my fellow brothers in arms. Theres probably a reason he’s not in the military any more.

Dear ArenaNet,

Keep up the good work!

Sincerely,
This guy.

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Tachenon.5270:

Vol.5241:

GW2 gamers seem to be the most entitled of all.

We get new content and QOL patches every 2 weeks. Yet it seems you guys want a free expansion.

There is more content in the patch than meets the eye. It’s meant to be a surprise

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1k9wjp/the_queens_speech/

I don’t want a free expansion. Especially if it’s more living story/world content. I want a full kitten campaign like Factions or Nightfall, and I’d be more than happy to fork over the cold hard cash for it.

You definitely won’t get a full game like Factions or Nightfall. While they might open those worlds in the future, they won’t be a full game. At least Anet has said as much. One of the problems they touted from the original game was how so many single campiagns divided the player base. They said they wouldn’t do that again.

I don’t care anymore what they say. This is what I say: I’m not going to stick around for another year of Living Story. I’m not going to stick around for another six months of Living Story. Not another three months. Maybe not another month. I’m sick of Living Story. No more.

The line must be drawn here. This far! No further! And I won’t buy any more gems to pay for more of what they are doing.

So here’s hoping Queen Jennah has one helluva speech.

You don’t have to like it…but some people do. I happen to be one of them. Would I like it better than an expansion….probably not. But I don’t feel I need to compare them.

I actually quite like the changing up of content, and having different stuff going on in different places.

Jeez, what a bunch of pathetic whining. Here you all are, enjoying the miracle of online internet gaming in a beautiful virtual world designed with love and attention, and a fun, frenetic combat system, and all you can do is whinge and whine about how this little thing or that little thing isn’t to your taste.

Servants! I can’t sleep, there’s a pea under my mattress!!!

The end of Culling?
Whoo hoo!! that is awesome

So since I haven’t found a topic for it, I made one myself. Post your feedback/opinion on it!

My feedback:
It’s a step in the right direction but it’s far from what I expected.
Biggest issue unresolved: enemies’ bodies (especially smaller ones) are still usually impossible to see , thus I can’t see which way they’re facing, or any of their animation cues.
Biggest offenders are:

• guardian Virtue of Justice activated effect (blue flame), torch skills <no.1 causes of clutter
• elementalist staff fire attack effects
• explosions (grenades/bombs/cluster bomb/shatters) – again, if a player is in melee, these block out most if his/her screen
• general on-target effects created by attacks (sword/greatsword/dagger autoattacks are the most annoying, though )
• fire/air sigil proc effects

Then the other one is that (so far it seems) AOE fields basically just become invisible (you can only see their circles) with Effect LOD, which makes the whole combo system useless, players don’t know which field to combo with. Their visual effects should only be reduced in size and made semi-transparent – a good example of how is the Meteor Shower when viewed from afar.
Biggest offenders are:

• Feedback’s bubble. makes things incredibly difficult to see, especially when in melee
• Time Warp when zoomed out far. the screen distortion it causes, paired up with other effects is just way too much
• Chaos Storm
• Static Field