Guild Wars 2

As far as I remember reading, they write the future history of the world and game. Then the LS writers use that to create LS updates. There was a whole conversation a while back where Ree talked about a Knowledge base of the world that they are constantly updating as they grow the world.

Some of these things were also pointed out by my husband.

One particular thing he noted is this: during Gates of Maguuma, Marjoly gives you a Sun Crystal and tells you to run through whatever is blocking the NPCs’ way. However, nothing in-game is stopping Marjoly from just saving her breath and doing it herself. Why even need me? Additionally, Kasmeer can place Portals wherever the kitten hell she wants. Outside of those magic-interfering crystals, why even bring the PC into this?

Even earlier on, during Battle of Lion’s Arch, five lone loonies adventurers (“and you”) take on Scarlet Briar. Thing is… you, the PC, have connections to not only your respective order but also the Pact. You’re buddy-buddy enough with Trahearne that you could call in a favor or five and ask for a personal battalion to siege Scarlet herself, no need for Pseudo Destiny’s Edge. In other words, you’re most certainly not a nobody and unless you’re playing a salad, at least one or two of these characters MUST have heard of you and go, “Okay, the [racial title]‘s going to bring in the Pact so we don’t need to be needlessly risking our lives.” Why can’t I call in that favor (of sorts) instead of needing to rely on these nobody NPCs?

Even more so, WHY LET SCARLET DIE THE WAY SHE DID? Yes, she caused a lot of suffering, blah blah blah, but each of the orders have something to invest into Scarlet: her information on the Dragons, on the leylines, on Caithe, and basically a lot of things that PDE should have cared about but instead went “nah ur gonna die lol”. How frustrating! The Order of Whispers would have loved to interrogate the kicks out of her. The Vigil would have at least wanted to inflict some punishment for the mass chaos she did (along with waking up an Elder Dragon). The Priory would have delighted at what she could have learned in her studies and use it against the current forces.

But no. Bad guy dies, hooray, now we’re fighting a new enemy almost completely blind. GG, PDE.

In GW1, at least it made sense that you were a nobody wherever you went because the problems were localized to each area. Go to Cantha shouting, “I’m the wo/man who defeated Abaddon!” and they’re going to respond with, “Who?” Go to Elona proclaiming you defeated the Lich and they’ll ask, “There was a Lich?” Go to Kryta shouting you’ve defeated Shiro Tagachi and they’ll look at you in confusion.

It doesn’t work here, though. You’re either a respected member of your community or of your group, you’re a high-ranking official in your respective order, and your respective Destiny’s Edge member would at least let others know about you should they ask. The Norn and the Charr especially would make sure that all of Hoelbrak and the Citadel would know of your deeds of slaying a frickin’ Elder Dragon. There really shouldn’t be a lot of people that don’t know of you.

Marjoly is a detective and would have figured out that, yes, you’re a pretty big guy in the (human) community. Kasmeer would have heard of your prestige or would have heard of it through Marjoly.
Taimi would have definitely heard of you (as an Asura) either through research or from Zojja’s mouth.
Braham would have definitely heard of you, either from Eir herself or from the skaalds singing your praises (as a Norn).
The only one that MIGHT not have heard of you is Rox. That’s really about it.

Why even have your PC become such an influential character if, by the time the LS starts, you’re just a nobody again? After only a year? Good lord.

Axelwarrior.9084:

Karuna.1357:

THE BAD

• No WvW Support — it seems they wanted to include some sort of WvW in this game, and yet do not want to offer anything in the way of bug fixes, balance, and content updates to help support the format

Could you specify what kind of bug fixes, balance and content updates you’re talking about?

Any WvW player knows about the current issues with WvW and how Anet is neglecting what pretty much amount to half the game. But ok:

- Numerous broken/unbalanced class skills reducing their viability in WvW/PvP or making them OP. Anet programmers has previously mentioned pets as not being intended for WvW due to adverse effects on the server stability. Necros should consider themselves pretty lucky having a main role in raids, but then again they are all wellmancers, not minionmancers. Mesmers and Rangers are pretty much kittened. Coincidence? I think not. And everyone love permastealth, dont they? Or the heaviest armoured class with the best health regen also having the best mobility and the best damage (and they get all the ladies).

- The maps themselves are old and not up to par with the rest of the game. They havent changed anything since the removal of the central lake yet they make whole freaking EoTM which is more complex than all WvW maps combined… and then its not even used for WvW, just karma training.

- They havent done anything to commander features despite promising to look it over years ago.

- Orbs are still MIA despite the promise to bring them back. It took nearly 2 years for them to hide they ever existed (they removed the northern ramp in the borders and removed the orb guards) but sure enough they finally did it. And I dont believe they ever said why.

- Siege is still unbalanced like all hell after the arrowcart lets-buff-the-damage-by-20000%-just-for-laughs patch. Not even a minor change like increasing the supply cost. Many of the siege skill traits are still horribly OP causing strange uses of siege (trebuchet supply drain for example).

- PvD zerging is still too easy.

- Outmanned buff still does jack kitten to an outmanned team. But hey, at least they changed the name!

- PPT still encourage the upper dog to kick the lower dog in the nuts while leeching off the middle dog because there is no difference in value.

- Why is garrison south inner still completely unique (you can see the door break at low HP)? Its like an unfinished experiment someone at Anet competely forgot about. Unless they’ve done another stealth removal of a feature since the last time I checked.

- They still havent done anything about the keep lord banner res spam.

- They still havent done anything to discourage night shift rampages or give the other servers a chance to reclaim lost points when morning comes. When PPT is gone, its gone. Good luck winning the matchup after 2 days in the weekend with low coverage.

- Nothing is being done about the lowest tier servers, which should pretty much be removed and absorbed into middle tiers. High tier servers barely have queues anymore and the megaservers make them useless in PvE. Maybe Anet could use those low tier WvW servers to, I dont know… fix megaservers by at least giving us one server instance in a city?

- Guild claiming is still wonky as hell. You cant even tell if you guild has something already claimed when you try to claim something else, other than thinking the function is broken (again).

- Nothing done about possible ways to encourage guild combat.

And probably dozens of other things I’ve forgotten to mention.

Those are Varesh’s words according to a Kournan soldier as documented in a letter torn from a book.

People commenting about how useless this thread is (or making condescending remarks about propaganda) are wrong.

We’ve seen several arguments:

• This is a retcon on GW1 lore. Centaurs were slaves not allies.
• This is not a retcon on GW1 lore but an expansion on it from a point in time we never saw back then. Centaur/Kournan relationships started out as co-operative and devolved into slavery.
• This is a piece of Propaganda from Varesh/Kourna seeking to rewrite history, GW1 lore is preserved and the lesson from the book still remains.
• This is an unreliable source of information written long after the fact by a sholar who either used bias sources spreading the misinformation, or it simply got it wrong.

For a two page thread on a couple paragraphs of text that’s a fairly robust discussion with a number of possible explanations. That’s exactly what this subforum exists for, to discuss the lore in the game, propose ideas and challenge them. The end result is most of us (hopefully) walk away with more information or a perspective we hadn’t considered. If you think that kind of discussion isn’t useful, why read and post here?

Manasa Devi.7958:

Shiren.9532:

It’s left to the player to make up an explanation for why it doesn’t match their experience in Nightfall.

There’s no need to make up an explanation.

Just take both what you know from GW1 and what you read in Scarlet’s house at face value, and the answer presents itself. Unless you’re unaware of the concept of ‘propaganda’, in which case you should worry more about your general knowledge than the quality of a video game’s writing.

At no point do I rule out propaganda as a possible explanation. I specifically deal with that as an option – it’s exhausting the “NPC perspective thus unreliable” crutch used to make stories stand up – the unreliable NPC in this case is the author of the book, the reason for them being unreliable can range from propaganda to facts lost to time to anything else. If you’re going to condescend someone suggesting they don’t know what propaganda is, maybe be clear they haven’t explicitly covered that as an explanation in their first post on the topic.

My primary point from my first post is that this letter exists to provide background on Scarlet, not to make a statement on Kournan/Centaur relations. The last two releases have been relying heavily on sources like this to explain Scarlet’s… abilities after the fact. She was heavily criticised for her over accomplishing nature and the writers consistently write like this to explain her (that’s why What Scarlet Saw foreshadows every alliance – a smith, weapon expert, toxic pollent expert – now we have Varesh, the Kournan diplomat).

Ultimately for the purpose of this book (establish a source for the players to see how Scarlet went from newborn sylvari to political chess player) it doesn’t matter who wrote the book about centaurs/Kournans or whether either of those things are historically accurate. All that matters to the core purpose for this book is that Scarlet, while studying how to make her plans come into effect, got the idea to combine two difference races’ strengths into a more powerful alliance from this book. If nothing else, Scarlet getting a successful idea from a book designed to misinform, seems rather ironic to me.

BY AZURA BY AZURA BY AZURA! It’s Scarlet, I can’t believe it’s you standing here next to me. I’m going to follow you and watch you and worship the ground you walk on!

Ok all jokes aside,
I doubt Anet would kill a child in a game that is rated PEGI 12.

Palador.2170:

alccode.1297:

One study I recall reading about came to mind as I was thinking about these issues. An fMRI study in Science recently showed that social exclusion and rejection activates the same brain regions that subserve experience of (physical) pain.

Ref is: Eisenberger NI, Lieberman MD, Williams KD (2003). Does rejection hurt? An FMRI study of social exclusion. Science 302(5643):290-2. Pubmed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=williams+eisenberger+rejection

Most interestingly, the behavioural paradigm used for eliciting these feelings was a “video game” type protocol where the player could pass a ball amongst him/herself and two computer players. The computer players ultimately stopped passing the ball to the subject, eliciting feelings of exclusion and therefore pain.

Note that this was due to being rejected or not socially included. We are social creatures, and therefore, not including us in the “choices” of the story (switching back to GW2) can thus create similar feelings of exclusion, alienation, and pain that I’m trying to refer to.

That’s… actually kind of awesome to know, and it does go a long way towards explaining the problem.

That doesn’t exactly explain the problem, rather the results of what the playerbase is subjected to with every living story update. It’s more of the end result of everything. The problem has always been the writing, but now they’re taking it to a new level by trampling on established lore from the previous games.

Nope. Now focus and memorize.

Scarlet, Leylines,Dragons eating magic, Magic, Magic World, Sylvari, Asura, Scarlet, Leylines, Magic, Magitech, Buy Gems, Leylines, Magic

Whenever you want to make a theory linking original lore with GW2 lore just repeat bolded text a couple of times. It should help.

The passage was them trying to make some kind of link in personality between Varesh Ossa and Scarlet in order to make Scarlet seem like a more compelling/cunning villain. It was just a super sad way to try and achieve that…

Boneheart.3561:

What did it make her?

. . . less one sibling.

Ms. McCoy, there is something in your posts which I feel needs to be addressed.

Angel McCoy.1832:

The whole “Commander” topic is another discussion entirely.

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.”

This never happened.

You never told that story. You did not write those scenes. Nowhere in the entire game of Guild Wars 2 does this ever take place, and therefore it is not the story you told.

This has happened repeatedly throughout Season 1, you refer to events and information that never actually transpire in the game. There are forum posts that detail how the Flame Legion were just using Scarlet to get their way, but there is no evidence for this in the game. Other posts describe how the dredge were inspired by multiple victories and motivated to keep serving as shock troops, but there isn’t a single NPC who says anything remotely justifying this. The krait were described as bitter and resentful after the Tower fell and struck LA in pursuit of vengeance, but there isn’t a single scene where that idea is conveyed.

If it isn’t in the game, it doesn’t exist. If it never makes it from your head to the page, it is never written.

The storyteller is responsible for conveying the entire narrative, and any holes in the tapestry are theirs to mend. It does not matter if you have the answers. It does not matter if you have it all properly arranged in your mind. It does not matter that you are a smart and clever thinker. All that matters is what you actually create in your medium. Art is judged by its results, not its intentions.

We never left the Pact. Anyone can claim we left to do our own thing, but there isn’t a single scene in the story that actually demonstrates this. It’s like leaving a gap between Chapter 8 and Chapter 10 and giving a brief synopsis of what was supposed to happen. That’s not storytelling, that’s telling that there should have been a story. And it’s all well and good to claim that there were priorities and time constraints, but maybe we didn’t need one or two of the hundred of lines of Scarlet’s “Mwahahahaha, I’m evil” rants or a scene or two of Marjory and Kasmeer making kissy faces, or a random interlude of Braham being a stereotypical moron. Maybe one of those scenes could have been spent actually moving the plot for the Player Characters.

You cannot ask us to pretend that you wrote the missing chapter of your novel. If it isn’t in the game, it does not exist. If it never happened in game, it did not happen.

lakdav.3694:

The bloodstones were not thrown out the window, they were merely given additional background that is less biased toward humanity and their gods.

They weren’t given more background, their importance was retconned, which flies in the face of everything GW Prophecies was about. I want the writers to respect GW1 lore, and not edit things out that happen to be inconvenient.

The human gods were very important in Guild Wars, and were part of what made the world of Tyria work for me as a player. To basically take them out of the story, and banish them to a desk job is insulting. It makes it feel as if none of the great things players achieved in GW1 mattered. The chosen ones who were sacrificed on the Bloodstones by the White Mantle and Mursaat. The Lich who we battled on top of the Bloodstone in Hell’s Precipice. The prophecy by Glint. All that.

The fact that GW2 has more races to choose from, is no excuse to completely eliminate the human gods from the world that they made, and pretend like it didn’t happen. It did happen! We met their avatars for crying out loud! They aided us in our battle against Shiro and the Lich, and against Abaddon. Their avatars appeared in the Temple of Ages.

So are the writers going to retcon the entire creation of Tyria as well? Was all that just “what humans think” too? If so, we might as well pretend as if GW Prophecies never happened to begin with, but I thought this was supposed to be the sequel to that hugely successful game.

Oh I get what Konig is raging about alright, and he is right. To put things in perspective, he and many other people of the lore community have been dedicated for over 7 years to map out all of the Guild Wars lore. They have been thoroughly collecting and investigating lore from both inside and outside the game. And that’s a wealth of information. But what Bobby stated, basically means that we can pretty much chuck our beloved GW1 manuscripts in the privy.

So yes, I understand the anger and frustration. I love the old GW1 lore, and when I heard how the Bloodstones and the history of magic in Tyria basically got retconned, it angered me. It basically meant that my favorite bit of lore was now void, and could be crossed out. (and I still do not accept it to this day, you can’t just erase the most important event in GW1’s history)

And to be clear, I do enjoy Living Story season 2 so far, and I think the writing is good. But I like the established lore better. I don’t like it when established lore gets chucked in the garbage can. This is kind of insulting to the whole lore community, to think that all that they’ve been collecting has basically been a waste of their time (over 7 years).

I have loved this game and its lore for 7 strong years. I didn’t even take a break from playing GW1 until GW2 came out since I started playing at the beginning of July 2006. It wasn’t until last winter that I took a break from GW2. You managed to undo 7 years of strong followship in a single year. I suppose it is only fair that just after my 8th anniversary of playing this game, you go and put in what seems to be the final nail in the coffin for GW’s lore. I loved the game, Bobby, I loved the story. I joined the Test Krewe the moment I could because of such, and defended Anet and did other things that I cannot speak about due to NDA because of my love for the game and its story. But now? That love has all but gone, Bobby, destroyed by the utter clusterkitten to the lore that Scarlet Briar was (and what the kitten is with that over propagandizing of Scarlet? She’s not a good character, stop trying to pretend she is – Abaddon and Shiro were far better villains, and they never got an ounce of the attention Scarlet’s getting), and now by further contradictions and now outright making old lore “malleable”.

Old, established lore are the pillars of a continuing story. A poor writer does retroactive continuities. A good writer works in a way to explain why old ‘facts’ became ‘lies’ and uses that to boost the story. A great writer puts in what they want while not destroying the established pillars of the story. GW1 throughout its lifespan did the last; GW2 at release did the middle; and the Living Story is the first.

I don’t think I even want to play the game anymore, Bobby. I truly don’t. I think this will end up being my last post on the forums. For now, though, I’ll continue log in to unlock the future stories, and I’ll stalk the forums – only in hopes that you (ArenaNet’s writers) and Guild Wars returns to being a great story made by great writers.

BobbyStein.2315:

lakdav.3694:

Well they did move away from most of the things they said during development (see the manifesto), it only figures that interview-lore isnt sacred either.

Unless we’ve built content around something, it’s usually considered malleable from a design and lore standpoint. Occasionally we decide to go in a different direction months or years after the first ideas are documented or even talked about externally. In some cases that means what one member of staff says in an interview can change when it comes time to building a release. It’s part of our iterative process.

In short, go by what’s in the game.

lakdav.3694:

I wouldnt even mind to rely only on lore that is presented in the game if there would be enough lore in the game. Im still hoping for some kind of codex in the hero panel.

My advice for you and others who care about the lore is to let us know what you think of the implementation in season 2. We’ve put a lot more resources into seeding each episode with loreful bits.

As always, thanks for playing and letting us know what you think.

Woooooow. Is that really all you have to say?

You could at least explain why this change was made. Even if it’s made up on the spot. It’d raise your credibility.

But instead you say what is effectively “be ready to disregard anything not in the game.” For argument’s sake, I’ll pretend you said games and books. Otherwise we’d have to disregard all lore in GW1 and the three novels!

Tell me, should we disregard An Empire Divided (which is the source for almost all the lore on Shiro and Cantha’s history) too? And the GW1 manuals – after all, they weren’t in-game. Or how about the lore tidbits provided in Art of Guild Wars from the Prophecies CE which gives insights that was never brought up in-game (such as old Krytan funerals being performed on swamps, where the bodies are wrapped up and stood up on boats before being pushed off)? Should we disregard each and every interview, which gives hundreds of fascinating bits of lore? Was the Dolyak Express focusing on lore pointless then since you can change what’s given at a whim?

I suppose this also means that if we hate an interview like the poor reception this one with Angel McCoy got. Or even "the clarification posts made by you devs regarding unclear points in either interviews or the game itself – of which there’s even more than the total number of interviews?

Shall we just toss it all out then, because kitten it! You can just change it at a whim, because it’s not “in game”. But hell, even the things you present in-game get changed! Steam creatures’ origins got changed! The mentality and believability of krait and dredge and Flame Legion got changed!

It isn’t just “what isn’t in game is malleable” with you guys is it? Because you even alter the things presented in-game.

With you, it’s more of “we’ll change anything in our lore to fit our current design” isn’kitten So I must ask you this Bobby:

What the kitten are your continuity designers doing in which they’re not creating a continuity but a retcontinuity!

This destroys the story’s credibility, putting it on par to WoW with how often things get changed and retcon to fit the new releases. You might as well start writing the lore on toilet paper because that’ll stop plugging up the toilet when you flush the lore down. And don’t bother arguing that’s not what you do, because that’s exactly what you admitted to doing even if you don’t use those words. “Actions speak louder than words” and your actions have spoken a cacophony.

This is truly saddening that this was your reply Bobby. It destroys all credibility there is in any forum post or interview ever had and ever will be had. Hell, at this point you can even retcon those short stories put on the web because “it’s not in game.”

There is so little lore in the game that if someone were to just play the game they’d think that the world is a bland and boring place! How do I know this? I’ve seen people say that! And I had to go into great detail, linking dozens of articles and interviews and forum posts, to clarify otherwise! But it was only because of the lore that’s presented out of the game that I could convince them that it wasn’t the bland and boring game they believed it to be – and now you’re saying that you can toss all that lore, all those explanations and expositions, out the window at a whim?

Why not just say that there is no lore, Bobby, because that’s effectively what your words are meaning.

-continued in next post-

Guild Wars 2 is a generic mmo. Guild Wars 1 was a complete, well thought out world of imagination and loads of fun. Anyone reading this should know. If you loved GW1 you will not be happy with GW2. they share a name only. Jeff Strains vision is no where to be found in GW2. Anet has said they feel pretty much every aspect of GW1 was wrong and purposely made GW2 the exact opposite. Recently the co-founder of Anet left to join Dead Labs founded by Jeff Strain (founder of Anet, and driving force behind GW1.). MMO’s are all making the same mistake it seems they make their game a WOW clone and it fails. Hopefully the future is brighter. SWTOR is a 300 mil failure financially. Blizzard put their new mmo back into alpha testing and moved some of it’s development teams to work on other projects. All the mmo game co’s need to do is listen to the players. But they absolutely refuse to do so. I think I can safely say in 5 years or less, MMO’s will no longer exist as they do today. Even a former developer from WOW said they killed the genre. There are no inventive or creative games anymore. They all seem the same. I read an article the other day that said as of it’s posting GW2 had sold 3.6 million copies, but only had approx. 460k of regular players. That is a pretty big gap. I’d call it a failure except they do not live on subs. I suppose it’s possible the 460k of players bring in enough money via in game purchases. But I doubt it. Chat in game seems to lean towards little or no real money being spent. Most say they would never pay real money for anything offered.

Sad.. I was so excited when they announced GW2. Now.. I play because it’s free and just to pass the time.

All so many closed minded elitist. Who want things just simply their way and care not see the others side point of view…
Instead of close mindedly addin your two cents perhaps skim through these posts as some but Not all have some very valid points and concerns…

lordkrall.7241:

The fact remains that it is fully possible to train up jumping ability and as such this is basically a non-issue. Especially since it is permanent.

Not for everyone. I’ve played mmos for years, and I’m not a bad player. HOWEVER I have fibromyalgia, my fingers are stiff so it’s hard to get the timing right. Trying to train this ability make my hands, arms, shoulders and neck cramp up and scream with pain. So I basically avoid all jumping in the game. I can play most of the game just fine, just not the stuff that requires jumping skills and very fast reactions.
There are many who play MMOs who either don’t have the body, reaction, PC or connection required to ever be any good at jumping, that’s why it should only be an OPTION in the game, something you can opt out of and still have fun!
I’ve seen on forums for other MMOs that quite a few who play these are disabled like myself. I’m not surprised. Gaming became one of my biggest hobbies after I became disabled and could no longer do all the physical activities I loved.

Chyanne Waters.8719:

Why do people see the need in trying to change the game into what they think they want?
Why do people complain about the game so much?
Why do people want mounts?
Why can’t people let Anet do their jobs instead of trying to do it for them?
Why do people want to make this game into their old game?
Why do people want expansions, When living story will add more content for free over time? https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/

1. Because I’m a paying customer and I want to enjoy the game.
2. Because they released an awesome game with loads of content, turned around and said, we’re not going add content like this. Instead we’re given achievements. No depth is being added.
3. Why don’t want mounts? What about riding on a horse, moa, asura is unattractive to you?
4. Because they’re failing at adding of serious import. In the last year, we’ve been given one new zone. I want you to look at what other MMOs add in their patches and tell me if this game compares. It doesn’t.
5. Because previous games set standards and convention that should be followed. You shouldn’t remove basic roleplaying functionality. You shouldn’t remove role specialization. You shouldn’t remove larger group content. They didn’t build upon the lessons learned in Guild Wars 1.
6. You can either swim in a pool or have a backyard filled with glasses of water of an equivalent amount.

Destai.9603:

1. Because I’m a paying customer and I want to enjoy the game.
2. Because they released an awesome game with loads of content, turned around and said, we’re not going add content like this. Instead we’re given achievements. No depth is being added.
3. Why don’t want mounts? What about riding on a horse, moa, asura is unattractive to you?
4. Because they’re failing at adding of serious import. In the last year, we’ve been given one new zone. I want you to look at what other MMOs add in their patches and tell me if this game compares. It doesn’t.
5. Because previous games set standards and convention that should be followed. You shouldn’t remove basic roleplaying functionality. You shouldn’t remove role specialization. You shouldn’t remove larger group content. They didn’t build upon the lessons learned in Guild Wars 1.
6. You can either swim in a pool or have a backyard filled with glasses of water of an equivalent amount.

Nevermind……Wizzey’s post above summed it up much better than I did.

Simon.3106:

You know… a company of 300 people cannot test a build that is suppose to provide a service for 1 million + (around there) people right? I know what they said; I read it since the day they posted it. You can’t expect everything to be perfect. Once you get older (I’m only in my mid 20 so I’m not that old), you might understand that. 300 people testing something that was meant for countless people is illogical. They put it out here for us so we can test it, send feedbacks, and they’ll look into it. Give them… a year to reply. Lol! Or at least several of months, I’m sure based on what I’ve been seeing with their progress of resolving issues.

When you’re working on a project this big, that affects this many people, you want to take it slow. Obviously it was not tested by vast amount of people at first. This is why we’re having all those problems right now. This is why they did (at first) taken precautionary steps to roll out Megaservers only on certain maps to test it with broader audience of couple hundreds thousands people instead of small group they had to work with before.

Here’s where the problem starts. Since you’re old enough you should realize by now, that when you make an experiment, you record the results. You make that experiment on low scale and test it out. Then only if the results are positive you bring up the scale, record results, and so on and on. Until you go into mass production.

That did not happen with Anet. They started with a small sample (only few maps) then instead of recording and studying the results, they went: “Why waste time, just roll it out further. If the servers can handle it, just finish the whole thing up by the end of the week.”

This kind of a overhaul has to be as close to perfect as possible before it rolls out on such a massive scale (every map). This is not a draft, and the game is way past it’s Beta stages.

So people playing together to take out champs like they are suppose to. How dare people play together as a group. It’s not like guild wars 2 is an MMO or anything…….. Wait………

This is Zerg Wars 2.
You need not communicate with other players here, we auto block players of different languages for you.
You need not form communities with other players. We will form temporary ones for you.
You need not recruit for your guilds, for you shall not know if other players are from the same server as you.
You need not ask for new things in the gem store, we will provide an ample amount of skins while changing existing items in order to refresh you and alleviate you of your soul destroying cash.
You need not look for players, for we will place you with as many as possible.
You need not learn to play, the zergs will kill for you.
You need not think, you will zerg.
Zerg now.
Please submit credit card information

And always “Hace A Nice Day!”

My issue with the megaserver concept before launch was that it destroyed the concept of home server unity. Many of the servers have their own forums and promote it within map along with the various VoIP system they use. This is not possible to do now since anyone from any server could be on the map.

However I was willing to give it a chance in hopes that it would not destroy my love of the game.

So far, I am not impressed. Contested waypoints are an issue that need to be addressed. What is the point of having waypoints if you can’t use them to go into another map. If your guild is running in Frostgorge and want you to run with them, how do you get there exactly if you don’t load into Frostgorge right away (this is after megaserver rollout on all maps)?

I get that others may want to play with other people and that megaservers are supposed to provide that type of game experience. However you have left out a large part of your user base with this move. I don’t wish to play with tons of other people. I avoided maps like Queensdale for that very reason.

If you insist on destroying the quality of gameplay on the PvE maps then please consider putting the cities as home server bases. Or take the suggestion put forth and give us an option to not play on the Megaserver.

Support and Understanding:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Community-Engagement/first#post3884148

However:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Community-Engagement/first#post3884214

Been feeling alienated for 18 months. Trying to stay with the game for my guild.

Being told over and over by the developers that it is their game and they can do anything they want with it (without listening to their customers explaining their experience) ensures that I will feel that this game definitely is not mine. Statements like that indicate they are not interested in my feedback, nor in generating my support or loyalty. Especially given the following:

Feedback in the precise format the devs require in an inflexible manner does not seem to make a difference. (see: multiple deleted/ignored 15, 20, 25+ page threads/CDI threads, etcetera).

Feedback through other formal channels (invited by the devs) does not seem to make a difference.

Lack of meaningful permanent additional content (the game will be 2 years old this August) in spite of their insistence on calling the game an MMO and then ignoring all customer feedback concerning removal of content.

And in spite of customer feedback to the contrary, what appears to be happening with the game is: a constant churn of already existing content, creating the impression that the game is unstable, the developers appear to be flailing, and that there is no appreciable sign of any vision for the future of the game In other words: in spite of customer feedback, the constant changes (e.g.“refinement” of existing details at a technical level) often have nothing to do with enhancing the customer experience and sometimes actually detract.

Surprises and unpredictability on the part of the developer, coupled with silence and/or mis-setting of expectations do not engender trust.

I realize that individually there are fine folks working at ANet. collectively, as a whole, their company culture and the way it is expressed through lack of meaningful communication, mis-setting expectations, rigid adherence to process and form, and the way the game is being handled, has managed to generate lack of goodwill, lack of trust and an overall distaste (at a business level) for the company, which has washed over into their product.

Community requires respect and courtesy from all parties. ANet has as much (if not more responsibility) here as the customers. That is a business basic. And it’s sadly missing here.

I think it’s offensive to stand there and wag your finger in an attempt to “correct” the “negativity” in the forum. As if you and your positive feedback are more worthy than the people posting negative feedback.

There are plenty of forms of communication I disapprove of personally, but it’s not my job to set guidelines on this forum, nor is it yours.

This patch has been overwhelmingly positive in accordance with the way I play. There are plenty of issues that are very real and quite negative for a number of people. Those people have a right to be heard. Their dissatisfaction is costing ANET money. I don’t think saying “Shame on you” is a tactic that will help ANET.

It’s fine that you like the patch. It’s not fine that you think you’re entitled to dictate how people post. I’m sure there’s a place to apply for a job as a moderator, if you’re interested in making sure the forum guidelines are upheld.

Edit:

Will.6210:

Will.6210:

Players who are satisfied rarely post about how satisfied they are. Forums generally represent a vocal minority.

Actually…. that’s a myth.

The people who post on the forums are the most passionate about the game. Good companies understand how customer feedback works and pay attention. Bad companies believe the myth and wonder why their customer base is shrinking.

Quoted for truth! +1

Greetings and salutations.

With Season 1 of the Living Story drawing to a close, it seems appropriate to offer review and reflection of everything that has come thus far. Sadly, there is much to consider, as the brand new path trod by Anet has many missteps and mishaps along the way.

Rather than talk about individual flaws, I thought it might be best to take a stab at the overall writing style of the Living Story and the narrative flaws it continues to exhibit. Plot holes come and go, individual complaints will always remain, but the best way to help Season 2 is to consider the pitfalls of Season 1 from a writing and gaming perspective. And so, I thought I would offer up a bit of constructive criticism in silly infographic format.

For your consideration, Fifteen Lessons From Fifteen Months of Scarlet Briar.