Guild Wars 2

Betrayedchalice.5198:

Deal with it.

Thanks for those words of wisdom, it really does address peoples concerns and does not in any way provoke other players in any kind of inflammatory way.

Seriously, those three words is all anyone needs to read in order to know that the rest of the post is just not worth the time.

Wow, I didn’t think there would be much of a response. I apologize for the time of my response, I’m in a Japan time zone when most of you are asleep.

Anyway, there were several good points covered by you guys Have some more:

• Bonfazz Burnfur wasn’t shoved in our face for the majority of a year, unlike some psychopath I know who has a 20k Eviscerate with her name on it. In one year’s time, GW1 provided a fully fleshed story and an entire new continent with it’s own story. All we’ve gotten for the past year has been filler to detract away from the main plot.

• Scarlet being a dragon champion is a huge cop-out. Scarlet is a puppet, not a champion. It would have been so much better if Primordus or any one of the other elder dragons literally dropped in from the sky (or popped out from the ground in Primordus’ case) and wrecked mass destruction of LA. No Scarlet, no middle man; straight up “Yeah that’s right, we are still here. You think we’ll be as easy as Zhaitan?” Besides, Primorus is already awake. It awoke during the final events of GW1. Scarlet can’t ‘awaken’ Primordus.

• It is a well known fact that the original ArenaNet is long gone. As before I’m simply pointing out that if this ArenaNet is deliberately trying to separate itself from it’s GW1 roots, as some have said, then it should do so by changing the name of this game. I’m not saying GW2 is a bad game (it’s a very good game), but it is a little bit of a stain on the name of GW.

• As much as I love GW1, I gave that gave more than 7 years of play (not consecutive, of course. I do sleep/eat/work/live) and I have no need to give it any more. I got my full of the game and am thoroughly satisfied with it; best game ever. At this rate I doubt I’ll be able to give GW2 even half of that amount of time; can’t fill GW1’s shoes.

• I’m all for a changing world, but they way they are going about it is off-putting. I would have accepted the destruction of things like the old ruins of LA or the original lighthouse if it was done by the game’s primary antagonists, not some puppet or a random piece of seafood pretending to be a primary antagonist.

I don’t plan to step foot into LA during the entire next LS.

I will probably go through LA to see what they’ve done after the LS has cleared out.

I have gone back through Kessex a few times on my alts, only to do the personal story for exp. Skipped the entire zone because it’s ugly now, I hate the LS and what it has done to the game and Kessex is a glaring reminder of that.

So probably LA will be a zone I will also forfeit in this game.

Like I’ve said elsewhere, I am obviously not one of ANet’s intended customers for this game anymore.

ANet has made it abundantly clear, that unlike other developers who understand that customers help shape the game after release, ANet has retained full ownership of this game, and will do whatever they want, however they see fit.

Including nothing lasts forever.

Let’s hope that phrase does not come back to haunt them regarding customer income.

In the meantime, there will be customers who enjoy destruction. And those that are hoping something better replaces what is currently in LA.

I wish enjoyment for all who are looking forward to this next patch.

Well executed but a dreadful idea. It seems all MMO’s go this way when the developers get desperate at falling activity and starting pandering to the forum hardcore. And thus you get hardcore content (which GW2’s classes and public zones, plus previous flavor don’t suit) and class balance dominated by elite PvP concerns so it’s bland and zergy.

Here’s a hint for the hardcare (that will be ignored), most people who play GW2 don’t read the forum, they play a game to relax, gather some resources for crafting, explore a bit, earn some new skins to play dressups. They didn’t sign up for a raid game, and if they wanted one they’d be playing the dominant raid game (which is not this one). Their ego is not attached to their in-game skill so “working hard and failing often to get better” in a game is just a confusing misunderstanding of what games are for to them.

Have raid content, if you must, but off on the sidelines not as part of your prime feature which is the living world. Make dead content like Wurm (so funny seeing 3 people show up for it in Aussie prime-time) but off to the side with a “for raiding guilds on high pop servers only” signpost.

The sheer arrogance of “we’re training our players…” wow, what happened to you guys? The original GW2 design was a game about exploring, naturally wanting to jump into dynamic events that seque’d into stories. It was interesting and different. Trying to be another raiding MMO, which you will never win at, is a tragic misallocation of effort. Come up with a better solution, something that suits the original design and isn’t competing directly with all the other raid oriented MMO’s.

I thought guilds like TTS were using the overflows as a psuedo instance anyway for Teq… when you think about it… that’s exactly what they’re doing.

Jski.6180:

Decrypter.1785:

Ill sum this up for you folks

GW1 had a lot more skills/builds/teamwork/strategy/gametypes

GW2 has a lot better combat but lacks the above

there fixed this for you

GW1 had more bot team work and when you played with real humans you where playing beside them not with them because the 3 class system dose not make team work it make ppl play to different goals. Support for hp tank for hate and dps for the mobs hp.

GW2 has complete freedom of movement adding more strategy then “you take all the hits and i will do the other work for you”.

what did I just read
GW2 strategy for all content is “everyone dps and roll around” I guess you do have freedom of movement to roll any direction you choose

azizul.8469:

3. expects expansion even though GW2 give them free DLC fortnightly.

Lol, calling running around pressing “f” on many things with a hashed-out story instance with broken lore not related to the GW2 I purchased at all DLC.

I’d be asking for a refund if I had to pay for that, I don’t even do the content as it’s awful.

DrDivine.5378:

It has all these innovative mmo mechanics, yet they would rather play a standard WoW clone with less content.

Innovative it’s quite a relative term, since GW2 doesn’t actually innovate nothing… Besides, “innovative” doesn’t always means “good” or “well implemented”.
And i’ve been playing MMOs since Ultima Online and i yet have to see a MMO with less content than GW2 more than one year after release…

Phy.2913:

Your friends have terrible tastes in gaming.

Or… You know, they may be used to game with actual content…

Obsidian.1328:

I don’t know why this whole Scarlet thing surprises anyone.

I mean, nearly the same thing happened with GW1 with Abaddon. He was rewritten to be behind not just Nightfall, but the Searing and Shiro as well. Same major players in the dev team too.

Abaddon was behind the Titans’ power, but he didn’t convince the Charr to worship the Titans, and he didn’t convince the Charr to cause the Searing. Shiro is more of a stretch as to what, exactly, Abaddon stood to gain from subverting him.

That said, the difference between Scarlet and Abaddon is immense. The point isn’t what they’re behind, obviously large villains are behind a lot of things. A massive part is who they are. Abaddon was a god. He was vengeful, powerful, and in a lot of ways believable. A lot of people sympathize with Abaddon because his original motivations could be believed: he wanted to gift magic to the race of humans, a story founded in the tale of Prometheus. As human players, this obviously resonates in a way that says “you know, he might be evil, but he was originally looking out for us.”

Scarlet has none of this. She’s not a god, her dialogue is poorly written, we still don’t know her motivations (if any), and she’s not believable. She showed up out of nowhere to cause a bunch of chaos for no reason, and the only background we have on her is “she’s super special and smart and learned from all the races.” There’s nothing believable or interesting about her.

Even the minions they use having different standings in the lore. The Margonites were ancient seafarers who attempted to ascend to the Gods and were cast down, so they turned to Abaddon. They were formerly people, turned bitter and driven insane by power.

Who are the Aetherblades? We still don’t know where they come from or why they’re following Scarlet. Their appearance and weaponry is steampunk-esque in a high fantasy setting which is completely out of place. This is part of an overarching problem with a lot of the story and lore so far in Guild Wars 2. It doesn’t use the world itself, it keeps inventing new things. In every mission in Guild Wars 1 there was some kind of set piece that made sense in the history of the world. The ancient spirits of Tahnakkai, the weapons of Archemorus and St. Viktor, the Druids of Maguuma forest, the Great Wurms of Joko. It all intertwines richly into the histor yof the world and made for a compelling story. Guild Wars 2, so far, relies primarily on introducing things that have no conceivable place in the world. The Molten Alliance is another terrible offender – Flame Legion would never listen to Scarlet (a non-Charr, non-male person) and would never ally with an inferior race (Dredge). Charr by their nature are self-reliant. So even when the story DOES try and use given set pieces, they can’t even remain consistent with their own lore.

But I’m digressing. Back to the original point, the main issues is that while Scarlet and Abaddon share the similarity in that they’re a “mastermind” type being, their executions and believability are vastly different. That’s why a huge number of players want Scarlet gone, and yet those same players revere Abaddon and wanted more of him (through Fractals).

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I’ve stopped reading posts like this or responding them — there are just too many loud and strident voices who are sure that their view is correct and I’ve grown weary of repeating the same thing: I’m happy with the evolution of the living story and I like Scarlet as a villain. The current setup allows Tyria to evolve slowly and yet look extremely different to people returning after a few months.

I pay a lot attention to lore and I don’t see anything in terms of story in which major continuity is broken. There is a tendency by many “lore experts” to believe everything said about anything, if it’s in-game. In a good story, lots of people have differing points of view. Just because Pale Tree followers say nice things about the Dream doesn’t mean it’s true; just because Nightmare Courtiers say negative things doesn’t make them wrong.

Consequently, I don’t see anything in the original post that concerns me.

tl;dr Keep up the good work, Bobby Stein and fellow writers. I’m looking forward to more.

Nauseous posts like this make me incredibly sick. These so-called “writers” only look at sappy bootlicking like this to stroke their already-inflated ego and discredit every negative critcism about their cough “work.” Or if they respond to negativity (which started out as well-founded concerns first, and only developed into bashing when they refused to listen for the Nth time), they instantly go turtle-mode, shouting they’re being kittened and begging not to hurt them because they didn’t deserve it.

Why do I get the feeling that the vast majority of their testers are made up of people like you, salivating to the garbage they dump into the game every second week?

Though there are other low-level areas, there are not that many that are level 15-25. It is why that tier of crafting material is annoying to get. Because not many people go into those areas. Plus, keep in mind that new players and characters do not have full maps.

Also… people should want to do other stuff besides living story at the time of it. There is so much content in this game, people can’t just spend all their time in living story. Some people want to complete maps. Some people want to do hearts. They really should consider “old content” when they put new content on top of it. It shouldn’t just be slapped on for two weeks without any care on how other things are affecting it.

And people are forced into the story if they even go into Kessex Hills, which is a problem for characters that barely are over 25.

No, if I don’t like the content I won’t play it, no matter what.

My free time is worth more than any reward Anet could put in the game.

I find the rewards as a whole in GW2 medicore, unimaginative and rubbish by and large.

SirMoogie.9263:

cesmode.4257:

I second this. I see more of these types of success/failure scenarios in the early zones and less as you move through the rest of the world. I think you could do the game wonders if you would add more layers of success and failure.

I third this. However, Arena Net has commented on their dynamic events prior to this:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

We are listening. Not only to what you’re saying but also to what you’re not. The very first living world team actually did the thing some of you have called for. Some 40 or so permanent events were added around the game in our very first content update. They were met with little interest or fanfare. Granted, Halloween may have stolen the show. But those events are still in the game today. I’ve seen very little reaction to them, however, positive or negative.

Ive seen his post pop up many times in threads. What Ive always wanted to say in response to that was that I am not sure a big deal was made about the additional dynamic events that they installed. Im guessing they were tucked into the game in various places where people would stumble upon them randomly and not notice that they are new events. Honestly, if you ran through a zone that you might have been to only once, what are the odds that you experienced all dynamic events in the zone(other than maybe queensdale and maybe kessex where the DEs are easily repeated)? Theres a fat chance that players just didnt recognize a new event.

Regardless, did they simply add a bunch of DEs, raced to the forums to see that we were not posting about them and determined “Oh, well they dont like it, lets move onto something..hmm I had an idea. a Living world!!”

Also, Im not taking about adding NEW dynamic events. But even re-working old ones to make success or failure impactful. Have both of the outcomes kick off a chain. Not necessarily create entirely new DEs with their own mini stories, but add onto existing DEs too.

Just to add one more thought. I think all this grindy content burns goodwill.

My non-scientific anecdotal evidence suggests that when people quit the game because the goodwill is gone they really end up hating the game. The amount of venom I’ve heard from friends who left the game is unbelievable.

Living Story Evaluation

From my favorites to my least favorites looking at the content, not story told (festivals and SAB excluded):

The Lost Shores

Huge technical hurdles aside. This release delivered to us the players the one time experience of fending off an invasion of Lion’s Arch and helping to settle a zone. We defended Lion’s Arch from an attack, helped build structures, bridges, fight the local wildlife and then had an epic boss encounter at the climax. It felt that our actions mattered here and for some the world that they logged into was not the same as the one they left the previous day (just like the real world). From a story-telling standpoint you delivered us mini-objectives in game to find out information about the island and didn’t need a short story on the website to give us extra information. But… I wouldn’t do it this way again. For one time changes like these (and not changes that can be done and redone again, like other dynamic events) there needs to be better pacing so players can all feel like they contributed. It shouldn’t take seconds to establish and build an outpost, but days (with events to help stock it and protect it even after it’s built). A siege on Lion’s Arch should last minutes, but be an ongoing encounter with players taking objectives back and enemies increasing their strength and fighting back (a tally of casualties/battles won can help determine when the event finally succeeds and moves to the next stage).

Cutthroat Politics

While the impact of this release arc promises to be huge, it was a fairly boring method of enacting that change. We just voted. I can’t offer any other way of doing this arc, as that was pretty much the story. Unfortunately, this one makes it to the top of the list as it’s the only other release where player action seemed to matter greatly.

Last Stand at Southsun

The events added here for the Karka Queen made our actions important for summoning her, which is a plus. However, the event could be more organic if it acted more like a back and forth between the Settlers of Southsun and the Karka. The settlers would have their corner(s) of the map and the Karka have their territory. As the settlers need more resources they risk going out into the island. As players we protect them, but in doing so we start to enrage the Karka Queen. As more territory is claimed by the settlers the Queen responds in kind by initially sending out karka to take back the territory. If she continues to fail she fully enrages and joins the battle. This way a small contingent of players can get the event rolling. Remove her timer ¹ and put failure conditions related to protecting the outposts (and thus her becoming less enraged). As an aside the Karka Queen needs a better model. (cont’d)

¹ – I Dislike Timers

Hi Chris,

I agree with what many posters have been saying about the Living Story pacing, storyline fragmentation, and Scarlet. While I’m disappointed that you are not willing to reconsider the two week release schedule, as Arena Net has not yet demonstrated this is anything but a hindrance to developing quality content thus far; I’d rather focus on the type of gameplay you are introducing while telling the Living Story as that is my primary concern (though I don’t think the two week schedule is helping you here either).

General Content

Shortly after releasing Scarlet’s Invasion I began to feel “burned out” by the Living story content.The achievement grind is part of the problem, but to be honest even if it were easier to do the achievements I don’t think I’d find them fun.Scarlet’s Invasion wasn’t the first content to have the problems I think the Living Story has, but it was the first where I started to think about what I liked in the game; which is the potential dynamic events have for letting the player base control the outcome of individual stories across the world. I don’t consider loot very meaningful, and if there is too much vertical character progression I’m more likely to leave a game than go through the grind;; but give me the ability to change the course of the story and help shape the world, and you suddenly make me feel meaningful.

I consider dynamic events the bread and butter of your game. They tell short or multi-branching tales where player actions can help determine the outcome. They aren’t always challenging, many don’t have any impact on the world at all, and when they do this impact is usually short lived; but they can be the perfect vehicle for allowing player actions to have meaning in the world. Going forward before you introduce new dynamic events, whether it be huge invasion type content or small events like hunting an arctodus so Edmund can get a new rug; I think the content creators should ask themselves:

• Does this event and surrounding environment give enough story context for why the player is performing the activity?
• During the event, should a player arrive late; is there spoken or text dialogue that can catch a player up?
• Are the NPCs acting appropriate to the context of the tale you are telling with the dynamic event?
• Can the NPCs make meaningful impact on the world around them should players succeed/fail at the task at hand?
• Does the impact have lasting effects on the surrounding area or the zone at large so that the players feel like they did something meaningful?
• Can those effects be changed back to the previous state by player and NPC actions or are they on a timer? If the latter, try to go for the former.

Presently many of the dynamic events, especially those added in the Living Story content, fail to make the players feel like they’ve made meaningful changes on the world. Whether it be the epic dragon fights or smaller centaur incursions, the events repeat too frequently and many times without cause, removing the immersion and reminding players their actions don’t matter. I know it would upset the loot/achievement/farming motivated players, but I’d prefer a more organic world where player and NPC actions matter, as opposed to one where things run on predictable schedules so that people aren’t denied access to their loot pinatas. To make the world feel more organic NPC actions and reactions need to be logical and whenever possible, off timers. If we succeed in winning an outpost from the centaurs, it should open up new events to fortify that outpost from the centaurs. Making it harder for them to take it back. In response the centaurs will have their own “events”, where they must gather resources to build up their attack, descry new combat techniques or spells, scout out the player controlled encampments for weaknesses in the defenses, perform guerrilla attacks on bases elsewhere, and perform assassinations on key players that wander outside the safety of the encampments. Players may interrupt these centaur “events” to make their reclamation of the fortress harder still. To ensure the centaurs aren’t always pushed from the maps, you can add centaur type “break out events”, where the centaurs get a powerful boss to rally to their aid occasionally. This type of dynamic scaling need not be on a timer either, but can be based on how many successes the players of that world have been against the centaur incursions. The idea here being that a warlord doesn’t enter the fray unless necessary. The more event choices we as the players have to help shape the ebb and flow of the Living Story content or any content the better. (cont’d)

Similar changes can be made to the world boss events. Tequatl shouldn’t be entering the fray unless the players are doing really well at controlling Sparkfly Fen. After he is defeated players should have to perform events necessary for combating his eventual return. If Tequatl wins, he should do more than corrupt the shore and then flee. He should stick around aiding his minions in capturing objectives around them map in an invasion style event. If the players fight back this invasions to the shores again, they get another crack at Tequatl. Again, NPCs need behave in context with the tale you are trying to tell.

Event Failing and the Problem of Choice

You mentioned in one of your previous responses that having events fail is a more nuanced discussion, and I agree. I don’t think this is just a problem with event failure, but part of the general problem with giving players choices over how the world is shaped. We saw how vile the player base could be to each other when the choice was between earning more loot from champion farming and completing events successfully during Scarlet’s Invasion events. Although I think that problem would be easily resolved by removing champion boxes and putting them on dynamic event completion; that is not a solution that lends itself to the general problem of players having competing interests.

I’ve read earlier on in development testing that you experimented with having more world impact on event failure/success and this also bred conflict (though I wonder if it was as much as the loot conflicts). I can see how that would be a problem. Let’s say the Shadow Behemoth could not be summoned unless a necrotic ritual was successfully performed by his minions, and that his minions could be stopped by the players. Here the players are given the chance to prevent a powerful enemy that could cause untold destruction (if only he could) from entering the world; but because of this they miss seeing a really interesting boss encounter. Assuming perfect reward balancing between these encounters (i.e., let’s remove loot considerations), I can see how this could still generate conflict as some people would naturally want to save the day, and others would want to see the boss encounter (even if it caused untold destruction on the world).

When it comes to lesser impact on the world this problem doesn’t seem to crop up, at least I haven’t seen it. When it comes to whether or not we should let the centaurs capture an outpost, everyone seems to just help out, no one I’ve seen complains that we shouldn’t win the day to see what happens. So I suspect that this type of conflict escalates in proportion to the type of impact it has on the world, and individual preferences on what would be “cooler” to do (a boss battle followed by a mass burying of the dead, or preventing said boss and a huge festival cheering you on for saving the day). It’s unfortunate that epic choices like these would generate conflict in the community, as the mature thing to do is recognize that people have differing preferences and part of life is negotiating our differences. I certainly would side on making our experience more organic, where player choice matters even on the big world changing decisions; but as a developer that wants to have a positive community it might be preferential to still give us choices here or there where conflict doesn’t appear to spring up (you’ll have to experiment); while leaving bigger choices as fated ; like preventing an epic boss fight or opening a new zone. This isn’t to say player action can’t be responsible for summoning world bosses (see the Tequatl suggestion above), just that player choice shouldn’t be able to prevent it. Again, not that I agree with this, but it is probably the diplomatic choice. (cont’d)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

gidorah.4960:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We are committed to quality not quantity.

Chris

the hard adherance to the two week release schedule seems to indicate the opposite. there has clearly been releases that just seem unfinished. Cannach’s lair comes to mind of something that left the majority of players thinking the content was rushed out to meet a 2 week schedule. There have been others but that was the one that comes to mind first. I think its ok to just have a balance patch and delay content that clearly isnt ready so that our enjoyment of great content is merely delayed not ruined by clearly rushed release schedule.

Hi Gidorah,

To be clear we are absolutely focused on quality. We feel that we can have both this cadence and high quality and are continuing to work toward this. If we feel that we cannot reach this balance then of course like everything, we will evolve as necessary. This said there is a lot we can and are doing to meet concerns regarding the cadence and really polish the positives we have already achieved in this area.. My point is the current plan is to continue with this cadence.

Chris

Your post here outlines the problem for me I guess. Our views on quality vastly differ and I would say I put the bar higher than you. Quality to me means people enjoy it and repeat the content for the content itself. Most of the time now it is just AP chasing and when done they don’t come back. See tequatl and Aetherblade TA path. While from a developer standpoint you can claim it is quality work if no one does it after they get their AP it means you failed.

As for taking a hard stance on the 2 week cycle. That is just bad from the start and pretty much says you don’t want things to improve, because if you do than nothing is off limits. Everything needs to be up for discussion or this will simply be a futile effort.

What frustrates me more is that the game launched with glaring shortcomings that it didn’t have in GW1. Yes, GW1 took a while to overcome the shortcomings, but I don’t understand why Anet needs to learn those things a second time over.

• Templates: everyone loved them. There was literally not a single downside to having them. It was one of the most brilliant things Anet ever implemented in GW1 and it made life so easy.

• A decent targetting system: I went and played GW1 earlier this week, out of nostalgia and I was blown away by how awesome GW1’s targetting system was. It’s like making dinner for someone one day and they say they really like it, and when they come over again, you think to yourself ‘you know what they would really like, if instead of just having dinner, I’ll put a big poop in the middle of the plate that they have to eat around, they’ll love it!’.

• Decent AI: like really. The AI (especially of the NPCs) in this game is so bad it kind of makes me ashamed. In GW1 you also had the ability to trick your NPC AI to follow you. This is especially frustrating in dungeons where you rely on the NPCs to trigger events. Either just make them afk characters like Kormir was, or give them decent AI. But don’t make them dumber than a bag of rocks, have them hit like a wet noodle and make them tanky as hell and then have entire dungeons rely on them. Or just re-introduce the system where you could ping a target and the NPC would follow the person that pinged the target.

• PvP modes: like really, how can you make a game that was universally hailed for their great PvP modes and then make a new game that has exactly 1 mode, and then the most boring of them all. And on top of that have the balls to say that you hope your game to become an esport with a straight face.

• A good story: GW1 story was amazing. I don’t have to remind you of the public opinion of the GW2 story…

GW2 audience are players that never played any kind of mmo’s.

I went off on a bit of a textwall before, because I was focusing on what, for me, is the main barrier to my re-entry into GW2 (along with few friends playing any more – but they have stopped playing for similar reasons!) So, here is a more concise post, a bullet-point list of things I would love in this game, or that I think would help:

1 – Don’t tie into an ironclad guarantee of fortnightly releases. I mean, sure, aim for them, have bugfixes in patches that often, sure thing. But forcing yourselves to that schedule when you cannot keep up is daft. You keep saying how you’re limited by fortnightly delivery – well, why tie hamstring your game like that! You should be going for an optimal format, not a “limited” one.

2 – More permanent stuff, less transient. We know that this is coming, on the 4 month delay, but it really can’t be said enough. It’s only fun if you’re the narrow-band player who isn’t too casual, but isn’t too hardcore either. Which means it caters to as many people as raids do in other games.

3 – Make the lore you add visible in-game. I mean, heck. You posted a story about Scarlet studying in Rata Sum? Why can’t we read that story in Rata Sum! Why does no one in Hoelbrak or Black Citadel talk about when she was there? If you add characters, add teasers in-game that they’re coming. Or, you’re telling me she was known about years ago in Rata Sum and no one ever said anything? Nope, not buying it.

4 – Make story re-playable. “Journals”, items you click which take us to instances, NPCs who open instances, all that stuff. We had mission books in GW1, and they worked.

5 – Reduce or remove the grind-based achievements. Farming mobs and opening chest after chest in a cycle around a map is boring. We don’t need 20 achievements in a patch if they all suck. What about 5 or 6 that are different and challenging? Find one hidden item, kill one mob in a particular circumstance, that sort of thing. Achievements turn to grind when they are too commonplace, because there’s only so much variety they can have. Far better to get three different ones which take skill or you have fun doing than ten, eight of which are just killing the same mobs in different places.

6 – Use the lore that already exists. I mean, come on, there’s so much of it! There seems this focus on adding new stuff, new characters; it’s new new new. But there are so many existing characters that could be used instead. Or as well as; it doesn’t have to be either or.

7 – Expand. So far we’ve a focus on revisiting existing places, and sure, that’s fun. But there’s a whole world out there, and so far we’re still stuck in the same place we started, save one new zone, and another which flies in for an annual hi-and-goodbye. Tyria is bigger than this. I want to see it!

8 – Tie existing components together. So, here’s my question. What are the Pact up to? I mean, Zhaitan is done with for now, we’ve seen no signs that they’re going after another dragon just yet, so what are they doing? Heck, why haven’t they turned that nice, big army on Scarlet yet? It’s a pact to protect the world, and right now she seems to be one of the biggest threats. You’re telling me the army that took out a dragon can’t bombard her into oblivion?

9 – Part of Expand really, but, well. Zhaitan’s gone. What about news from Elona, or Cantha. Maybe Bubbles is in the way of Cantha, but Zhaitan was the main reason no one could hear from Elona. You’re telling me no one’s even curious? Even if we can’t go there yet, surely someone would have tried it? Can’t we get the odd NPC with a bit of news? A different textbox, or, say, a “newspaper” in LA with a global summary of what’ going on. You say you want to make this like a TV show? Well, a TV show has unity and depth. In the good ones, nothing happens in complete isolation. Even filler episodes show us something to give greater context to the world and characters. Where’s this depth?

10 – Playability. So, all those tokens, back-items, minipets, and other fluff we get. Where do we put them? I have a Zephyr item taking up bank space, I have gauntlet tokens too, and those election support thingies which I bought but never got round to using. It’s all so gosh-darned confusing trying to sort out what items are worth keeping, and what is junk. Likewise, finding out what you need to do if you join a LS patch halfway through. I can’t play all the time, and when I do come in, I get three letters, some of which are outdated, and I spend the first few minutes thinking “Umm, what’s going not now?” If I’m like that and I usually read the website, what about the people who don’t? I shouldn’t be left looking at 3rd party sites to try and work out what I have to do.

I’ve kind of lost my groove in the game. I’m a casual solo player. I have a life away from my computer that requires more attention and effort than trying to keep up with a game.

I loved Guild Wars, all 3 campaigns. I liked the way the story was fluid and you could progress through it at your own pace. I really like that about Guild Wars 2 as well. Except, its just one story. I am not in anyway trying to diminish the epicness of the story as a whole. But after doing it at your own pace, it suddenly ends and you get thrown into this enforced race to keep up. But you’re not keeping up with a single cohesive story arc, you’re chasing a series of short stories with no real cohesive back story that feels rushed and ad-hoc.

3 Guild Wars campaigns, an expansion, the books, the wikis, the community, all built this massive backstory of lore that could have some kind of impact on the current history of the game, and you throw us the Aetherblades and Scarlet?

I’m not a hard core player. I work 6 days a week. But I like good stories. I will play good stories. The game doesn’t even have to be a great game if the story is good. I play solo because I can’t devote honest time to a guild. I played through Guild Wars because the stories in the game were fluid and made sense within the lore. There was also a personal sense of being able to achieve something on my own, even if it took me longer than people that were progressing through the story far faster than I ever could.

The time limit on the Living Story, and the sense of missing out on bits of the story, frustrates the bejeebuz out of me. I don’t much care for the trophies or even the achievements. But I’d like to be able to follow the Living Story at my own pace, feel like its actually building or fits within the lore of the game, and get a sense of achievement for playing through a complete story.

(Secondly… Completely off topic… Can we please get rid of the RNG for things like Black Lion Chests or Mini packs. I don’t mind buying the outfits, picks/axes/scythes, other goodies and more. But I like to know what I’m getting before I buy it. Not get a half dozen of the same item that everyone else already has multiples of. If you’re going to have RNG items like that, make it worth the cost of entry and stop putting anything less than Rares (or something) in them.)

I love the game in most other respects. I love the Hearts, map completion, daily and monthly achievements, the scale of the game for different sized groups, the leveling system, world events/champions/dragons/bosses… Hell, I even love the gem store a little too much.

But I have hardly played in the past couple of months because I just simply cannot devote the time it now requires, just to keep up. Let people fly through the stories and get the achievements and the titles and the items associated with those stories, but unless you make it possible for someone like me to keep up, you’re on track to becoming that game I play on my day off when its raining and I have nothing else to do.

The OP makes a valid point. However, you really must be careful in who you label a “troll” since on an given day even the most circumspect of posters may go off on a tangent or miscue on what he thought was simple humor, but was interpreted by others differently. Now bear in mind that “trolls” come in all forms. Now the typical troll usually does not last long on a forum, and at some point they are banned; although many of them have multiple accounts and re-appear under another name. That said, for the most part I believe the Anet Forum Moderators handle this well.

But there are also reverse-Trolls , and unlike traditional trolls, these are nearly impossible to weed out. These type of trolls are easily spotted because they spend most of their time lecturing others on nearly every topic imaginable. The reverse-trolls are basically “self-appointed” spokesmen for Anet, and they pollute nearly every single thread with inane and verbose nonsense. They also tend to speak with the voice of authority, as if they had “inside information” as to what the game Devs intended or think. Always at pains to give the impression they actually know why the game company’s developers made certain decisions or changes, truth be told, they haven’t a clue. Unfortunately, these types have become more common in MMO forums; usually polite, but always pretentious, these creeps are nothing more than control freaks looking to gain some unearned self-esteem on a gaming forum.

BTW, these trolls are also “self-appointed” forum moderators … so be very careful if you do choose to engage one of these gazillion-post weirdoes, because they adore the report option.

Treadstone.2564:

[SNIP] The technology already exists to tailor the game world to each player’s place in the story. The living story isn’t revolutionary nor does it advance the genre. It’s quite the opposite – an antiquated brute-force approach to storytelling that advances the story for everyone regardless of whether they’re around to experience it or not.

+1. Nailed it.

Vayne.8563:

Conner.4702:

Only the most blind fanboy would still defend Anet at this point.
The game is a mess on most fronts. From SPvP, WvW to the PvE side. Not properly tested updates and badly designed content is running rampant.

Anyone who starts a post like this doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously. Essentially you’re saying if you don’t agree with me, you’re not only a fan boy, but blind.

No one is saying the game is perfect, but as far as MMOs go, for some of us, this is the best that’s out there. It may not make it a great game, but it does make it the only choice in MMO for some people.

its you who don’t deserve to be taken seriously. Every single day you come on here to prove hundreds of other players how ‘swell’ gw2 is doing when the large majority of this forum/in game agrees that gw2 is lacking and lacking on all fronts from pve to spvp or wvw. So keep telling yourself its the best game ever made all you want but its sadly not the case and with latest updates/patches its only getting worst. I also like how you call everyone troll/hater if they say something negative about gw2, typical forum fanboy.

Point here is Anet promised to make a game they never delivered. They promise something new, creative, different and blablabla. They delivered a generic MMO.