Guild Wars 2

There are many postings on the TP that grossly undervalue the items they’re trying to buy (even some idiots who post 1c for items sellable to vendors), and they hope to catch lazy or uninformed sellers who won’t question the price.

However, the other half of it is that the demand is low enough and the supply is high enough that the price of crafted items is indeed lower than the sum of the materials used to craft them. This isn’t extraordinary. You’ve been making lots of exotic swords, but how many other players out there are also doing the same thing? If it isn’t matched with players looking to buy the swords, then the price will drop.

With crafting in MMOs, people also tend to look at an actual cost to level up crafting disciplines, simply because the process of improving produces lots of unwanted items at the cost of highly demanded crafting materials.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Mate, if a centaur let you ride them, that’ll mean you are either their “Lord” or their wife.

Considering Tyrian centaurs are tribal and do not have a culture of honor and following some lord like knights, the only choice left for you is the other one.

Therefore if you think a Tyrian centaur is a mount, that means you want to marry one.

Don a cowboy hat and call it a rodeo.

Climbing the Tower of nightmares with a small group was an engaging challenge and felt like it had some progression to it.

Actually, that was the only thing that impressed me.

Actually, that was the only content I got a chance to play at length.

Every time I do a dungeon involving him, he just walks up to enemies and collapses in an explosion of melee damage.

In most non-MMO games, when I lose, the progress that I made since the last save, and I have to contemplate what I should do differently to avoid that loss. There are differences out there such as roguelikes (the mistake could lie a long time before death), ironmans (where you asked for such a penelty beforehand), and competitive games (your opposition makes progress). If you place harsher penelties, players will opt for more defensive strategies and take less risks in their approach to progress (this is what created the QD train). If armour repairs applied to Queen’s Gauntlet, I certainly wouldn’t be sacrificing my time to Liadri, since I would only be making negative progress.

Now, I have played an MMO with harsh penelties (RuneScape, and I shall speak of circa 2005), and my approach to not losing all my kit to dying was either to avoid dangerous content, or to tackle it with cheap suboptimal gear, because it’s a game and it’s in my interest to balance all possible outcomes against the time I put in, in terms of both what I’m doing, and how long it took to get there.

Evans.6347:

… Sometimes you just can’t have everything, game or not. If you truly wanted to follow the story, there are plenty of means to catch up, from wiki’s to youtube guides and whatnot.
…

Oh for kitten’s sake.

Read #13 on this, closely related. Once again I get to hear that the best way to experience the game’s story is to turn the game off.

Living Story was creating a problem for itself; if you jump in halfway through, what you’re presented with is a half baked in media res, except that actual in media res would bring the player up to speed with what’s happening. Living Story just didn’t give a flying kitten. If I have to go outside the medium to learn the story, it’s a poorly presented story.

Einlanzer.1627:

This is a flawed argument. Arenanet’s goal has to be to retain players over the long term. Most MMO players nowadays are like the OP due to a saturated market – they aren’t going to play the game every day for years on end.

An over-emphasis on temporary content causes these players to ditch the game forever as they fall behind in the story and there’s nothing new to entice them back.

It’s also ideal if ANet can attract new players to the game, including those who have been on the fence. There was a thread a while back from some of the chinese players asking where their shot at LS season 1 was (I think the answer was down the Mystic Toilet).

Before someone says that having temporary content encourages players to stay and play constantly, let say that encourage is the wrong word there. It’s more like blackmail. LS up until now has presented itself as a take it or leave it proposition; if you drop out at any time, your experience is going to suffer. And I know at least one player who has left it.

lordkrall.7241:

And there we are at it again.
You somehow feel like the game should cater to people like you, that don’t actively play, rather than those of us that plays at least a couple of hours a week, which is most likely the vast majority of the playerbase.

I know that you will counter with the whole: “Ah but they can make it permanent!”, but that isn’t really a solution either. Making stuff like S1 living story fully permanent would take away a rather major part for at least me and a couple of other people I know. The part about the world actually moving rather than being static (which is the case if everything added just stays forever).

Which is why you could implement something similar to Personal Story and have each part of LS one-time per character/account. It wouldn’t affect your moving world, and new and returning players can get a bite of the content.

lordkrall.7241:

The main issue with that however is the fact that the vast majority of it took place out in the open world, and much of it required rather large groups of people.

IF they were to add something like this, they would basically need to have multiple versions of every single map that had any part of Living Story in them (and quite a few of them would require 3 or more versions (the live one, living story #1, living story #2 for example)) and that would take quite a bit of resources for something that might very well be used by a very limited amount of people.

How would the warrant spending that time and money on something that might be used by lets say 10 people out of a couple of hundred thousands each week?

It’s already there. There’s a personal story instance with a crashed airship that otherwise never appears in the game. The instance space for Rox’s mission all the way back in Flame and Frost is still in the game, and to this point has only ever been used for that one mission.

It’s really not hard to load in prefab set pieces, like boats, tents, or maybe the same pub layout that Shaemoor and Cornucopian Fields share in their areas.

ANet have been doing instances since day one. They’ve also been doing very large and heavily modified instance maps since day one.

As for the resources, I’m not sure where you’re coming from on that one. You store what an instance is and what it contains on plain storage (like SSD) which is cheap, and when someone wants to play and instance, you load it up, and the server can run the instance separate from the main megaservers, like they’ve always done with Personal Story.

lordkrall.7241:

The main difference there is that the whole personal story/dungeons are locked in time.
It actually takes place over a year before the current in-game time, and as such you are basically experiencing the past (and all of it is completely instanced no less.)

Living Story could be designed with time-locked instances being accessible to characters that haven’t been through the content. This would allow new and returning players to catch up at a pace that suits them, and enjoy the content.
Instead, we have to keep assigning some character as Exposition Fairy (this is currently Tiami), and violate that silver rule of exposition “Show, don’t tell”. Or, as() so many keep pointing out, switch the game off and start researching the backstory on the wiki and whatnot.

Vesuvius.9874:

Can someone answer me this?

Take a piece of temporary content. Let’s say the Marionette. During the point in time when these events were taking place, we fought the Marionette in Lornar’s Pass. Time passes, say 2 months later, we beat Scarlet.

You decide to go back to Lornar’s Pass. What are you expecting to see in Lornar’s Pass?If you are one of those whining about “permanent content” and are expecting the Marionette to still be there, how would you explain its existence even though you have killed its master, Scarlet? Also, how do you explain what time you are in? Does going back to Lornar’s Pass mean you’ve suddenly moved 2 months back in time?

The whole idea of Living World is that time is constantly moving forward like in the real world. Events are happening everywhere and you need to be there when it happens to experience it.

People complaining about missing events is like complaining about "Ah crap! I missed World War 1 and 2 because I wasn’t born yet. Ok everyone, we need to get everyone together and fight two more wars because a lot of people “missed” it… "

I’ve killed Zhaitan FOUR times.
After Dragon Bash.

That’s my answer.

A great thing I’ve noticed in the Boss Blitz is the different AoE circles. In the middle of these massive battles, there will be dozens of bodies, and even more particle effects; the regular AoE circles will almost certainly be obscured, and so the Bosses are given solid circles that are easier to spot in the chaos.

Which brings me to the Bandit Saboteurs that are in Boom Boom Baines’ arena. They are also using AoE attacks, which also launch players. Yet for some reason they are not being consistent in how their attacks are telegraphed. They can just park a bomb in the middle of a crowd, and players go flying.
Players can spot Baines’ big bomb and evade accordingly, they can move outside of her AoE fields; Bandit Saboteurs can walk through a crowd, discretely plant a bomb, and launch players into other threats (like Baines’ grenade barrage; well done on stepping away from that) without giving players much of a chance to avoid it.

Just give all the enemies in the Blitz the same AoE circles, instead of having some that can cheat their attacks in.

MadDemon.7548:

Soulstar.7812:

No better way to welcome the new gamers of china than to introduce them to temporary content immediately!?

Yea recycled stuff!

Why are you complaining about temporary content?

Exactly what in the real world is permanent? Nothing! Holidays, businesses, and so on; everything in the real world is temporary. It’s about time an MMO actually reflected this!

This…

This is not what constitutes a good game.

I guess it would be soloing Tixx P1 (in 2012, because I guessed nobody else would want to do it, and it did seem that the paths were getting harder with more visits).

If the guild wanted to be more successful at the concept, they should try identifying the shard they’re on (“/ip”), and maybe even ferry people onto the server through parties…

xXxdevildogxXx.5947:

Philip.8376:

Dusty Moon.4382:

NO TO GEAR CHECKS – it would make the game snobby – that is how it was in Rift and TERA.

Snobby? Really? So because you think it might be “snobby”, the other players can’t enjoy the feature? Anyway, GW2 is just kitten. It did not develop over the past 2 years enough to keep anyone satisfied. I suggest you all take a look at Black Desert. F2p and it’s one of the best looking mmorpgs I have ever seen. I’ve given up on GW2. Two years I have been loyal, but I have my limits.

Right
I’m trying to say why not look at the big games and learn
After all there is a reason they are at the top

Forgive my cynicism, but isn’t that how many a wowkiller have been born and died?

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Bob F It.5701:

Zephyron.7081:

Anet is first and foremost a business, so they owe you nothing.

I gave them money. Business says they owe me a game.

You got the game you paid for -_-…
You aren’t owed more content for free, you paid for access to the base game.

And how do they expect to tempt me into thinking that spending money on the gem store is a good investment?

Zephyron.7081:

Anet is first and foremost a business, so they owe you nothing.

I gave them money. Business says they owe me a game.

Anomaly.7612:

Bob F It.5701:

All the story content from Living Story has been removed. The idea has been that when one step of the story has had its time, it’s removed and people then move onto the next one. As such you can only experience Living Story though reading it, or watching a video of someone else playing it.

I like that in theory, but I really feel that there should be somewhat of a “Never Ending Story” mechanic to it. In some Asuran library, you can pick up a mechanical book that ports you into a VR room where you can relive the story, get some loot, etc, all for the purpose of replay value. It wouldn’t effect ANet’s ability to tell a progressing story, and it would definitely help people have a better understanding of what’s going on if they weren’t present for it.

I feel I shouldn’t have to watch a video of someone else playing, or simply read a wiki about it. Phasing can allow us to revisit the events through the premise of it being all virtual reality thanks to the Asura.

You’re not the only one that feels that way. There has been a lot of debate as to whether major contiguous content being temporary is a good or bad thing (to the point where I’m surprised that there isn’t a sticky on the subject already). It’s been pointed out that it disadvantages returning and new players; the chinese players have already voiced their concern.

All the story content from Living Story has been removed. The idea has been that when one step of the story has had its time, it’s removed and people then move onto the next one. As such you can only experience Living Story though reading it, or watching a video of someone else playing it.

It’s more like this:

We’re very aware that there has been some negative feedback to LS. One reason why it keeps rolling on is because ANet haven’t made any big reassurances that it’s going to change, which leaves the expectations that the future will be the same, and then people continue to make noise about wanting it different.

And I can see why ANet wouldn’t want to throw such advance notice right now; GW2 has been out for shy of 2 years, and LS is a very large part of their marketing (because you wouldn’t get away with waving your lack of work since launch at this point). If they stick their head up and say “we screwed up” in response the the main development they’ve had since launch, they fear it could put off future sales.

Not that it’s bad to admit getting it wrong. I recall Jagex (of RuneScape) asking their player base if they screwed up on some major changes; they players said “yes, you did”, and some reconciliation recaptured some players.

There’s a balloon at the south of the Vigil Keep camp that can take you to either of the other orders’ camps. Just be prepared to dodge a few higher-leveled NPCs.

Blakluster.1678:

works on other games like this , plus i highly doubt it will reduce the supply given most of the precursor cartels are gold sellers .

[citation needed]

Dis-incentivise listing precursors on TP.
Reduce supply on market.
Obscure information to buyers and empower price cartels.
Thus increasing prices.
Also, the tax isn’t only paid by the seller. I’m unlikely to buy an item for 1s50c if that sells to vendors at 1s45, because sellers won’t want to list it for less than 1s61c.

So you intend to enter the money counterfeiting business. Finally, a plan to topple the trading post!

Behellagh.1468:

I think the problem is people believe they have the right to consume “content” when they want and not when the creators/distributors want. DVRs, streaming, torrents, etc. have unshackled the requirement of watching a show “Tuesday’s at 8p” or in our case LS content while it’s released.

That model of consuming TV content: it’s going to die (or contract massively), because streaming services, boxsets – hell, even rewind it back to the VHS – are all BETTER ways of consuming content for the audience. The reason why TV shows had time slots was because broadcast time was finite, so everyone had to watch at the broadcaster’s convenience.

If this is really what it’s meant to be like, then excuse me while I go watch a different TV show play a different game.

True fact: I have never watched any of Game of Thrones

Last weekend, I decided I might like to start watching it, as I heard many good things said about it. I headed down to the only shop that sells TV box sets so that I could make a start on this serial. They’ve got box sets on sale, except that they don’t have the first season. The explanation from the store’s staff is that they’ve simply decided that they don’t want to sell it anymore, as later seasons have come out.
One of the guys there actually said that I don’t even need to watch the first season to enjoy GoT, and that it’s perfectly enjoyable to just start watching from the second season. I find what this guy says to be a bit odd. Surely the first season has the important role of getting the viewer started, like introducing characters, giving gradual exposition of the setting, and laying down initial conflicts and plot-lines to follow. Wouldn’t I be missing out on a lot of important details if I skipped the first season?

Is this guy right in saying that my enjoyment will be just fine starting from season 2 onwards?

I’ve got two problems with the rock concert analogy.

Should it be that missing concert #X mean that I don’t have an understanding of what’s playing at concert #X+1? Or in another way, it seems I have to have gone to all previous concerts, otherwise the current one doesn’t make any sense if I just walk in.

And where is the band’s album release that people can play on their hi-fi? It’d be stupid if I can only ever enjoy their material when they feel like playing it.

Done it by res-rushing a difficult PS fight on my glassy thief. Still, it makes a scene when you just lunge at the enemy in your undies.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

Furthermore, to do so would NOT, to use your term of phrase, ‘staple future events as the past’ for these ‘future events’ as you call them, are already known to have occured in the past. Such as how Scarlet stole her first couple of airships from the pact (yes this was stated in game) from which logic detates occured after the forming of the pact, in which our characters played a pivital role, and this but one of many post personal story references. so regardless of whether you want it or not, personal story has already been proclaimed past events by living story, and will likely continue to be dubbed so. it would only make sense for the diologue to match the story.

Let me clarify that, but saying it in a different order: past events that have occured to the character are to be future actions of the player. This ludology I’m talking about. This is one of the things that brings negative points to new players. Is LS going to spoil things like your mentor's sacrifice at Claw Island in taking its position of centre of attention of the player’s experience?

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

The simple fact of the matter, is that regardless of whether you completed personal story before or after living story, the events of living story still occure after personal story, so it only makes sense for the diologue to reflect that. And yes, it is a valid method of story delivory, some expository pieces begin at the middle or end of the story and then proceed to tell how the characters got to that point. One method of making the timeline clear, was actually implimented in GW1, when you travel to another continent and enter a mission that was dated before your arrival, a text pops up, informing you that, ‘you are about to witness events that transpired before your arrival in Lions Arch’, in a similar fassion, personal story missions could state, “these events occured pre scarlet invasion” or the like, not that I think its truely nessicary, but for those of you who can’t sort it out in your minds, I think this is a viable solution to make the transition smooth and clean, and is a far better choice than trashing the timeline with inconsistancies. Furthermore, those of you who want very specific diologue tailored to your engame choices, character who have yet to join a order would not be able to be aquainted with one, in such a case they would be given the base tittle commander of the pact of dragon slayer, as regardless of what choices you make, you end up there anyways, whereas those further on in personal story could be remembered for more specific choices and achievements that are dependent upon those choices.

This just further inflames point #14 that Shriketalon.1937 made. The player is now made even more insignificant to the game in addition to their character because all of their past actions have now been auto-piloted. This is meant to be an interactive medium; to staple future actions to the player as past events of the character makes the storytelling anything but interactive.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

Exactly, playing personal story is like going back and watching an old recording of your first grade play. its real life, it still happened, but its locked in the past; that’s personal story. whereas the you that puts down the old recording to go on doinging other things in you life, that’s the present, that’s living story. and just because you take a moment in the presnt to watch events from your past, doesn’t mean your past occured in the present. Its not that hard to draw out the events in your mind, then seperate and organize them to how they should be, what order they are meant to flow in, rather than the order you played them.

In a similar fasion the pretrillogy for star wars, simply because it was released after star wars, nobody is under the misconception that the events take place after the fall of the empire. Or if the first movie of a series you watch is the sequal, and you go back later to find out what happened prior by watching the first, is that not easy to conceptualize a timeline?

That still doesn’t excuse how it’s a terrible delivery of exposition.

NPC: Hey there, dragonslayer!
PC: Eh? I just woke from the pale tree; only dragon I’ve killed was inside a dream.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

I don’t agree with making it personalized depending on whether you have or haven’t killed zhaitain, that breaks the timeline if you haven’t. as a player on a new character you must simply concepualize that living story occures after the personal story you have yet to complete.

I’m not sure why it is that LS’s timeline is so inviolable that it has to intrude on other parts of the game. For example: https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/137008/gw771.jpg
Are we to accept that LS is the only part of the game that matters, and anyone wanting to play other aspects must be given sub-par treatment? Add this to the list of “kitten you”s to people that consider buying the game.

I do not see a +2 button, but if I saw a +2 button on your post, my mouse would be all over it.

I think “gone south” is as in the figure of speech, so he’s probably in a bar getting drunk.

This has been one of the things that’s driven me off LS; conversations seem to have an assumed context, and the storyline doesn’t care about what you’ve achieved. The first time I encountered Brahem was in one of the nightmare chambers, and my character effectively says to him “your mother” and he goes off the rails. It just breaks the immersion.

Short answer: no.

Long answer: Everything there is referring to past content that has been cyclically added and removed. If you’re really interested in what’s going on and who these people are, you’ll need to do some research outside the game, and look it up on the wiki, or watch some youtube videos of someone else playing through the content.

The alternative is to buff everything else, with is the start of the long climb of power creep.

The last couple of LS steps have revolved around Lion’s Arch being invaded by Scarlet (the villain of the Living Story). In the city she’s executed to commit murder, property damage, environmentally pollute, and excavate without license, in that order.

As such, LA is not functioning as a hub at this time. If you need any of its facilities (excluding crafting) then you can head to Vigil Keep where everything that was in LA is available (except crafting). If you need to do and personal story steps that involve going to LA, follow the icon on your map to an NPC that will fire off the instance inside (the refurbished) LA for you.

Chances are it might return as a hub in a couple of weeks.

Fext.3614:

motherbox.5493:

Fast forward a few updates, and the whole thing has seemed to slip into rapid fire and I can’t keep up – the whole story doesn’t even make sense to me anymore and I’m totally lost. I log in and Lion’s Arch is destroyed, and I’m in the ruins with no direction or explanation, and people are yelling “red, blue” etc. in map chat and I have no idea what is happening.

Furthermore every single expansion has had a pretty cinematic, and then it thrusts you into a zoned area where if you’re not in a zerg you are instantly dead, there is no explanation and everyone has already done everything and has the boss on repeat. There is virtually nothing you can do alone, and everything is one giant zerg after another.

…etc.

Well what you are saying is that you personaly are uninformed and unable to find out what is happening. However, other players managed so I don’t think it’s a problem of the game. There is a lot of ingame hints and instructions, and if this is not enough, use Google, my young padawan.
I really don’t understand what are you complaining about. That you can’t do things alone? This is a MMO – which means teamplay.

As far as I know, the only game where you have to go on the internet to find out what’s going on is The Secret World, and that’s because it revolves around urban legends. Should it not be in the game’s design to help players get up to speed? And in particular for new players. New players can still buy the game.

Becka Williams.4978:

Bob F It.5701:

Becka Williams.4978:

Bob F It.5701:

Becka Williams.4978:

See, what people have to realize is that the living story’s what anet’s using to keep us playing. They don’t have gear grind, they don’t have monthly subs. If you could quit the game for a year, and come back and play everything you missed, and essentially not be left behind, what incentive is there to be here?

Not that I expect you to read my signature, but I would answer with PvP, WvW, alt personal story paths, and dungeons for the sake of fun.

I read your signature. The other thing is, there’s only so many times you can do the same dungeon before it gets old. Yes, yes, you love running them. Most people don’t. That’s why we haven’t gotten any new dungeons. Some people don’t like PvP or WvW. What do you do after you’ve done all the personal storylines?

Well that doesn’t explain it, because some people don’t like doing living story either. You may think it keeps people playing, but eventually that repeat audience is going to decline. It certainly won’t grow because the design just alienates anyone trying to get into it.

Find and replace “living story” with any of your suggestions.

Which is why I don’t understand the special treatment.

Becka Williams.4978:

Bob F It.5701:

Becka Williams.4978:

See, what people have to realize is that the living story’s what anet’s using to keep us playing. They don’t have gear grind, they don’t have monthly subs. If you could quit the game for a year, and come back and play everything you missed, and essentially not be left behind, what incentive is there to be here?

Not that I expect you to read my signature, but I would answer with PvP, WvW, alt personal story paths, and dungeons for the sake of fun.

I read your signature. The other thing is, there’s only so many times you can do the same dungeon before it gets old. Yes, yes, you love running them. Most people don’t. That’s why we haven’t gotten any new dungeons. Some people don’t like PvP or WvW. What do you do after you’ve done all the personal storylines?

Well that doesn’t explain it, because some people don’t like doing living story either. You may think it keeps people playing, but eventually that repeat audience is going to decline. It certainly won’t grow because the design just alienates anyone trying to get into it.

Becka Williams.4978:

See, what people have to realize is that the living story’s what anet’s using to keep us playing. They don’t have gear grind, they don’t have monthly subs. If you could quit the game for a year, and come back and play everything you missed, and essentially not be left behind, what incentive is there to be here?

Not that I expect you to read my signature, but I would answer with PvP, WvW, alt personal story paths, and dungeons for the sake of fun.

It’s been a problem for a hell of a lot of people. ANet decided what they were going to do for the full 15 months and stuck to it, not knowing what the consequences would be. Hopefully now that this season is ending, they’ll be able to stop and make the narrative more accessible from within the game.

Beast Sos.1457:

Tamini is the best of them, …

What?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tamini

Retrospectively awarding something after the opportunity to meet the requirements is gone is a very bad idea. For a start, you’re not going to encourage or discourage anything; all the important actions were in the past bar this one last LS release. And then you’re punishing players who would have absolutely no clue that they’re missing out on something big until now (and rightly so, you just baked it up this week).

Now feel free to suggest such a thing for season 2 (and I’m not going to go into how that goes against all of GW2’s design paradigms), but for season 1, all it should be is a piece of town clothing with the written message “I cleared all of season 1’s LS content and all I got was this stupid t-shirt”.

RP-wise, I had 2 choices: jump in and help at the request of my herald, or ignore it and let the NPCs/my server (deso) sort it out in my absence. Guess which one I picked.

Ok, might start doing a tele-binge catchup on YT, since the quality of LS is starting to improve.

AlexEBT.7240:

My only problem, and everybody seems to gloss over it anyways, with this is how in the name of hell would they even be able to bring all of those back and make them work? Ok, things like zephir sanctum, the gauntlet, SAB or some of the newer story instances that can work as solo play, sure, but the big scale events like southsun, dragon bash, queens jubilee, the tower, marionette? I really can’t see how you can make an instance for those let alone find the number of players necessary for that content or how to party them up considering the overflow system or just the games coding in general.

The solution has already been there for most of the content.
I’ve had to research most of this, so correct me if I’m wrong. However most of the story beats have been working in instances of one sort or the another.

Flame and Frost: Instances for Braham’s and Rox’s stories, client-side objects, dungeon.
Southsun: Story instances for Canach’s Lair.
Dragon Bash: Story instances.
Sky Pirates: Dungeon, story instance.
Bazaar of the Four Winds: Story instance.
Cutthroat Politics: Story instance, activities.
Queen’s Jubilee: Story instance, activity, client-side objects.
Clockwork Chaos: Story instance.
Tower of Nightmares: Story instances.
Fractured: Story instance.
Origins of Madness: Story instances.
Edge of the Mists: Story instances, client-side objects.