Guild Wars 2

runeblade.7514:

RyuDragnier.9476:

runeblade.7514:

I can understand the distaste over it because this is not designed for power levelers. However, if it was played like how they game intended it to be, it be fun.

Not on your 3rd+ character. It’s nothing but an annoyance at that point, compared to the previous system where everything was handed to you from the getgo, and they just threw you out in the world and said “do whatever you want”.

If you don’t want to find all those traits, you can always buy them from profession trainers.

But that isn’t making the system fun, or rewarding. People are actually paying not to play it.

If the traits were account unlocks I would genuinely love them. Every unlock, even the grub, would be satisfying. As it is, every one is just a frustrating thing that I can’t even tick off a list because I know I’ll have to do it again and again.

Elsdragon.5109:

It isn’t a reset button, but rather a shift in focus. I never said it was irrelevant to understanding Anet’s approach nor was it irrelevant to how the community feels. I said it was irrelevant to give as an example of what they were doing for the future. You cannot use LS1 as an example to say that all (or a majority of the content) they will ever give are temporary content.

For your second point, LS2 is arguably the largest part of the content releases (at least for the permanent ones). SAB is not really part of the main game; it was a game within a game. Is it sad that it is currently off? Yes, but that doesn’t diminish what GW2 is. Other parts of content updates are the recurring events (festivals and holidays) and they are “temporary” by nature. The way GW2 moves forward (or for most MMO’s in fact) is by their lore and story; that makes the LS the largest part of the picture. As for the “superficial band-aids”, that has little place in this discussion than to take a jab at Anet. There will always be problems within MMO’s; although they may seem easy to fix to players, they may not necessarily be so to the developers. You must understand that and learn to move forward. The LS2 is in my opinion not one of these “superficial band-aids”; it is a shift in direction. If the shift you want is for Anet to release expansions, then that is a personal issue.

It is currently only the beginning of that step forward, how big it is is not to be determined by what is has put out in less than half the time LS1 has had. As I said before, I never said that we should ignore everything else, but we should look to LS2 as a beacon of hope (so to speak) as to what Anet could do.

The full story is that although LS1 was made up of mostly temporary content, LS2 has promised to bring more permanent content and has so far delivered (albeit only a little bit in the little time it has been out). I choose to focus on the more recent events of the story and use that as an indication of what is to come; if your choice is to continue to focus on LS1 and SAB then that is your choice, but we will simply have to agree to disagree as there is little chance either of us will convince the other in that scenario.

But I’m not just focussing on LS1 and SAB. I gave those as examples among a list of many issues. I gave a list of basically everything that people have had, and currently have, issues with that I can think of.

You’re asking me to ignore a part of the history of the content updates when giving my opinion of what the future of content updates holds. You also labelled a different criticism of ANet as a “jab”, rather than a criticism, even when I explained why it was relevant to the context.

It seems that you’re actively trying to give ANet as much benefit of the doubt as possible. This is fine until you take it so far as to actually criticise people for pointing out things they’ve done. By all means champion LS2 as a sign of a bright future. I’d love it to be one. But you can’t jump on me for giving facts in order to explain the skepticism that many of us have towards ANet’s direction for the game.

Elsdragon.5109:

See, you’re stumbling back into the same pit as before. LS1 is season 1. It’s done. Over. No longer relevant in determining the future. They’ve stated that they want LS2 to be different, so there is no point in you pointing to LS1 as a point in your argument. Would LS1 have been better with new maps, classes and a paid expansion? That’s arguable, but not the point of this discussion. If that’s what you want to discuss, maybe make a new topic.

Speculating what Anet might do is similar to wistful thinking in that we could either have been luckily correct or horribly wrong. The history of information we should be giving the OP is that LS2 has been different than LS1 and that Anet has stated that they want LS2 to have more permanent content that is available in the Story Journal. LS2 was promised to have permanent content and it has (at least in my opinion) delivered. Is it content that all the players would want to play? Not quite, but then what is?

There has been a shift in direction, however small, and I believe that bringing up information before that shift is really irrelevant to determine the future. That of course doesn’t mean that those events are irrelevant overall. They aren’t there anymore; they are done with; there is nothing we can do anymore. Even with the Story Journal, I can see how adding LS1 events to that would be difficult if not impossible. Instanced versions of LA, Kessex Hills, and other places would require you to still have more than five player attempting those events.

Presently, the current LS has given us permanent content. That is a good sign for the future. Will there still be some temporary content? Recurring ones like festivals and holidays most likely, but temporary content like in LS1 not quite so. At least I would like to believe it to not be so, and given how LS2 is playing out I would say that seems to be the case.

We can’t just hit the reset button because of LS2. What happened before that is still relevant to understanding what ANet’s approach to content is, and also relevant to community feeling towards GW2 (which is VERY important to the future of the game).

Moreover, LS2 is not only small, but it is a small part of a bigger picture. SAB is still turned off, we still have no idea of what is coming in the future, and we have no indication that we’ll be getting large permanent content updates beyond the LS. Moreover, ANet have developed a reputation over the last two years for putting superficial band-aids over bigger problems, which LS2 plausibly represents regarding permanent content, and the OP should be given that information.

Yes, LS2 is a step forward. But it isn’t so big a step forward as to justify ignoring everything else that has happened in two years. We can and should give the whole story, but what I said is definitely part of that story.

Elsdragon.5109:

To address what you’re saying, the OP was asking about the future of the game, not the past. To bring up something that the company has more or less admitted was not working (making Living Story temporary) is nothing but digging up the past mistakes and offering it as an excuse to prove a point you believe to be true. Anet has since made the LS2 a permanent content; whether this kind of content is your cup of tea is a personal issue and you shouldn’t bring it up to discuss the game’s future (bring it up if you want to discuss your future with the game). It does not render the past content as non-temporary, but it does offer the possibility of more permanent content moving forward which is more important in the context of this discussion.

As you’ve stated, the previous LS ran for almost 2 years while the new one has only had a couple of months. To compare the two now would be irresponsible. You must also realize what a Living Story implies: that it was made to change the world we play in. This doesn’t mean that each chapter has to be in new locations; in fact it makes more sense for part of the changes to be in locations we already know. Since a lot of players complained about them being temporary, only leaving behind their aftermaths (look at LA and Kessex Hills), Anet made them permanent but to do so had to make most of the major events instanced. The world is still changing though with the aftermaths of the events (look at Concordia and Iron Marches).

Which is fine, but we have two options in answering the OP:

1) Speculate about what ANet might do.
2) Give information about the history of the updates thus far.

Yes, it is entirely possible that after Wintersday we’ll be playing as Tengu in February and taking them to Cantha in March. But the only information we have available is the past and present. In the past and present, the vast majority of content has been temporary, with LS2 offering a small amount of content which doesn’t really have replay value over four months. Heck, they haven’t even bothered to turn SAB back on, so we can hardly conclude that they’ve abandoned temporary content.

Again, if LS1 had been released alongside new maps, new classes, paid expanasions etc. then its temporary nature might well have been embraced for making the world feel alive.

Vayne.8563:

Dude, you’re killing me. This is exactly what you said:

“Guild Wars 2 is great. It’s worth playing, and very fun. HOWEVER, the update model that has been adopted is highly controversial. Much content is temporary, many fundamental changes to progression have been problematic, and the Living Story + Gem sales business model is receiving mixed reviews at best.”

You put “much of the content is temporary” right after the words “the update model that has been adopted is highly controversial”.

Presumably holiday events aren’t highly controversial. I don’t think anyone here thinks holiday events are high controversial. The controversial bit was the temporary content of the specific type doing during season one which Anet isn’t doing for season 2. They said they weren’t and they haven’t.

Say anything you want, but the context of what you said in the quote above isn’t putting words into your mouth. They’re your words. The temporary content (no longer being done) is controversial, unless you’re going to say right now that the holiday content in controversial.

This is the reason why I said your post had misinformation in it. Holiday content that is “temporary” isn’t controversial and the controversial temporary content is no longer being done.

No, the controversial bit isn’t that the content of the specific type in season one was temporary. The problem was that the vast majority of content full stop was temporary. If LS1 had been part of an update cycle that included other permanent updates, or even a paid expansion, then it might well have been embraced for making the world seem alive.

As it stands, the content we’ve had added is almost entirely temporary, and festivals (which I’ve said three times are justifiably temporary) fall under that category. No one is complaining that Wintersday is temporary, they’re claiming that almost nothing isn’t temporary.

Draknar.5748:

You are completely ignoring the context of how temporary content was used. Yes, we can all agree seasonal festivals are temporary content. No one can argue that, as the actual seasons are temporary (wouldn’t make much sense to have a Halloween festival in May…). Vayne wasn’t saying the seasonal festivals weren’t temporary content in the sense you are saying, that is obvious to anyone that doesn’t have an axe to grind against the guy.

We are talking content exclusive of seasonal festivals that will obviously always remain temporary based on the seasonality of….seasons… in ANY game.

Context is very important.

Why would we talk about content exclusive of that? Yes, obviously seasonal content will be temporary, but four of the biggest content updates we’ve had are recurring (Wintersday, Halloween, Dragon Bash, and SAB), and two of those aren’t even annual apparently.

If four of the biggest content updates you have are temporary, even if their temporary nature is justifiable, then that is a problem. The problem isn’t that Wintersday is temporary in and of itself, the problem is that if you piled up all of the content updates we’ve had, almost all of them are currently turned off (or else replaced older content rather than added to it).

Vayne.8563:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

BlueZone.4236:

CrashTestAuto is right and Vayne wrong. Temporary content is temporary no matter how hard you try to spin the definition of the word “temporary”.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/introducing-the-story-journal/

As I mentioned earlier, only festivals will continue to use the gold star UI. They will not be in the story Journal, and they will remain as temporary content that comes in each year for a period of time and then packs up and leaves when the festival has completed.

I bolded the word temporary in the quote.
Thanks for your time, everyone.

Yeah, but the festivals were always rather temporary even back in GW1. And there were a lot more of them . . .

What’s being said here is different than what’s being implied. If every MMORPG has festivals, than singling out this one as having temporary content, implying that it’s somehow bad to have, is misdirection period.

If every MMORPG has it, why is it necessary to bring up? It was brought up solely because the poster was attempting to imply it was something negative. Therefore he’s not talking about holiday festivals.

Often, context is everything.

Context is often everything, but so is jamming words into people’s mouths. I never said, nor implied, that other MMOs didn’t have seasonal festivals. In fact, I’ve explicitly said in two posts now that the seasonal festivals are justifiable. That you’re taking things I haven’t said, and used them to suggest I was implying something I outright said the opposite of, is kind of a problem.

There has been, and is, much temporary content, and the LS2 does not make that not the case. It certainly doesn’t make the problems caused by the year and three quarters prior to the LS2 go away. Four short chapters, and about half a map don’t suddenly render the majority of the content since release non-temporary, even if you choose to define “appearing once a year” as such.

So, if you’d like to address the things I say, rather than criticise me and then tell other people I actually meant something else, that’d be appreciated.

Vayne.8563:

You don’t see how it’s false.

Watch this example.

Last year, I had a contagious disease. This year I was cured. You tell people not to go near me because I have a contagious disease. Your use of words indicated that Anet continues to put temporary content into the game, which is at the very least misleading. Misleading is misinformation, because since the start of Season 2, nothing that’s been added has been taken out.

You didn’t say Anet said they weren’t going to do the temporary content thing anymore and so far they haven’t. I’m not sure how that isn’t misleading.

So by saying “much content is temporary” (which is true, except on an extremely uncharitable reading of the tense), and not saying ANet aren’t aren’t going to do temporary content anymore (which is false, given festivals, SAB, arguably activities, and the fact that they haven’t to my knowledge said that will never do temporary content any more), I’m giving misinformation?

Yes, LS2 is “permanent” (given it goes into the gem store after two weeks and has next to know intrinsic replay value, I’d call that label generous). But that doesn’t somehow render everything else not temporary. It certainly isn’t equivalent to curing a disease.

Before you attack me for it, I know that Halloween etc. have a good reason for being temporary, which is why I said that was justifiable in my original post.

Vayne.8563:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Short answer, yes.

Longer answer… not sure.

Guild Wars 2 is great. It’s worth playing, and very fun. HOWEVER, the update model that has been adopted is highly controversial. Much content is temporary, many fundamental changes to progression have been problematic, and the Living Story + Gem sales business model is receiving mixed reviews at best.

Basically, it was a very, very good base game, the population is still good, and the game is still fun. However, a lot of the decisions that have been made since launch have been, in the opinion of many, poor. Many players have left, or are highly frustrated, and no one really knows where the game is going. If the quality of the game is going to be enough to carry it long term, especially if we see more of the same controversial decisions, I don’t know.

There’s some misinformation in this post. Much of the content WAS (not is) temporary, since the stuff that’s come out for season two is all permanent. We haven’t had temporary content added to the game since, what, March? People are living in the past and stating it as the future. The company tried an experience that didn’t work. They switched directions since.

But the rest of this is mostly true.

I don’t see how season 2 of the LS being permanent makes what I said false. That content comprises a very small portion of the content we’ve been given. The seasonal updates are still temporary (justifiably), as is SAB (being generous), heck even activities have gone from constant to being on rotation. So, even in the present tense, much content is temporary. In the broader sense of “content we’ve been given”, LS2 is a fraction of the content that has been put out.

But even looking at LS2, what has it given us in terms of permanent content? Dry Top, which is excellent, though small. Story chapters which, while nice, might as well be temporary given their intrinsic replay value is so low that ANet locked achievements for the first play through. Broken waypoints that have made playing other parts less convenient (Fort Mariner being a particular pain).

ANet have put in a LOT of work compared to what we’ve actually received. As I’ve said previously, even the permanent changes to LA involved the building of two hubs (Vigil and new LA) to give us exactly the same amount of hubs as we already had.

Heck, they haven’t even always progressed in the non-content updates without taking the same size steps backwards. In April they improved the alt experience massively with the dyes and wardrobe, then crippled it with the trait system change. Last month they massively improved the mini collection system, whilst making it incredibly difficult to actually see the mini collection.

Even Fractals, the most prominent permanent content update we’ve had, they went and reset the progress of its biggest fans for a leader board they didn’t even introduce.

I love the game, and admittedly I’m glossing over some positives, but it’s painful to watch some of the decisions that have been made since launch.

Gah, this is why harvesting tools should be account bound. If they were 800 gems each, and given to all characters, I’d have bought the flame tools already, and would now be buying at least the logging axe for my necromancer (and any future necromancers). As it stands, I’ve bought no tools at all because having them on a single character, or moving them between, isn’t worth it.

Cool for those who will get use out of them like this, but ANet are losing a lot of gem sales here.

Short answer, yes.

Longer answer… not sure.

Guild Wars 2 is great. It’s worth playing, and very fun. HOWEVER, the update model that has been adopted is highly controversial. Much content is temporary, many fundamental changes to progression have been problematic, and the Living Story + Gem sales business model is receiving mixed reviews at best.

Basically, it was a very, very good base game, the population is still good, and the game is still fun. However, a lot of the decisions that have been made since launch have been, in the opinion of many, poor. Many players have left, or are highly frustrated, and no one really knows where the game is going. If the quality of the game is going to be enough to carry it long term, especially if we see more of the same controversial decisions, I don’t know.

Fernling.1729:

Ashen.2907:

Fernling.1729:

I personally liked the analogy. It makes it easier for people to understand the issues with the personal story since the NPE patch. And, what’s more relatable than Harry Potter?

Episode 1 Frodo throws The One Ring into the volcano.
Episode 2 Bilbo gives Frodo The One Ring.

: )

Whoa! Spoilers…

I was far enough into the book to know he threw the ring into the volcano, but I had no idea he received the ring.

There we go. That’s what I was looking for

Sigh… well that could have been fun

Wanze.8410:

You already mentioned that a whole topic exists on the chopped up storyline so why open up another topic?
This doesnt draw attention to it, it dillutes it. Do you really think a Dev is gonna read Harry Potter and the NPE because he thinks: Wow, this thread must propably include a fun way to draw attention to a totally unrelated issue to which another topic already exists?

Okay, while Vayne was a bit out of line, he was at least addressing something he thought was a mistake in the OP. What the heck are you even doing here? If you don’t like or understand the point of my thread, ignore it, it doesn’t affect you.

Vayne.8563:

Apparently not. Though it is 2 am here, so I’m certainly not as sharp as I would be earlier. In fact, that’s it for me.

OP, sorry if I got the wrong end of the stick. In essence I agree with your issues.

We’re good, I’d just like the thread to actually meander on topic

Wanze.8410:

What good do you expect to come out of this apart from some posts that talk about storylines that dont have anything to do with gw2?

As I said, the idea was to introduce a fun way to draw attention to the fact that the Guild Wars 2 storyline shouldn’t be chopped up into incoherency any more than any other form of narrative media.

Vayne.8563:

No question at all, the changes to the end of the Personal story was bad. Not only no argument from me, but I’ve already said it elsewhere. They’re very bad.

I read some of Harry Potter when it first came out and never saw the movies, so I got the wrong end of the stick…that’s all.

As I said, my bad.

Cool cool

Vayne.8563:

I wasn’t attacking you. I didn’t get it because I don’t know enough about Harry Potter to get it. My bad. Had you done it with Game of Thrones I’d have gotten in.

That said, Anet knows about it and they’re working on it.

Edit: Even I’ve said the end of the story has been pretty much destroyed.

Well then maybe you could work on your communication

I did set this up as a game, and people can bring their own stories (I’d avoid GoT as it’s pretty spoilerific).

The point though isn’t just that ANet should be working on it, it’s to stress that this sort of thing shouldn’t happen at all. The NPE, SAB, heck even the trait changes can all be made without disrespecting the game. But acting like it doesn’t matter if the story doesn’t make sense illustrates a lack of respect for what the game actually is. Again, no one would dream of doing this to a novel of a film (well, FOX did it to Firefly, but look what happened there).

Vayne.8563:

If he was doing that, he did a bad job, because the story only gets out of order at the very end. It’s the last 70 and 80 level stories. But he’s starting with Chapter 1.

No, I don’t think he’s talking about the story being out of order. I think he’s talking about having to wait ten levels to play the story.

If he’s talking about it out of order, well, there’s nothing to talk about. Anet saw the problem and said they’re working on it. It’s not like Anet said it was final the way it was or good the way it was.

I’m not sure anyone disagrees with the fact that the end of the story has been completed butchered.

Wow, you really will take any opportunity to attack other players if they’re critical of something won’t you?

Firstly, yes, I was I obviously referring to the story being out of order.

Secondly, no, the story doesn’t just go out of order at the end. Several points have been changed. The earliest off the top of my head being the fact that you now get your mail and go to Ascalonian Catacombs and Caudecus’ Manor BEFORE Destiny’s Edge meet up in LA and you actually find out who they are. There’s a whole thread talking about the various other problems that have now been introduced.

Thirdly, I was quite clearly only referencing the first book in the Potter series, so this whole “serial” thing actually showed you didn’t understand my post from a GW2 or an HP side.

This was meant as a light hearted dig at the way that we should be treating the narrative of the game with the disregard that the NPE did. We wouldn’t dream of doing it with other media, and we shouldn’t here. The people who actually wrote the story presumably care about it more than I do, and their work deserves to be treated with the same respect we’d give novels or films.

A lot of the criticism of the recent updates has been pretty hostile, which has undercut the importance of what is actually being said. I thought it might be more friendly, and fun, if we made a game out of it

So, imagine that ANet “patched” other forms of media, what do you think would happen?

Chapter 1: Harry Potter, a young orphan living with his cruel Aunt and Uncle, meets Hagrid, who tells him that he is a wizard.

Chapter 2: Harry arrives at Hogwarts and is sorted into Gryffindor. He then recieves his first piece of Owl post, inviting him to Hogwarts.

Chapter 3: Harry and Ron save Hermione from a troll in the girls’ bathroom.

Chapter 4: Harry meets Ron and Hermione. Hagrid tells him about Voldemort.

Chapter 5: Hagrid is very afraid that someone will take his pet dragon away. Nothing happens, everything is fine.

Chapter 6: Harry is introduced to Hagrid by Ron. Ron is put in charge of recruiting the houses to fight Voldemort.

Chapter 7: Harry, Ron and Hermione apparate to the location of the Philosophers Stone, and successfully save it.

Chapter 8: Harry learns that Voldemort plans to use something called a “Philosopher’s stone”. Professor McGonagall, who apparently has known them all along, tells them the Stone is safe.

Chapter 8: Harry, Ron and Hermione fight their way through several trials to get to the location of the Philosopher’s Stone.

Chapter 9: Harry leads the attack on Voldemort, who climbs a wall and doesn’t do anything while everyone throws spells at him.

I think that J K Rowling would be well served to consider these edits. A lot of her readers are quite young, and I think they find the original linear narrative too confusing.

Yeah Gaile, while I REALLY appreciate you coming in here, and also that you’re sort of stuck in the middle, we didn’t miss that post. In fact many of us found it borderline offensive.

It basically summarises as:

“Hi all, we’re pretty much going to ignore your major complaints but we’re going to maybe do something about the most superficial problems with the system. Actually on the subject of ignoring you, we’ve been doing that for forty pages, so if you could repeat which superficial changes you’ve mentioned because we can’t be bothered to go back and read them for ourselves.”

Again, I know you’re in the middle here, but this is six months with a core system ruined. People have left, gems haven’t been bought, people have stopped making recommendations to friends.

This isn’t a controversial topic. Basically everyone who has tried the system either dislikes it a bit, or a lot. Please just get these things as account unlocks and finally put this whole affair out of its misery.

Actually, Gaile, as I’ve already stated that I’m really happy with this communication I hope this will come across as an extra question not as “I’m still not satisfied”. Could you give us any word on us just getting worlds 1 and 2 back permanently? It’ll be great if and when W3 comes out, but I think most of us would be satisfied (and very happy) with the content that already exists for the medium term.

Destram.8651:

I’m not quite sure why some of you are freaking out over this ‘revelation’. I think most of us knew SAB would come back, that wasn’t really the concern, the concern is WHEN will it be back, saying “yeah it will be back” is nice and all, but that could mean it’s on a hiatus for 6 months, a year, or more. That’s the concern here, just how long are we looking? Obviously Gaile doesn’t have the answer so it’s sort of a redundant or rhetorical question at this point. Personally i feel it should have already been back during this whole living story break, it would have fit in perfectly. My gut says we won’t see it for months and months, which is saddening to say the least.

Edit: I forgot to mention, i’m thankful for the information you can give us Gaile, i know that it’s all you can give so you’re not at fault here, you’re doing what you can and i appreciate it.

I understand what you mean. ANet have a bad history of “at some point in the future”. However, ever since the precursor scavenger hunt, because they didn’t deliver, they’ve been treating players as idiot trolls who can’t understand “sorry, we have our reasons” and instead opted for complete silence.

Gaile has acknowledged that this isn’t the full information we want (and I do think that more information would be a good idea, at least an explanation as to why they won’t just turn W1 and W2 back on) but has given us as much as possible at the moment. It isn’t much, but it’s a HUGE step up from what we’ve had for a year and a half.

Gaile Gray.6029:

According to Colin Johanson, Guild Wars 2 Game Director, Super Adventure Box will be back in the future. We don’t have a timeframe for the return of the SAB, but we will be bringing back this popular content.

I know you would like more details, more info, a date, etc., but that’s not available right now. I hope the above comment reassures you, though, because at the core, the important answer is that yes, SAB will be back in the future.

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

Gaile Gray.6029:

Duping!!?! ~gasp!~ Oh, sorry, different type, gotcha.

Things aren’t going to change overnight, but we are making a concerted effort to improve communications. Not every thread gets — or realistically can get — a reply. That is driven not so much by a particular topic but more critically by sheer volume. And yes, not every question can be answered, but maybe it just can’t be answered in the short term, or maybe it’s taken under consideration for a more focused means of communication, such as a CDI, or maybe you’ll see an answer in the Update Notes. And sure, I guess some questions will go unanswered, too, but not for lack of effort or interest.

The truth is, you’re noticing, or I hope you’re noticing: We’re actively taking steps to be more communicative and involved, and we’ll continue to do so as time passes.

Gaile, while the increase in communication has been noticed and appreciated, I think the problem is that the communication has gone one the problem areas. You know the traits thread is a problem, but the SAB threads (especially given SAB riots helped kick this off), the hobosack threads etc. are where the lack of communication is really noticed.

I understand some things can’t be talked about for some reason, but when we know you’re here and we’re still not getting answers… well it isn’t worse than you guys not being here at all, but it’s a bit jarring.

lordkrall.7241:

Maraca Kabob.3564:

BRING IT BACK ANET. LISTEN TO YOUR FANS

But which fans should they listen to?

There are people that want it gone forever, so if they bring it back they don’t listen to those fans and so on.

Listen to the fans who are affected :S The people who want it gone forever can just not play it.

Vayne.8563:

NYG.2568:

Vayne.8563:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

The traits thread, SAB threads, megaserver threads and hobosacks thread (off the top of my head) are in need of attention.

That said, Gaile is trying to keep us informed as well as Chris.

SAB threads are what exactly? Anet said right now it’s not coming back, during this season of the living story. That’s all they’re going to say. There’s no need for more communication on this. If people don’t want to accept it, there’s nothing anyone can do. That’s the decision.

Megaservers are being worked on, we’ve even seen some changes recently to guild missions and they said they’re working on stuff for larger guilds. The mega server isn’t being repealed. It’s not happening. What is there to say?

Traits and hobosacks are legitimate ongoing issues. I can almost guarantee they’re working on traits. I guess they could come in every few days and say we’re still working on it, but programming takes time.

Hobosacks, no idea if they’re working on it or not. I suspect it’s low priority, though.

I don’t know why people think that we need someone to constantly come into threads saying we know about this and we’re looking into it. Things in big companies don’t get changed over night and programming takes time.

Anet should just hire this ^^^^ guy. He seems to think he has all the answers.

I don’t suspect I have all the answers or even most of them. But I’ll certainly call people out who claim to have them and probably don’t.

Except you don’t just call people out for that. You shoot down other commenters whenever you feel like it. My comment was:

“The traits thread, SAB threads, megaserver threads and hobosacks thread (off the top of my head) are in need of attention.
That said, Gaile is trying to keep us informed as well as Chris.”

Now I don’t know what you felt about me noting four threads that need attention and then crediting two members of ANet staff for the communication they are doing that was in some way needing " someone to constantly come into threads" or “claiming to have all the answers”, but I’ll address your comments anyway.

We’ve been told that SAB isn’t coming back during this Living Story. Okay, but we aren’t actually in a Living Story at the moment. Moreover, I don’t know how you could possibly construe this information as there being nothing more anyone could do.

The megaservers aren’t something I follow. I know the RP community felt/feels neglected, and have little to add.

I don’t know why you feel “almost certain” that traits are being addressed, given there have been two red posts on the topic, one of which confirmed they hadn’t been discussed, and one which had no idea what was happening with them.

Hobosacks are a minor fix that has impacted an entire class’ end game (aesthetics is end game) for two years. It isn’t a big issue for many, but it would take so little effort to fix (or to explain why it is more complicated than simply turning them off) that it seems disrespectful given the length of the thread.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

The trait changes, more than anything else, are a major gold sink. i think after the first Pavilion event, Anet realized that they injected a TON of gold into the economy and have been trying to find ways to bleed it and the materials from it out of the economy so they introduced the Bazaar and a few other things, but this wasn’t removing it fast enough. i honestly think these traits changes (aside from dragging out the leveling and growth of new toons) was meant to tear out more gold from the world and also make it near impossible for new players to hold onto vast amounts of gold as they leveled. Its honestly the only “logical” reason I can think of for these changes to still be here.

I seriously hope that isn’t true. I mean, it makes more sense than the reasons they gave when they announced it, but imagining that they would counterbalance poor distribution planning in temporary content by wrecking a core aspect of the game is just depressing.

That said, I’m not convinced that it’s useful as a sink. New players can’t afford to pay much. Non-alt players don’t need to. Actual alt players seem to be flatly refusing to pay because the costs are so ridiculous, and repeated on every character.

Obviously I don’t have the data there. If it is a good sink, then it’s a horrible one. If it’s a poor sink, then it’s a useless and horrible one.

Mesket.5728:

They never found the balance between efforts placed in gemstore and efforts placed in-game. I understand its their business but if you don’t take care for the bees you will harvest no honey.

I don’t think it was a problem of balance of effort. A lot of content has been produced. Its just the content that has been produced has largely either been temporary (LS), arbitrarily turned off (SAB), half-hearted (Southsun Cove), or not very well liked (NPE). Also quite a few changes were outright backwards steps for no obvious reason (fractal level resets, trait changes etc.)

Unfortunately it might be too late for the expansion pack that would bring both content for us, and money for them. I remember all of the optimism in the forums for new classes, races, guild halls and areas. Now the threads are just asking for people to talk to us, or for content that has already been in the game to come back.

Lazuli.2098:

Exeon.4358:

So basically the changes made to improve gameplay on a casual level are hated by the regulars and casual players alike

By some (most?) but not all.

It’s the significant majority (almost everyone) who has actually posted in this thread has been somewhere between dislike and hatred. Obviously not everyone who plays has posted here, but usually threads have at least some division (even SAB threads are filled with people who for some reason don’t want other people to be allowed to play it).

The NPE is a mixed bag of opinions, but the trait changes have been essentially universally opposed (by those who have commented) for five months.

Elsdragon.5109:

I was commenting more on the NPE’s skill point change, but I don’t think it’s as dire as you would put it even with the trait system. Although I will admit that there are ways to better implement the system than the current one.

I’m a defender of the game (I’m more annoyed by lack of communication more than anything), and I actually like the NPE for the most part.

That said, while it’s obviously subjective, I’m not exaggerating about how bad the trait system is for many. If you like making alts, and experimenting with builds, it’s legitimately game breaking. Obviously, not everyone cares about that, but it will definitely cost ANet both gem sales and word of mouth purchases.

The traits thread, SAB threads, megaserver threads and hobosacks thread (off the top of my head) are in need of attention.

That said, Gaile is trying to keep us informed as well as Chris.

I think part of the “hype” problem isn’t so much that ANet are hyping too much, it’s that they’ve limited their communication with their players to the soundbites in their marketing. If we were getting actual normal communication, then the occasional exaggerations about how successful the Living Story has been in the wider media wouldn’t be such an issue.

But the problem is we’re now getting almost all of our information like that. Advertising to potential customers about how awesome the game is is fine (heck, the game IS awesome), but talking to the long term players about how awesome the Living Story is (and worse, telling us that things like SAB aren’t coming back yet because they don’t fit with it) is kind of a problem.

Elsdragon.5109:

People like to nitpick about something simply because it’s different from what they’re used to. They fail to see any merit in those systems because of this, which is the actual sad part in all this.

It isn’t a nitpick, it’s a serious problem. The trait changes made build experimentation either prohibitively expensive, or extremely time consuming (and then only really after level 80). This is a big issue for a lot of players.

Account binding the trait unlocks might have been a reasonable compromise, but they haven’t even done that. Which means that the expense or tedium is repeated with every character. People have stopped buying gems and recommending the game over this, which means even if you never make alts, this will negatively affect you as well in the long run.

Aguri.2896:

It’s like being a child excited for Christmas, only it’s hard to be excited when your presents are going to be taken away a few weeks later.

Now now, they may or may not give you the same presents back for an undisclosed time at an unspecified future date. That makes them exciting.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Crash — I’m asking about that thread. I know it’s huge, and believe me, I hear you (and a thousand other forum members ) loud and clear. I don’t have an answer for you on that subject, but I know you’d like to know more about the status of that thread, if nothing else.

Thank you! Much, much appreciated!

Okay Gaile, as there are significantly more posts in this thread mentioning the traits system than the survey, and you haven’t said anything about it, I’ll try something else.

If a rule has been implemented at the company banning devs from speaking on traits, nod twice.

Then, if you nodded twice, please do whatever you can to have that rule revoked

ozmaniandevil.6805:

But again, once you’ve done it once or twice ot nine times why should we be forced to do it again…and again… and again? There must be a better way.

The obvious, and extremely simple, solution is just to account bind the unlocks. I am staggered that this still hasn’t happened.

Sorry Gaile, could you clarify on what the current approach actually is? Again, I may be entirely misreading the forums, but it seems that traits are far and away the most important, universally hated, and frequently posted about single issue on the general discussion board. The fact that we’ve heard nothing (apart from confirmation that the first 2,000 posts in the thread weren’t read) doesn’t seem to gel with the idea that the forum is a good form of developer/community interaction.

Gaile Gray.6029:

If you’re considering how the GW2 Team can best hear your input about the game — such as what you’d like to see in the future, how things are working now, etc. — I personally don’t think a survey is necessary. Honestly and truly: These forums are a huge and very effective medium for communication. They are read daily by members of the team — probably more people than you think! — and the forums, as a whole, give us a much better view of what’s important to Guild Wars 2 players than most surveys would do.

Gaile, from observing the forum it seems to me that the most consistently important issue for players is the trait system. Another persistent, but less important and universal, issue is SAB. At the very least, they seem that they are two of the most important “easy” fixes, given that most people want a return of previously existing content.

Am I just way off the mark on this? As it seems that these two point are being almost actively ignored.

I do feel that basic respect for their customers warrants an answer on this. The “communicating with you thread” was launched after OccupySAB and we still haven’t heard anything.

If they could just explain why they can’t/won’t hit the switch on worlds 1 and 2, that’d do.

lordkrall.7241:

Exactly, it gives us no information, because if they give us information they would lock themselves into that position forever, since that will be considered a promise.

There are at least three options:

1) It definitely isn’t coming back, you can claim your gems back for the infinite continue coin.
2) It definitely is coming back, you can relax.
3) It may or may not come back, here’s why we can’t just turn W1 and W2 back on.

So, if they actually know if it’s 1 or 2, they shouldn’t have issue promising. If they don’t, then option 3 is a good way to show respect to their customers.

lordkrall.7241:

But what can they say?
They have already said everything that we need to know.
It will not come back during a Living Story Season. They won’t really say more than that.

That gives us basically no information. Especially given that we aren’t currently in a living story season, it’s on break.

Moreover, quite clearly the player base is unclear on what this message means.

Sankofa Jimiyu.1567:

I liked the mercenary heroes. Not really viable in GW2, but having all my characters fighting as a team was pretty cool.

Actually I think it could be semi-workable. If they introduced an elite skill for everyone that was less powerful than all the other elite skills (like the racial skills) that would summon a random NPC of a different class, then they could introduce a gem store item that would give those NPCs the look and name of any random character of the same class on your account.

Think Thieves Guild, but with one of the thieves having the look and name of a character on your account (obviously not the stats and skills though).

Esplen.3940:

I totally forgot about dinosaurs, I apologize. Closest I remember are Raptors… mmmm raptor farming..

I did wonder :P

Which brings me back to my point, how has everyone managed to forget that GW1 had frickin’ DINOSAURS in it????

AdaephonDelat.3890:

Esplen.3940:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Esplen.3940:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Dinosaurs! Seriously, how is it that no one else seems bothered by their absence???

Tyria != Earth.

I… know?

So why are Asura, Norn, Charr, Sylvari, Dredge, Kodan, Risen, Quaggan, Krait, Karka, and more absent from Earth?

I never played GW1 but I think CrashTest is referring to these -

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Dinosaur

That is what I was referring to… I am, completely confused as to how this wasn’t clear in a thread on GW 1 nostalgia :S

Esplen.3940:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Dinosaurs! Seriously, how is it that no one else seems bothered by their absence???

Tyria != Earth.

I… know?

Dinosaurs! Seriously, how is it that no one else seems bothered by their absence???

Vayne.8563:

And herein lies the problem. This is what Anet is dealing with all the time. Here’s our consensus thus far. With 18 responses, only two items got more than one vote and those 2 items only got 2 each.

While this is true, it’s more an issue with limiting people to one vote, and having a system that is fairly flippant. It also ignores the developer resources. Making trait unlocks account bound, or turning on SAB, would make a lot of people happy with little effort. Creating mounts would take a lot of effort and make a lot of people unhappy.

Looking at this forum’s front page, the highest posted thread is traits, and the second is Cantha, both by a LONG way. Now obviously I’m pretty heavily in the “fix traits” camp, but it seems fairly obvious looking at that which issues people care about, and how much development is required to provide it.

While I agree that ANet can’t keep everyone happy, I think the community has enough of a unified voice that it is possible to identify things that they should be doing, but aren’t.

Another vote for opening world 1 and 2 permanently.

Or, at the very least, explaining why they’ve turned them off.