Guild Wars 2

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

honestly, I think everyone should be able to get to Liandri. The thing you’ve proposed is already in there, in form of the gambits.

tier 1 = 0 gambits
tier 2 = 1 gambit
…

It’s in there, but it was designed poorly. Properly designed, most people would be able to complete the gauntlet, with out using gambits, with a reasonable expenditure of time and effort, while the encounters would be tuned so that 5 gambits would be doable, challenging and rewarding for the most hard core players.

ANet thought of the mechanism for scaling the difficulty, but utterly failed in balancing it in the implementation.

Yeah, but not only the people who actually did the design work and thus know all the tricks to it. I’d actually like to see a live stream of Colin trying to complete it, on Live, no cheats, no help, his own personal account, with ANet giving $10,000 to charity if he can’t do it in twelve hours.

I have a feeling the effort would turn even his smile upside down…

When you have to perfectly follow a virtual script to defeat an encounter, well, that kind of game play exists for games that fill that niche, but it’s horrendous MMO content design.

I can imagine certain motivations for this, but none of them include “for the good of GW2”.

I have been thinking that this might be a good time for a comprehensive player survey via Arenanet, sort of like what they did after Southsun, but with more, (less-leading), questions to get a clearer picture.

IMO, that should have been something that was ongoing, at least every three months, but also in response to issues that have gained a lot of traction in the community.

Gizmo.8623:

pavo.4371:

Devs should really stop ignoring this topic, posting only generic answers with no prospects of improvement.

Many times they have stated that they are listening and reading and are very busy with work so we shouldn’t expect to have dev come here and use much of his time answering to our pleas (or whatcha call it). It’s always nice but we should understand that and just write constructive feedback. Hope this thread is taken into consideration (fingers crossed).

A little communication can go a long way. The random dev comments, sometimes on some very specific areas of concern, add a lot to the relationship between the Devs and the Players.

I think in this case and for some other big picture issues, it’s a lot harder for them to comment, because what are they actually going to say? If they defend what many consider indefensible, it just makes people more angry. A Mea Culpa and commitment to change what’s broken in the process would be awesome, but that pre-supposes they actually have a change of heart and are willing to change direction for their ongoing development efforts.

Unfortunately, since they seem to be starting from a point so far away from those expressing concerns in this thread, to the point of being proud of content some of us see as a new low, it’s probably going to take a lot of ongoing pressure and measurable drop offs in player participation before they will make the desired course change.

I see the current direction as being detrimental to the game in the near term and potentially game breaking the further down this false rabbit hole the developers plummet.

If the studio was already split between Living Story and actual, substantive evolution of Dynamic Event content in the greater game world, then there is hope. If most of the Developers drank the cool-aid and believe content like this paves the way to success and salvation, then things will probably have to get a lot worse before they get better. Worse still would be if they sort of see the mistake, but are just too stubborn to admit they were wrong and proceed to double down on a failed strategy. In that case, there may not be much hope at all.

We sort of need a “that was all just the result of a fevered dream” sort of moment, with a resulting radical change of direction, but the developers need to actually wake up.

ttyl.6021:

FrizzFreston.5290:

• The Pavilion are itself is an area for people who like to kill and get loot. You’re not seriously going to expect people to go out in the world and experience all the events? I love to be that naive, but sadly most people go to the areas where they make the most money the fastest. This isn’t bad design.

Yes, most people choose the most efficient grind, despite whether or not they’re having fun. It’s Arenanet’s job to stop people from grinding until they burn out.

We’ve seen update after update turning things into dailies: karma jugs, ascended items, world bosses, dungeons, etc. They realize we overdose. However, they miss the mark when making new content. Crown Pavilion was touted as “anti-zerg” and “groups of 10-30 would be challenged”. They tried. They failed. That’s bad design.

Some people may like a relaxing, thoughtless grind. That’s fine. That playstyle just can’t create gold from NPCs because the inflation will affect every player, eventually forcing those that don’t want to grind to have to. Much less blues and greens and more emphasis on/uses for Karma is the answer to that. With multiple options like Lost Orrian Jewelry Box, Karma would be turned into gold through the trading post.

I think you hit the mark pretty squarely with your post.

A problem, though, is that ANet will have to really except a changing of their ways before we will see it happen. For what ever reason, they have proven to be absolutely loathe to giving players new, meaningful rewards for previously accumulated currencies. We would have been much better off if most of the new currencies had never been introduced and most of the new rewards had just been tied to Karma.

We are now in the situation that many don’t even bother to try to accumulate new, event related currencies because they know they won’t actually earn enough to buy what they want before the time expires to earn that currency.

Gizmo.8623:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Gizmo.8623:

Imagine how battles with dragons would be fun when after entering dragon zone, each player would be randomly assigned to certain task – attack wings, attack dragon head on, support/defend artillery, fire artillery, fight reinforcements. If you wouldn’t do your job, you would get no reward.

I like this idea very much. You’d have a different experience every time you do the encounter. They could also add random events that COULD happen to some objectives. For example: you got the job: defend the artillery. On one occasion there spawns a huge champion which you have to push away with knockbacks so that he doesn’t destroy the defense. On an other occasion the champion won’t spawn, but instead a friendly NPC champion comes along and you get the new job: storm the flanks and keep the NPC alive.

That’s exactly what I have in mind – expanding DYNAMIC event system!
Imagine that we have 7 ppl in group and task – defending the artillery and huge abomination spawns which starts his slowly advance towards our big guns.
And we think: Aaaaaahkitten we got no necro with spectral wall to keep it away! Maybe mesmer could get new skill for this occasion: artillery illusion: abomination would be confused and with a little luck attack our illusion.

There’s so many possibilities, so many great uses of what we have now in game.

Scratch the “randomly assigned task” and you are on the right track. More complex Dynamic Events should require multiple, simultaneous responsibilities be met, with the way the zerg splits those responsibilities organically making the difference between victory and defeat.

The closest the game has to this is the Tequatl, the Sunless, Dynamic Event. The concept shown there needs to be further improved and then established as the minimum standard for World Boss encounters.

I hate to point to another MMO that failed on many levels for a positive example, but in the recent MMO Defiance, there are some extremely fun and well Designed Ark Fall events that are fun, scale very well to the zerg, require the zerg to split among elements and often culminate in very satisfying Mega Boss events. The combat mechanics make the actual combat, at the individual player level, a lot less dynamic and interesting than in GW2, but they still managed to make much better World Encounters that scale to accommodate zergs.

In any event, I hope most see beyond the Shinies and can appreciate that The Queen’s Pavilion, a small circle split into pie pieces and designed to offer rotating, mindless, zerg-fest fights against bosses that are only bosses because they have a ton of hit points, really is a new low in modern MMO content design. ANet is much better than this.

Gizmo.8623:

Dasroth.9236:

Just be patient more main line story will come soon enough. Instead of being negative about what you felt you didn’t like about the patch why not just focus on what you did like. No one is forcing you to play the new content or the game for that matter.

For me it’s not the problem of being impatient. It’s the problem of the whole direction the game is taking, so no amount of time will bring the update I dream of – expansion of world, improvements of faulty systems, new ways to affect Tyria, interesting further story.

Listen, of course I can name positives and forget about negatives. But this way I won’t really and trully enjoy the game. I will be lying to myself of telling that I like the game only because I will acknowledge things I dislike. I’ve done the math and I’m really starting to dislike more things than like in a wonderful game that’s becoming only good in a beautiful world that’s neglected by it’s makers.

I really can’t change myself in this matter, I won’t start liking grind or content appealing to zerg. The game started to change, important things are put away for shallow content. I shout – “Please! Look in the mirror and see what you’re becoming! I don’t like it, but I really care for you and thus I don’t want you to lose me. And many others who really care!”

Exactly. Arenanet seems to be in serious need of an “Intervention” and if some of us come off as a bit harsh or angry, it’s the frustration over what the game is becoming in relation to what it was and could/should have been that drives us.

“To complement this concept of regular world events with strong stories and themes, we also need to build on and strengthen our existing open world and its persistent content. The more persistent events we can provide in a specific area, the less often each of the events in that area needs to occur, which in turn adds to the sense of an ever-evolving open world.

This means we need to give reasons for players at all levels to explore these areas, to reward them for their time, and to encourage them to play in locations where they will run into each other and experience the community-driven features that make Guild Wars 2 shine. Before we expand our world more, we need to make sure our existing world is as strong as possible, and that it gives reasons for people at all levels to go back and play and explore in the entire game".

That is from Colin last fall.

Arenanet clearly “got it” back then, but they’ve pretty much failed to deliver, substituting Living Story for Dynamic Event content needed to make the existing world as strong as possible and give players reasons to go back and explore places they have already been.

It was and is such an important element needed to reinforce and build upon the game’s very foundations that to divert resources needed to make that happen to the Living Story seems not only unwise, but a decision that threatens the long term health and potential of the game.

There is more to dislike with this event than just the nature of the included content. It’s the ongoing sense that the developers are spending the rent and food money on bi-monthly trips to Vegas, while the kids are left alone in the apartment with a box of crackers and half a jar of peanut butter. Mortgaging the future potential of the game away in an unsustainable binge of novelty experiences that will mean nothing when the rent comes due, the credit cards are maxed and the kids are starving.

I think the fact that people realize “this doesn’t feel right” and have to ask “is this an exploit” shows why the design of this update needs to raise very, very serious concerns over the current direction of game design at ANet.

If all people care about is loot and shinies, this content is for them. It’s unsustainable content that also risks setting a bar for grindy rewards that may leave many unable to return to the normal game world where rewards for their time and effort will seem insignificant and pointless in comparison.

For those who just feel like this is wrong and chose not to “exploit” the ill conceived design of this patch’s “content”, it just breeds a sense of unfairness that the developers are deciding to go over the top in rewarding such narrowly focused grind, while sending the message that, to them, the game world is dead and those that adventure there should expect to always feel like second class citizens who have to work ten times as hard as Living Story grinders to eek out a sustainable existence.

Others just realize at a gut level that this is not only not right, but detrimental to the health of the game, which really breeds doubts and concerns about the future of a game they’ve grown to love.

Grileenor.1497:

I totally agree with the OP. The game is seperated in two parts for me. The release part which I love and will continue playing as long as there is no other mmoRPG out there to hook me and the (not so) Living Story part, which started very shallow and got some quality, but in the (for me and other) totally wrong direction.

There are players who love story, get themselves involved in the game and its world and really like their charakters and want to see them grow, not for some levels but for years. And there are players who are out for quick action, quick money and shiny items, the more the better.

Guild Wars 2 has hooked me by its fan base of GW1 players and its Manifesto. As I started to explore the world, the lore and the somehow fractured personal story parts, I fell in love to the rich details, to the art, the show of the game. Dynamic quests, dynamic combat, cool looking dungeons. And I had virtually stored the money for the first expansion of such a deep gaming experince.

But… then the Living Story was introduced with big words and little content. It gains pace and what it offers is for the second type of gamers I mentioned. As I started to play, I felt home in a game, where it does not matter to have the most shiny item. The living story is the opposite of that. It does not offer rich story, it offers skins’n’boxes for gems and a little bit of not related story to make them not completely out of the box. All living the story seems to be about, is generating money for the shop, kitten ing off players who care for the world, the game and the lore.

Now we have the eldorado for the type of player, who is happy for generating loot only. (this update) Great for them (really) but the total face slap for those who care. The remaining question is: which type of player is the right one for your GW2 ArenaNet? You won’t get both happy for long. What type of game you are intending to build? The one presented to us on release day, or the game this LS stuff is heading to?

I agree completely.

I think that gets to the deeper issues here. It’s not that we are selfish and hate content we don’t personally enjoy. There has been content over the past year I didn’t enjoy, but didn’t harm the game and made other people happy.

The problem is that too much of the living story, and other changes, has been very detrimental to the core aspirations and principles the game was designed around. It often feels as if it’s not just a lack of respect for those core ideals at play, but a deliberate effort of some to destroy those principles and reduce the game to another genre clone.

I don’t know what the truth of it is. Is it that the Live team tramples on the soul of the game out of ignorance? Or, is it resentment that the game rejected the established MMO design tropes and paradigm that drives those now at the helm to undo the hard fought gains of those who were able to think outside the box? Are there people at the top who still care for and defend the game’s core principles, or have they gone elsewhere or just given up on constantly fighting their unenlightened co-workers?

No one ever said fulfilling the goals and aspirations of the Manifesto and the core principles established during the long development process would be easy. They gambled on doing something very different than what had been done before. There was always the risk that players wouldn’t appreciate what they were trying to do and the game would fail to be anything more than a niche title. However, the game launched and their ideas paid off in real numbers. The game’s financial success and large, enthralled player base proved it was worth taking those risks.

To then give up on all of that and start acting like they are designing for just any other formulaic MMORPG on the market is just hard to comprehend.

I wish the debate was just over personal content preference. I’ve always been for variety, as long as it doesn’t result in no one being happy. It’s really about whether the game will continue to strive to realize the ideals that made the game so unique, or just give in and become another example of formulaic MMORPG mediocrity.

Kal Spiro.9745:

People really need to give this Manifesto a rest. The Manifesto is the shtick that every Development team has always proclaimed before the game actually became what it is.

Some of the stuff they said they were able to bring to the live game, but some of the stuff never was. Give it a rest, it’s not a real thing and never was. It was designed to get your interest and attention, and it succeeded akittens only purpose.

It was the set of ideals and aspirations that drove the game to be such an incredible achievement in MMO design at launch. If they had continued to find ways to realize more and more of those aspirations and ideals, the game would have continued to evolve and improve, solidifying the new paradigm they created and forcing every other MMO design studio to play catch up.

Abandoning the quest to realize those ideals is why most of what has been produced over the last year has been a complete waste of resources and damaged the ongoing potential for the game.

To “give the manifesto a rest” is to give up on greatness and embrace mediocrity.

Gizmo.8623:

Btw. I wonder if ppl still would hunt champs across world if now we have them in one place and kill them without problems, everyone grind them like crazy. When Jubilee end, what of that will remain? Won’t everybody be accustomed to having big zerg with them killing champs that are 20 meters away?

I agree with most of what you said. I snipped most of the quote, but left the last paragraph to comment on. I see that as a big concern as well. Not only does the Pavilion Legendary Mob zerg bash-fest represent a really sad form of MMO content, but it is almost certain to leave many players who take advantage of it finding it hard to go back to playing sustainable content at a normal pace for normal rewards.

I find it ironic that as they continue to take active steps to limit choices in game play that provides reasonable gold and high tier mat earning rates, they then insert temporary content that would be considered akin to"cheat" or “trainer” content in RPG that supports community produced content.

RoyHarmon.5398:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Thanks for the feedback everyone and please keep it coming. Personally, I find that one of the hardest parts of being a desginer on GW2 Live is coming to terms with the fact that not every update will please every player. We do our best to deliver appealing content with enough variety to keep as many people as satisfied as possible. And If there’s one thing we can do consistently, it’s improving the experience of said content each time. I think we made some great strides with the Jubilee. I think we have a lot of room to keep growing. But our team isn’t done yet. We’ve got some exciting things coming later this month. Things you’ve never seen in this game before.

But in the mean time, please keep telling us what you’re thinking. 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. Despite this, there are many events I would still like to add. Many zones and bosses I would love to revisit. As we get better at the living world, I strongly suspect we’ll have room to get around to them as well. Assuming that’s what our players really want. You are all the second half of the collaborative process, so thanks for helping!

I think a large part of this is that the new events weren’t identified. The release notes said:

Added over 30 events across the game.

All right, so it’s mid-October and I find an event. Maybe I haven’t done it before. Is that because it’s a new event? Or is it because the game hasn’t been out for two months, and I haven’t been to this zone yet? Or maybe when I was here before, the event wasn’t active. How in the world would I know?

So I think, “Hey, should I go talk about this event on the forum like it’s something new? Hmm, no, I’ll look like a n00b because it isn’t new at all, most likely. And if I post about every cool event that I come across, I’ll never have time to play the game.”

End result: No feedback on “new” events.

Yeah. It makes it seem like some are more concerned about being noticed for making a big splash than producing solid, necessary content that builds and expands on the game’s foundations, even if each individual brick doesn’t garner praise and wide spread notice.

What’s odd is that when Colin first laid out the original strategy of ongoing Dynamic Event content creation, he fully acknowledged and embraced the idea that such content may not attract much fanfare, but would make an important contribution to providing a living, breathing, evolving game world.

It comes down to having a successful long term strategy, vs. instant gratification at the cost of long term success.

HiddenNick.7206:

Fiontar.4695:

Gizmo.8623:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

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. Despite this, there are many events I would still like to add. Many zones and bosses I would love to revisit. As we get better at the living world, I strongly suspect we’ll have room to get around to them as well. Assuming that’s what our players really want. You are all the second half of the collaborative process, so thanks for helping!

From release notes of “Shadow of Mad King”:
“Tyria Evolving
The world continues to evolve with new events, jumping puzzkitten sses, mini-dungeons, and achievements appearing across a variety of maps.”

This could be the only sentence in the next few update notes.

I was so busy with Halloween content and I haven’t even paid any attention to these additions

I didn’t notice them either, but to be fair, in late October of last year I was hospitalized and nearly died in the grips of an unidentified virus, so I think I have a reasonable excuse.

It makes me sad to see that quote, actually, because if that had been repeated with every patch since, the game would have been much the better for it. An evolving world of Tyria, with new Dynamic Events, Mini-dungeons and, yes, even jumping puzzles, is pretty much what I’m talking about and what Arenanet was talking about before they got ensnared in the pipe dream that has been Living Story.

There are a lot of people claiming that they like roaming around in the world exploring and “having fun”. Problem is… I don’t see them so often. And that’s why I consider claims like yours as a utter BS. Some random events scattered all over the world would never put any interest in most of the players. New content always needs rewards and challenge mechanics.

It’s what the entire game was based on. Dynamic Events, level scaling and a game where “the entire game is end game”.

The zones have become stale and static due to lack of updates. Almost everything added since release has been designed to suck people out of free-from, world roaming game play and reward them for linear, finely managed, old school content.

It started with Fractals of the Mist. It was furthered by Living Story content that rewarded players for jumping through hoops. It was compounded by Dailies and Monthlies. It was reinforced by nerfing of earning rates for open world roaming or farming.

The game was designed around the concept of a vast world brought alive via dynamic events, kept vibrant through evolution of that content and kept broadly relevant via level and reward scaling.

The original design of the game is not really in question. The success of that design was established. Diminishing open world game play participation is a logical outgrowth of the failure to advance the game world and keep Dynamic content fresh. Not to mention the fact that so much effort has been put into content and rewards that actively train players away from open world content with the promise of shinies you won’t earn via free roaming, open world game play.

The game succeeded because it wasn’t another cynical carrot on a stick grind-fest and because it had a vast, dynamic and interesting game world.

It’s a game, not a simulation, so the sense of a living, breathing game world will always rely on the successful illusion of an organic, living, evolving game world. By allowing the world to remain static and fallow, the illusion is destroyed, the manifesto rendered propaganda rather than principle and the game risks devolving into just another MMO genre clone.

By moving to appeal to the lowest common denominator, the game risks abandoning the core audience that embraced this game and made it a success. We have enough MMOs that follow the old MMO design formula. GW2 was an exceptional standout in the storied history of MMORPGs. They created a new Paradigm for MMO design, but the lack of follow through and the backsliding towards the old, stale paradigm greatly diminish it’s ongoing potential.

And, yes, for long term vets of the genre that finally saw a game that started to live up to the true potential of the MMO genre, the efforts to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory are more than a little frustrating.

DiogoSilva.7089:

I believe there are several issues with how Living Story has been handled, but not all of them are due to the content designers, but due to the limitations of the dynamic event system and the combat system.

People have already expressed clearly enough in his topic how they want to see the living story improved. I feel that GW1’s Beyond content was better at the living story concept than GW2’s own content patches. My wishes are:
1. More cutscenes and story-driven gameplay instances (why is all the additional lore information posted in the official site, while players get to know little or nothing about the characters in-game?)
2. Replayable story that is not under a clock. Really, Anet, you SHOULD introduce a Mission System like GW1 had. This way, new players don’t miss the story from old patches, while any player can replay it whenever they want. Add in an hardmode version for the more dedicated players, and you would appeal to a lot of people. Missions in GW1 were an excellent system for linear story-telling, for story-driven gameplay sequences, for replayability and for team-driven content. This, in my opinion, was always a fault with GW2 since the very beginning.
3. Make Tyria exploration more exciting. There’s no enemy patrolling the area, no strategical enemy formation teams, no unpredictable hard encounters. Explorying the world of Tyria does not expresses danger and the excitment that would come from it, because it’s so clearly structured and predictable. There’s a dangerous enemy there? It’s labeled a champion, so if you’re not in a party, just ignore it. Anything else? Trash mobs that can be easily beaten. Improve the unpredictability, improve the diversity of encounters, turn each encounter more unique, and Tyria becomes a more exciting place to explore. And of course, with good rewards there, and people will surely do it.

However, I feel there’s some faults with the dynamic system and with the combat system in group-play combat.

The dynamic system is cool, but needs to be expanded: it needs to incentivate more adventure/ exploration (by having players explore the map and look for goals that are NOT marked on the map), it needs to have a better structure (beginning, narrative development, climax, ending), it needs some more non-linear elements outside of winning/ losing consequences, it need to force players to spread out to not fail (especially in zergy events, have the system generate many small and distinct sub-events within the area that the open-world community must complete around the same time or lose – this way, you can prevent them from becoming mindless zergs), and they need to have more permanent impact. But how would they have a more permanent impact when they can cycle every ten minutes? Maybe by not having an instant permanent impact, but by building up something more permanent slowly. For example: a swam of dynamic events that revolve around building an entire city from the ground: depending on the non-linear choices, players would decide the placement of several houses or areas, or be responsible to which areas get harassed by enemy encounters or not. This massive sequence would cycle several time a day, but it would not revert the situation each time it would cycle: it would build upon it. So for example, if an event cycled 100 times per day, three days after, an entire city would be build, unlocking a different kind of dynamic event, one set to destroy that very city, and would cycle 100x times a day, each cycle reshrinking it until it completely destroyed it three days after.

You are right. To really leverage dynamic events, they need to evolve, there needs to be some sort of progression and they should never be reduced to just timed, scripted events with no variation.

What I would like to see is a continual, systematic refresh of DE content in each game zone in a way that progresses events with in that zone over time. Existing events modified to provide twists that make sense in context with the events that have been playing out in the zone, new events to progress the state of the zone, including changes to structures to reflect the waxing or waning of the influence of various NPC factions.

DEs do a good job at providing the illusion of life to a zone during the first half dozen hours you spend there, but when nothing changes at all in the weeks or months since your previous visit, the immersion and sense of an organic, living environment are completely lost.

I also see a role for instanced story content in all that. Not new story content to accompany every new influx of content for each zone, but the spotlight could be put on an individual zone every 2-4 weeks with Story Content accompanying dramatic goings on for that zone that are presented via new, narrative advancing, DEs for the zone.

Pawlegance.7012:

Personally, GW2 lost so much due to insecurity on ANet’s end. The game was praised for its new concept of a living and breathing world that came with dynamic events that told stories of specific and sometimes overlapping zones. What we got was great, a game that truly felt like an RPG. A game where your choices and actions mattered. In a small scale true and on a timer, true, but it still mattered.

ANet then turned away from the very core pillar of this game. It replaced most of the new content with quests. One time quests, that tell a story, but it is executed so badly that many people miss a lot of lore, because of bad presentation. I am not against story pieces forming slowly and painting a bigger picture, but everything feels so disconnected, fragmented.

Instead of adding player-driven content to the zones and expanding on the DE system, we got heavily scripted quests on a timer. Players need to rush through content, so they don’t miss an achievement or some hint on the backstory. I don’t want to be rushed, because playing is my leisure time. I want the game to wait for me, not the other way around.

From my point of view, GW2 has degraded a lot and lost a lot of the true potential it had in the beginning. Everything feels so generic and meaningless. Sure, we can vote on something, but does it really change anything. Like the story of GW2, which starts good and then gets really bad and bland, GW2 has devolved into something I don’t like and don’t support.

Some time ago Colin said that making expansions helps devs and players sync what they want. So far ANet has been doing whatever they want and a small percentage of players is throwing hundreds and thousands of dollars in their direction. Please, give others a reason to do the same.

After release, there hasn’t been a single content update I’d consider worth my money. And no, quality of life improvements is not content. This is how you build long lasting customer relationship.

I agree 100% with everything you said. I have some hope seeing the people who have posted to this thread and even if they don’t 100% agree with me, at least “get it” and appreciate that the game has been really failing at living up to it’s potential.

There have to be developers at Arenanet that get this as well. There is no way a studio that produced this awesome game could be devoid of developers who understand why the game worked, nor do I believe all those people left. I think my biggest hope is that discussions like this hear will get the developers talking about these issues and that the “Manifesto-ites” will once again overwhelm the “Last-generation-ites” and get future development back on track.

The sad thing is that at this point, we will need more than just a flip back to a focus on Dynamic Events. IMO, there has been very real damage done to the core concepts in the way that players have been systematically “trained” away from free-form, open world game play and towards jumping through a linear progression of hoops in exchange for flashy rewards.

DeWolfe.2174:

With the massive global market for theme parks, I don’t know why one would attempt to use the term in a derogatory manner?

I believe what might be an issue with the living story is it’s abruptness. That if things were to come online progressively, it would be more interesting and less jarring to the players.

I’m more concerned about the progression in difficulty of each Living Story. This appears to be catering to a small group of players that love suffering, stress, etc. I on the other hand, appreciated the Zephyr Sanctum and hoping it returns soon. I’d much rather have an expanded Zephyr Sanctum to act as a new Lions Arch.

The most disturbing feature of the update has been that it pushed me to spend over 10g and 100 laurels on new gear. Frankly, I’m annoyed as I’m now stuck with new gear I’m not thrilled with. This is 2.5 months worth of dailes and monthlies lost. Please allow us a place to test our PvE/WvW gear like there is in sPvP. Laurels are still a very bad mechanic for a currency. It’s unforgiving and very alt unfriendly.

I’ve always made the case that there is no black and white dichotomy between a Theme Park MMO and a Sandbox MMO, it’s more like a graduated scale. Even predominantly Sandbox titles can benefit from some structured content and story. Theme Park leaning titles definitely benefit from content that makes game play less linear, more free-form and at least tries to provide a convincing illusion of a living, breathing world.

When I say Queen’s Pavilion is the worst kind of example of Theme Park content, that’s exactly what I mean. GW2 has allowed us to scoff at titles that still think it’s ok to make a quilt work game zone, with pockets of mobs just standing around waiting to be killed by players in “kill ten rats” style questing. This update features content that is a blatant example of the absurdity of extreme theme park MMO content design.

More pointedly, Queen’s Pavilion reminds me a lot of the amateurish trash content produced by fans for games like Skyrim. The kind that usually only get’s a 2 star community rating for quality, but still is among the most downloaded. “Cheat content” designed to just provide players with a way to quickly accumulate wealth and advancement by continually grinding dense pockets of mobs with a higher than average reward to time ratio.

That kind of kitten just trivializes game play and all the content that the game’s developers spent years creating. In the end, it also cheats the players who decide to take such shortcuts out of the enjoyment the game was designed to offer.

That Arenanet would design and inject such content into this game is probably one of the biggest warning signs that something has gone horribly wrong with the Live Team and the management that is supposed to oversee them.

Gizmo.8623:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

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. Despite this, there are many events I would still like to add. Many zones and bosses I would love to revisit. As we get better at the living world, I strongly suspect we’ll have room to get around to them as well. Assuming that’s what our players really want. You are all the second half of the collaborative process, so thanks for helping!

From release notes of “Shadow of Mad King”:
“Tyria Evolving
The world continues to evolve with new events, jumping puzzkitten sses, mini-dungeons, and achievements appearing across a variety of maps.”

This could be the only sentence in the next few update notes.

I was so busy with Halloween content and I haven’t even paid any attention to these additions

I didn’t notice them either, but to be fair, in late October of last year I was hospitalized and nearly died in the grips of an unidentified virus, so I think I have a reasonable excuse.

It makes me sad to see that quote, actually, because if that had been repeated with every patch since, the game would have been much the better for it. An evolving world of Tyria, with new Dynamic Events, Mini-dungeons and, yes, even jumping puzzles, is pretty much what I’m talking about and what Arenanet was talking about before they got ensnared in the pipe dream that has been Living Story.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

snipped

Thanks for taking the time to comment Anthony.

First, I’d just make clear I don’t see this event in any way as a step forward. Concentrating mob grinding content in an area the size of a small baseball stadium has got to be one of the biggest steps backward for the game. I like the story, but the content is just bad.

Second, Dynamic Events. Back when Colin talked about the strategy for adding tons of new DEs to the game, he actually specified that the intent was to drop that content into the game with out fanfare, with each update, so that over time, players would continue to be surprised by fresh, new content in the game world. To now insinuate that the reason you abandoned that approach was because it received little attention and fanfare is just plain bizarre.

Dynamic Events can be added with as much or as little fanfare as you desire. It shouldn’t just be random events tossed into the game, it should be an evolution of events with in each zone in a way that makes sense given the events that occurred there previously. It would make perfect sense to use storytelling to bring focus on a zone where the more dramatic events for each update will play out, while still progressing content in other zones and building the foundation for big events to come. The writers would have plenty to do with out the Living Story framework.

It seems you gave up way too quickly on the content that makes the game special, in order to pursue gimmicky content that would never have made it into the game during pre-launch development. That the gimmicky stuff has been temporary just makes it all an even bigger waste of time, money, resources, talent and potential.

The issue I and others have is really multi-tiered. The wasting of development resources best spent elsewhere, the underwhelming impact and limited benefit of most content created under the “Living Story” and, at least as importantly, the abandonment of the evolution of the game world.

Tyria, outside of the temporary and gimmicky content, has not progressed or evolved. Dynamic Events only produce an organic, dynamic gaming experience if they themselves change and evolve on a regular basis and in a way that makes narrative sense.

Queen’s Pavilion would be considered a satirical representation of old school, mindless, unimaginative MMO game design if it weren’t so clear you seriously believe it represents progress.

The game world has become stale and static. The game has suffered under many months of events that draw people away from organic, free form game play in the incredibly vast and detailed game world, with the trend further reinforced by “jump through these hoops” dailies and monthlies.

Everything you have done this year has been designed to reward hoop jumping, cool-aid drinking, linear game play and then you wonder why so few people still free roam the long static game world ?

IMO, we are way beyond the point where fine tuning the current strategy based on player feedback is going to do much to preserve the ongoing potential of the game. The game, at launch, was an incredible achievement and sparked significant success. Why you would decide to undo everything the core game design and the Dynamic Event approach to content managed to achieve is just beyond me.

Arenanet laid out the case for this world design and the value of Dynamic Events as the core of the new MMO content delivery paradigm prior to launch. The game at launch proved the concept. Then you just toss it all aside because there was no fanfare about the DE content you added last October, after stressing that you would be adding such content with out fanfare? Please, clear up my confusion, because I don’t get it.

It almost seems that you guys didn’t have the patience for the long game, didn’t get the instant gratification you wanted from adding Dynamic Event content, so then started working on tossing out flashy gimmicks, hoping no one would notice that you gave up on the game world.

The game, at launch, was extraordinary, perhaps the best MMO at launch in the history of the genre. In 2013, the perpetual drum beat has been to drive a march towards the extremely ordinary, under the cover that you are “doing more than almost any other MMO developer has done”. Quality is probably more important than quantity, but it has been sorely lacking. That this year’s content actively undermines the core game content, rather than supporting it, sadly means that the game would probably have been better off with nothing than what was actually produced.

Stop designing live updates as if this were just any other ordinary, stale, quest driven, last generation MMORPG and start supporting, expanding and renewing what made the game special and successful at launch!

Gibson.4036:

Euryon.9248:

Instead of going on and on and on and on about the “Manifesto” and what your personal ideals about what the game “should be”, why not just take it at face value? Most of your complaint is centered around stuff from a year ago instead of just evaluating the current content for what it is.

And if you don’t like the current content, don’t play it and instead go play the stuff you do like. And if there isn’t anything you do like, why are you wasting your time complaining here instead of finding some other game?

A company talks about their vision for a product.
You think that they are on track to deliver that vision.
Over time, it seems like they are getting off track.

Which makes more sense:

1) Let the company know that you think they are getting off track, that you really love where they were headed, and where they were, but not where they seem to be now.

or

2) Go buy a product from a company that doesn’t even have that vision.

Or to put it numerically,

If they said they were going for 100% what you wanted, started off with 80%, and seem to be slipping down to 50%, does it make sense to express it to the company, or go find someone delivering 2%?

As much as people like to rant that ANet doesn’t listen to people on the forums, there seem to be changes that reflect the feedback made here. So why is it a waste of time?

Thank you. You boiled it down more concisely than I ever could.

The game is still better than anything currently out there, but it’s getting worse, rather than better and is drifting further away from it’s established ideals, rather than closer.

I’m not venting before storming off, never to return. I’m expressing frustrated concerns because I love the game and it’s core vision and hope that honest criticism may wake someone up to the possibility that “yes, we are off track and maybe it’s time to return to our core principles”.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Fiontar.4695:

Yeni.3507:

Fiontar.4695:

Sorin.4310:

This thread isn’t feedback. It’s “this is my opinion and I’m taking it as factual for everyone”.

Time to close?

I’ve never claimed my opinion as universal. This is the most serious form of feedback that can be offered, the honest criticism of someone who actually appreciates what this game is at it’s core, what the Manifesto meant for the genre and the ways this year has been a major disappointment. Kowtowing benefits no one.

That few on the other side can do more than dismiss or deflect, rather than add to the conversation isn’t a failing of the critics of the current direction of the game.

That’s the last I’ll say to those who wish this conversation would just go away. People are very welcome to offer their opinion to the discussion, though it would be most appreciated if it’s in a form that actually adds to the discussion.

Maybe you don’t see the Manifesto as anything special? Maybe you prefer this form of content to an evolution of the game world via Dynamic Event content? Maybe you prefer a check list to grind for rewards to free form exploration and immersion in the game world? We don’t know where you are coming from, other than that you just don’t want to hear criticism of the game and wish we would just stop talking.

Everyone’s a critic, but I am not seeing where you are coming from. Maybe it is just me but all I read is “I don’t like this QQ”

Constructive criticism is welcome, but rage QQ is not.

I’ve been pretty detailed in where I’m coming from. Some people get it, agree or not. Other can’t, don’t or won’t grasp the reasons many are frustrated. I know most of the developers will understand what is being said and likely a good portion of it will be seen as valid, if stinging, criticism.

The temptation to add “double que” to any post should be the first clue that maybe a bit more thought should be given before entering a conversation.

If people appreciate the ways the game is departing from the Manifesto and prefer adventure by checklist over the great potential the game and the manifesto offered us, I’d be happy to hear about it. Maybe Anet just has a better finger on the pulse of the players and has decided that the Manifesto and the core game design were a mistake to be rectified.

I’d be sad to have that be the conclusion of these difficult and critical discussions, but it would still be worth knowing.

OR, maybe they’ve been bumbling through a year worth of content learning how to fine tune their design? Maybe they’ve been developing a handful of events they can bring back again and again, just like in GW1 and many other MMOs before now. Maybe, as they have specifically stated not even a month ago, from this point on they will be working toward providing content that will expand and develop the world we play in, not just provide oneshots with no meaning after the fact.

Seriously, we got more out of the developers, even through temporary content, in one year than I’ve seen from many MMOs in their lifetime. They’ve been trying things out, laying the groundwork, and now they are in a position, that they weren’t a year ago, to run with it and actually make things happen.

I don’t disagree with your point. I would say, though, that if we don’t express our opinions about what they do right and, more importantly, what they are doing wrong, then the period of bumbling and time wasted on failed experiments grows exponentially.

The past can be forgiven if they actually get back on track. For me, this event just represents a further departure from the foundation of the game, the goals of the Manifesto and an ongoing waste of resources on the wrong kind of content.

Yeni.3507:

Fiontar.4695:

Sorin.4310:

This thread isn’t feedback. It’s “this is my opinion and I’m taking it as factual for everyone”.

Time to close?

I’ve never claimed my opinion as universal. This is the most serious form of feedback that can be offered, the honest criticism of someone who actually appreciates what this game is at it’s core, what the Manifesto meant for the genre and the ways this year has been a major disappointment. Kowtowing benefits no one.

That few on the other side can do more than dismiss or deflect, rather than add to the conversation isn’t a failing of the critics of the current direction of the game.

That’s the last I’ll say to those who wish this conversation would just go away. People are very welcome to offer their opinion to the discussion, though it would be most appreciated if it’s in a form that actually adds to the discussion.

Maybe you don’t see the Manifesto as anything special? Maybe you prefer this form of content to an evolution of the game world via Dynamic Event content? Maybe you prefer a check list to grind for rewards to free form exploration and immersion in the game world? We don’t know where you are coming from, other than that you just don’t want to hear criticism of the game and wish we would just stop talking.

Everyone’s a critic, but I am not seeing where you are coming from. Maybe it is just me but all I read is “I don’t like this QQ”

Constructive criticism is welcome, but rage QQ is not.

I’ve been pretty detailed in where I’m coming from. Some people get it, agree or not. Other can’t, don’t or won’t grasp the reasons many are frustrated. I know most of the developers will understand what is being said and likely a good portion of it will be seen as valid, if stinging, criticism.

The temptation to add “double que” to any post should be the first clue that maybe a bit more thought should be given before entering a conversation.

If people appreciate the ways the game is departing from the Manifesto and prefer adventure by checklist over the great potential the game and the manifesto offered us, I’d be happy to hear about it. Maybe Anet just has a better finger on the pulse of the players and has decided that the Manifesto and the core game design were a mistake to be rectified.

I’d be sad to have that be the conclusion of these difficult and critical discussions, but it would still be worth knowing.

A lot of staves do seem to look like wooden chair legs glued to a long pole.

There is so much potential with how you can clad, top and wrap a staff that I am also a bit perplexed by the lack of creativity with staff design.

Sorin.4310:

This thread isn’t feedback. It’s “this is my opinion and I’m taking it as factual for everyone”.

Time to close?

I’ve never claimed my opinion as universal. This is the most serious form of feedback that can be offered, the honest criticism of someone who actually appreciates what this game is at it’s core, what the Manifesto meant for the genre and the ways this year has been a major disappointment. Kowtowing benefits no one.

That some on the other side chose to do little more than dismiss or deflect, rather than add to the conversation isn’t a failing of the critics of the current direction of the game.

That’s the last I’ll say to those who wish this conversation would just go away. People are very welcome to offer their opinion to the discussion, though it would be most appreciated if it’s in a form that actually adds to the discussion.

Maybe you don’t see the Manifesto as anything special? Maybe you prefer this form of content to an evolution of the game world via Dynamic Event content? Maybe you prefer a check list to grind for rewards vs. free form exploration and immersion in the game world? We don’t know where you are coming from, other than possibly that you just don’t want to hear criticism of the game and wish we would just stop talking.

Elbegast.6970:

Vahkris.6847:

Honestly, I think players are focusing too much on the achievements and not enough on just playing the game.

Achievements have become the entirety of the game. Go try to kill the bosses in Orr or ask for a group to do Arah Story Mode. You won’t find anyone because they are all outside chasing balloons. ArenaNet is moving piles of populace to new locations each week while leaving the majority of the world as empty as Kessex Peak from Guild Wars 1.

Very true. It seems to me that some at the studio have decided that the world is too big and updating and evolving that world too difficult, so they would much rather find ways to get as many people as possible to abandon the greater game world entirely. It’s not hard to imagine that they might have done so, so that they can use the lack of player participation there as an excuse to abandon ongoing development of the greater game world.

Zylonite.5913:

This is sad but true….the mobs in this Living Story truly show the true side of PvE in this game: kill, defeat, grind, auto-attack, get achievement, done

Exactly and most of it can be done in the Queen’s Pavilion, which is the most cynical, blatant use of literally “theme park” content seen in a AAA MMO in quite some time.

The game world might as well not even exist. ANet doesn’t need it any more. They can just create more mini-instances with dense pockets of mobs standing around as fodder and give players achievements and loot for mindlessly grinding them.

Some people must have some serious blinders on not to see how “insulting” this kind of content is to players, the game, the five years of pre-launch development and the Manifesto.

I’m most angry at the way they have squandered the vast potential of the game, though I don’t expect everyone to have the vision to appreciate what makes the game so special and what could have been done and should have been done in place of this “Living Story” concept. I would, however, expect more people to appreciate just how vapid this kind of content is and expect a lot more from a studio like Arenanet.

My posts have never been hate for the game, I love the core game as it launched. It’s never been a “goodbye rant”. I may find it near impossible to play at this point, but it’s not because I don’t want to play, or because the game has nothing to it worth playing. It’s due to growing disgust at what Living Story is doing to the game and disappointment that it took up all the resources that would have been much better spent actually evolving the game world.

I’m not talking about some pipe dream of what could have been, either. It’s about the direction and strategy they talked about last fall, before deciding to take a seriously wrong turn into Living Story.

Guild Wars 2 gave many of us renewed hope for the MMORPG genre, while the last year of post launch development has nearly squashed it. The core game is the best current example of how to make a great MMO, while the Living Story provides a shining example of how to best squander your game’s potential and waste development resources.

The longer people pretend this all is ok, the harder it will be for the game to ever get back on track.

Vahkris.6847:

I think it’s ironic that many players point to Flame and Frost as a really good example of how to do the Living World updates…when people seem to forget the massive amount of complaining that occurred since there were very few things to do over 4 months. It makes me wonder if all of them were there from the beginning or if they just showed up in the last month to do all the content that had been added in the previous three months.

Honestly, I think players are focusing too much on the achievements and not enough on just playing the game.

I’m having fun with this event so far. Clearly it’s not for everyone.

wookiee.4631:

EDIT: “Dragon Bakitten?” What’s wrong with the filter? Maybe it wasn’t too fond of DB either. lol

You put “Dragon Bash” and “it” together, didn’t you? It triggered on those last four letters, ignoring the space.

There are only three things I fault with Frost and Flame.

First, it was drawn out too long for the amount of content it offered.

Second, it ended with a group instance, even though everything else could be done solo or with 2-3 people.

Third, this is the big one, the payoff in the end never materialized.

What payoff? The entire event would have worked and been widely lauded if the temporary content had led to permanent changes to the zones it occurred in. The event should have modified existing Dynamic Events with in the zones to show the impact the event was having on the world and the long term impact should have been seen with palpable alterations to locations with in the zone and an evolution of DE content to show permanent consequences for the “epic event” that occurred.

Unfortunately for the game, subsequent Living Story events never learned from third mistake. LS events since have had less and less connection to the game world, have been more and more about just making players jump through pointless hoops and have done nothing to bring any meaningful changes to the game world.

F&F teased at the potential for Living Story, failed to deliver, while still being the closest ANet has come to content that actually creates the sense of a “Living World”.

It’s also disappointing that ANet took the criticism that there was too little to do with F&F as an excuse to double down on inane, hoop jumping achievements in place of actual content. We can’t argue anymore that Living Story events don’t give us enough to do, but now they give us way too much to do that for many is just not at all fun to do.

Hoops. Sometimes flaming hoops, or physics defying arrangements of hoops, but hoops just the same.

If you jump through the hoops, you get shiny rewards. If you don’t like jumping through hoops, the message may just be “this game is not for you”.

I guess it comes down to whether you prefer to play your games, or you want your games to play you.

Sad to say, but the game would have been better off if they had been more like other studios, only pushing holidays and a few new dungeons as live content, while devoting the vast majority of development resources on an expansion.

The game world is so vast and the potential for an evolution of content via progression of Dynamic Events so great, that maybe the best model for this game would have been twice yearly expansions that only offered an additional zone or two, with most of the expansion focused on changing the existing game world.

LS has been a huge waste of resources, IMO and as we near the 1 year mark, I really hope they will just recycle what makes sense during year two and otherwise abandon LS entirely.

Weeklies would be much better than dailies, with rewards given incrementally, rather than having to achieve the equivalent of seven dailies to get anything. Even allowing you to go back an complete dailies for the previous week would be better than the current system and maybe easier to implement.

It has become a job. Worse though, I found that doing dailies broke me of sustainable game play habits and pulled me out of immersion with the world and it’s vast amounts of content.

Living Story events do the same thing at a more disturbing level.

Dailies and Living Story achievements are just a bunch of linear hoops through which players must jump for rewards they can’t earn any other way. Eventually most people will tire of jumping through those hoops. However, in the mean time, people are being trained away from free form game play across the greater world space, which trivializes and wastes all the work and effort that went into creating the superb game world.

By the time players burn out on dailies and LS achievements, many will never be able to go back to enjoy the actual game.

The manifesto was the ideal. I don’t think many of us expected them to meet all those ideals at launch, but we at least expected them to do what they could and then work on finding ways to close the gap between the ideal and the actual product over time.

They fell a bit shorter than some hoped, but there was still a lot of reason to hope that they could find ways to improve on their achievements and fulfill the game’s full potential.

I think the problem is that not only have they failed to advance the work they made towards the ideals in the manifesto, but it sometimes feels like they have abandoned them almost entirely as they move the game further from, not closer to, the exceptional.

The rate at which they are falling back on the old, failed MMO design paradigm the game sought to break is of concern to people who understood what the game was trying to do, how close they actually came and how far they have fallen since release.

Lord Azazel.8703:

@ Op – You are just mad that you could not kill any of the boss in the Queens Pavilion and thus you hate the update. Trust me not many people can kill those bosses. But that is the nature of the game. You cant be great at everything.. You have to learn to get up and try try again. But I could be wrong but I love this update.. This is a great update as its fun to do. I do not see why you could hate the update. Yeah its temp and that is a bad thing. But it comes back like the rest and that is a good thing.

I personally love this update. its Fun.. My guild loves this update… And many other guilds love it also. This is by far one of the best updates/ Patches we got

Actually, we killed four before we decided they weren’t fun, exciting or worth the waste of time.

When taking a round area the size of an auditorium, dividing it into six theme park displays, adding six legendary bosses that require no strategy and tons of boring mobs, becomes one’s idea of worthwhile content, then something is terribly wrong.

If this kind of stuff is successful for them, fine, but people inside and outside of Arenanet who understood the Manifesto and the potential this game possessed surely can not help but be saddened that the game has sold out those ideals for content aimed at a pretty low common denominator.

ANet hit a fork in the road last fall, From comments they made at the time they knew which path would further the potential of the game and build on the solid foundation they had established, but instead they chose a path that cheapened their ideals and diminished the product they spent five years developing.

When I say that a year ago I could never, ever imagine they could blow it as badly as they have, it’s not hyperbole, I truly mean it. It’s completely unfathomable to me that they have chosen this path.

I sincerely hope that the “long term project” they are working will rescue the game’s original potential and further the ideals of the manifesto, but, imo, the Live Team is just digging a deeper and deeper hole to climb out of.

I have no agenda beyond the good of the game and the realization of the ideals put forth in the original manifesto. My words may not make a difference, but I love the game too much to not try.

Scar Rufo.7935:

I feel your pain. But log in next month for the Fall Festival, and then in October for Halloween, and November will be the one yr anniversary of the Karka invasion; so that means a Karka Bash; and then Wintersday; gosh I can’t wait. So many more games, like Angry Karka’s and Karka-farmville. Mmmmm, good

I’m pretty sure January is the month we really want to look forward to. I believe that will be the one where the Elder Dragons will destroy everything but Lion’s Arch and forbid the survivors to do anything but mini-games and theme park content that can fit with in the confines of the city or pocket instances.

“Living Lion’s Arch” is rumored to be the push for 2014, with the goal for the year being half the NPCs in the city offering a gateway to instanced content and the other half each being a vendor for their own specific currency.

There will be a new festival every two weeks to keep morale high and once they have a years worth, they will let them cycle while they work on GW2 Facebook integration.

Stone.6751:

OP – Your post made much more sense after I looked at every other post you have made. :P

Well, I hope you went all the way back to launch, because I’ve been a massive fan for a very long time. On one other site, I must have made close to 3,000 largely positive posts supporting the game from late 2010 until early 2013.

You are right though, if you actually are familiar with all my posts historically, this post will probably make a lot more sense to you.

Believe me, there are no tears, but there are some other emotions. I think you probably know I’m right as well. Nice attempt at deflection though!

Well, hopes that these things would improve with experience is proven once again to be wishful thinking. IMO, this is by far the worst event in the Living Story chain to date and, yet again, another waste of developer resources.

You’ve taken a very free form MMO with a massive game world and reduced it to a stage on which to host the worst example of Theme park trash one could imagine.

The Queen’s Pavilion? Each piece of the pie is just a variation of a theme park exhibit of everything that is wrong with MMORPGs. Apparently, difficulty is supposed to make up for the complete lack of any redeeming design qualities, but it just makes the content as frustrating on a play level as it is on a design level.

The Balloon rides. Could have guessed we wouldn’t actually get a vista like traveling experience, instead it’s just another portal. Just gates to some stairs with a chest and an escort request required to unlock the door. Stale, boring, horrible; huge disappointment.

Yet another currency, because we all know we need more of those. Why not allow all holiday and LS events to share a currency, so players who are casual can maybe save up and buy something nice every other event, rather than just making it pointless to try to earn a temporary currency you may have no hope of making anything useful of.

Speaking of special currency, now we don’t just need special currency to get nice skins, we need that currency AND gold!

One of my guild mates that hadn’t completely abandoned the game, (the rest of the guild left after Guild Missions ended up being for large guilds only due to unlock costs), returned after a month away to check this out. It took us an hour to agree it was horrible, log out and go play something else.

Arenanet, you are killing the game. You are thumbing your noses at the Manifesto and apparently doing everything possible to make the game the worst kind of theme park.

I love the core game. It was very close to the game I’ve been waiting for since I started playing MMOs over 14 years ago. There was a natural progression for closing the gap between the game at launch and the lofty ideals of the Manifesto. It would have been hard work, it may have taken a couple years of steady progress, but the path ahead was clear.

Why have you abandoned the game world, allowing the illusion of life that Dynamic Events provided to flutter away as the world has remained stuck in an infinite loop, in exchange for the absolute worst kind of MMO content?

At this point, the issue isn’t more permanence, Living Story has culminated to the inevitable conclusion that Living Story itself is a colossal waste of everyone’s time and energy that needs to shelved for some miraculous Plan B asap.

It’s not fun. It doesn’t make the game feel alive. It’s frustrating for casuals. It’s the worst form of theme park content one could imagine. It diverts resources from where it’s really needed. It diverts players away from the assets of the game, the massive, richly detailed game world. It even sours the concept of Holiday Content, because Holiday Content is too much like LS content and many of us have had as much of that as we ever hope to experience.

If there is anyone left at ANet that believes in the Manifesto and actually understands what MADE this game so incredible, it’s time for you to show those who have become so lost the way back.

I can’t even couch this with anything positive, other than maybe that some of the skins are nice, even if they are wasted behind a currency that few are going to want to bother earning.

The biggest problem is that the content isn’t just a waste, but it’s actually soured the game for a number of people in a way I could never have imagined possible a year ago. You would have been better off doing nothing but the occasional holiday event than this.

What should you have done? Well, you should have stuck to the original plan you talked about last fall and created boatloads of new Dynamic Event content. Content that would have advanced the story with in each game zone told by the Dynamic Events that were there at launch. Adapting some, replacing some, rotating some in and out of circulation. That would have created a Living World. that would have preserved the sense of a dynamic game environment. That would have shed the negative stereotypes about Theme Park MMOs.

Instead, we got this mess.

Queen’s Pavilion is satire of everything that is wrong with really, really bad theme park MMO design, but it seems you guys are oblivious to the joke. It may be the worst part of the Jubilee, but the rest of it isn’t much better.

This event is horrible beyond comprehension, so you may want to pencil in a complete redesign of it for next year, then consider recycling that in following years.

Definitely fixed to favor Evon. Welcome to the “Living Story”, where your ability to influence the world is just an illusion…

Very sad ANet… You earned some positive capital with the last update, then you find a way to blow it, again… sigh…

I have alts. I seek to do world completion in a non-rushed manner on each alt. I do hearts. I do every DE I come across in my travels. I also do some WvW and I complete my dailies pretty much every day. I actually play the world content in a natural manner. I don’t rush. I don’t farm. I do often kill things between point a and point b, but I don’t sit in one spot farming.

I don’t play the market. I don’t farm dungeons. I don’t scour the net for farming spots with loot tables out of whack with the rest of the game. I don’t park alts on Orichalcum nodes. I don’t farm world events. I just play.

I also in the past have supported ANet with gem purchases and more often than not have converted gems into gold when the rates have been favorable.

I’ve never had more than 100 Gold at one time. I still have some alts in rares, rather than exotics, at level 80 due to expense. I’ve compromised on desired stats on others by getting my exotics using karma from dailies via the temples in Orr.

I have done a fair amount of crafting, which has been a money sink, rather than a source of income, but I consider crafting part of natural play as well.

ANet has gone out of it’s way to make sure that average rates of gold per hour for someone playing in the game world as I do yields little more than what is required for gear, books, repairs, runes/sigils, etc… They squeeze people who just play the game, reward those who seek out the loopholes, then offer those people rewards most other players can not afford.

As I said in my previous post, I play far more hours than a typical casual and still find myself lucky to have 20 gold on hand at any given time. If I had never traded gems for gold, I probably would have just left the game due to the inability to fund my play via my play.

This isn’t a world economy simulator where it’s ok to have geometric wealth disparities and just write it off as a normal consequence of a free market system. It’s a game that makes money by making it fun for people to keep playing and making the experience compelling enough that some players feel compelled to support them via the gem store.

Stuff like this doesn’t help maintain a broad and healthy player base, especially when it starts to feel like the developers are just thumbing their noses at people who don’t deliberately attempt to play outside the lines.

The people who can truly afford it will brush of the price as insignificant, while people who just play the game in a natural manner, with out seeking out opportunities to farm gold at the highest rate possible will find this fun piece of content far too expensive to justify.

I think that the problem with this game when ever situations like this pop up. The developers continue to provide specific rewards for those who get wealthy by subverting the core game design, looking for “near-exploits” that provide opportunities for higher than intended wealth generation, while the rest of the players start to feel more and more disillusioned.

It becomes a sad cycle. Developers reward those who find ways to generate higher than intended wealth, which ensures they will continue to do so, rather than getting bored with their subversion of the game. More money than intended flows into the economy due to the top wealth “generators/exploiters”, so the developers further tighten the earning rate of people who just play the game naturally. The snow ball of resentment and frustration grows and some people do leave the game over it.

I’ve logged around 1600 hours between accounts. I have never bought anything extravagant and I’m frugal with all my spending. You’d think after that much play time I’d maybe be able to look at 15 gold for a guild emblem on the kite as an affordable extravagance. Though I have the coin, it would cost me far too high a portion of the money I’ve accumulated playing in the PvE game world over the past ten months to ever be “worth it”.

This is where the game economy fails and why so many people see things like this as a slap in the face.The ability to accumulate wealth by “just playing the game”, with out a focus of just doing content that produces much higher than average return is extremely tightly controlled, but then pricing of many items is tuned for the top x% who have made finding ways to earn much higher than intended rates of return their focus. If someone who has logged the hours I have finds the pricing ridiculous, I can imagine it’s exponentially more so for casual gamers who play the game.

I guess it keeps those at the extreme end of the wealth bell curve more engaged, but at what cost when it comes to the rest of the game population?

Southsun was horrible. The amount of time and effort required to kill anything just provided negative reinforcement against completing the achievements or ever wanting to step foot in that place ever again.

I found this even a lot better. Though I did follow the dulfy walkthrough video to find and reach the 40 crystals and died many times along the way, I got through it.

I definitely despise the way Adnul the Norn was designed for the drinking masters portion. Some players are taking hours to finally beat him, some never do and any element that frustrating really has no place in this game. I don’t know anyone who wants to waste that mount of time on bull-kitten “content”. It almost seems to be deliberately designed to convince casuals that this game is a complete waste of time.

I also think that too much emphasis was put on jumping puzzles. It might have been better if there had been a better mix of easy JPs with harder ones, so casuals could make progress towards the meta with out too much frustration, while those who like JPs could complete all the related achievements. It might also have been cool if the JPs linked to the event had allowed temporary access to aspect crystals for the duration of the event, to make difficult puzzles a little simpler for the limited time.

I think this is one of the better events of 2013, but there is still a lot that is groan worthy which holds back the entire experience and, sadly, continues a trend of content likely to drive people from the game, rather than keeping them playing. I sort of thought the point was to provide fun content to keep people playing the game, rather than finding creative new ways to ensure burn out and rage quit.

Adnul cheats. Hard. The programming takes what could be a fun game and ensures that no one will want to touch it ever again. Who ever is responsible for his current state needs an extended vacation, because the level of hatred expressed towards the playerbase is plain unhealthy.

Why is it that pretty much every patch, mixed in with the good stuff, is always something clearly designed to turn a positive, fun event into something frustrating and sad? It not only is contemptuous of the players, but of all the other designers who work on the game.

I love the zone and the sprint, requiring additional Jumping Puzzles for the meta-achievement is the issue.

The sad thing is that the zone and the sprint might have nudged some people to be more open to JPs in the future, only to have many walk away from the effort to complete the meta hating them even more. I’ve found that all JPs are less fun than the aspect based approach, which just makes them even more of a drag.

Broken is broken. Unless, or course, this is meant to be yet another example of design that only makes sense if a developer wants to drive people from the game, then it’s perfect.

How about giving early finisher a chance to transfer to a queue for other top finishers? Or, just send the top half of finishers from two instances to a new instance and the last half of all finishers to a race instance together?

Any sort of matchmaker system, even a basic one, would have made this a lot better. The reward for better racers would be much faster runs and the consolation for slower racers would be a better chance to win the next race vs. others in the lower half of the skill curve.

A good person would want to help others get the achievement. An average person wouldn’t care, but may help if asked. A not so good person would be fully aware they they are preventing others from getting the achievement and actively try to make sure others don’t win.

It has nothing to do with entitlement, competition, “earned vs. given”, etc… The right thing to do is obvious and how masters of this race act on that reflects on them as an individual.

It’s just a game. Whether that is an excuse to act badly or an opportunity to help others at no real cost to one’s self depends on each person.

I’m not saying that once you win you should never try to win again, but if even every other race you hang back, or stop short to allow someone you know needs the achievement to get it, you are a better person for it. Even better would be seeing a group of people in the same race who already have the achievement hanging back together every other race to allow the others to compete with each other.

ANet could have designed this in a way that would have been better for experienced runners and those struggling to get a win. Why not have an expert queue for those who have already run the race to compete, with a slightly better reward for competing against other “experts”? No achievement, just an outlet for people who are really good at the races to compete all out with out having to worry about denying others the achievement?

I also think they went overboard with the JPs in the meta achievement. It really feels like it was tacked on to stretch out the effort and time requirement, in place of any actual story content. (I really hate they call these “living story” when most of them have little or no story content. Why can’t we get the equivalent of 3-4 Personal Story segments with Living Story events)?

GW2 was designed to eliminate griefing to the greatest degree possible. sPvP and WvW have managed to provide competitive play that has very few opportunities for griefing as well.

This World vs. Kite achievment is entirely designed to foster and reward griefing.

This is just another sign that 2013 ANet is not the same studio that built this incredible game. Pre-launch ANet would never have thought that content designed to encourage griefing was ok and most certainly would never link an achievement to it.

It seems like the devs who are themselves greifers by nature are gaining more and more sway with in the studio. They grief players with content when they can and are now finding ways to return player vs. player greifing to the game.

Sad developments for the game…

The biggest problem with this is that Arenanet decided it was ok to have the game cheat. As others have pointed out, Adnul heals for more than he should, takes less damage than he should, while you heal for less than you should and take more damage from drinks than you should. That’s a huge, unnecessary cheat.

Then ALL the NPCs cheat by being able to use a special move more than once per match.

It seems like ANet gave up on trying to make proper AI for them and decided to make them challenging by cheating. No one likes when a game is coded to cheat and it’s a sign of poor game design to boot.

The patch didn’t help. They made a minor shift in frequency of his special move, but they also removed the ability to use regen food during the matches. I know people who had a lot of trouble beating him with regen food and with out it, even with his very minor “nerf”, is just an exercise in frustration.

Bad game design is bad game design. Being part of “free” content, (actually, I think gem purchases by those of us who support the game pay for them), doesn’t excuse bad game design.