Guild Wars 2

KrisHQ.4719:

Just keep in mind that the Artists creating cinematics are not the same ones that are coding the content.
For more information about the people behind them, check this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAlf0-THkCU

I´d be surprised as hell if even half of these guys still work for ANet.
And even from that short flic(btw thnx for that link, was new to me) on can easily see how time consuming the whole process is.
No way can they pull that off constantly for these Living Stories.

That´s all I have to say to that, already said my piece in the above posts.

lordkrall.7241:

So getting the devs to spend hours doing something that will last just a minute or so instead of spending those hours actually working on the event is a good thing?

Exactly, it isn´t.

Anyone that even have a slight interested about the story can find out quite a bit about the story by simply talking to the NPCs marked with stars.

Sure.
Until they are gone.

Again I have to stubbornly insist on a proper Archive, at least of the most pertinent convos we had with NPCs. In my opinion it´s simply the only viable way of solving this dilemma.

lordkrall.7241:

So you simply want cinematics everywhere because some people are to lazy to find out stuff for themselves?

Those are irrelevant to the discussion anyway.

But most people just can´t be bothered to read every single blurb that gets thrown at them.
Call it laziness, ADD or simply “Right now I got sh_t to do ANet! Stop Spamming me with all this generic fantasy carp I already read 4000 times in all the other CRPGs/MMOs I played.”

A good example for this are all those nice books in Ebonhawk. Very cool to go hunting for and read, but it´s totally disjointed as one can´t possible manage to get them in the right order.
Why isn´t this stuff a Tab in my Archive? The information obviously is already in my client, so why can´t I reread it when I want to?

KrisHQ.4719:

But a cinematic that explains the broader more basic perspective would not hurt that playerbase, as long as there is room more more in-depth knowledge if you speak to the NPC’s.

A cinematic is entirely out of the question as it requires great resources to produce and do right.

But a simple text archive in your Hero window recapping past happenings, would be entirely doable and would go a long way towards keeping the player aware of the world.

Those who are interested, that is.

I´m not liking it at all either, but RNG boxes are standard way of monetization in pretty much all F2P games I know of, not necessarily Asian-only.

Nobody is forcing you to buy them and if you can´t keep your greed for “fashion” in check and have to enter the lottery, then I fear it´s entirely your fault.

At least they do add some skins to the Gem-store, guess we have to be happy with that.

ANet just needs to actually use their Personal Story window by adding new Tabs.
Right now it becomes useless once you´re finished with the storyline and isn´t much more useful during.

People tend to ignore all these special mails that flap by, as they´re just interested in the “heart quest spam”.
Pretty sure a good portion of the player base has no clue about the story of Destinies Edge either.
All those story dungeon mails just get buried and forgotten in the heart spam, let alone actual player mails. Why aren´t they archived under a new tab in that story window? Alongside the main chats of the story mode dungeons you visited even?

Same goes for the whole Living Story Background.

Again us players must fix ANet´s inability to create a polished product by creating our own content though the Wiki or GW2LFG.

Hmm, pretty much all of the OPs complaints are faulty or due to bugs that got fixed with a patch at about the time this thread was posted.

Though I´m also a bit pessimistic how this one will pan out after the Zerg is over.

As long as ANet insists on Champions dropping blues or even whites everybody will just farm the Karaka Egg layer, until ANet nerfs those adds too of course..

Then it´s back to Desert Island.

Lisa.6102:

Ayochak.8293:

Hey I’m with the swarm doing the easy events in karka land.

Thank you again!

Is that tongue planted firmly in your cheek?

Heh guess so, I like it.
Though I very much am disgusted with this swarm.

Kids, this is the reason why we can´t have nice things!

And although I hate is so much I still have to join the kittendroppings Zerg. I´d be stupid if I wouldn´t.

LOL.
I always come to late to the party. Darn!

Nah Karka are annoying at best, easily countered with a projectile deflect.
Getting jumped by 3+ Drakes on the other hand is outright deadlier than most Champions.

Have to agree though, the buffs and instigator events are pretty much the only reason to go there, and almost certain to disappear.

Don´t worry about timing.

The UI will tell you quite obviously when you have an actual timer running. And to “spoil” the surprise, this usually happens at the end of gather events(the buckets on the map), AKA “kill 12 rats and bring them to me” quests in other MMOs.
So everybody who´s still out there gathering has enough time to run back and offload his stuff.

Shiyo.3578:

It’s going to be nothing but bug fixes, typo fixes, and rewording. Maybe edit a few traits to be slightly less useless, but still completely useless.

You seem to have a time machine or a really good magic 8 ball.

I´d be ecstatic if they do nothing but bug fixes.
Including “quality of life” fixes for most, if not all traits out there.

If this will be the promised divorce of PvE and PvP traits, then this is also VERY good news!

Devildoc.6721:

so a lot of these new additions to southsun will be permanent?

Supposedly.
Right now it´s hard to say which ones, as we simply don´t know at which “stage” the Southsun Isle will be “frozen” at the end of her part in the Living Story.

Especially as ANet currently seems to be very keen on getting rid of their own content barely after it launches. Hopefully (this time) this will include most of all the Canach stuff.

Ok before everybody blasts off on their own little tangent, WHAT IS THE CONTEXT HERE?
Is it PvP only changes, or actually includes PvE, WvW even?

I got almost instawiped by the massive alpha as the kitten buggers pretty much lined the whole corridor, seemingly waiting for just me.

Right now it´s basically suicide running the Canach Solo on off hours, I´ll remember to go out naked next time.

+1 for an Extended Story Tab, like Outlaw and others suggested.

Otherwise once you´re finished with your personal story that part of the UI becomes completely useless.

Also a division into “Archive” and current, like on the fora here should be added.
Else it would become cluttered pretty soonish with the constant fixation on new temporary content you guys seem to be locked on.

There is an early human storyline quest that does a similarly stupid thing.
Gives you a completely new weapon and immediately throws you into a hard fight with Risen.
Hated it too and hoped very much I´ll never see this kittendroppings again.
Yet here we are.

I really hope ANet actually learns from this fiasco.

By now I can run Canach without a problem. Going back to it only because of that one gold and I somehow feel dirty afterwards.

Dattebayo.2817:

so your saying this game isnt for me…..

No, you just need to find a proper Guild ASAP!

You´re problem is you´re barely aware of the combat mechanics and still in your WoW frame of mind. This obviously won´t work out, as you already found out.
Plus you somehow seem to attract the speed runner jerk crowd, some of whom have found this thread too.

Why are you putting so much pressure on yourself? You don´t pay monthly anymore, you have plenty of time to learn the game and try out different things.

But really, try to find a proper Guild. And do try to stay away from the COF speed runner crowd. Or any speed runners.

Oh jah, and there are other classes than the Warrior.

CMF.5461:

but trying to make my case about maybe we should change how we talk and interact and it will make for a better community.

Well your case may have been worthy if the main “perpetrator” would be on the same page as you. Namely ANet themselves.

There are some feeble attempts by the Devs to post and engage in discussions with their “fans”, but clicking that Dev Tracker on any given (non-patch)day and mainly finding Gaile or Ashley´s posts is a pretty good indicator to their wish of engaging their customers.

And when they actually do I have rarely seen any type of abuse hurled towards the “brave” Dev.
What I frequently see though is pretty decent feedback and great suggestions pointed towards the Dev, which makes their avoidance of the fora even more baffling.

BTW, I´m trying really hard not to comment harshly on your pretty unfair synopsis of my posting history.
CONTEXT is the key here and apart from my last admittedly shrill posts on this(for some reason) really aggravating Canach fight, I don´t pull punches just to preserve some mythical “cumbaya vibe” on the fora.
Which never existed in the first place anyway.

I remember very well that on that insanely rushed launch the fora wasn´t even ready! So the many people that couldn´t even install the game properly(me included) had to crowdsource their support from teh internetz instead of the actual programmers.

They probably effed up the north part when they removed the spawns “harassing” the waiting players in front of the NULL dungeon.

blackgoat.5172:

People are losing patience.

Pure and simple.

Personally I even upgraded my hardware for around 400€ so far, to overcome the unoptimized mess that this client is.
Only to still find similar unpolished messes in the game itself too.
AFTER 8 Months!

I can´t believe people are actually defending how the “living” story is presented in Southsun.

Yes, you can go around and talk to every frikken NPC and barmaid and usually get the standard blurb.
Yes, if the NPC has an actual name then there´s info to be had.

But the NPC text usually stays the same, no matter what you do!

And if something actually changes there´s no way of knowing where and when short of clicking every NPC again to “farm” the story.
This is not storytelling but simply coding laziness.
Reminds me of self-serving marts. Where you have to scan your groceries yourself, so that they can fire the cashiers.

You really want to claim that no matter how many of the shrubs you pinged, reading the same text over and over on that Asura that gives you the “Shrubbery-ping” Quest is good storytelling?
As was already mentioned, make it a heart “quest” if you can´t manage to code it properly. So the NPCs can actually react to the supposedly living world.

Props to the wiki guys that actually take ANets responsibilities on their shoulders and do their work for free.

This is called exposition and should be done in game and not in some obscure post buried somewhere in the forum.
Would´ve helped greatly in breathing some more character into the .. character.

Sadly, now it comes across as a lame excuse for the art department´s recycling of an already existing glove model.
Though the info is still appreciated. But this sh..tuff needs to be ingame!

If you didn´t notice ANet, this is so called player created content which you´re desperately trying to kill off.

You know, the type of content that actually keeps players in your game. The type of players that don´t follow the next MMO shiney out there like a Skirtt on speed.

Congratulations.

Sarcasm.

I love it.
(ibtl)

ajm.2931:

Nothing works, green bombs insta kill me,

If they are actually green, meaning you successfully disarmed a bomb mine and you still take damage then this is a bug.
I´d recommend writing a support ticket. If you still care though.
Or just ignore the kitten thing till they fix it.
The main reason to run it (farming 1 gold with all your characters) was “fixed” anyway.

I got dumped on an overflow server and got hit by the missing map marker bug and had no frikken idea what to do.
Ran in from the gate and specifically looked around, searching for the next clue around the gate area.
No clue, NOTHING!

ANet, if this is your idea of quality storytelling then you got a lot to learn, ASAP!

Fiontar.4695:

To be honest, I never found those games fun, but luckily games have mostly moved on from that paradigm. It seems, though, that someone never got that memo.

EXACTLY!
Mechanics like these(and I hated them back in the 80ies too) belong in the Moto Dungeon, where they can claim the “ironic” and “nostalgic” label.

I very much hope ANet takes all this feedback seriously and stops smarta__ing us with this hipster retro stuff during the normal part of the game.

My error was I didn´t zoom out into full “Diablo” mode.

After that, stacking my Guardian up with retaliation shouts, a ghostsword for distraction and completely ignoring(& avoiding) all but the bomb traps, it was thankfully over in a minute of two.

Still pretty much the shi__iest GW2 experience to date.

GW2LFG is simply an embarrassment to ANet.

Especially considering that there´s nothing stopping them to use the Awesomium web browser (the thing that´s actually displaying the BLT or the support window) to simply copy GW2LFG.
Actually adding the functionality locoman described also may or may not be trivial, only Anet knows that.

Teh notes, they are bugggy.

Thnx for the heads up, I actually would´ve tried to find that event.
Guess that´s it with Southsun for me.

Added new island-wide meta-event where players defend and liberate the new settlements across Southsun Cove. If players hold all four settlements, merchants will become available with unique items, and there is a chance that an Enraged Karka Queen boss will spawn.

Added new Canach single-player story boss encounter.
Added explorable multiplayer variant (unlocked if you defeat Canach).
Added new single-player instance for the culmination of the story.

So apart from the meta event, this is basically all for now.

So effectively the “live show” ends here, at least for anybody who can´t finish Canach single player or simply can´t be bothered to jump through ANets hoops like a trained monkey.

I have another guide, just ignore the kitten things.

Anyhoo, wub ya Dulfy! <3

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3um1py/
Pretty much how I feel about this.

Guess I´m too old for this crap.

This is the stupidest game mechanic I ever encountered.

Stop with these kittendropping “FUN” new and oh so interesting ideas already.

Constantly running away while simultaneously trying to dodge his kitten killer attack and then ending up in a trap cull de sac as I only have one mouse to right-click look while trying to left-click aim those frikken tiny disable thingies ..
Keep these funny ideas to the MOTO dungeon, or maybe I need to hire some ADD kid to do this crap for me.

Nobody got time for THAT!
(the above is for solo instance, no idea what´s after that. After 4 tries not really eager to find out if it´s similarly fun)

A good argument and pretty much what ANet/NC-Soft bigwigs are thinking, I guess.

Problem is, this means the rest of the game has to wait for much needed polishing and fixing.
As so many resources are basically kittentinkled into the winds as content pops up and is again gone so very quickly.

People aren´t buying GW2 to daily farm Southsun Cove, but to experience the game. The temporary stuff is actually more of a distraction than a boon.

ANet so desperately wants to be different that they ignore basic human nature and the very reason that makes MMOs profitable.

Don´t take away new stuff(content) without a proper substitute!

The best part of F&F, the Molten Dungeon, is now lost(possibly even deleted?) and got replaced with the loot extravaganza on Southsun, which is then simultaneously crippled with quasi instant DR.

There´s hardly anybody doing anything else but running from one Settler Champion at the Barricades to the other one at the shore. Just because of the guaranteed chest loot.

What irks me personally is that Fractals provide a perfect way to still leave us with access to the Molten Dungeon. While nicely expanding the by now pretty repetitive couple of Dungeons in there.

Oh well. Let´s see how Neverwinter pans out.

Shadowlancer.7102:

I can’t sit for 2 seconds (literally) at the old entrance camp sites, without some event or wild life; attack the place every 3 minutes; after a previous event or wild life situation.

So how about learning to adapt and NOT leave your keyboard while your´re there?
Learn to port or even logging out (*gasp) or just don´t go there anymore.

Cluttering up the fora with yet another whine about a non-problem is not helpful at all.

What´s really kittening up Southsun is the ridiculous DR, definitely not the actually welcome and challenging mob density.

I´m really done shaking my head on this temporary content “disease”.

Fractals already have the mechanic to make all these throw-away dungeons available again but you´re perfectly happy ignoring basic human psychology.

Just keep introducing new dungeons then yanking them away again. Let´s see how people like it in the long run.
picardfacepalm.jpg

Then check again, this time the actual release page.
The two backpieces are still very much available during the 2nd part of Southsun that starts on the 28th.

I hate it, but it´s the price you have to pay for a “free to play” game.

Trek Online does the same with their version of chests and ships that can only be acquired there.
Frankly, just be happy it´s only a skin and not actually new types of Sigils or something on them.

As it stands now, no.
Quite frankly I´m having a bit of buyers remorse on the two 2k gem cards I bought up to now.

I´m pretty sure it´s mostly hurt ego that makes him so hated.

Yet another broken ANet promise.
They promised us a grand personal story and we got to be a Cabbage´s henchman.
Ok, 2nd in command.
Some can deal with it, some not so well.

“A fool and his money are soon parted.”

Though I thank the OP for providing us a bit more statistical proof.

Behellagh.1468:

HawkMeister.4758:

Fanboism and RTFM posts excusing and actually blaming the user on this are so counterproductive, it´s past ridiculous.

Sorry, you’re crazy.

No U!
Gotsa waste them electrons. :p

Folk.2093:

go kill the fire shaman in fotm lvl 48 with 0 ar.

you’re welcome

Only thing hard about this is having to run fractals for more than 47 times.

Again, for the crowd that only knows WoW Theme Park “longevity”.
Which is nothing else but Pavlovian type programming of having to repeat the same type of raids over and over so you get better gear for other raids with different “mechanics”.

A theme park is by definition the antithesis of longevity. The only reason they still exist in RL is because people don´t go there(more than once) for the rides but for the Atmosphere. Which is actually created by other people, mostly your fellow visitors.

Something that is almost impossible to reproduce in the virtual world when you only stick to preprogrammed raids(rides).
So logically there can never be enough rides or good enough ones as coding and designing takes much more time than consuming them.

Coming back to the EVE Online example.
After some hickups last year, when even their devs forgot the above, it is now in the tenth year!
Still going strong and actually EXPANDING, because they don´t provide new rides but a FRAMEWORK for the player to act in. To create their own content by territorial disputes, betrayals, espionage (meta & ingame), creation of cartels(by “legal” ingame means and actual criminal gold sellers) and outright riots when the Devs start hurting the game as they loose the plot.

ANet wants to be different.
For now they only are different in flavor to the standard “Theme Park” MMOs out there. I had high hopes for WvWvW to bring us a bit of sandbox gameplay longevity, but it is proving to be quite the disappointment too in that regard.
The new (& even old) DAOC looks much more promising there.

Pretty much a done deal now.
Next expansion, new class – Tyriaologist, new weapon – Dolyak whip.

Yup.

As someone afflicted with a natural pack-rat perk, definitely player housing(with storage!).
Maybe somewhere dunno, like a personal instance, like from story or sumthin. :P
Right now I have to get by with my personal guild, which sucks as it feels slightly “exploity”.

SWG type housing would be awesome, but probably costs too much to develop. Actually at this point the simpleton LOTRO housing would make me feel giddy.

DDO style Guild Airships, OH yeah … oh my. I think I just..

I still can´t understand why ANet made the grind for outfits basically the PvE endgame and forgot to program even a rudimentary LOTRO style wardrobe.
Yet another Hint for how rushed GW2 was?

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

it has been almost half a year and still no news.

THAT´S what they really need to work on :
C O M M U N I C A T I O N !

ANet, tell us already what your kitten plans are with them fractals and the ascendant situation.

Personally I really don´t want to see old exotics getting “obsoleted” the standard MMO way.
I could live with the mystic forge idea though or even new types of ascendant Sigils/Runes to replace our current ones. Quasi a grind-light.