Guild Wars 2

I really enjoy “downable” foes. I think if they keep it to humanoids (I just don’t see Moas res-ing eachother.), it would be a great edition to the game. GW1 had enemies that could res each other and it added a nice dynamic to the fight, making sure your enemies stayed dead as you thinned the herd.

A lot of the mobs and mechanics in the first game were geared to making players learn the ins and outs of pvp, and that’s an aspect I find missing in GW2. Making foes more dynamic (res-ing allies, dodging, better skill usage, downing players, etc.) means they can rely on things besides giving then more hp/strength to create challenge. I’m all for it.

Edit: And turn about is fair play, let the enemies spike us as well. Gotta keep people on their toes.

Favorite and least favorite? Alright, go!

Favorite: Bazaar of the Four Winds!

It’s been said several times in this thread, but I love everything about this update. The area was very unique compared to the rest of Tyria we have access to at the moment. A Cantha-influence market town/jump puzzle topped with a flying kite city is the kind of crazy creativity I like to see Anet do. The activities and achievements were fun and tied into the area nicely, we had new skills/abilities to play with, the election was an interesting spin on the living story and it was just a nice place to go to. I think one of the devs described it as “a map as jumping puzzle” and it turned out great. I really hope you return to creating vertical areas like it in the future. It’s something that GW2 does that other games in the genre don’t and it really gives a unique feel to things.

Another thing to consider about this update is that the story line of it not only ties into the GW1 lore (which everyone was freaking out about.) but it also ties into the general narrative of GW2. We know the story of Destiny’s Edge, and this update is a repercussion of their actions in the world. They failed, and the Zephyrites are basically reeling from the consequences. It’s a beautiful and sad place. That’s something else you guys do well, along with making amazing hellscapes. :X

But something to consider about the Bazaar is that it is structured as kind of a “lull” in the story. We took out the Molten Alliance, battled Karka, fought off the Sky Pirates, and then we had a nice break at a very unique vacation spot and had an election. I don’t think the Bazaar could be used as a template for the greater living story because of this. It’s kind of a “great filler episode.” But that’s a good lesson when looking at TV style story telling, you need episodes like that to let your characters flesh out.

Runner up: Shadow of The Mad King

I really think this should be your template for a “standard episode.” It had a nice lead-in with the eventual destruction of the lion statue, fun activities, a great little instance at the end and it built on itself through out the month until you had the show down with the Mad King himself. The Lost Shores also follows this template and outside of the final battle that I’m sure caused a chernobyl in your server rooms, I loved it as well. Even Flame and Frost kind of follows this template, it’s just spread out a bit too thin. Dat narrative pacing.

Also while the once in a life time events may have not gone over with the general public (I liked them personally. :X), using an instance upon map enter like you did with Tower of Nightmares would be a great way to bring those kind of scenes back in a more manageable way. Hope to see you guys attempt it more in the future.

Least Fav: Tequatl Rising

First off, love this battle! It’s everything we’ve been needing in challenging content. It could scale to a slightly smaller group, but I really don’t want this thing nerfed. We need some “kicked in the face” moments in this game and Teq is a good start. From what I understand it was made by the feature team and not the living world team, but I really think a little more narrative would have helped a lot here in smoothing over this addition to the game. I mean Rox is there to kind of say “Hey Tacquito’s gone crunchy!” but it doesn’t have much meat on it. I know explanations are supposed to come later, but I think a little more confused chit chat over what’s going on would have helped here to kind of build up the mystery vibe.

If people feel that the amount of achievements to complete is too much for the casual player, maybe the meta achievements should be structured like the achievement reward chests? Have a low tier reward for those who get half way and a fancier version of the same goodie for the go-getter? You get a mask for half way and then can upgrade it to an elite mask with effects on it, kind of like the mad king tome from last year’s Halloween. Maybe an elite version of the obelisk shard could just be bigger. It doesn’t have to be amazing, just a little different to reward effort. Or have two rewards and let the person select, like zenith weapons.

My only concern with this is that people might get devisive about the loot separation. I just haven’t had too much of an issue with the achievements, so it’s hard for me to think of solutions. If anything I thought completion was a little too fast. :x

Television is not an easy medium, I’m going to say that right off the bat. There’s lots of it, different kinds of approaches, vast audiences and tons of junk as well. Capturing lightning in a bottle, like Breaking Bad, is as much luck as skill.

The advantage you have is that you already have your audience. Your disadvantage is they’re crazy. :X

The process of TV Production is pretty well known, game design not so much. It’s nice to see Bobby Stein straight up say that they know they’ve had missteps but you won’t get to see the changes they make for a while. It takes into account production time, something many people in this forum seem to forget. We’re seeing content made months ago, like how episodes of most series are produced. You can see a slow improvement in most updates, but it takes time.

And this is probably the most important factor to consider when doing these releases. The time frames you’re dealing with make this a very slow ship to turn. So making sure each of your episodes are to the point helps. It looks like you were taking a more novel style approach at first with lots of threads, etc. but since this is the first go around with this kind of storytelling in a game ever, it’s better to keep it tight. Beginning, middle, end each update with something to lead into the next. Flame and Frost actually would have had a really good flow under your current two week system.

The last few big updates have done really well on beginning and end, but the middle is lacking. Story wise I think Halloween would have been perfect with a middle act less dependent on completing achievements. Make the new bosses in the labyrinth more characters to defeat than items on a list, etc. You can use achievements to push the story forward, they just need a bit more character.

Also the comm golems are a good idea but it needs to talk as you walk. Mine a candy corn node “humm, seems to be less this year. Maybe the Bloody Prince has something to do with it!” Or maybe have it chirp like the codec in Metal Gear. The one for clockwork chaos I think popped up of its own accord when you found things. More like that! Little things like that help break up the middle and make it feel more alive. It’s more a continuing conversation then something you talk to when you feel like it. Think Glados, avoid Blingg (but bring him back, he’s established in a very strange way…)

Also please don’t listen to the Game of Thrones/Breaking Bad crowd to closely. There are lessons there about production and storytelling structure to be had, but both shows are riding the “Omg I love this! Everything should be exactly like this!” wave right now and that’s why we used to have 10 million law and orders on the air and a whole bunch of twilight ripoffs. Gah, the pain! Those shows excel because they do something unique. Find yours, then everyone will copy you. :p

Also more Consortium :X

Edit: And listen to Edgar! If you’re going to add new maps, make people earn them. It gives players a sense of accomplishment and helps them feel some attachment to them.

Cohesion

The main problem I see with the Living Story is a lack of cohesion. There needs to be something that can unify the threads that have lead up to where we are and give people just hopping in an idea that they are in the midst of a larger/longer event. The heralds are nice for a finger point but they’re lacking.

It feels like you’re straddling the fence between going full on story and being accessible to people just getting on and that’s making things kind of nebulous. Every event is a jumping on point, but if they all are, how can we get anywhere? And if we march blindly on, how will anyone know what’s going on?

I would suggest some kind of summary that pops up at the beginning of each event. A kind of “Last time on Guild Wars 2…” Make it like a newspaper or the first page of a comic book that breaks down what’s happened up to this point, the main players for this segment of the story, and other tidbits that will help someone get caught up on in-game events.

This could also be a nice place to put those stories that appear on the website without having to force them into the narrative at large or put information that just doesn’t seem right for any one character to say. “Tequatl Rages in Spark Fly Fen! Has Zhaitan’s defeat enraged the beast?”

Most of this information and content is there, it’s just bringing it all together in a seamless way so players don’t have to leave the game to get it.

Content

Content wise, I’m seeings lots of cool ideas but I hope they’re all expanded on. This first year, from what I understand, was more about building content that can be returned to (zephyr sanctum, holidays, sab, etc.) and expanded upon so the main focus could be shifted to bigger things, etc. There have been some nice glimpses of this but I can see why people are agitated with it.

Losing the Molten Facility and the Aetherblade Retreat until the end of the year definitely fell into the painful category. Maybe the next time this kind of story dungeon is attempted, setting up a “fractal” and “long” versions at the same time would be beneficial. The game also has the scrying pool from GW1 still accessible, which would be a nice option to give people a chance to replay past events, if fractals wouldn’t fit the content. Some way to replay story beats would be nice, even if it was only cutscenes. The world should live, but someone should be taking notes is all I’m saying.

Invasions are a great idea that need to be expanded on as soon as possible! Dragon minions should be invading their outlying areas regularly. Map wide events like this add a bit of drama to the usual stuff and help remind people that other things are going on in the world. If there’s a chance to really hit home the “they burned down the town and now you have to fight the baddies out of the area to get it back,” I think the invasion system is a good way to do it on a much larger scale. It would also be a nice way to leverage the dragons without having to totally blow a storyline on them before you feel you have a good one.

The two week cadence of updates is a crazy feat and I’m impressed you’ve kept it going. I’ve thought about taking it back to how it was, but it’s something I look forward to now. If anything I would suggest a new cadence along the lines of how Halloween and the Tower of Nightmares are being positioned. New event every two weeks, but each kept up for a full four. It would take some of the burden off the achievement seekers who feel they can’t get everything in the two weeks the “second half” events usually have. I also liked the suggestion above about doing these events in more defined “acts” so the story builds a little more slowly but more cohesively. Take advantage of the extra time by fleshing out the stories a little bit. Most have a beginning and an end, but could use a more defined middle.

They let those aetherized nightmare weapons be straight up drops instead of RNG, these might fall into the same category. It will depend on how permanent the tower is probably.

I will have Krait lightsabers before it’s all said and done. :p

I’m not feeling a great deal of danger from this skill, probably because I’m a guardian and I eat everyone’s conditions already. Aoe condition removal isn’t a rarity in this game, it’s just not on everyone’s bar.

As others have said in this thread, builds already exist to cleanse conditions. I mentioned this in the living world forum, but what we’re probably looking at here is some kind of “gap filler” skill that will allow other professions the ability to carry some of that load. I could see more of these skills sneaking into the game to solve problems Anet is struggling to cover in their skill balances. Kind of a way to shore up profession weaknesses without having to add 100 skills to the game (Oh delicious skills… Must focus!)

I don’t think you’ll see a real problem until these skills move into the general utility part of the bar. That’s where it’s going to get trickier to balance.

Also this might be a sign they have found a way to take the leash off conditions, instead of a way to finish them off. :p

GW is probably one of the darker/not-try-hard settings for an MMO. I mean enough people have died in the gap between Gw1 and Gw2 that necromancers can summon corpses out of the ground at whim. You kill your old teachers turned avenging spirits in AC, assisting the charr who burned your homeland. Our main enemy is a Draco-lich hell bent on turning us all into a mindless, all consuming horde. Don’t let the pretty facade fool you. The fact the Mad King exists at all kind of shows where Anet is coming from, even from a comedic stand point.

Scarlet is a joker allegory, so it’s kind of hard to tell the evil from the smile. I think her running solo with just the clockwork minions might help to push that aspect more. She needs a falling out with her living minions.

Hey if I get Krait light sabers out of this, I’m good. That is all.

The new skill reminds me of pve skills from gw1. I’m thinking it won’t be locked behind the event; the obelisk shard is obviously the limited time goodie. I can’t see them locking out an entire skill unless it’s kind of weak, like racials.

I’m guessing these universal skills are going to fill gaps in builds anet was having problems covering with normal skill balances. They can get all the professions shored up before they drop anything more extensive onto the table.

Like say… a playable version of that great axe… Please? Maybe? Double maybe?

The more you guys talk about this map the more exciting it sounds. Anet’s always seemed a little adverse to doing public test areas outside of official betas, and considering how they do content I can understand it. But creating areas like this where you can just throw stuff at the wall and get player feedback is a really cool way to do it.

I’d love to see you guys try this in some way for PVE and SPVP. An open PVE map where bosses might have previews of mechanics used in living story or a pvp arena where people can give feedback on the “balance” of the design, etc.

That way you don’t have to reveal your whole hand, just a little peek.

I look forward to blowing up bridges and tossing people off ledges…. eventually. :X

If Karl had the voice of Harbinger, I’d flip! :x

Edit: Just noticed the misspell, I’m goin’ for it!

Karl Katorrik’s used charr emporium! You’d be krazy to miss out on these branded!

Did you smack him into one of those little mausoleums in the area he spawns? We had that problem a few times, half your damage is obstructed by the building and he just starts regen. like others said getting right up in his face is really the only solution when that happens. Embrace the Zerg. :x

Yea I think people’s expectations may have been set way high since Halloween was so massive and unique last year. I’m enjoying what I’ve seen so far though. I want to do the second part of that instance! :p

Players also need to realize its only been a day. Halloween had multiple phases last year, we may just be seeing the beginning/getting old content out of the way.

Anet did state that they were using the holidays to give a large block of content so they could focus on other updates. If you want to see this years slow burn, you might want to check out Kessex Hills….

He’s evil and mad but severely restrained by the magics that contain him. A supernatural King Thorn on the loose would have very dire results on the general populace. It was kind of the theme for last year.

If anything he’s probably mellowed with imprisonment, enjoying his yearly romp as the boogie man and getting to blow people up without major repercussion.

But I’d never let him roam free. :p

It’s pretty obvious what happened to the logs… It’s fantasy! A witch did it! :x

I was all excited for Halloween last night, and then I finally got home and I spent most of the night messing with this mystery. I’m pretty sure it won’t take up the entire cloaked area, but it’s so massive. I wanna fight my way up it and leap from the top! :x

This has got to be our first full blown Krait obelisk or something close to it. Maybe they got their hands on a piece of Zhaitan? Would tie in nicely with teq getting powered up.

Why they gotta pick on the poor trees! They don’t do nothing! They just chill. /sylvari

But really I love it when you guys do little lead-ins like this. It spark a little interest in what’ll happen next without being too blatant about it. It was one of the things I really liked about Lost Shores: karka warnings, beached whales, etc.

Stuff like this really helps build that living world feeling.

There really needs to be a system so friends can play together in these activities. I’m willing to play in a scrimmage mode with no rewards at all just so my guild can play together in clock tower, keg brawl, sanctum sprint, etc. I can provide the rewards, we just want to play against each other.

Clock Tower is also unique in that there’s no real way to "game’ the system like you could in other activities, if that’s a concern. If you don’t race to the end, you’re not going to make it period.

It’s possibly the one thing that frustrates me about this game at all.

Being a lawyer is rough in Tyria…

http://youtu.be/XmhvPR9ZBcQ

Very fun, but long.

With SAB leaving us Tuesday, thought I’d throw this up.

http://youtu.be/I_cUppd6RXs

Enjoy!

Over the weekend our guild held a murder mystery event and I put together this video as a reward for figuring out who did it. They liked it so much I decided to share, enjoy!

http://youtu.be/A9Au5lg0Q7E

I had been threatening to make a video of my guild’s wvw exploits for a while now and finally had enough time to finish it off. Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/evtEL-AzaQU

Look, I’m a reasonable guy.

I love GW2, most of my suggestions when I make them are of the polish/improve focus of type. I’m not a pie in the sky kind of guy because I love what we have and what GW2 provides.

But lets get real here EQNext has skill based weapons, I think we all know where they got that idea. :P

So I’m just saying turn about is fair play and landmark would be an awfully interesting thing to see implemented in a super sexy GW2 kind of way. Player-made content on top of bi weekly event maddness would make for some crazy mind blowing stuff.

Hey, even just some kind of strange GW2/sandbox area would be a fun place to test ideas that could be later implemented in the game proper without the problems associated with an official test server spoiling all the surprises for one and all.

So I’m going to put this little nugget, an idea if you will, right here and I’m just going to walk away….

Whatever you do don’t drop difficulty!

We need areas with uw/fow style face stomping. Just try to keep it as balanced as you can (10 bazillion champion young Karka in Southsun…maybe a bit much.). And get those rewards comparative (more Orr exclusive skins, rare drops , fow style armor sets, etc.).

If you pull it off, I will do a dance. :x

When it comes to Druids, Rangers can take up the role with the addition of staves and scepters to their weapon set. That is going to be the biggest hurdle to new classes, what can they do that’s totally undo-able by modifying another class with new weapons, skills, etc.

If anything, I want a third soldier class before others just for the balance of it all. 3-3-3. It satisfies my OCD. :x

T3 cultural should be exotic at least, if not that maybe make them skins so you can apply the stats you want.

I really like the idea of a cultural back item, it should be classified with the weapons instead of armory though. I can’t imagine a back item that would lock out an entire race…except capes! Dern charr!

While the post is a bit lacking in what he’s looking for I’ll take the ball on this article and run with it…

The writer of this article is suggesting that the games industry is just now learning many of the techniques that modern web/software companies are using to get the most out of their products. While I agree with him on a few points and disagree with others (Anet’s been using specialized groups to designs areas, etc. throughout the entire dev process from what I gather in blog pots, etc.) There is one thing that I think he hits the nail on the head about: stickiness.

While GW2’s breadth is really astounding and their constant updates and upgrades to their systems are amazing in the speed they do them, I think that the game is lacking in some of the stickiness that GW1 had presented.

Like Lol’s champions, GW1’s skills were a big part of that stickiness. 1200 maddness inducing, impossible to balance skills that people threw together in ways that would make any developer’s head explode. There’s a reason they took the skill count back from the first game, it had become unmanageable. But I think that as time moves on, the addition of skills has got to become a part of the game.

Without the experimentation of those skills combos, an important part of the game is diminished. With out the skill work in GW1, the GW2 ranger short bow skills wouldn’t even exist, since they’re basically GW1 cripshot.

I don’t know exactly how they can add this part of the game back without creating the classic problems of GW1 (useless builds and skill bloat/balance issues) but it is something that needs to be addressed in the long term. Really that fact the system was starting to go insane may have been part of it’s charm. >.>

Sometimes it’s not just about new permanent content or content at all, it’s in giving people new ways to play through your old content.

Of course the game hasn’t even been out a year so jumping to conclusions like this and the article above are a bit premature. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s that the mmo fan is a fickle lot. I just liked the theme and went with it. I’m sure Anet is aware of these things, it’s just attacking it properly that’s the problem.

It’s explained but it’s not right there as you play, so it’s kind of difficult to keep track of. It’s why I think a hand full more scenes like the one at the end of the living story would have helped tell the tale. Even if they went back to the “talking heads” cut away it would help to put emphasis on what is being said at that moment.

Also on going back to the island I’d suggest making the consortium greeter some kind of scout that explains the situation on the island, holding the 4 outposts, etc. It’s a bit nebulous without it.

I posted this in another forum post but decided to move it here since it is more of a suggestion.

It would be nice if they could set up some kind of in game repository for past living story information. For example, someone who didn’t do Lost Shores would be all “Who’s Canach?” and for more information he could go to the Durmond Priory and research him and his past actions, etc. Maybe even have hints to the stories on the blog. “Reports are that Canach confronted Blingg and stole a consortium security golem in the confusion…” You could have a link to the blog post relating to that story content. Also that swank Canach wanted posted on the facebook page would have to be used for his image.

It would really help with the world building and filling in gaps new players would have and the Priory is supposed to be keeping track of this stuff in the first place.

It would be nice if they could set up some kind of in game repository for past living story information. Like in this case, someone who didn’t do Lost Shores would be all “Who’s Canach?” and for more information he could go to the Durmond Priory and research him and his past actions, etc. Maybe even have hints to the stories on the blog. “Reports are that Canach confronted Blingg and stole a consortium security golem in the confusion…”

It would really help with the world building and filling in gaps new players would have.

This Living Story update is a bit of a mixed bag, but I have to say I’ve enjoyed it as a way of cleaning up Southsun Cove and making it a better place to adventure in over all. The original Southsun died off after Lost Shores, which was an awesome event even with it’s once in a lifetime nature. I liked beating back the karka, building the outposts and watching the servers burst into flames as giant karka squished countless peoples during the final event.

But after that the place stagnated. People went there for the rich ori node and little else. There were events, but not enough of them. I still enjoyed going there just because the enemies where a challenge, but I was never really drawn to there outside of adding the guild missions.

This update fixes that, there are plenty of events now and I can chain around the island all day do-gooding and feel like I’m actually getting something out of it. My favorite one isn’t even an event. I must save that little party of dancers every time I walk out of Pearl Inlet. The party must go on! I think the back items and achievements were nice and the random dialog helps fill things out and made me realize that I was a hobo. :P

Robert Hrouda already mentioned this concerning the Canach instance/boss fight/dungeon confusion, but I think the main thing that hurt this branch of the living story was the focus of the messaging. It played up the Canach story so people were expecting something along the lines of Rox and Brahmin’s stuff in Flame and Frost. But this update’s real focus seems to be about cleaning up and improving the standard Southsun experience. Once the Karka Queen becomes a world boss, Southsun reaches parity with other areas of the world map and hopefully will continue to be a great place to adventure in.

This event isn’t over yet so I’m willing to eat crow once the finale starts. :X

The big things that I take away from it so far…

-Keep on message, if it’s a dungeon/storyline style update, make sure it’s known. If it’s a zone improvement focused update, make sure you focus on that aspect. Instance/dungeon/etc. can have some unexpected weight behind them. I enjoyed both fights, but the messaging helped make the let down here I believe.

-I think a hand full of simple cutscenes would have helped bridge the content between areas better. If you weren’t careful you could totally miss Lionguard Kiel talking to the settlers and learning about Canach. If it was more of an event chain instead of her just appearing, pacing would have been better. These one and done scenes have been done before for Halloween. Enter the area, get the scene carry on, etc. The mail messages helped to bridge things, but they do take you out of the immediacy of it all.

-Something to explain the transition from Canach to Null in the boss instance would have been nice too. A “What is that thing!? We’re going to need back up!” runs away kind of deal.

-The rewards this time around have been nice. I like the back pieces and the fact they weren’t impossible to acquire. Special armor merchants (even if they’re just stats not skins) is a nice touch to the final event, etc. The only thing I’d recommend is maybe at the end of these types of events is to reward the player with one ticket for the special event weapon skins. I got my fused ticket on the last day an hour before the update removed them. Totally selfish request here.

-More Canach! I like him better than Rox and Braham combined. I just wish he had more hooks with the rest of the living story. If he had made an appearance during the Molten Facility dungeon to kind of lead us to Southsun, it would have been great.

I’m throwing my hat in for the bring back Cantha movement! One of the great things with Guild Wars 1 was how creative it was with it’s settings and it would be an awful shame if there was nothing of Cantha in the game. The Jade Maw fractal is a great first step and probably one of my favorite areas in the game. If we could get a GW2 engine powered Echovald Forest, my brain might explode. :X

I’ve been messing around with fraps to make some videos for my guild [Seed] and decided to throw this together as a test.

http://youtu.be/D4fgcsNAndo

It was fun making it and I may make a few more along the same lines.

Enjoy!

Edit:
Here’s another one I did when playing super adventure box.
http://youtu.be/FRwhvxohfB8