Guild Wars 2

Mirta.5029:

Kaaboose.3897:

I’m actually in the process of writing a continued storyline for Guild Wars 2 right now. I got sick of waiting for Anet to write a comeplling story so i figured I’d try my luck at it. It’s not like the bar is set especially high right now. And GW2 has such rich lore. I’m quite happy with how it’s turning out. At worst I’ll be a bit of fan fiction and I’m enjoying it quite a lot.
Thing is I COULD realese what I’ve got episodically, but I’m bound to realise later on I elft a plothole somewhere, and on episodic release I wouldn’t be able to go back and correct that. I’m sure good enough writers could get around this, but do anet have such writers on staff?

1. You’re not Anet staff, so it will only be fan fiction.
2. There are always ways to fix plotholes. Just requires some imagination. Or you could always go lazy and say that the main character “woke up” and a bunch of the stuff never happened at all.

…My favourite was Rocketman, and once it was a no breaks chapter. The bad guy stuck him in a car on a mountain road and knocked him out and welded the door shut and tore out the brakes and started him to his death, and he woke up and tried to steer and tried to get out but the car went off a cliff before he could escape! And it crashed and burned and I was so upset and excited, and the next week, you better believe I was first in line. And they always start with the end of the last week. And there was Rocketman, trying to get out, and here comes the cliff, and just before the car went off the cliff, he jumped free! And all the kids cheered! But I didn’t cheer. I stood right up and started shouting. This isn’t what happened last week! Have you all got amnesia? They just cheated us! This isn’t fair! HE DID’NT GET OUT OF THE kitten – A – DOODIE CAR!

Vayne.8563:

CheeseJimmy.4796:

Vayne.8563:

Sure. Anet didn’t ask you to compare a game that was many years old and has zero relevance here with a game that’s ten months old. It’s not a fair comparison and it makes that particular opinion all but unusable.

What can Anet do with this particular opinion. They can’t have 2, 3 or 4 years of content now. So this particular opinion gets wasted, which is fine.

In the mean time, other people read this opinion and think maybe this guy has a point…but I don’t think you have a point and since this is a forum for discussion, I can say that I feel you don’t.

Anet asked our opinions. This is my opinion of your opinion. It’s sort of how forums work.

This argument is SO flawed.

Zero relevance? They’re in the same genre for crying out loud! I’d say that was pretty relevant. If Kaaboose was trying to compare GW2 to Team Fortress 2, then there would be little if no relevance.

Also, you’ve effectively said that if a game is older, you can’t compare it with a new one. That is most certainly not true. Try comparing something like Battlefield 3 with Call of Duty 2 (two games in the same genre, both made by different companies, one older than the other… same as what’s going on here).

There are things that can be compared that’s obvious. But the amount of content one game has over another shouldn’t be. At least not be anyone who has any amount of common sense.

Sure you can compare combat systems. It’s sort of a weird comparison because they’re completely different and have nothing to do with each other, but you could.

But a lot of the people comparing stuff, are looking for a game with three or four years of polish and no game so far in three or four years has been able to deliver what people are asking for.

Is this is the industry’s fault? Is it the expectation of the players?

Yes, I’m saying that any game that’s eight years old better kitten well have more content than a game that’s 10 months old. If it didn’t it would be a failed game. A travesty. Something that isn’t worth your time getting into.

WoW is, arguably, the most successful MMO of all time. It’s had numerous expansions. It rode the coat tails of Warcraft, a popular RTS game. The company already had money. Guild Wars 1 was a first attempt by Anet, from a smaller company that almost didn’t make the game. They ended up going to NCsoft when they ran out of money.

Guild Wars 2, though a sequel, is still new territory for Anet. The company is way smaller than Blizzard, doesn’t have the advertising dollars, has a smaller staff, and on top of that, doesn’t have a monthly fee.

Can you compare them? Sure. Go for it. Does it HELP to compare them…maybe not so much. WoW has had years to polish their game. The launch was a disaster. No one wants to remember that. I wonder why?

If people continue to hold new MMOs to the standards of a rich company that has been working their game for years, people will continue to be disappointed. It doesn’t even matter what the MMO is.

You’ll see the same things in every MMO forum. And it’s not because WoW is a better game. But it’s certainly got more content. How could it not?

We were comapring ratios of temporary to perment content, not the amount of content so yes, It is Very relevant. For arguments sake we could compare the amount of temp content WoW had in the first year to GW2. WoW had 2 holidays and the Silithid event. 2 annualy temporary events and a single one time event (that stayed for new servers for years to come.)
GW2… you know I’m not even going to clutter the page by listing it all here, you get the point. Let’s get back on track now, if you want more info on why comapring Gw2 and WoW makes sense watch the video there:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Make-GW-2-More-Like-World-of-Warcraft/

Galen Grey.4709:

Mathias.9657:

… snip
Amazing. I never had a dev team make my blood boil so bad, I really think you guys are clueless. Where is 2006 ANet… please come back, please.

Actually WoW is essentially all temporary content in a way. Once you finish a quest its done. You cant repeat it at all. Once you outlevel a zone, its done, you cant play there anymore. Once finish a certain tier and move to the next that content is done no reason to replay it again.

Sure if you create an alt its there for you to do again fair enough but again its do once and thats it just as good as one. In Gw2 the whole game remains relevant (with the exception of hearts of course)
Snip

Did not even bother reading any further. If that is your opening arguement no point. The fact that I can roll and alt and do it again is great. The fact that a new player can do it 1-2 years later is also great.
And everything in GW2 remains relevant? You have to remove content otherwise it will break immersion but the same events repeating endlessly is okay? I can see anet trying to spin that in a later patch note:
*To create a deeper sense of immersion we are removing all dynamic events from the game. They will now be played one more time each. Timetable is as follows…

[quote=2382721;Vayne.8563:]

Vayne.8563:

Kaaboose.3897:

Vayne.8563:

Kaaboose.3897:

Siphaed.9235:

Kaaboose.3897:

TL:DR Section Below!
<clip>
TL:DR
Video Version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5SIPOg_sLQ
Temporary content, reguardless of the quality, would be better off being permentant so as not to alienate new and returning Guild Wars 2 players

I’m sorry to have to say this, but “new and returning GW2 players” should be second class to current, ACTIVELY PLAYING Guild Wars 2 players. Why? Because those are the people that are going to be spending $$ on the Quaggan mini-pack (guilty), the other Gem Store items, and play the content as it comes out.

Hypothetical-Situation:

Should someone playing their first day in WoW automatically get Blizzcon pets from every year for the past 5 years, as well as TCG items, tabards from the opening of BC? Or, should that person just see others who were there, who attended, who earned those by playing at that time, and envy them? Not only envy them, but make it a goal to strive for other event-based items that they can obtain to tout about in the future, knowing that others who see it won’t be able to get again.

---

So do you see my point? These one-time temporary events, which give a very interesting and lively story, are a reward to players who currently enjoy the game that A.Net continually produces for THEM, the ACTIVE CUSTOMERS. Those on the sidelines aren’t getting anything just as those not visiting Disneyland aren’t able to enjoy the rides, like those that didn’t attend a Y2K party won’t get the tee-shirt that everyone else did. Static games are single player games. MMO’s are living things. This one, GW2, is the liveliest of them all; so lively that events can be missed.

You miss one very important thing in that comparision. And that is that those types of events were not the FOCUS of WoW. I’m not saying temporary contnet is bad, But a focus on it, as in making it the bread and butter of your PvE, is commercial suicide.
I remember the temporary stuff before LK and CATA getting me pumped for the game. It was like blizz was saying “We know you’re already invested in the game and you’ve stuck around while waiting for the next EXP, so here’s some temporary stuff you get for sticking with us. Enjoy.”

At ten months in, how often did WoW actually come out with new content? You don’t even know what the focus of a new game is at ten months.

This is the beginning of the LS, not the end. It’s barely started. It’s already introduced a couple of temporary dungeons that people liked, some of which are probably going to eventually end up as fractals, which some people like.

But there’s a variety of experiences here, and there’ll be more moving forward.

The change with the design teams is a recent decision that we haven’t seen in effect yet.

At very least you could wait to see what comes of it, before prejudging.

Anet themselves asked us for our opinion.

Sure. Anet didn’t ask you to compare a game that was many years old and has zero relevance here with a game that’s ten months old. It’s not a fair comparison and it makes that particular opinion all but unusable.

What can Anet do with this particular opinion. They can’t have 2, 3 or 4 years of content now. So this particular opinion gets wasted, which is fine.

In the mean time, other people read this opinion and think maybe this guy has a point…but I don’t think you have a point and since this is a forum for discussion, I can say that I feel you don’t.

Anet asked our opinions. This is my opinion of your opinion. It’s sort of how forums work.

Gods Vayne do NOT bring up that You can’t compare GW2 to X crap because of Y BS. It’s the worst kind of defence. See this: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/24/

Vayne.8563:

Kaaboose.3897:

Siphaed.9235:

Kaaboose.3897:

TL:DR Section Below!
<clip>
TL:DR
Video Version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5SIPOg_sLQ
Temporary content, reguardless of the quality, would be better off being permentant so as not to alienate new and returning Guild Wars 2 players

I’m sorry to have to say this, but “new and returning GW2 players” should be second class to current, ACTIVELY PLAYING Guild Wars 2 players. Why? Because those are the people that are going to be spending $$ on the Quaggan mini-pack (guilty), the other Gem Store items, and play the content as it comes out.

Hypothetical-Situation:

Should someone playing their first day in WoW automatically get Blizzcon pets from every year for the past 5 years, as well as TCG items, tabards from the opening of BC? Or, should that person just see others who were there, who attended, who earned those by playing at that time, and envy them? Not only envy them, but make it a goal to strive for other event-based items that they can obtain to tout about in the future, knowing that others who see it won’t be able to get again.

---

So do you see my point? These one-time temporary events, which give a very interesting and lively story, are a reward to players who currently enjoy the game that A.Net continually produces for THEM, the ACTIVE CUSTOMERS. Those on the sidelines aren’t getting anything just as those not visiting Disneyland aren’t able to enjoy the rides, like those that didn’t attend a Y2K party won’t get the tee-shirt that everyone else did. Static games are single player games. MMO’s are living things. This one, GW2, is the liveliest of them all; so lively that events can be missed.

You miss one very important thing in that comparision. And that is that those types of events were not the FOCUS of WoW. I’m not saying temporary contnet is bad, But a focus on it, as in making it the bread and butter of your PvE, is commercial suicide.
I remember the temporary stuff before LK and CATA getting me pumped for the game. It was like blizz was saying “We know you’re already invested in the game and you’ve stuck around while waiting for the next EXP, so here’s some temporary stuff you get for sticking with us. Enjoy.”

At ten months in, how often did WoW actually come out with new content? You don’t even know what the focus of a new game is at ten months.

This is the beginning of the LS, not the end. It’s barely started. It’s already introduced a couple of temporary dungeons that people liked, some of which are probably going to eventually end up as fractals, which some people like.

But there’s a variety of experiences here, and there’ll be more moving forward.

The change with the design teams is a recent decision that we haven’t seen in effect yet.

At very least you could wait to see what comes of it, before prejudging.

Anet themselves asked us for our opinion.

Siphaed.9235:

Kaaboose.3897:

TL:DR Section Below!
<clip>
TL:DR
Video Version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5SIPOg_sLQ
Temporary content, reguardless of the quality, would be better off being permentant so as not to alienate new and returning Guild Wars 2 players

I’m sorry to have to say this, but “new and returning GW2 players” should be second class to current, ACTIVELY PLAYING Guild Wars 2 players. Why? Because those are the people that are going to be spending $$ on the Quaggan mini-pack (guilty), the other Gem Store items, and play the content as it comes out.

Hypothetical-Situation:

Should someone playing their first day in WoW automatically get Blizzcon pets from every year for the past 5 years, as well as TCG items, tabards from the opening of BC? Or, should that person just see others who were there, who attended, who earned those by playing at that time, and envy them? Not only envy them, but make it a goal to strive for other event-based items that they can obtain to tout about in the future, knowing that others who see it won’t be able to get again.

---

So do you see my point? These one-time temporary events, which give a very interesting and lively story, are a reward to players who currently enjoy the game that A.Net continually produces for THEM, the ACTIVE CUSTOMERS. Those on the sidelines aren’t getting anything just as those not visiting Disneyland aren’t able to enjoy the rides, like those that didn’t attend a Y2K party won’t get the tee-shirt that everyone else did. Static games are single player games. MMO’s are living things. This one, GW2, is the liveliest of them all; so lively that events can be missed.

You miss one very important thing in that comparision. And that is that those types of events were not the FOCUS of WoW. I’m not saying temporary contnet is bad, But a focus on it, as in making it the bread and butter of your PvE, is commercial suicide.
I remember the temporary stuff before LK and CATA getting me pumped for the game. It was like blizz was saying “We know you’re already invested in the game and you’ve stuck around while waiting for the next EXP, so here’s some temporary stuff you get for sticking with us. Enjoy.”

mewmewmyoo.7809:

And yes, they’re promising permanent content, but that doesn’t matter much to me until I see it, seeing as Anet has a habit of not keeping promises.

Especially when it’s a side note on their video, and not the focus.

Krosslite.1950:

Devata.6589:

Of course I do not have the numbers but I think with a little bid of common sense you can understand that there are more people who do not like that it gets removed then the number of players that do no like it if it would not be temporary anymore.

And I base myself on the number of topics about it in this forum, some other forums and what I hear by people for example in the guild.

ArenaNet also does not know.. how would they know.. But they might have indications (most likely also based on this forum) and it’s enough for them to try and do something about it (see Colin’s reaction). However you can also see how this statement (that has been made multiple times in the media) does not help to reduce the number of complains. You can basically also read that from Colin’s reaction in this thread

“We’ve said it a few times before, but I want to just re-iterate…. We’ve said all of this before, but I think it’s good to just put that message out more frequently so everyone understands where we’re going.”

The problem is that they have that dilemma of the need to have permanent items and stuff to create an feel of urgency to get stuff so they buy gems and people complaining about that temporary content.

Look at my first post in this thread. That could easily be implemented. It would not harm the living story in any way (so should not harm any players who likes it) and should remove the complains about temporary content. So why did they not do this already? Because it does not fit they strategy to make the money.

And thats also the reason I ended that comment with saying they should go for an expansion focus because the strategy to make the money and these in-game decision are entwined with each other.

The only thing that will stop threads like this one is when the content promised by Anet becomes a reality. People are too busy judging them on their past performance. A performance they themselves have stated was lack luster.
They have now promised better content but that content is not due to totally hit us until next month.
Will we see some of it now? Maybe.
Will we see more on the 23rd? I will not make an assumption and so will not comment.
Kaaboose was correct in one thing. They do need to get stories out that make us not want to wait two weeks till the next installment.
Personally I think they need to hire more writers to be able to achieve that goal. The staff writers they have now are fine for over a long period of time. That will not work in this scenario. You usually don’t see the same writers every week for a series.

I’m actually in the process of writing a continued storyline for Guild Wars 2 right now. I got sick of waiting for Anet to write a comeplling story so i figured I’d try my luck at it. It’s not like the bar is set especially high right now. And GW2 has such rich lore. I’m quite happy with how it’s turning out. At worst I’ll be a bit of fan fiction and I’m enjoying it quite a lot.
Thing is I COULD realese what I’ve got episodically, but I’m bound to realise later on I elft a plothole somewhere, and on episodic release I wouldn’t be able to go back and correct that. I’m sure good enough writers could get around this, but do anet have such writers on staff?

gurugeorge.9857:

Devata.6589:

The sort of temporary content the people who do not like the temporary part will still be in there. So it’s not good at all.

But how many people actually don’t like the temporary content? Do you know? Or is it only your personal dislike, shared by some people you know? Is a bit of rabble on the forums representative of the majority of players?

Speaking for myself, I’ve never felt any great urge to complete any of the temp content. I dip into it here and there as the mood takes me. If I get a reward, great, if not, no problem. Does that attitude define a lot of players or just a minority? I don’t know – but Anet probably knows.

I can appreciate that temporary content might be annoying for a completionist player or a hardcore Achiever, but MMORPGs no longer need be defined by playstyles that attract primarily that type of player. However, I do I hope Anet do introduce enough things to keep such players happy too.

That’s one of the reasons posts like this are made. So we can find out. I’m guessing that’s why colin said “Let us know what you think.” So they can find out.
Seeing as the video ahs been out less then a day and the “Future of Guild Wars 2 video” has already recived 50+ new thumbs down and numerous comments reguarding temporary content we’re on our way to getting an idea of just how many.

Kitten is automatic cencorship on the forums. If someone says a naughty word it becomes ‘kitten’.
Example:
“Get these Motherkittening snakes of my motherkittening plane.”
God I hope that cencors okay!
EDIT: Oh man, I want to watch that whole film dubbed this way now!

Devata.6589:

Kaaboose.3897:

Devata.6589:

Mirta.5029:

Krosslite.1950:

Mirta.5029:

cesmode.4257:

Im casual..in that I have only 2-3 hours to play per night, but take my toon, gear, class, experience serious enough where I want to do well.

And i hate living story. Innovative but its doing squat to further this game. Very stagnat right now.

would it be better if instead we had none of the living story and ended up waiting for an expansion for over a year? Expansions content will come any way, whether living story is there or not.

Please refer to this thread for that debate

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/GW2-unlikely-to-get-expansions-Interview/page/10#post2375418

I did not say that expansion will come, I said that the expansions content will come. As in we’re going to get the continuation of the main story for free.

Is NCSOFT a non-commercial company? Is ArenaNet a non-commercial company? Are the employee’s all working for free? No so there is no such thing as free. It has to come from some place and if it’s not coming from expansions it’s coming from gems and if it comes from gems they need to some how get people to buy gems and there we see the main reason for temporary content.. Create a sense of urgency to get people to buy things. First rule in every marketing book.

The thing is though if the conent is good the sence to get into it as soon as it is availble feeds itself. that’s exactly why I used the HBO Game of Thrones scenario. There’s a reason it’s the most pirated show around. Because not everybody can afford or wants a subscription to HBO but they REALLY WANT TO WATCH THE NEWSET EPISODE RIGHT NOW!
And there’s always the middleground of leaving the content but taking the limited time rewards.

But when they leave the content but take the limited time rewards you would still have the complains as thats exactly the part many people don’t like about the temporary stuff. BTW that post was not to disagree with you mean idea as I support it. It was only to explain why they do it this way. And if they would focus more on expansions there would be less need to do it this way.

I shouldn’t have used caps. I used them to demonstrate the rabidness I feel at learning there is a new Game of Thrones episode out. I just HAVE TO WATCH IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! I enjoy that show that much.
In reguards to leaving content but not the rewards, I’m not saying it’s a good thing, But it is middle ground. If the content was fun and engauging you’d still do it even with the only reward being that you exerpainced it. Yes you’re not likley to ever do it again but it is content that you did and took you X time to do. And Y amount of players did it as well. Even if it is only played through once, if it was enjoyable, players that tried it would recomend it to their freinds and you now have content in your game that can be enjoyed by new and old players alike. It might not be a lot on it’s own but as you build apon that with more small updates theat stay in game eventually you have an expansions worth of content for a new player coming into the game. Conent that an older player might want to do with them.
I’m not sold on the episodic nature of realses, but I can see them working. However temporary episodic reasles I just can’t see working.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Krosslite.1950:

Jewel.1457:

This is the same point I’ve been thinking for a while now. Most of what is being implemented feels like the same sort of time filler pieces in subscription game, collect 100vs of that, kill thousands of those. Just because you can create more of it is no reason to be applauded. There is no altruistic motive behind it either, it’s the same methods to keep people play but instead of a subscription it’s lockboxes.

Now they have done some amazing pieces of content, Halloween was amazing, the new dungeons and jumping puzzles great, and the Southsun cove changes were perfect but there is just too much meaningless filler as an addendum to it.

Be thankful there is a cash shop. Anet has made it clear that the cash shop is making it possible for them to start giving us this “Living World” experience. I for one thoroughly am enjoying the ride and plan on staying on the ride till they kick me out the door as they shut down the last server.

Partly true. They need to make the money.. but if you need to be thankful there is a cash shop? They could also make the money with yearly expansions and personally I think the ingame decisions that resulted out of that are much better then those that result out of cash shops.
It’s not like cash shops are the only solution, nor that it is the best solution.

I don’t think that selling expansions is enough to support any real kind of content generation. Maybe it was 8 years ago when Guild Wars 1 launched, but the landscape has changed. As the simplest example, Guild Wars 2 has a staff that’s at least 6 times the size of Guild Wars 1, which required a move to a newer (and probably more expensive) office space. There’s for more competition for players now as well.

Games either have box sales and a monthly fee or box sales and a cash shop or just a cash shop. Some have box sales, a monthly fee AND a cash shop. Many went free to play after a period of time where they had a monthly fee where they made a lot of money.

Anyone can say that box sales would be enough to allow content generation but that doesn’t make it true. I don’t think it would work today, where as many years back it might have. The industry is too competitive, player expecations are too high, and the overhead is much higher than it used to be.

You’re defending regular content updates Vs. expansion updates. We’re talking about temporary content here.

mbridg.4069:

OP, I disagree with you. I missed a good portion of the Aetherblade content, but I still disagree. It’s because, I know that there will be more NEW content right behind it. I think it’s GREAT that all this NEW content is continually being put out. If this content were temporary, and then we had NOTHING to replace it, it would be a problem.

For every opinion about something being wrong or bad for the game, there are just as many other ppl who enjoy it and think it’s great.

But would a problem exist if this coentent was permenet AND you still got regular updates? I still fail to see the purpose of remving conent, espcially if it’s good.

Mirta.5029:

Kaaboose.3897:

No, The system I propose, WHICH ALREADY EXISTS IN THE GAME, works around that.

and like I said – YOU WOULD BE PLAYING WITH LESS PEOPLE THEN

Re-read what you just typed. “How long do you think an expansion will last?” It will last as long as I take to finish it.
How long do you think temporary content will last? “Until Anet takes it away”
I COULD take it/ leave it/ enjoy it as I saw fit but I can’t because they ARE TAKING IT AWAY. You are defending regular content updates (Which have plenty of positives vs negativea) not temporary content.

I didn’t ask how much it will last for you, I asked for how long will it hold the other players interested. Normally it’s a week or two. That’s all. Then the world is empty again. At least this way I see players.

I don’t know the exact numbers of how many people are activly playing GW2 but if the servers were merged and we had a LFG system theat helped bring players together this would be less of a problem. Also Having too much content will seperate the playerbase? All that means is players will go for the content that is fun and engauging and NOT do the content that isn’t.
The system you are defending is “All players will play all of the content, reguardless of quality. And this is a good thing.” Really? This is your defence to temporary content? It’s okay because everyone is playing the new content reguardless of it’s quality? How can that be benificial to any player? It’s like thoese guys that rabidly defend WarZ! It’s crap, but they want everyone to play it with them, weather they’ll enjoy it or not.
And I’m curious. Why don’t I count as “Other players?” Am I sepcial or something?

Devata.6589:

Mirta.5029:

Krosslite.1950:

Mirta.5029:

cesmode.4257:

Im casual..in that I have only 2-3 hours to play per night, but take my toon, gear, class, experience serious enough where I want to do well.

And i hate living story. Innovative but its doing squat to further this game. Very stagnat right now.

would it be better if instead we had none of the living story and ended up waiting for an expansion for over a year? Expansions content will come any way, whether living story is there or not.

Please refer to this thread for that debate

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/GW2-unlikely-to-get-expansions-Interview/page/10#post2375418

I did not say that expansion will come, I said that the expansions content will come. As in we’re going to get the continuation of the main story for free.

Is NCSOFT a non-commercial company? Is ArenaNet a non-commercial company? Are the employee’s all working for free? No so there is no such thing as free. It has to come from some place and if it’s not coming from expansions it’s coming from gems and if it comes from gems they need to some how get people to buy gems and there we see the main reason for temporary content.. Create a sense of urgency to get people to buy things. First rule in every marketing book.

The thing is though if the conent is good the sence to get into it as soon as it is availble feeds itself. that’s exactly why I used the HBO Game of Thrones scenario. There’s a reason it’s the most pirated show around. Because not everybody can afford or wants a subscription to HBO but they REALLY WANT TO WATCH THE NEWSET EPISODE RIGHT NOW!
And there’s always the middleground of leaving the content but taking the limited time rewards.

Fairymore.8609:

I…I think we should see other people Anet…

It’s not you, It’s me.

Fyrebrand.4859:

The Talcmaster.7391:

Fun on someone else’s schedule is not fun

Pretty much my favourite comment out of this whole thread, and really the most pertinent point. The people who are in support of temporary content seem to be comprised of:
a) those who don’t seem to realize you can introduce new content every two weeks without destroying old content every two weeks
b) those who can afford to play regularly/often, clear content in a timely fashion on a regular basis, and don’t give a whit for other people or alternate play styles

What does it mean, when you say you like “temporary” content? All it means is “When I, personally, am through with it, I want it removed from the game so no one else can go in there.” It doesn’t have to mean anything about the quality or release schedule; all it refers to is the fact that the content ANet created gets tossed in the trash bin after a couple weeks. How does that make the game better? How does that contribute to a “living story”?

I have been taking a break from GW2 since Flame and Frost concluded. I want to come back to the game, but I’m still looking for that dynamite excuse to log in again. I’ve been glancing at the website for the past while, and each of the past few updates sounded pretty cool, but you know what? The sheer fact that there is an expiration date on the content does nothing but irritate me, and as soon as each installment passes so does its power to serve as an attraction.

“Oh, but we defeated the Molten Alliance, so it doesn’t make sense to go back and do that dungeon!” Pfffft, baloney. You know darn well this game (and most other MMOs) are full of anachronisms like that — and it’s not like we don’t already have the Fractals of the Mists to satisfy all your lore-fixing time travel needs.

If GW2 actually had a dynamic, episodic nature to it, where the world and the story progressed every couple of weeks, that would really make me get in there and keep up with current events. But from the looks of things, the Tyria I come back to will be the same place as when I left. The Molten Alliance didn’t exist before Flame and Frost, and they really left no permanent impact after they were gone. Ultimately, it was all surface-level stuff, and none of it mattered.

Whatever happened to the ACTUAL story of the game? Aren’t there a bunch of dragons supposedly wreaking havoc on Tyria, right now? How many times do we have to kill Zhaitan before we REALLY kill Zhaitan? Ever thought of adding a new chapter to the Personal Story quest every couple of weeks? That would really be something.

I’ve stated before I’d rather an exapnsion but I would be more then happy to deal with small episodic updates of this nature. Thanks for the post, Very well written and coveres the points I have the most issues with as well.

Nick.6972:

WoodenPotatoes just made a video on this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwjqkE8Ncyg

He did, and he pretty much says exactly the same thing I did, Right down to the anime filler analogy (Like a cartoon.)

tigirius.9014:

I love your posts Kaaboose because they are always spot on with what the problems are in the mmo’s (save for the farming one) this time you’ve come close to describing correctly what’s happening here but there’s something wrong with the analogy. Perhaps it’s the use of TV shows or IPs.

I’ve played about 15 mmo’s in my time and one thing always presented itself as a problem. Subscription mmo’s used dirty tactics to keep people subscribed for longer than they should have been to complete content. They knew that people who worked for a living wouldn’t have time to spend all day on the game to complete things like reputation maxing and progressing thru every dungeon. So they extended it as long as they possibly could. This has been a theme for many years now and has happened in just about every sub mmo out there. The reason? More money.

The temporary content and how it’s being presented in GW2 is the same dirty trick but on the opposite scale. Since there isn’t a sub involved they’ve resorted to gambling tactics with boxes bought from the store, cosmetic items only available from the store, and content that will vanish almost entirely upon completion. Further in order to prevent people from experiencing the content with any kind of solo interest they’ve forced people to group in order to see the dungeons from each and every event by placing them into the Fractals system.

In my view, this is just 1 step closer to their November announcement that people who wish to see new content will be required to have agony resistance including any of the content dungeons we’re seeing in the temporary LS uploads.

These tactics are neither clever or welcomed and will most likely alienate whoever is left lingering waiting for the game to be a positive example in the mmo market. It’s really quite tragic that they can’t think of a better way other than trickery to keep people playing longer.

Also let me be clear I’m not talking about the holiday events including the Dragon event because those to me are holidays, however seeing holidays as anything other than a secondary concern for the game is not something those of us wishing to see a more permanent open world experience monthly would like. Holidays should be the separate small team working on non-world impacting side diversions, the real content should have a larger team and every bit of the dungeons that come out for the events should be translated into the personal story herald (a new herald) so that it will scale with the number of players invited to the dungeon but can be completed solo, and the items should be in game only there should be no more of this cosmetic event items only available via the store for everything. That would alleviate alot of the problems we’re seeing with this development.

Kaaboose.3897:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

‘(Feel free to sub in any Show/Book/Game/Media/Etc. if you don’t like Game Of Thrones!)’

I would like to insert ‘EastEnders’, ‘Days of Our Lives’, ‘All My Children’ or any other soap opera. They were pretty successful back in the day with that model. =)

This is the only reply so far that brought up any positive light on temporary content actually working! I can see the slogans now: Guild Wars 2! The soap opera of MMOS!

But seriously, Claiming temporary content is good because it makes people play it just highlights the point I made about creating a sense of urgancy to make the content seem more compelling. If a developer can’t make a mode that can hold a players interest then maybe it’s not that good to begin with.
I could be wrong since I’ve stoped playing WoW but I’d wager players still do Warsong Gultch and Alterac Valley, Mode that were put in 8 years ago.

I’m well awear of all of this, and that’s why I brought up the HBO Game of Thrones analogy. It’ll work well in the short term, but alinante everybody in the long. Thanks for the post. And your middle ground is compeltely feasible.

Mirta.5029:

cesmode.4257:

Im casual..in that I have only 2-3 hours to play per night, but take my toon, gear, class, experience serious enough where I want to do well.

And i hate living story. Innovative but its doing squat to further this game. Very stagnat right now.

would it be better if instead we had none of the living story and ended up waiting for an expansion for over a year? Expansions content will come any way, whether living story is there or not.

No but it would be better if these small updates stayed. You are defending small updates not temporary content.

Galen Grey.4709:

Serenity.6149:

Galen Grey.4709:

Kaaboose.3897:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

‘(Feel free to sub in any Show/Book/Game/Media/Etc. if you don’t like Game Of Thrones!)’

I would like to insert ‘EastEnders’, ‘Days of Our Lives’, ‘All My Children’ or any other soap opera. They were pretty successful back in the day with that model. =)

This is the only reply so far that brought up any positive light on temporary content actually working! I can see the slogans now: Guild Wars 2! The soap opera of MMOS!

But seriously, Claiming temporary content is good because it makes people play it just highlights the point I made about creating a sense of urgancy to make the content seem more compelling. If a developer can’t make a mode that can hold a players interest then maybe it’s not that good to begin with.
I could be wrong since I’ve stoped playing WoW but I’d wager players still do Warsong Gultch and Alterac Valley, Mode that were put in 8 years ago.

Sure but WoW doesnt release new content every 2 weeks. How many players were playing Warsong or Alterac in the first 2 weeks of MoP release?

I think its only natural to expect players to try new content and if you’re releasing content every 2 weeks essentially you have new content all the time!

I mean think about it, if they’ve kept all the content released in game, how likely would it be for you to play in the mad king’s labyrinth today, or tomorrow or the rest of this week?

I think the quoted poster’s main point was more that the interest in the new content is not being driven by the content being compelling, but by its ephemeral nature. It may be new, but overall it hasn’t been very good.

You actually essentially agreed with him/her, by suggesting (true or not) that few players would actually keep playing the old temp content if it had been permanent. If the content was good, or the motivation was adequate, people would continue playing.

You miss understood me, I didnt agree with him because players would not be playing the old content not because it was bad but because they’d be busy playing the new stuff which is available all the time essentially with a 2 week release window. Not just that but as it was previously suggested player fragementation would make the situation worst.

Lets imagine all content is equally good and equally rewarding (that impossible but lets say its the case for the sake of example) People would equally distribute between all this content. So if you wanted to say play crab toss you’d have a player problem because the vast majority are doing the new content (why would you repeat old content when you have equally good new content?) and for the remaining players some are doing one of the 11 or 12 dungeons, 9 fractals, 1800+ dynamic events, WvW, 6 sPvP maps, some 140 Guild missions, the other 10+ mini games etc.. etc..

lets try to put some entirely assumed numbers so its more for illustration purpose that to prove any point per-se. we can have 500 people per map and we have 25 maps so lets say we have a population of 12.5k on a server to work with. let say 80% will do the new stuff (I think thats a fair amount to consider) that leaves 2500 players. lets say they’re equally distributed between PvE, WvW and sPvP that makes it so the PvE player base to engage in old content is 833 which basically means there is less then 1/2 a player to play each of the above. No matter how good content is there is just too much content for the number of players available when you just have constant content being issued.

Now of course like i said at the start this assume all content is equally good which isnt the case of course. In reality the spread will not be even. World boss events will get a much larger percentage of players then crab toss will etc..

I do think that Vayne has a valid point. Even if all the content was left in a lot of it like mini games etc.. will have a tough time to attract the players. Not because it is bad but simply because the server infrastructure cannot handle the numbers to supply all the content there is with players.

At least in that scenario you can put out a post on the forums, your guild, facebook or whatever and say “We’re organinsing a Big Crab toss tournament at X time! Be there!” Or a guild that likes it could have weekly schedualed games. You can work around thoese problems. A player that enjoys something can always start a comunity (guild) that attracts players that enjoy it as well. That’s MMO 101 right there.

Darkorical.9213:

Imagine if HBO discovered a way to distribute the show that was 100% Pirate proof, and then deceides to run the show a limited number of times over a limited time frame to encourage more viewers. Their viewers are already invested in the show so they figure they’ll make the effort to watch it. Sure enough their viewership would rise AT FIRST. This is because by using this method HBO has stoped new viewers from getting into the show. Why would a new viewer want to jump into the story half way? Can you imagine how hard that would be to follow? Now put yourself into the shoes of the viewers who HAD been watching the show up until that point. What if, for some reason, say holidays or sickness, they missed a few episodes? Now they have the choice of either carrying on knowing they’ll not be able to experiance that part of the show or to stop watching it. Some will inevitablly choose to stop watching. Over time the viewerbase would drop off and in the long term it wpu;d be harmful to the show, Both for HBO and for the viewers.

a way to broadcast their show so nobody could record it and watch it later… thats called the first 50 years of television** . and guess what that did NOTHING BUT GROW people missed an episode they either used their brains and context clues to figure it out or they asked someone, or they waited till the end of the season to see a rerun… and hoped they weren’t watching a soap opera. They didn’t whine and moan because they missed an episode

• 50 years figured by rounding to first broadcast to 1930*** and home recording via vhs in 1980****

---

actually 1928
****while it was possible on some other devices such as betamax, and others dating back to 1968 it was not until the early to mid 80’s when VCRs became popular and standard that people really started using them to record and watch shows later.

By that logic we’ve taken a MASSIVE step backwards. There’s a reason otehr methods of distribution have taken over you know? And i cannot tell you how much I’m praying GW2’s continuing LS won’t be a soap opera but it sure seems like it will!

Gizmo.9178:

I love all this temporary content. Always something new for me to do, buy, or whatever. I do not speed rush through the game so I always have tons of places to explore, items to try and get, and games to play. I hope this does not change anytime soon.

Once again, You are defending NEW content, not temporary content. Why can’t posters here tell the difference?

Draknar.5748:

TheDraco.3965:

Unfortunately they have no reason to stop with temporary content. It’s a minimum work maximum profit model fueled by people buying into rng. It keeps the gears turning and the cash flowing. If you really want to see a change then simply dont buy gems.

Minimum work? Really? I’d love to see your explanation as to how adding entire dungeons, PvP game modes, JPs, voice acted cutscenes, new items, and yes even RNG items and then taking the time to remove them 2 weeks later is minimum work. If anything it requires significantly more work to add then remove content than it requires to add and leave content.

I mean really, please enlighten me as to how releasing the Aetherblade Retreat or the Molten Facility (which everyone agrees were legit dungeons) or Mad King’s Clocktower and other JPs and then removing them is part of a minimum work maximum profit model?

Do you people even think before you speak anymore or do you really just dislike the game so much you will just say anything to make the point that GW2 sucks and the devs are wasting their time releasing new content?

I agree that certain aspects of the game could use improvements, but to say that bi-weekly content releases are minimum work is just plain ignorant and makes me sadfaced

So if they’re putting so much work and effort into this stuff why are they taking it out again? Who is it benifiting?

Galen Grey.4709:

Kaaboose.3897:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

‘(Feel free to sub in any Show/Book/Game/Media/Etc. if you don’t like Game Of Thrones!)’

I would like to insert ‘EastEnders’, ‘Days of Our Lives’, ‘All My Children’ or any other soap opera. They were pretty successful back in the day with that model. =)

This is the only reply so far that brought up any positive light on temporary content actually working! I can see the slogans now: Guild Wars 2! The soap opera of MMOS!

But seriously, Claiming temporary content is good because it makes people play it just highlights the point I made about creating a sense of urgancy to make the content seem more compelling. If a developer can’t make a mode that can hold a players interest then maybe it’s not that good to begin with.
I could be wrong since I’ve stoped playing WoW but I’d wager players still do Warsong Gultch and Alterac Valley, Mode that were put in 8 years ago.

Sure but WoW doesnt release new content every 2 weeks. How many players were playing Warsong or Alterac in the first 2 weeks of MoP release?

I think its only natural to expect players to try new content and if you’re releasing content every 2 weeks essentially you have new content all the time!

I mean think about it, if they’ve kept all the content released in game, how likely would it be for you to play in the mad king’s labyrinth today, or tomorrow or the rest of this week?

Odd you chose Re-occuring Festival content for your example of temporary conentn but I’ll role with it for the sake of example.
It would depend on many things. Is there a guildee or friend that hasn’t been there and would like to check it out? Maybe I’d like to go with him. Is there a crafting material that’s only availbe down there that I might need? I might go there to get it. Is one of the daily achivements to do something in that area? I might go there. Am I feeling nostalgic about the time I nearly died to an army of candy corn monstrosities that didn’t like me mining their unborn children? I might go down there. Did a door to that area just mysteriausly pop up in front of me for no apernt reason? I might go down there…

ColinJohanson.2394:

We’ve said it a few times before, but I want to just re-iterate we’ve heard folks feedback on this and will be doing a much larger mix of permanent, recurring (content that can occur again in the future), and more world impacting releases as it relates to living world in the second half of the year. There will still absolutely be some amount of temporary, in particular story-driven moments to help drive the narrative forward. You’ll also see some of the content previously noted as “temporary” return permanently to the game in the 2nd half of the year.

Three additional notes ->

• As we recently announced, we’re up to four living world teams now, which means they will have a much longer development cycle later this year to build more polished content, and content that can be more impactful.

• The Living World teams are only a small chunk of the total developers at ArenaNet, we’ll be going into details on what many of those other teams will be doing in a blog later this month.

• We also have teams working on much longer term projects, which we will discuss when they are closer to arrival.

We’ve said all of this before, but I think it’s good to just put that message out more frequently so everyone understands where we’re going. Thanks very much for all the feedback folks, as always we continue to listen to your feedback and course correct as we try new things in the live MMO space.

I don’t expect a reply Colin but I can still hope this will be read:

You say you recently went from One team from Flame and Frost, to Four times that amount. You then state that thoee Four teams only makes up a small chunk of the total devolpers at Anet. Where are all these guys coming from? Did you just recently get a huge boost to your staff? Or have you the same amount of staff that have been working on other aspects of the game this whole time?
I only ask because the numbers vs content just don’t seem to add up.
Also being told we’ll see “SOME” of the temporary contnet return isn’t very settling. You’ve stated SOME will be left behind in the past, and that equaled a jumping puzzle.
I’m sure many will jump down my throat for daring to question you after you took the time to respond and I should be greatful for that but, as a custome, i just have to stress that I’m all out of good faith with you guys.
You have so many systems in place already that can inovate the story into a wonderful, immersive and even episodic experiance that are just not being utilised. Promises made in the manifesto almost 2 years ago now that have gone unforfilled are being made again. You can do immersion so much better with events based off player choices (I’ve seen this done in the PS!) and having muliple version of maps for differnt stages of an epic storyline would be far more accessable then temporary content. You’ve already demonstrated with the overflow system how easy it can be to switch from a map you’re on to a map your freind is on. Couple this with a LFG system for reply past parts of the game, either with friends or guildees and you’re already well on your way to a living breathing evolving world that reacts to the player rather then a strick realse date of limited time content to make it seem immersive.
One last confession. I haven’t logged into the bazaar yet, and I’m not sure anymore what my motivation for doing so is supposed to be. Limited time rewards? Well yeah that’s nice but what use are they if there’s no permenent content to show them off in? And how special are they when theres a new trinket to get 2 weeks later? The story? None of the Living Story so far has left any real impact on the world except for the Southsun isle. But that wasn’t because of me, that was because of the world. I didn’t have anything to do with that. The game would have carried on quite well without me.
Remeber when Ree Soesbee said thatMMO’s had lost the ability to make the player feel important? That’s what I feel a focus on temporary living story is doing.
I’m all for inovation, And you manifesto is what made me SO into Guild Wars 2 and has kept me going all this time but you seem to have forgoten you wanted to make a game for the player.
Guild Wars 2 just seems to have become a game that wants the player to work for it.

Morrigan.2809:

Mirta.5029:

Kaaboose.3897:

I’ve gone over how Anet could make the world change based on a players actions by merging PvE servers and creating different versions of each zone based on the progress of that players personal/living story

Not really. WoW did it and it prevents people from actually playing together because you’ll be on a different layer than your friend depending on progress. And you are the same guy! The guy that was complaining for months now!
Must make you sour to not be the targeted audience. Don’t worry though, we’re all sour at some point. I’m still sour about Bioshock Infinite, Mass Effect 3 and The Sims 3. It’s best to get a game you like and not look back at the ones that hurt you.

Add Dragon Age 2 and Dungeon Siege whatever after Aranna to the list.
Don’t mention Sims 3- the Sims are dead to me do you hear :P

OT: Temp content is not harming this game- you may not like it but it is a very innovative way to deal with people who blaze through content in two weeks and then cry here that they have nothing to do.
How long do you think an expansion will last those types?
If I recall the first 80 were around even before the official launch day.

The rest of us can take it/ leave it /enjoy/ignore it and still be assured that if this particular update does not interest you the next one might.

Re-read what you just typed. “How long do you think an expansion will last?” It will last as long as I take to finish it.
How long do you think temporary content will last? “Until Anet takes it away”
I COULD take it/ leave it/ enjoy it as I saw fit but I can’t because they ARE TAKING IT AWAY. You are defending regular content updates (Which have plenty of positives vs negativea) not temporary content.

Mirta.5029:

Kaaboose.3897:

I’ve gone over how Anet could make the world change based on a players actions by merging PvE servers and creating different versions of each zone based on the progress of that players personal/living story

Not really. WoW did it and it prevents people from actually playing together because you’ll be on a different layer than your friend depending on progress. And you are the same guy! The guy that was complaining for months now!
Must make you sour to not be the targeted audience. Don’t worry though, we’re all sour at some point. I’m still sour about Bioshock Infinite, Mass Effect 3 and The Sims 3. It’s best to get a game you like and not look back at the ones that hurt you.

No, The system I propose, WHICH ALREADY EXISTS IN THE GAME, works around that.

Vayne.8563:

Kaaboose.3897:

Vayne.8563:

Congrats. You win the award for the most disingenuous post of the year.

And congrats on winning the award for the most pig-headed post of the year.

You can’t compare a single MMO with let’s say a TV series or a movie.

Defaince

As I said, Guild Wars 1 was a successful game with 7 million copies sold. When they came out with Factions they split the player base and found it a problem by their own admission.

I don’t see WoW creating an option that takes people out of their game? I don’t know many MMOs that have done it.

So WoW expansions don’t count but GW1 expansions do?

Maybe you should try some pertinent examples, next time.

And maybe you should practice what you preach.

Factions wasn’t an expansion. WoW expansions don’t count, because they are exactly what I’m talking about. Factions was a full game where you started a character from level 1. The only true expansion for Guild Wars 1 was Eye of the North, which came after both Factions and Nightfall. Because Factions and Nightfall were stand alone games, they divided the player base. Anet said, not me Anet, that they would only do expansions like Eye of the North, but they’d never do a game like Factions or Nightfall again because it divided the player base.

In WoW, you have to play through game 1 to get to game 2 to get to game three. The entire playerbase eventually ends up at end game and much of the rest of the game, on most servers, is pretty dead.

Maybe you need to do more research before commenting.

So the extra features and classes that game with that game did not count as an expansion of content in the Guild Wars 1 universe? But that’s besides the point anyway as I don’t recall anybody mentioning they wanted a ‘stand alone’ expansion to GW2 anywhere in this post.
Temporary content Vs. Permenet content was the crux of this post, Stop trying to derail it. The type of expansions in GW1 doesn’t matter as all were permenent additions to the game.

Mirta.5029:

Kaaboose.3897:

I’ve read all of the replies and all of the views and examples that have been given can be applied to new content that then stays in the game. Why must this content then be taken out of the game for any of these examples? Why can’t new content just be added to the Personal Story? Imagine if your personal story was on a limited time basis, Would that make it more immersive? Or more importantly would that imersion be worth excluding players that missed it in its timeframe?

are you the same guy that I had an unbelievably long discussion with on youtube?
Temporary content can not hard GW2 in any way.
Best case scenario: it’s seen as innovative, attracts loads of new players, other companies start to copy.
Worst case scenario: temporary content is still done, but Anet needs to release an expansion to survive.
And like I already told you the novelty of permanent content wears off. Plus it just looks odd. Sort of what we have with Zhaithan – how many of us beat him in our personal stories? A lot. But a lot of zones still work under the assumption that he is alive, which is odd. Now look at Aetherblades, we had 2 weeks to solve the crime and we solved it. The world has changed.

I’ve gone over how Anet could make the world change based on a players actions by merging PvE servers and creating different versions of each zone based on the progress of that players personal/living story.

With this system in place they could cater to everybody and have the world react to the player rather then an in game clock/

Faux.1937:

Kaaboose.3897:

Chicho Gosho.6507:

Also don’t forget ANet said the LS so far was a test and i also remember that in the future they’ll add permanent stuff also.

I probably should have mentioned that this post was brought on by anets newest video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK6GK3bxGuk
And while they did mention they’d be adding permenant content they stress that they’ve already added lots of permenent content in the past. So I’d wager we’ll get more o f the same mix of Permenant Content Vs. Temporary content that we’ve seen so far.

That video, the 1st Ive seen and Im glad I watch, basically says not all the content in temp and they will have new perm content with mix of temp conent…. now im happy.

Yes but it’s a side note at the end of the video after going into detail how they will be expanding the living story with 4 seperate teams all the same size of the Flame and Frost team (which took 3-4 months to come out.) So how exactly are they going to be adding all this living story conent and permenent content?
Maybe the same way we wouldn’t be swinging a sword over and over, or how that boss we killed wouldn’t be respawning 10 mintues later, or how your actions would be effecting the world around you in a very permenet way…

My ranger build runs full Celestial is Spvp and Celestial/Rabid in PvE. Works a treat but it’s not exactual your usual build.

Went over all of this in detail a few weeks back in this:

I don’t think dodging itself is the problem but as AntiGw said: “It’s an issue with any mechanic that allows one tactic to be used in all situation”
And I must say I was happy to see so many zerkers die so horribly in the AR dungeon.

Chicho Gosho.6507:

Also don’t forget ANet said the LS so far was a test and i also remember that in the future they’ll add permanent stuff also.

I probably should have mentioned that this post was brought on by anets newest video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK6GK3bxGuk
And while they did mention they’d be adding permenant content they stress that they’ve already added lots of permenent content in the past. So I’d wager we’ll get more o f the same mix of Permenant Content Vs. Temporary content that we’ve seen so far.

Vayne.8563:

Congrats. You win the award for the most disingenuous post of the year.

And congrats on winning the award for the most pig-headed post of the year.

You can’t compare a single MMO with let’s say a TV series or a movie.

Defaince

As I said, Guild Wars 1 was a successful game with 7 million copies sold. When they came out with Factions they split the player base and found it a problem by their own admission.

I don’t see WoW creating an option that takes people out of their game? I don’t know many MMOs that have done it.

So WoW expansions don’t count but GW1 expansions do?

Maybe you should try some pertinent examples, next time.

And maybe you should practice what you preach.

Faux.1937:

But your not watching a NEW show this is still the same show.

Marge:: How many times can you laugh at that cat getting hit by the moon?
Bart: It’s a new episode.
Lisa: Not exactly. They pieced it together from old shows, but it seems new to the trusting eyes of impressionable youth.
Bart: Really?
Lisa: Ren & Stimpy do it all the time.
Marge: Yes, they do, but when was the last time you heard anyone talk about Ren & Stimpy?

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

‘(Feel free to sub in any Show/Book/Game/Media/Etc. if you don’t like Game Of Thrones!)’

I would like to insert ‘EastEnders’, ‘Days of Our Lives’, ‘All My Children’ or any other soap opera. They were pretty successful back in the day with that model. =)

This is the only reply so far that brought up any positive light on temporary content actually working! I can see the slogans now: Guild Wars 2! The soap opera of MMOS!

But seriously, Claiming temporary content is good because it makes people play it just highlights the point I made about creating a sense of urgancy to make the content seem more compelling. If a developer can’t make a mode that can hold a players interest then maybe it’s not that good to begin with.
I could be wrong since I’ve stoped playing WoW but I’d wager players still do Warsong Gultch and Alterac Valley, Mode that were put in 8 years ago.

I’ve read all of the replies and all of the views and examples that have been given can be applied to new content that then stays in the game. Why must this content then be taken out of the game for any of these examples? Why can’t new content just be added to the Personal Story? Imagine if your personal story was on a limited time basis, Would that make it more immersive? Or more importantly would that imersion be worth excluding players that missed it in its timeframe?

Lily.1935:

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/when-difficult-is-fun

Arena Net needs to watch this. You can literally do nothing wrong in this dungeon they set up and get killed for it. most of the stuff you have to avoid is cheep and memorization, not actual visual ques. Watch this and tell me how much arena net gets this so wrong with this dungeon and so right with molten facility.

That deserves a post all on it’s own and REALLY shows exactly what is wrong with GW2. Why isn’t the learning curve gone over in the leveling process?

I made the 15 mintue time limit with a pug last night. And we were mostly a condition based group! I brough my Healing/Condi necro, Converted and sent back a LOT of her bleeds, We had a few deaths, but we also had a theif who brought a stealth so we were able to res them back up quickly! We missed quite a few blue cricles as well! At the end we made it with 45 secconds left on the timer.
I’ve heard so many say you need zerker for that but I gotta say conditions worked wonders!

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

As I said on Twitter, the axe isn’t available at the moment, but it will be in the store in the future.

Please make it a chainsaw!

generalraccoon.3857:

I just tried the new dungeon for the first time last night with a few other first-timers and one person at least who did it before once, and first off let me say… we didnt finish it. We reached the last boss ( and in fact was almost at the end of that fight), tried a couple of times… no, scratch that… we tried a LOT of times, but we had to call it in the end because ppl had RL stuff to handle.

Where the group mostly died is at the last cannon phase when fighting Mai, and let me tell you after that she aims to punish ppl rez-ing others severely. Most of the time 2-3 of us would be downed in that last cannon phase leaving me(warrior) and another guardian usually left standing to try rez the rest, which is tricky.

Spent hours in there, and didnt finish so I’m just gonna say this….

This dungeon is just awesome! Seriously. Like my guardian friend told us, it really really does push you to further understand ur own character, and despite the loads of wiping, i found that im eager to keep trying. I got 12 achievements already for the mini, but really i dont care. i wanna try this again. and again.

it’s a shame that im seeing so few requests to run this dungeon, it was a bit hard getting groups for it (most ppl did it early, but i opted to do it on weekends) and not many want repeats. I dunno, there are dungeons that i swear im just fed up of doing despite not being as hard, but this one makes me feel like coming back for more. hoping to see more of this kind of stuff, really!

Odiex.5971:

Waste of 2 hours for me. I have more important things to do with my time than to run around getting beat up by a boss I can’t damage. Lord forbid I try and help a downed team mate. It can be tough without dieing 20 + times to get through it. You seem to have thrown away many of the game play that made GW 1 so enjoyable and more respectful of my time. Hard is one thing but banging my head against a wall is another.

If you want to res people on the bosses in here you really need to bring res skills. Either that or some sort of imunity (Signet ranger invulrabity works!) because otehrwise you are just going to get yourself killed!
And let me say that’s a good thing. I’ve NEVER used a res skill up until this dungeon.

Ojimaru.8970:

HyJinx.4896:

and as far as that golem not taking damage just use condition damage when its not shielded and it will suffer the damage from it while it is shielded… keep that up and they will fall over dead easily

ZOMGWTF Condition damage finally being viable in a dungeon scenario! No wonder people are crying.

Yeah! I lvoe all the advantages condi dmg has over direct dmg in here!

Shadowtech.5071:

Third phase of Frizz with golems pull and pushes make this dungeon impossible for casual players and you all know it. It’s not fun, challenging, or rewarding. It is downright unfair. Not every has class a good source of stability or condition removal. Nerf the golems pushing and pulling abilities is all thats needed for the dungeon to be good to go.

Someone is probably thinking learn to play/know the mechanics of the dungeon. I just want to say I DO.

Last Boss takes forever to do, their is no reason why it should be so time consuming. Just kitten shorten it?

If I see one more bring guardian/mesmer suggestion I’m going to lose it.

It is FUN for us and you ARE bad and WE know it.
Look I’m sick of people complaining about thoese golem pulls and not learning how to deal with them
Forget stability, Forget dodging Just PREPARE for them.
Don’t stand close to the center of the room because if you do you are ASKING to get pulled into the beams. STAY ON THE OUTSIDE of the room. That way if you get pulled it won’t be into the center and certain doom. Also STAY ahead of the beams and keep moving. If you just want to stand on top of a box with the first low lazer then expect to get pulled down.
Use the second phase (Slow large lazer wall) to get you group together. Stay on the OUTSIDE of the room and stay CLOSE to the the wall moving AWAY from you. If you get pulled and need to make up some distance use swiftness or move a LITTLE closer to the center of the room briefy.
For the final phase (Both Lazers) stay close to the slow moving wall (moving away from you.) When you see the faster lower wall closing in jump up onto a box, and JUMP towards it to fling yourself over it. If you get pulled while doing this you’ll be pulled right over the lazer and be just fine. Get back to the slow moving wall, dpsing on the move as you do.
Just keep following that pattern and you’ll have it done. Even if you’re the only one left alive.

Shpongle.6025:

Shathron.5790:

Shpongle.6025:

Here’s the thing. If it’s hard, I get tired and bored of it and I stop doing it.

If it’s easy, It’s fun to me and i can repeatedly do it for hours, days, months(like cofp1 farm).

I guess we’re just 2 different people, and i believe there’s just as much people in my camp as there is in yours. Problem is that the content currently in the game caters a whole lot to the people that like things easy, i think they should try to balance that out more. This dungeon is a step in that direction.

The best solution would of course be a global difficulty setting, I’ve suggested implementing it as an extra-downscaling slider since downscaling is already in the game (hence should be fairly easy to implement). If people must have extra rewards for extra difficulty (I’m personally seeing the challenge as a reward in itself, but i know some people aren’t satisfied with that), then i guess a category of achievements with some titles would be ok. As long as it’s not rewarded with gear or aesthetics because then people will feel forced to do it.

A difficulty setting has been in games since the very beginning of gaming, and it has almost never granted any additional rewards, i don’t understand why MMOs frown upon the idea so much.

Fractals of the mists has that. Very challenging after lvl 30

No fractals is just 1 shot BS that encourgaes DPS> all. It’s not fun or engaging in the least. Plus you need to run the palce 30 times to even reach that level of difficulty. As much fun as Diablo 3.

Ran with a healing based Ele (Scepter/dagger with dwyana runes) a Confusion based warrior, a pistol engy, and a Greatsword/Staff mesmer (Clone bomber.) I’m a Hammer guardian with scpter/focus offhand. We got golem boss down first go (I was the only one that had done it before so I described what to do.) and it took us 5 goes to get the final boss (My last pug gave up.)
BTW 3 of the players with us had barely played GW2 in the last 2 months. Then again maybe THAT’s why we had so little trouble. They’re not acustomed to facerolling everything.
If this dungeons is imbalanced for anyone it’s the zerkers.

I think defiant stacks should fall off natuarally over time as well as being able to be stripped. Also it wouldn’t hurt that after triggering defiance it took say 4 seconds for the defiant to re-activate. Imagine this scenario:
“Crap mai is on the otehr side of the room… Wait we all have launch!”
Group chain lauches Mia into the blue ring!

To those upset with Defiant there is always the Fix the Guild Wars 2 (Un)Holy Trinity! post. Mad Queen is an avid poster there so I know she already knows about it but I thought some other posters here might want to check it out. BTW Mad, if you don’t like me linking another post in your thread I’m more then happy to delete it.