Guild Wars 2

Big problem for me is that the NPC’s we’re supposed to care for are all dull as cardboard (and I like cardboard). Marjory this, Kasmeer that. Who cares? I want to be the hero along with other players, not to watch some NPC’s run the show.

Well, you can’t blame people for taking declarations of awesomeness with a bit of scepticism. I’m the first to hope that they actually deliver this year, though, since 2013 was a bit underwhelming.

I know, I was referring to the actual event.

Well, IMO if they don’t tie Scarlet up to the dragons somehow, then the whole thing has been a big waste of time. (Jury’s still out on whether or not it has been a big waste of time no matter what they tie her to.)

Well, obviously we’d want an expansion-type update, so I’m hoping for one. But even with the LS I’d say we’re inevitably heading for a confrontation with another dragon.

Oh, and by the way, I’m not so much pro-Evon or anti-Kiel than anti-establishment. I like that when being presented with an obvious choice, the mob can be a bit anarcistic and surprise the powers that be by doing something unexpected. In MMO’s, it would mean Evon winning despite Kiel being the ANet choice or something like killing Lord British in UO.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Also, he’s a charr, and thus has a future as a rug. Or so I hear.

Indeed, did anyone ever see any of the loot Kiel seized and said she was gonna return?

Yet the “unpleasant” loser warns us that he foresees trouble a-brewin’ for LA while the winner focuses on badmouthing him. Class act all the way!

(I was going to check out what exactly Kiel was saying, but she seems to have gone into hiding. Or changed her spot from outside the TP hall. – and I gotta admit they have at least done a semi-good job on writing this election, even though I still think it was rigged from the start.)

OmaiGodman.2098:

Traveller.7496:

Man, check out Kiel’s nasty comments about Evon. First she send me a vitreous mail “thanking” me for voting for her and now this? I never met a more sore winner than her.

What nasty comments?

She was saying something in the effect that even though I didn’t vote for her, she’d work for what I want (and still gave me the wrong fractal) unlike that OTHER candidate.

Man, check out Kiel’s nasty comments about Evon. First she send me a vitreous mail “thanking” me for voting for her and now this? I never met a more sore winner than her.

Did ANet actually admit at some point that the manifesto no longer holds up water and they have moved on to more profitable design models, or is it just read between the lines? I mean, did they come out and admit they no longer wanted to make the game based on the things they felt were important when they released the manifesto?

Exploring zones was the best part of GW1. Those little out of the way – places like Granite Citadel and The Falls were so fun to explore and find. Imagine going to Maguuma stade and finding someone else there, we’d strike a conversation on how we happened to go there at that particular time. (I started playing GTA V a while back and I haven’t gone far in the actual storyline, since exploring is so much fun.)

That’s why I’m so eager for them to open the world for us, I personally don’t need action, events, huge mobs to enjoy a zone. “something to do” and “achieving something” can mean different things to different people. There’s so much lore in GW but they have locked the world from us.

If you ^ think that I only play this game to grind AP and kill hundreds of mobs via LS updates, you are mistaken.

This is the problem with the Personal story – it’s tied to a certain time and can’t change. Even though it would be awesome if Orr would change along the years, we probably cannot have that unless ANet will introduce some kind of phasing system, or simply imply that events in the personal story are actually happening in the past and it’s more of a recap of what happened.

Similarly, none of the characters in the Personal story can ever die (not counting those who die during it). Isn’t that a boring thought?

Reason I’m personally a bit jaded is because back in the day when they announced GW2, we were promised a new game that built on everything we loved about GW1 and made it better. Which is more or less nothing that we got, considering how many of the loved mechanics and features from the original game (and its expansions) are not present. ANet is pushing the Living Story/World instead of expansion-type larger content updates and your mileage may vary, but for me, it’s a dud.

Sure, I can go play GW1, which is the message the devs said as well – basically “We’re not remaking GW1 here”. I’m not naive, so I won’t start ranting on about the manifesto and HOW THEY BETRAYED US, but I do feel like we did not receive what we were promised. The sad thing is I really wanted to like GW2 a lot more than I do now, but ANet is not giving me a chance to. As to “why are you still here”, I still play, hoping it will eventually be more for my liking. Maybe when they get rid of Scarlet…

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I don’t expect the storytelling to be awesome as if it were written by George R.R. Martin and don’t get upset when it turns out to be more like Stephen King.

Stephen King is awesome. I simply wish it would be at least as good as the storyline and writing of GW1.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

You say this like it’s a common occurrence. I haven’t had any non-comical NPCs take credit for things my characters have done, yet.

I’d like you to meet Trahearne and Kormir.

Although I guess we can debate whether or not Trahearne is meant for comic relief.

Great, more characters to steal the spotlight from the player character. Watch us kill Scarlet and these morons take the credit after standing around while we destroy hordes of mobs.

I’m all for same-sex relationships in gaming, but here the level of subtlety is like hitting us in the head with a hammer. It’s purely meant as fanservice for gamers (=men).

I like the Ascended armor, although I just made the chest and leggings for now.

I’d take the old ascended armor over the GW2 version anyday. Back then, there was an actual storyline purpose to get it and a mission to do it in. Plus it was memorable, I mean, everyone remembers getting Eidolon poo and smearing it all over your armor. Who’s gonna fondly think back in 5 years and remember how you had to grind days and weeks to get your miniscule stat improvements?

Maileen.1065:

I was wondering what people think Anet has up their sleeve for GW2 in 2014?

Don’t worry, more Scarlet is already underway.

lordkrall.7241:

Traveller.7496:

I understand you like the living story and wish to speak on its behalf, but this I can’t accept. That would probably be the most disappointing expansion ever.

All these things are permanent additions to the game. And I would say it is quite unusual for an expansion to involve all that and more. Sure they might add more raw area, but when it comes to actual content and features I haven’t really seen many expansions that tops that.

See, most of what you posted are revamps and updates to the core game. Expansions generally add something new. At this point I would consider a good GW2 expansion to add:

- Several new maps which are similar sized to original launch ones. Southsun is tiny! Maybe an expansion could deal with those named areas that are already on the map. Maguuma jungle exp with several new zones? Yes please. Plenty of room on the map over there. What are the major changes? Kessex Hills probably? Add large, open areas, ripe for exploration instead of small, action-packed combat areas!

- Big additions to core game. I would think at current time a major overhaul of the guild system would be such update. Guild halls, guild battles, player housing. Alliances. Updated Guild functionality to make management easier.

- New skills and weapon types for professions. First probably new options from existing ones.

- New playable race. I guess the Tengu are an obvious choice right now, they even have their very own starter zone available.

I’m considering an expansion as a big content pack like GW1 “expansions” (which were more or less standalone games). Fractals I will admit is a expansion-type addition, and account wallet is a good update.

But if we assume everything you mentioned was packed into one, added as permanent content and charged the same price as the original game, I wouldn’t be happy with what I got. Personally I feel frustrated because there’s so much fun GW lore and places to explore and instead we doodle around doing uninteresting stuff with new characters no one cares about and get Scarlet pushed to our faces from every direction. (Heck, if you think about it, the current LS as PS vol 2 would be even worse. It’s literally all about Scarlet.)

(sidenote: ANet pretty much painted themselves into a corner with the personal story demanding a status quo. That’s the reason we’re getting all these new characters and places, because nothing mentioned in the PS can change. )

lordkrall.7241:

Yes, putting all updates together from start of Living Story until now is very much enough to fulfill an expansion.

I understand you like the living story and wish to speak on its behalf, but this I can’t accept. That would probably be the most disappointing expansion ever.

I would assume that we’ll get at least a few LS updates before the final chapter with Scarlet, so all in all I’d expect an end around summer 2014. By that point they have been wasting our time for a year and a half. Wow! Here’s to hoping after that we can get back to the main plot and forget about everything what happened after we beat Zhaitan and that point in time.

You know, I actually said to a friend a while back that they’re probably gonna build Thaumanova reactor fractal around Scarlet, as a joke. I didn’t believe they actually would. Maybe it’s the reason why Kiel won, since they couldn’t work up a believable reason to tie the Fall of Abaddon to Scarlet.

Chrispy.5641:

Does anyone know how long that stuff was actually in the game? Or are we for sure it was this Living world patch? If so, ABOUT TIME ANET! If not,…heh heh heh……, Anet pulled a fast one on you, and no one noticed!

The mentions were not there before last patch, I believe.

They should add a wardrobe system, since it would increase gemstore skin sales. Instead of having to replace old great armor skins (or keep crafting new top stat armor to put the new skins on) you could change appearance with the click of a button. I would think many people would actually be more inclined to buy new skins, since you wouldn’t have to worry about replacing old ones. Have it work like the LoTRO cosmetic tab (stats from the base armor, appearance from cosmetic tabs) and it’ll be great.

I actually felt insulted by the end cinematic. IT WAS ME ALL ALONG! gasp! Why, I never would’ve guessed! The entire Living story plotline consists of Scarlet twirling her moustache at us and saying “I’ll be back next time to tie the girl to the railroad track!”

The fact that we even see her slowly walking away in a cutscene without even so much as trying to stop her is almost like a parody towards all the badly written game/movie villainy clichés, but I’m afraid ANet is actually going for serious here. (Not to mention the end of the cinematic where they want her to be menacing but she just looks constipated. )

If it were a parody, it would be good. If it’s actually meant to be taken seriously, well… it’s not good.

Because feedback and constructive criticism is good, well, at least better than just praise.

I dunno, I’ve lost interest on the game as of this point. All content seems to follow the same formula nowadays: AP grind, huge zerg and stupid Scarlet storyline. I’m just so sad since GW2 had such promise and I wanted to like it so bad, but for me, Living story has killed all the momentum the game had.

I did care in the beginning, but lately I’ve stopped caring. I have no interest to grind the achievements over and over again for some new reward I will rarely even use. Story isn’t interesting enough in itself to keep playing, so I guess I will wait until an “expansion-type” content update until I play seriously again.

btw, I’m against a two-week update schedule, I personally can wait a month or even two if it means we get more meaningful content to do and not just AP grind in a different skin.

Talissa Chan.7208:

According to the dev post in the collaborative – we’re looking at scarlett for 4 to 6 months maybe longer. I’m just walking away.
Good job Anet

Thanks, I read that post as well. It’s good that they’re at least admitting they went the wrong way with Scarlet. But once again they keep promising that the really good part’s coming, honestly this time! I’m not sure if I buy it anymore. But I’m willing to give them another chance, even if they have kittened it up so far. If only to get to that promised conclusion of the Scarlet storyline which BobbyStein promised is coming and maybe we can finally move on to the dragons after that.

However this:

BobbyStein

One of the challenges of the semi-monthly release cycle is that we’re limited in how much content we can put inside each one.

Well stop doing such a tight schedule then! Release more once a month!

Well, at least I tried to make my point instead of just trolling.

I dunno if it’s such a good job by ANet to annoy me enough to stop playing, though.

Oh, please, please, change it back! I can’t stand the flat, dull and lack of contrast/detail on my T3 armor. Why do you have to change things that aren’t broken without telling anyone?

I guess the elephant in the room is that the living world is just not very interesting. Instead of the great lore from GW1, all the locations we wanted to visit and people to interact with, we’re getting new characters, new places and new lore.

Also, if we break it down to event level, the very thing you guys said you wanted to avoid is still there – nothing truly changes. You have said you have created epic, world-changing events. But everything still returns to status quo. Either you need to stop saying you’re changing the world or truly change it. Rewards need to be one time only. Lion’s Arch gets destroyed ONCE. Then it’s rebuilt, eventually. Ogres trash some outpost, you release a new map where it’s a flaming pile of rubble. The scale needs to be bigger. Your attempt is mediocre at this point, either lose it or up the ante.

And yes, making the whole living story emphasis be on Scarlet was a horrible mistake. I’ve lost all interest in all the storylines where she is involved.

There’s not really much to log in for. Just achievement grind.

I think it’s pretty obvious they’re just making stuff up as they go along, despite giving promises about “connecting plotlines”.

I liked Tequatl much more when it was easy. I don’t think open world content should be super hard and require a huge effort of concentration, save that for dungeons (where are the Underworlds, Fissures and Urgoz/Deeps of GW2, btw?).

As long as Scarlet is there you can’t have “serious” content updates. I do wonder, though, if GW2 writing team is saddened because everyone hates pushing Scarlet or did they anticipate it and simply enjoy trolling us. As in, did they actually hope we’d find her interesting?

This is definately interesting. Hopefully it’s not about Scarlet, though. Krait and Dragon corruption? Yes please.

I hear ya. The last few updates have not given me an urge to log in the game at all. Last one I really was enthusiasthic about was Zephyr sanctum, why? We got a new zone, albeit tiny. But the last few – the “huge content updates” they keep advertising are nothing more than achievement point grinds with no real substance.

It’s ironic that they keep saying how they want to eliminate “kill 10 rats” grindy quests but then their entire content is based on same kind of AP grind!

Give me a shout when there’s actually new zones we’d love to see, worthwhile content update and maybe some new elder dragons.

1) Why is the emphasis on Living world instead of more traditional content updates

2) Guild updates (GvG, Guild Halls, better mechanics for guild management etc.)

3) World bosses – you haven’t quite found the right balance – many of them are just super long and boring, some, like Teq, are virtually unfinishable

Vayne.8563:

However, without saying kill ten bandits…and actually driving the bandits off, what you end up with is something that’s more organic that what you find in a regular MMO. It’s an improvement. For some, it’s a huge improvement. I’m one of those.

I don’t think I could ever again play a game with standard questing. At the very least, the standard questing would have to be exceptional.

I agree with you in the sense that they at least tried to do something different, but right now, the staticness of the game world is what kills the momentum of dynamic events. Sooner or later the events will reset and ultimately the world will always return to status quo. If you drive the bandits off for now, you can be sure they’ll be right back 10 minutes later.

The events should shape the world more radically for the system to work. Have bandits take over LA if an event chain fails, make it totally inaccessible to players. Big event chain required to take it back. And what’s more, don’t have these repeat ad nauseaum – if you miss them, tough! A living, breathing world doesn’t wait for all of would-be heroes.

All Tequatl update managed to do in the long run was to delete it as a rotating world boss location. Nowadays only dedicated guilds do it, you have no chance of doing it with a random group of people, no matter how good. Give a bit of time and even the guilds get bored of it and no one ever does the encounter again.

I would gladly pay for a traditional type of expansion instead of living story, but – I’ll leave the back door open – also in addition to LS. (I’m still optimistic they’re making something huge in the background… their all resources can’t be used on LS… can they?)

The best analogy I can make here is that GW2 will be like a Final Fantasy game. Shares same names, locations and concepts, but is fundamentally different than its predecessor(s) and it might even be unfair to expect a full sequel.

Seriously, after I adapted that thought model, I became much less jaded about GW2 failing to meet GW1 expections.

First of all, I do appreciate dev interaction on the forums. I really do. But the opening post, it’s again too much like written by a bot to take to heart. Truly unique, the most exciting, we build worlds together, yes yes so do you and every other company who ever released a press release. I probably sound quite cynical here but I would much rather have the devs give it to us black and white, sharply, honestly – like the OP mentioned!

Secondly, the closing paragraphs of the OP did sound to me like it was the GW2 devs saying to GW1 veterans that the dream is over, manifesto is buried and this is the game we have now – play it if you want, but stop your whining – it’s not gonna be GW1 reborn.

And that’s fine. But define the terms here, be honest if you really mean to say so. I’ve waited GW2 for years and I still play, but it’s not what I expected. I will still have hope, though, that someday it’ll get better, and that’s why I’m here, at least, to share my concerns over a game that I waited for years and wanted to be great. It’s just unfortunate that my and GW2 dev team’s ideas of greatness sometimes don’t mix.

Did it just became the time to love Guild Wars 2 or leave Guild Wars 2?

I personally just don’t understand why they have to keep inventing new lore when they have such rich background of lore already to work on. All the living story serves is to push new people and places instead of expanding on the locations and lore we have waited to see for years.

I’ve been contemplating on the idea of an MMO with no levels for a while and I would like it a lot. You want to go to Orr? Sure, you can. You’ll die a lot, but why not, if you can find your way down there. I don’t see any reason why there should be level gated content instead skill gated ones. In this sense I prefer the good old D&D type of rules – a level 20 warrior has an advantage over a level 3 one, but if the noob gets really lucky, there’s a chance he will beat the level 20 warrior. In the MMO sensibility it will never happen, since levels, hitpoints and character points limit our gameplay.

It already takes a lot of suspension of disbelief that your character is a totally blank slate when you begin – we literally don’t have ANY skills of any kind. It only works in GW2 for the Sylvari, who literally are born right after we finish the character creation. What have the other race characters been doing? Leading very sheltered lives?

FenrirSlakt.3692:

Traveller.7496:

How exactly do you “love” the new path when you say it’s not worth the time you put into it and you don’t plan to do it more than once?

It’s what some people like to call ‘Fun’.

Crazy, right?

It is kinda crazy. I’d understand if he said he hated it.