Guild Wars 2

Champ farming needs a nerf along with material requirements for everything like ascended.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Carelius.1430:

minbariguy.7504:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We are committed to quality not quantity.

Perhaps it would have been more accurate if I’d stated that you were prioritizing release dates over quality. I get that you guys have every intention to release quality content. You’re all very passionate and committed to what you do, and you obviously want to create things that people enjoy.

However, allow me to make an observation. I’ve noticed that when you discuss future content or features (other than Living Story), you never commit to a release date. My understanding was that this is because game design can be unpredictable: things change, features may not work exactly as you intended, bugs may pop up, or it may simply take more time to polish a feature for release than you intended. And you don’t want to release content before it is ready, hence…you never commit to a release date.

Except for when it comes to Living Story.

Suddenly, every two weeks, just like clockwork, there it is. Right on schedule. How, then, can it be that your priority is on the quality of the release, when you are committed to releasing it on a specific date no matter what?

If you are saying that you now have the ability to make sure that content is ready by a specific date, then surely you have the ability to commit to dates for all your releases (not just Living Story). But of course, we know that this isn’t the case.

So while you may want quality, it certainly isn’t your priority. It can’t be. Not on a specific release schedule. It’s impossible.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

This said there is a lot we can and are doing to meet concerns regarding the cadence and really polish the positives we have already achieved in this area.

I would be really interested to know what you guys are doing to meet my concerns regarding the cadence. Because I honestly have no idea how you can do that while simultaneously stating that the cadence will continue unaltered no matter what any of us says.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

The cadence is something we discuss frequently. We are a very collaborative team and do our best to never sweep anything under the rug (-:

I’m curious as to what these discussions are like. When you are having these discussions, does it ever come up that many people are vigorously opposed to it? Or is it the impression of the team that the current cadence is both popular and desired? If so, do you have any metrics to back this up?

Finally, a simple question:

Why are you unwilling to adjust the release cadence? What is the reason that it must continue, no matter what anyone says? Can you at least help us understand that?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. This right here – especially the last question. The sad thing is we’ll never get a real, honest answer. Right now this thread feels like a PR stunt. I hope I’m wrong.

I think it’s money. Every new LS there is Gem Store items linked to them. Most of all the Black lion clam tickets. I’m willing to bet Black lion keys make up the bulk of money that the game brings in. You get 1 from doing you PS if I remember right. And I have had one drop in the world the whole year I’ve played the game, and in my build of over 200 I think, I’m one of 5 people who have had them drop in the world, not from opening a Black Lion Chest.

Not that I will take your answer for grail, but if it did turn out to be money, then thats all I need to know about the game going forward. It would be deleted off my computer and erased on my ‘watch list’.

Quality should always be > quantity. And quality definitely > $$ if you want to win over the loyalty of customers.

Id like to hear Chris’s, or any developer’s, thoughts on Phasing. Blizzard adopted this technology and technique years ago so it isnt a new concept and Id be surprised if you dont have the tech or expertise to pull it off.

Utilizing phasing could solve some of these issues.

For example, a player leveling could experience the wolrd, for example Kessex, as it was originally. Once he hits 80, via some quest line or something kessex turns into what it is today. To solve the issue of undead minions and the zhaitan talk in Orr, once your character has defeated zhaitan, these things change. Friendly NPCs no longer talk about if they can defeat zhaitan. They chant that they have! And the number of undead minions are reduced because you have defeated their master.

Thinking about phasing further, I cannot imagine why it isn’t utilized especially in a game like GW2 where open world content and dynamic content is the core.

SirMoogie.9263:

cesmode.4257:

Ive seen his post pop up many times in threads. What Ive always wanted to say in response to that was that I am not sure a big deal was made about the additional dynamic events that they installed.

I don’t think Anthony is completely wrong though. I don’t think most players would return to events even if they were more impactful, like you and I both want. Call me cynical, but I think most MMO players like collecting things (e.g., achievements and loot), gathering riches, and empowering their characters. So, even if they added consequences to dynamic events and incentivized them with better loot, I think the majority of players would still take the path of least resistance. Trackers would pop up for whatever farm chain proved to be most efficient and the zones that unfortunately didn’t make the cut for that farm chain would die off. I can even see it causing conflict, like in my Shadow Behemoth example in this post ¹.

Thoughts on handling this problem, if you agree it is one?

¹ – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Collaborative-Development-Topic-Living-World/3129259

Oh dont get me wrong, I completely agree that it is a problem and possibly an un-solvable one. Before any CBT and after reading how content would be handled in GW2 (via DEs) I wondered this very topic. How will arenanet solve the problem of human nature? We will find the easiest and most lucrative path(s) and run them into the ground, ignoring all of the long or difficult events. I knew this would be a problem before the first CBT. I had hoped, or maybe I trusted or expected that Arenanet had a solution. Apparently not, because it runs wild in all areas of the game.

I dont know of a solution. Taking your Shadow Behemoth idea a step further: Should we fail to prevent him from being summoned, what if he wasn’t stationary? What if he then began roaming town to town destroying the towns in Queensdale. Im sure there will be incentive to stop him and defeat him, at least from the low level players. They need those heart events and NPCs!

Now you would factor in the eventual zerg train, and again, this is where things get tricky. How do you stop the people, who have no vested interest in Queensdale burning or if it survives, from “exploiting” an event for profit…maybe slowing it down so that they can milk every ounce of profit out of it?

Maybe the solution to this is not in the events itself, but the elsewhere. I hope Arenanet is not naieve to think that their game is devoid of grinding. Excuse the stereotype, and I mean to offend no one, but side from eastern MMOs, it is the most grindiest western MMO on the market today. Thats not even my opinion. Ask anyone on these forums, ask anyone on fansites or in map chat. Grind is a lot heavier in GW2 than in a game such as WoW or Rift.

So how is grind and these DEs related? Well, if you didnt require an obscene amount of gold to purchase a pre cursor off the TP(because chances of finding one via chest or drop are practically unheard of), maybe there is less need or value to having a lot of gold. Less reason to make sure you have mounds of it. Less incentive to grind mindlessly.

Im just thinking off the top of my head and I have nothing to back up the previous paragraph. But it is something to think about. Reduce the amount of grind(for gold and materials) in the game and I wonder if the zerg like mentality fades away a bit, thus making designing these dynamic events and thus Living World much easier.

Food for thought…

SirMoogie.9263:

cesmode.4257:

I second this. I see more of these types of success/failure scenarios in the early zones and less as you move through the rest of the world. I think you could do the game wonders if you would add more layers of success and failure.

I third this. However, Arena Net has commented on their dynamic events prior to this:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

We are listening. Not only to what you’re saying but also to what you’re not. The very first living world team actually did the thing some of you have called for. Some 40 or so permanent events were added around the game in our very first content update. They were met with little interest or fanfare. Granted, Halloween may have stolen the show. But those events are still in the game today. I’ve seen very little reaction to them, however, positive or negative.

Ive seen his post pop up many times in threads. What Ive always wanted to say in response to that was that I am not sure a big deal was made about the additional dynamic events that they installed. Im guessing they were tucked into the game in various places where people would stumble upon them randomly and not notice that they are new events. Honestly, if you ran through a zone that you might have been to only once, what are the odds that you experienced all dynamic events in the zone(other than maybe queensdale and maybe kessex where the DEs are easily repeated)? Theres a fat chance that players just didnt recognize a new event.

Regardless, did they simply add a bunch of DEs, raced to the forums to see that we were not posting about them and determined “Oh, well they dont like it, lets move onto something..hmm I had an idea. a Living world!!”

Also, Im not taking about adding NEW dynamic events. But even re-working old ones to make success or failure impactful. Have both of the outcomes kick off a chain. Not necessarily create entirely new DEs with their own mini stories, but add onto existing DEs too.

Tongku.5326:

Improvements I would like to see in the living story:

1. Design content requiring other then 30 30 x x x full zerker builds.

2. Increase the time to complete the metas to 3-4weeks, instead of 2 for casual players etc. While I do not have any issues completing these, I know many people that do.

3. better rewards, so far in whole living story best rewards were from completing of the Karka event back when south sun got implimented and Orr ember farm. Have not seen anything coming anywhere close to that since.

I can agree with this. And I definately agree on first point, which I don’t think has been touched on much in this thread.

If you build content that enables zergs, you don’t need anything other than zerker builds. Objective: Kill. Thats it. Theres hardly any risk if you are in a sea of players. I too would love to see content that encourages other builds, support builds, condition removal builds, etc.

Good point.

I think I have deciphered what the living world truely is.

It is all that would be embodied in a traditional 6month+ content patch or expansion, broken up in 2 week bits. Whatever issues anyone may have with the various parts, and even I have issues with what I am about to list, it has story, polish, dungeons, changes to the world, QoL enhancements, etc.

Now, the problem that this version of Living Story/Content patch has that traditional ones do not, is that everything is so broken up, disjointed, and it just feels like they are doing 2 week patch jobs to the game.

Normally in a game, for example, WoW you can log into the new expansion and experience everything the new content has to offer at your own time and pace without feeling rushed. Do whatever you want. You literally have months to do it. With the 2 week speed, its do or die. Do it, or go home. Experience the content or miss out. Its a completely negative experience.

Yes, we get it for free, but the entire game is free. The whole ‘its free content’ argument is invalid because the entire game is free. And it is hardly free when ~1 of people get the drops needed for items that are otherwise purchased via the gem store. So yea, its free…but so is the rest of the game. And everything that you may want is either highly rare drop or purchased on the gem store. This argument about free is invalid.

Just take a step back, compare the last dozen or so LS updates to a traditional 6month+ content patch or expansion.

I just think LS is a traditional content patch that is masked by a faster release schedule. But I think it is backfiring.

timmyf.1490:

Atlas.9704:

Then what about elements of after effects? Will they have a pay expansion for a “clean” Orr?

Edit: I dunno why I’m putting down the word “Pay” maybe its because when I hear the term expansion that always comes to mind.

I doubt we’ll ever get a “clean” Orr… at least not Straits/Malchor’s/Cursed Shore.

I could see a Living Story update where we push into Arah (on the ground) and it’s clean.

This is exactly why we need new areas without the Personal Story: we could conceivably defeat a dragon and see its minions disappear.

Sadly, arenanet could script in a big nuclear bomb that is dropped from an Asura airship and level the area. Theres hardly any farming going on there, people only zone in every once in a while to complete a temple event and even thats rare on many servers. Other than to map complete, its borderline pointless to ever stop foot in Orr. Why run around Orr frustrate yourself with knockdowns, cripples, immobalize, etc when you can run around queensdale or kessex now, with ease.

Nike.2631:

nopoet.2960:

As a complete aside, I would love to see some experiments in dynamic events where failure doesn’t stall the event but progresses it in a different direction.

BobbyStein.2315:

Interesting idea. Can you provide an example of how you would imagine it working?

Its in the game NOW. And it represents some of the best the DE system has to offer.

The pump house/waterworks in Queensdale. Bandits assault it with bombs. If you fail, it launches a new DE where you make repairs. If you succeed, the pump house is safe, but is potentially subject to the to toxin line of DEs (and visa versa). The two lines never overlap (You don’t have to stop bombs while there are oozes running amok), but they create tangibly different outcomes for winning or failing.

The single best investment of energy you can do to make the world Living (as opposed to a Living Story) is to layer on more and more DEs with branching pass/fail interdependencies so that even 6 months later, I can wander through say Mount Maelstrom, and while the geography is familiar, there things going on I’ve never seen before. And if the DE pass/fail states actually radically alter the landscape, even better. And its work that endures – its there to entertain first time new players and to enchant and surprise veteran players out for a stroll.

I second this. I see more of these types of success/failure scenarios in the early zones and less as you move through the rest of the world. I think you could do the game wonders if you would add more layers of success and failure.

Honestly, when I first looked at GW2 many moons ago, I thought that if we had failed an event, such as defend the water pumps from centaurs, they gain a foothold in the zone and their presence in the zone grows. After a short time they launch a new attack from these new footholds on other camps, such as farms and huts and whatnot. If we fail to defend those, they gain more footholds and their presence grows even more. It is up to the community to push back the centaur presence.

That, my friends, is what a living world really is. There is true fear of failure and success. If we continue to fail, heart NPCs and things are unavailable. No, I am not talking about Orr-difficulty unavailable. But you get the idea.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Its not the end of the year yet either….

But they now have 2 months to get in either new skills for each class/weapon combo or the precursor scavenger hunt(which they said might not make it in as promised).

If both do not make it in, god help these forums.

I agree with the OP, 100%

The over arcing problem is getting max level players into a wide variety of zones, such as queensdale, timberline falls, etc. Whats the reason to go there, aside from map completion? So they need to make champs, or something, worth while. Since the zone is a bit easier than an Orr or Frostgorge, people congregate to the easiest and most profitable. Zergs are born. And these people arise.

I dont know of a solution. I just know that this type of behavior is toxic for a game and its reputation. Ive seen on fansites people are already starting to view GW2 in a negative manner when it comes to these things.

This post will be regarding rewards and achievements in LS and is directed at Arenanet if they wish to comment. A few months ago, I had created a thread about intrinsic vs extrinsic rewards and the responses were mixed. Some people would prefer playing content for the sheer joy of it. Some still want their reward at the end.

Arenanet: Where do you stand? I know the PR spin is to say that there is a happy median, but truthfully, where do you stand? Y

ou cannot have a game devoid of rewards, I understand this. But GW2 showers you in reward, whether or not the reward is worth it, and it makes doing anything in the game trivial. I remember when content was released in other games and being so excited to visit the new zones because its new! It was pretty much a reward in itself. I enjoyed the quests, the lore, the ambiance, the setting.. I did not need to be handed minis, achievement point currency, etc.

So, where do you stand? Do you believe that a game should have more intrinsic reward or more extrinsic?

Siobhan.6027:

I wish that more time could be spent developing the LS. I really miss the days of Gw1 beyond content. It had a longer development time but it was always worth it when we got it. This kitten approach doesn’t seem like its going to be good for the game in the long run.

Thats what everyone in this thread is asking for. Take more time in developing LS instead of meeting the 2 week deadline of releases. It feels rushed, unpolished, and void of any real substance, void of any REAL content.

99% of MMO players have played the traditional MMO with traditional content releases. Id say 99% of people have played at least one of the following: WoW, Rift, LOTRO, WAR, etc. In these games, content releases consisted of skill changes, new zones, new dungeons, new raids, new mobs to fight, new story arc, etc. This is what we want. Sorry, but most of us have been conditioned by these types of traditional MMOs and expect more substantial content with content patches(not just bug fixes and QoL which are very nice indeed).

I also feel that the acheivement system being tied to LS is really watering it all down and destroying it. You want to stick to your 2 week cycle? Fine, however, please remove all achievements. We dont need them! We do them because they are there, and because theres a shiny in the end for us. Can you trust us to simply enjoy new content intrinsically? Forgive the example, but if you put chocolate cake in front of a fat kid, he will eat the cake even if he knows its not a good idea. Same thing here. I dont like LS achievements, but I do them anyways. Why? Its there.

Jaken.6801:

So yeah. I don`t really care about the restirctions of: “we can`t say our future plans”, because this is just PR. Saying things like: “we have plans, or we allready discussed it.” doesn`t satisfy anyone, because we heared it again and again.
This goes for all developers here. We like to hear statements about where YOU thought you went wrong. Where you were suprised to here: “hey, the audience doesn`t like what we did.”
You need to show somehow that you think about anything that was said in these threads.
Just gathering feedback and replying with “yes, we can`t disclose any information, but we were thinking about everything you are saying, so everything is good.” is nice and dandy, but aside from “hey we are alive and (might) reading this stuff here.” it is nothing we haven`t heared before.
Righ now it is no real conversation between player and developer, it is an elaborate survey.
Can some developers chime in maybe? Say why they liked certain content, or answer problems that are present?
How about having them give backstory to past events. Explain why they did certain things. What was the reasoning behind the watchknights for example.
This here could be the chance to give us information about your inner workings, about your developement, about the way you are thinking and evolving this beautifull world.

I would really like this collaboration to pick up from both sides, instead of just beeing a aforementioned survey of things you did well and things you didn`t.

I think we need to be appreciative that they are popping in and out interacting with us in this thread and pushing the thread into new directions, such as Colins question about TV vs Video game episodes…Chris’s question of our most and least favorite LS patch. Chris said they will be extending this time to gather all feedback and comment appropriately and they are still developing the game,. Therefor, you cannot expect them to have several posts per page. Their primary responsibility at the moment is development of the game.

With that said, I do agree with you on a few points. A lot of what they say to us, and on fansites and interviews, is PR lingo in my opinion. I’ll recall the Mike O’Brien interview with some fansite(I cannot remember which one) where he was inferring that Living Story is alive and well, people love it, and its ground breaking. Well, people don’t really love it, per say. As evident in this thread. We do it because its there, thats about it. So along with what you said, yes it would be nice to hear a developer acknowledge the mistakes they have made. I honestly would have more respect, a lot more, for a developer if they would acknowledge a mistake, even if it were minor, rather than spin more PR lingo and tout that everything is peachy.

It would be a nice addition to the discussion to hear what LS patches the devs liked and disliked. Arenanet: What is YOUR favorite and least favorite patches, and why? It would be very interesting to hear that!

And lastly, at least we are able to post our thoughts in some form, whether it be forum posts or survey, where the developers WILL be reading it. Heck this thread is created by them, I am sure they are reading it.

Chris, my favorite and least favorite releases:

Putting aside theme’d releases and holiday releases that I feel werent not really connected to the living story very well…

Favorite: Cutthroat Politics. I liked the mini dungeon where we needed to fend off waves. I liked that we could tune the difficulty to what we wanted. I felt like I had the most impact on the game out of all of the releases, via the election. I honestly felt the most relaxed during this patch which is a good thing.

Least favorite: Clockwork Chaos. While this patch didnt introduce the open world zergs that run wild now, and some of the minions were pretty cool looking, I felt this was the downfall for me and led me to stop playing. It was just achievement after achievement, grinding out zerg content for $$, etc. Horrible. I was so minimally engaged, if at all. It took me out of what I enjoyed doing in the game ‘just to keep up’.

And I do not like that achievements drive these patches.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

cesmode.4257:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

gidorah.4960:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We are committed to quality not quantity.

Chris

the hard adherance to the two week release schedule seems to indicate the opposite. there has clearly been releases that just seem unfinished. Cannach’s lair comes to mind of something that left the majority of players thinking the content was rushed out to meet a 2 week schedule. There have been others but that was the one that comes to mind first. I think its ok to just have a balance patch and delay content that clearly isnt ready so that our enjoyment of great content is merely delayed not ruined by clearly rushed release schedule.

Hi Gidorah,

To be clear we are absolutely focused on quality. We feel that we can have both this cadence and high quality and are continuing to work toward this. If we feel that we cannot reach this balance then of course like everything, we will evolve as necessary. This said there is a lot we can and are doing to meet concerns regarding the cadence and really polish the positives we have already achieved in this area.. My point is the current plan is to continue with this cadence.

Chris

Hi Chris,
I have to side with Gidorah on this. You are taking a firm stance on a 2 week cadence when 9/10 posts in this collaborative thread are asking you to slow down the pace of releases. Maybe you are un willing to change the cadence because you have pieces of infrastructure in place, both hardware and manpower, that are designed around a 2 week release schedule and you simply don’t want to undue all of that because it was difficult to put into motion to begin with. Understandable if thats the case, however, the release pace is probably the biggest thing people are harping about in this thread and one of the bigger items on people’s minds concerning Living Story. Thats not a matter of my opinion, I can almost say that as a fact just by reading this thread.

The cadence, for me, is probably the largest issue for me along side of quality of content, which I will touch on. I currently am not playing GW2 because of this and a few other reasons, but am passionate enough to be quite vocal in this thread. Id love to come back, but hearing that Arenanet is taking a hard stance on their release schedule makes me think twice.

At the first least, you should have an internal discussion about it. It would be negligent to simply sweep this one under the rug when it is a top 3 item in this thread(and possibly #1).

Hi Cesmode,

The cadence is something we discuss frequently. We are a very collaborative team and do our best to never sweep anything under the rug (-:

Chris

Thanks for the response. So, if it is not being blindly swept under the rug, one can assume that either the development team simply feels the cadence is doing well and the majority of players like it, or that you have too much invested in it to stop(to which you dont have to go into details here).

I just find it a hard pill to swallow that this is one of the larger, if not the largest, item in this thread and sadly your answer is not something that many of us want to hear. If I could pick one thing to change, it would probably be the cadence.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

The Zerg! This is an interesting problem that we had actually fixed to an extent in an earlier release where we created a meta goal that forced players to split up into groups. I really enjoyed this and the feedback was excellent. Personally I quite enjoy the zerg sometimes in PVE ( I tend to be less of a ‘zerger’ in WvW) but I also really enjoy group play in the open world as many of you have mentioned. I would love to see more of this in the open world

This totally boggles me. Not to be too forthcoming, but are you implying that you fixed the zergy content with the clockwork invasions? The Clockwork Chaos patch brought forth the most zergy content to date, right alongside the Queens Jubilee. After these two patches, which were back to back, I started to feel like GW2 was shifting more toward zerg content than interesting dynamic events.

Everyone is entitled to their likes and dislikes, sure. Myself, and many in the thread, feel that the zerg content is mindless, boring, numb, and grinding. On top of that, I feel that if I am not participating in the ZOTW, I am missing out on a nice sum of money because they have been proven to be one of, if not the most, effective way to acquire large sums of gold for time spent. Therfore, if I am doing anything else other than zerging, I feel like it is time wasted and I should NOT feel that in a video game. This also has led me to step back from the game.

I would implore you to re-think encouraging and fostering zerg content in future patches. Sadly, there is a reason that you see the term ‘ZergWars 2’ appear on these forums.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Another big topic that was raised was Quality of releases. The work we are doing is new to all of us and therefore we are constantly finding opportunities to improve and course correct in a live environment. This relates not only to bugs, but the understanding of the types of content our community enjoys and how much time you all have to play the content. I believe the quality of our releases are improving and will continue to do so as we hone in our own internal development practices and have a better understanding of how the Living World is performing in the live environment.

I think Quality is two-pronged, and should be addressed accordingly.

1. Bug Fixes- Always should be on a developer’s mind and to be honest, Ive never had a problem with bugs in GW2. I see many people that have issues with them, but Ive never had the problems. Lucky me I guess, but my experience in GW2 has been relatively bug free. Kudos to you! (this does not take into consideration exploits in..say dungeons.)

2. Quality content itself, meaning…Is this fun? Is this at the heart of Tyria and GW2? Is this a solid patch? Is this solid story telling? Quality of content is an over-arcing term Im using to describe the entire patch. Many people like mini games, but they are a side activity. Early on, myself and many felt that a lot of mini games were added with these patches, and very little substantial content. Instead of quality content a new perma dungeon or zone(southshore aside because it is, once again, abandoned ), we receive effigy’s to burn, kite boxes to open, mini games, races, etc.

To put it plainly, these patches have felt more like carnivals each time, rather than content patches. I like a good themed patch every once in a while, but when there are mini games added every other patch, or once a month, instead of real down to earth(or tyria) content, it waters down your entire game and honestly, an outsider would take GW2 less seriously as an MMO and more of a 60$ game you can install on your PC that has more mini-game iPhone-app like content.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

gidorah.4960:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We are committed to quality not quantity.

Chris

the hard adherance to the two week release schedule seems to indicate the opposite. there has clearly been releases that just seem unfinished. Cannach’s lair comes to mind of something that left the majority of players thinking the content was rushed out to meet a 2 week schedule. There have been others but that was the one that comes to mind first. I think its ok to just have a balance patch and delay content that clearly isnt ready so that our enjoyment of great content is merely delayed not ruined by clearly rushed release schedule.

Hi Gidorah,

To be clear we are absolutely focused on quality. We feel that we can have both this cadence and high quality and are continuing to work toward this. If we feel that we cannot reach this balance then of course like everything, we will evolve as necessary. This said there is a lot we can and are doing to meet concerns regarding the cadence and really polish the positives we have already achieved in this area.. My point is the current plan is to continue with this cadence.

Chris

Hi Chris,
I have to side with Gidorah on this. You are taking a firm stance on a 2 week cadence when 9/10 posts in this collaborative thread are asking you to slow down the pace of releases. Maybe you are un willing to change the cadence because you have pieces of infrastructure in place, both hardware and manpower, that are designed around a 2 week release schedule and you simply don’t want to undue all of that because it was difficult to put into motion to begin with. Understandable if thats the case, however, the release pace is probably the biggest thing people are harping about in this thread and one of the bigger items on people’s minds concerning Living Story. Thats not a matter of my opinion, I can almost say that as a fact just by reading this thread.

The cadence, for me, is probably the largest issue for me along side of quality of content, which I will touch on. I currently am not playing GW2 because of this and a few other reasons, but am passionate enough to be quite vocal in this thread. Id love to come back, but hearing that Arenanet is taking a hard stance on their release schedule makes me think twice.

At the first least, you should have an internal discussion about it. It would be negligent to simply sweep this one under the rug when it is a top 3 item in this thread(and possibly #1).

CHIPS.6018:

I got to agree that much of LS has turned into a grind. Everyone just grind train to get the item reward to the point that it is no longer fun.

Why an event as difficult as Teq (not really that hard, but let’s assume it is) doesn’t give a mega reward (Ascended items 100% chance) just for completion is beyond me.

I agree it is a grind

And I agree that Reward for completing the Teq event should be a gaurunteed ascended item. Once people have gotten their achieves, back pieces and what not, it sounds like these folks dont return. Why bother?

Nike.2631:

Chris RJ.1843:

So, GW2 players (on this forum) really want to see the waiving of the “2 week release” policy in favor of a more “it’s ready when it’s ready” approach.

I want to vehemently disagree with this interpretation.

Saying “2 weeks is too fast” does not mean “at your leisure”.

A steady schedule is a good thing. Brilliant even. Shifting the cadence to 3 weeks or a month or whatever (and jettisoning the aspect of new content vanishing every few weeks) is rich with potential. Having the next release always just floating out there in the void of “eh, when its done” is not the only alternative to “quit wearing us out jumping through 14 day hoops”.

Id even ask them to take alittle longer. Not only for development time but for our sakes as well.

The supposed king of MMOs, currently, WoW has increased their content patch updates to something like every 3-6 months, which is faster than their own average of 6 months to a year (partly because many other games are releasing content at a more rapid pace).

Arenanet took this a bit too far with two weeks. I think the happen median is one month, maybe two.

Lheimroo.2947:

The point’s been made a couple times that there’s a difference between the pace of story content and the pace we’re being asked to set with achievement hunting. I think that’s very valid. A two week cycle would be less daunting if we weren’t being asked to do SO MUCH STUFF.

Well, no one forces anyone to do anything. But if you like getting the mini at the end, yes it can be daunting.

Personally, I would prefer if they removed all achievements and minis and rewards that you get, and just give us the content.

This enables you to experience it at your own pace without feeling rushed or obligated to earn extra AP so you inch closer to the next threshold of AP reward. And if on one particular day you would rather do, for example, WvW instead of Living Story, you won’t feel like you are missing out on valuable time to complete the LS achievements…you feel like youre wasting time.

For many, including myself, even though we would rather be doing other things in the game, we want to get the achievements done, for the AP and minis(even though I could care less about Minis) and then back to what I enjoy doing in GW2. It is our choice, but human nature compels us to go after that shiny.

Circling back to Colin’s post about TV episodic content vs Game episodic content:

I believe someone already referenced Defiance as an example… While Defiance has its own share of problems(still a very fun game), you could take a page from that book. Granted, you do not have a TV show to work off of. However, you get quests and a quest chain that has narrative and story. You see some action cut-scenes.

With the current iteration of Living Story we get a hodge-podge of the following:
-Notice in the mail system from some NPC saying there are refugees in Southsun
-We go to southsun and participate in DEs, complete achievements, and farm champions.
-We participate in a mini dungeon or a 5 man dungeon that some-what told the story. <— this was the only part that had any story telling to be honest…

Thats about it folks. From the southsun patch, all I gathered was that there was a lunatic sylvari that was making creatures go insane, and there were some squabbles with contracts from refugees. Who is controlling this sylvari? Why has he gone cookoo for cocoa puffs? What exactly made the creatures go crazy? If this stuff was told, I did not see it or process it. Either way, it was a bad job.

With the Defiance episodic content, which loosely related to the TV show episodes, it was short and sweet 10-30 minute missions/quest chains that had nice dialogue frequently giving you more information on whats going on. We need things like that. You guys have done a fantastic job with Dynamic Events in the game and when I hear NPCs bicker back and forth after an event is done, that is awsome! We need more things like that, more even chains, etc. But not necessarily event chains that will give way to enormous zergs. Zergs make the content trivial, mindless, boring, and eventually it becomes a means to farm $$ instead of engaging in the story. This is why I wish the living story would be a bit more instanced or like the personal story.

Its really amazing how every bit of GW2 is some how inter connected. We can go from talking about cadence, tying it it into content, which ties into how you tell the story, which goes back to content that connects to how the content is given to you…

RaM.8523:

---

snip
I don’t know Anet, I got the feeling that for some reason you’re not allowed to introduce new original lore content —-snip

Scarlett, Roxx, etc…are these not new characters? Scarlet’s invasion, some twisted nightmare stuff going on…all of this isnt new lore or story? It may be very weak lore and story, many people including myself will say that. But from what I gather, it is new stuff that was not in GW1.

Correct me if I am wrong, because I did not play GW1, but in my travels along the forums here I have not seen one post about people comparing Scarlet and her invasions, for example, being related to anything that is already in the GW1 original lore.

Again, I could be wrong.

mercury ranique.2170:

Yep, I do think more could be done with Dynamic events, unless this is the maximum extent of their potential?

Here’s a couple of ideas.

Exploring a new map (Crystal Desert), no man has been in there for ages. It’s about time we go in there, but before doing so, we know we’ll need to build camps and such on the other side.. and it’s a desert, so there’s not really any wood or ore around.

Put a dynamic event (gatherer) at the Desert Gate, there you’ll see pack dolyacks, builders crafters, all waiting for The Pact (or another group) to get ready and head to the crystal desert. They need 2 million wood, and 2 million Ore (any type will do). Each server has this progress bar, some can complete them quicker than others. Once they’re filled, the gates open, triggering the next event, until they reach the first camp. (Make a pause, so every server can catch up) at the camp you get some new stuff to do, and explore, until we’re ready to push forward some more (new update).

So just an example, make it so that once the Ressources are ready, the first group there are actually beating the trail, but pack dolyaks, crafters, builders will keep periodically spawning at the gate, and needs to be escorted to the first base camp, because they still need those ressources… So even if you miss that first run, you’re still doing it over and over until the next patch comes out.

So an event like this would last a couple of days/week depending on how good/willing the server is at dumping ressources in it.

This is just an idea, I’m not sure if the event system is acutally able to handle stuff like this.

I like this. WoW did something similar back in the day and it was fun.

Edgar Doiron.2804:

mercury ranique.2170:

So I do think that the living story should be rewarding/interesting for people regardless off playtime, but it should not only serve the people with less time but also those with enough time.

*My suggestion would be to add more rewards. *

Why not reward us with more lore, instead of more fluff.

And more interesting dynamic events, which leads to traditional content updates vs 2-week living story updates…it is all connected. In my opinion, Arenanet cannot look at Living Story without considering permanant content that we are all asking for(in the form of zones, new DEs, etc), because all require certain dev time and cost. All connected.

But I agree, more lore, more story, more interesting content. Less grind, less achievement grind, less zerg, less rewards.

Playing a fun game that I enjoy spending my free time is reward enough and should be reward enough for anyone.

@dragon subtopic: I understand its part of GW history and lore, and that given the choice of fighting Zhaitan or some crazy sylvari lady, Id fight zhaitan. Definately. But if Scarlet had some method at her disposal to do considerable harm to the entire world of Tyria..say, remove…asura from the face of Tyria(just an example), would that be inching closer to being as interesting as fighting dragons?

Edgar Doiron.2804:

After playing the content last night, and seeing comments like this:

2. Don’t tell story via achievements.
4. It’s weird having the rest of the events going on as per usual in the rest of kessex hills. I realize that’s an issue of resources, but perhaps events in the immediate vicinity could be turned off during the crisis.

I think it’s a recurring problem. We get story at the start of an update, then we have the achievements, which brings no story really, and once we’re done the meta, we get another piece of story.

This is precisely the problem with Achievements being part of the living story. They add no story themselves. They give us check lists of things to do, which after several LS releases, becomes a boring grind to get the next mini pet and achievement points. I would love if the living story was void of achievement grinding. Why do we need 10-20 achievements that ask you to run spirit sanctum race 100 times, or carve 300 pumpkins, or close 5 invasions, or whatever. Its pointless. Its just grind and we do not want to do that.

Focus more on the story, more on the reward of experiencing the story and living in the ..living story. Less on the extrinsic reward of achievements, achievement points, meta achievements, minis, etc. More focus on intrinsic. I think we’ll still do the living story eventseven if we are not being showered with rewards and AP because its something new to do!

I actually had a question about this insatiable need for a dragon-centric story from everyone. I did not play the original GW, and while I do like dragon fights because they tend to be epic in scale, why is everyone in love with them? Sure, they are neat, but surely, and arenanet has shown this capability even in GW2, there are other epic villains and bosses to fight. I know as per lore there are certain dragons out there in the guild wars universe. Putting scarlet aside, because I think she is a shell of a villain, would you folks not be happy if the next major villain were not a dragon? If it were some enormous titan or something?

Which brings be to another thought which relates to dragons and a reason why people might love them so much: Dragons tend to be huge which lead to epic encounters and cutscenes. Sure, agreed. But you can have an even more interesting villain in the form of a humanoid such as Scarlett, if she was written better. Take Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2. Arguably one of the better villains in a video game from recent years. His character just dogs you all game, ruthless, belittles you, holds nothing back. In a way, I feel the writers of Scarlet tried to emulate Handsome Jack a bit, but fell a bit short. And then when you do fight him, it is a pretty interesting fight. I think he was well written. If scarlett had more character to her, her form as a sylvari would be completely acceptable to me. Size and form are irrelevant.

What Im trying to say is..Im trying to wrap my head around this need to have GW2 villains be dragons or large and epic in scale. They are fun, but there is no need if the character is well written. Is it because they relate to the lore of guild wars more?

Nice post, and while I still have my doubts and concerns over the future/direction of this game, Id like to extend an apology too. I too am extremely critical of Arenanet because they make bold claims which generate hype that is never lived up to…among other reasons.

Either way, apologies for some critical remarks in the past. Even though I am not playing your game currently and I am not sure if or when I will return, I acknowledge that you are doing your best and doing your best in quasi-uncharted waters. I agree with the OP that the collaborative discussions being had are evidence that you are listening and what to build the game together with us, which is great. I just hope that even if you see overwhelming and consistant responses in those threads, that you don’t sweep our concerns under the rug again and go on with your development direction rendering the discussions pointless. I hope they are taking into consideration.

So here it is: Sorry!

Hey Vayne. I still don’t agree with you on…most anything. Despite differences, you are one of the forum posters I love to spar with(metaphorically speaking) the most. <- As close to an apology as you’ll get my friend!

Yetiyen.7269:

BobbyStein.2315:

*

You’ve completely ignored the biggest problem with the living story, most players WANT PERMANENT CONENT! You’ve got 10 pages of people telling you that they want new zones and more permanent content. Yet you haven’t responded or provided an answer to these players at all. I’m not trying to be rude, but I thought the idea of this thread was for you to listen to the community and provide us with feedback. You still need to address:

1. Permanent content! We want new areas!
(New zones and areas etc.)

2. The pace of the Living Story!
(2 weeks is too fast!)

It would be really appreciated if you could address these issues.

Chris Whiteside said that initially he and Arenanet’s involvement in this thread will be sparse. The fact that this individual gave a two page post as he did, along with a few followups is good enough for the first few days.

He did address pace, but the story pace. As in, the “is the story being told too slowly or too quickly”? He would like to seperate story pace with release pace. I personally view them as related, but that is my opinion.

Give them time to gather the feedback and respond. We as a community love to jump on them the minute they mispel a word or say something that isnt true(I am totally guilty of this, I know). We harp on everything they say, so they want to make sure they get it right.

But, as you said, I do hope they address perma content vs temp content, along with story pace vs release pace, along with fluffy content vs substantial threats to tyria.

BTW, to the person who compared the LS to Power Rangers and Anamaniacs..I couldn’t stop laughing. Because its nearly true!

Anyways, give them time. They will hop into the frey soon enough. If you haven’t noticed, they have hopped in here a small handful of times to stir the pot. First with Colin’s post about our favorite TV show and LS playing out like a TV show, and then with Bobby Stein talking about the time and financial difficulties that come into developing voice narrated story telling vs the bread crumbs we have been receiving.

Ohoni.6057:

Dragons
Guild Wars 2 has a dragon on the box cover. The primary motivation for players on their 80-level journey is to kill a dragon. So yeah, giant, winged beasts are a part of Tyria, they’re core to the game, and we haven’t forgotten about them. That stated, I can’t say when we’ll return to them—only that we will. There is a plan in place.

Look, I get that you guys want to keep some element of surprise or whatever, so if you don’t tell us when the dragon war will continue in earnest then that’s ok, but I hope to God that you guys know, to the date, exactly when you intend to kick off the assault against the next dragon (and I hope it’s soon). More Tequatl-like mini-bosses will not cut it, we need to be actively progressing towards the next unkilled Elder Dragon and off the guy, and this can’t be “whenever we get to it,” it needs to be a major priority event on the development calendar already.

If I were going to predict in August 2012, I would not even imagine that it would be this far into 2013 without even a hint of the next Dragon assault.

Also, while I’m enjoying what you’re doing in Kessex Hills right now, I hate that it had to come at the expense of such lovely terrain. We need more “pretty” zones, less “ugly” zones like Orr, and now lower Sparkfly and Kessex. The world is getting worse, not better. When we resolve this story, Kessex should be as pretty as it was before all of this.

Just my own personal preference, I prefer the opposite regarding zone changes. I would like more permanent zone changes. A dragon sweeps through kessex(for example) and torches everything leaving kessex in a smoldering ruin. Now, we have a whole new bit of lore to play out with the surviving NPCs. New DEs, new hearts, new everything. Arenanet could phase this in so while leveling you see Kessex as it is now. After hitting 80 and picking up a breadcrumb ‘quest’ similar to how you get notified of LS events via mail, then Kessex changes for you. I think arenanet should do some phasing. They should do some phasing with Orr too. Now that zhaitan is defeated for many of us, why are all the minions still chanting his name? Phase the zone so that the NPCs are in a rebuilding mode of Orr. New DEs and everything as a result. This phasing only kicks off after you have completed the personal story, per character of course.

I think phasing should be a part of this discussion.

chemiclord.3978:

minbariguy.7504:

So is anyone from Anet going to respond to the pages and pages of feedback that the pace of Living Story releases is too fast? I feel like we’ve been saying it for months and being completely brushed off. Here’s my take on what’s been happening:

---

ANET: Hey guys, we’re going to give you Living Story updates every two weeks! Cool, huh?

Players: Um…that’s kind of…fast…don’t you think?

ANET: Nah, you’re going to love it! No one else is doing it! We’re unique!

Players: No, really, we’ve tried it, and it’s too fast. It’s kind of stressful actually. Can you slow it down a bit?

ANET: We’re committed to bringing you Living Story updates every two weeks! We’ll continue to work hard to make this happen, even though it limits the things we can do because of such a tight release schedule. But we’re doing this for you because we know how much you enjoy it

Players: No! Just stop it, okay? Please! We don’t like it. It’s burning us out. Are you even hearing us?

ANET: Hey, look at our new web advertisements! They say “Free DLC every two weeks!” Pretty slick, huh?

Players: <…sob!>

One, it’s not “Players”, it’s “You.” You do not speak for anyone other than yourself.

And the problem is… Arena.net TRIED the every month bit initially. Players ground through it in three days and cried for the next three weeks they were bored. They are giving us what the majority supposedly wants.

I question the wisdom of trying to appeal to the content locusts… but at this point, the play time requirements to keep up have not been obscene for me.

Players burning out is entirely a player-side problem. You don’t HAVE to complete EVERY meta event, ya know? You CAN get the thrust of the living story in a handful of hours.

I think the purpose of this thread is to create a constructive conversation about what we personally like and dislike about living story…what we think works and doesnt work. Criticizing someone elses post or opinions is only going to lead to the endless debate that runs wild in the forums.

John.5732:

—snip—

Give this man a medal. He hit every note pitch perfectly. I agree 1000%.

Well said.

@BobbyStein: Thanks for taking the time to write up that post.

Concerning story pace..good topic and thank you for that explanation. Understandable that there is a lot that goes into concept to production. Completely understand. And it is understandable that there are significant financial woes that would go into it, via multi-language translating.

The problem I then have with all of this DOES fall back to the pace of the releases. We the players, from the looks of things around here, would rather have cinematics and story telling similar to our personal stories. They were well told and we were engaged. If your current 2 week cadence is too fast where you do not have the budget to pay for all of the development and translating, then the release pace is too fast. If your budget does not allow you to give us the quality that we want, then your release pace is too fast. If you are having technical issues with having the PC take on more of the hero role without the gap-filler of trahearne in a Living Story setting, then your release pace is too fast.

I for one would rather Arenanet take its time with the story, and give me chunks of it every one, two, or even three months with quality cinematic story telling…rather than crumbs of story telling via a paragraph or two in a mail in game, a sentence or two on my HUD, and a brief dialogue exchange via some NPCs.

Arenanet is now open to soliciting our feedback on a grander scale, as evident in this developer(director) created thread. Take it a step further, give us a poll… 1-3 month cadence with storytelling via cinematic or two week cadence with bread crumbs story telling.

So in short: release cadence and storytelling cadence go hand in hand even with budget constraints. My theme in this thread all along has been this: Take your time, give us quality stuff. Id rather wait than have things shoved in my face every 2 weeks without getting a chance to peel back the layers of the onion on my own time and at my own pace.

Thats the best I can do to explain it.

Thanks!

ColinJohanson.2394:

So a fun question to ask to help direct the conversation a bit: What aspects of your favorite television shows would you think would be cool to see reflected in a game medium?

Interesting question trying to relate TV to video games. And I do like Nike’s response.

I guess you can compare what you are doing with LS to a TV show.

For example: The Walking Dead. Currently, they are in the prison(Lion’s Arch ?) and venture out into the world to get supplies or whatever (other zones).

Ok so the difference here would be that the show is suspensful and leaves me completely hanging at the end of each week. I wonder what is going to happen because the story, writing, and acting are phenominal. The story is well told. With Living Story, it isnt. Im not left with a cliff hanger. Im not in awe over what is being told.

And Nike did hit it on the head. I watch The Walking Dead for one hour each week. Passively watch it. With Living Story, I’ll be engaging with the content interactively. I expect way more than what I get with The Walking Dead, but it is indeed far less. I don’t see a detailed story being told. We continue to get fragments of the story that may or may not be tied together and if they are, they are so loosely tied together than to the lamen you cannot see the connection!

I like the idea of trying to make a game play out like a T.V. show and good idea to direct this conversation to that thought. But when I watch my TV show, I am aware of every detail on the screen because it has a purpose and the dialogue/acting tell the story in such a phenominal way. With Living Story, I had to come to the forums to ask what is going on. Simply put, compared to the personal story, the living story is being horribly told.

And thats not even touching on the other parts of this topic, like content, rewards, etc.

Edit: relating to the story aspect…theres things like caring about what happens to the characters, picking a favorite one or two characters(Daryl on the walking dead is my favorite), hating a few because they are annoying or cruel, really getting to know the setting and surroundings as if you were a part of that show and a part of that family. You develop an emotional tie to everything you see on screen.

For me, and I would assume for many in this thread, this has not happened. I have not developed an emotional tie to anyone in the story. Its boring, the characters are un interesting, the plot is un interesting, there are many vague aspects to the story. Im just not connected to it like I would be my favorite T.V. show. And I loved The Walking Dead from episode one…it grabbed me from the first 5 minutes. After many months, the Living Story still has yet to grab my attention for more than a few seconds.

I don’t want to be too blunt in fear of moderation, but if your aim is to have Living Story be told and unfold the same way as a T.V. show, and you have an audience you are failing to connect with at an emotional level, you are failing.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

I don’t think Phasers would fit in the Guild Wars lore.

Is that a hot glue gun?

BTW phasers would fit in the lore..asura use teleportationZOMG! And robots.

Hi,
I don’t want to be the voice of the community by any means, nor do I wish to take away from the hours of fun you will spend pouring into these posts about what we like/dislike and what works/does not work.. but from reading a bunch of posts in this thread I have discerned the following:

1. People in this thread believe the story is shallow and lacks any substance. It is disjointed and does not flow smoothly. Theres little explanation as to the WHY. Why is scarlet hell-bent on doing what shes doing? We understand that she is doing some harmful things, but why? Little details like that.

2. People in this thread believe that the content is shallow and grindy. People are getting tired and burnt out on the achievement grinds.

3. People in this thread believe that a 2-week cadence is too fast. They believe that the 2 week cadence jeaprodizes the quality of content that the developers have to offer. They feel that the casuals(people that play one or two hours a night) will not complete everything in time before the next update.

4. People in this thread believe that there is too much of temporary content being released. I for one believe that this has been alleviated some-what but it is still running wild in the game.

5. People in this thread believe that mini’s and grind for currency is a poor reward for the time and effort put into rushing to complete the events.

Those are the five large discussions I see going on.

The Master.2893:

…they won’t do it if what they said at the Seattle PAX event how wonderful the current timeline for release is even remote to being accurate.

Why is it so?

The World May Never Know…

Telling the press and fan-sites that your current design direction(in this case living story) is doing splendidly well just because people are experiencing, and having it actually be good stuff are different things. I hope arenanet realizes this before its too late. Before people literally grind them selves out of the game from sheer boredom and checklists and into the arms of another MMO.

As to the topic at hand: Two months would be better in my opinion. Even one month. Once a month was pretty good. Why increase it to twice a month? I had time to do what I wanted throughout the month, not rush to complete XYZ achievements for the meta..and so that I can then grind with the rest of the zergs in the current zergfest living story event just so I can make some decent coin.

2 weeks = bad.
One Month = good.
Two Months = good.
Three months = Getting a little long between updates.

Hi,
I’ve already posted my concerns over living story in this thread but I wanted to add a few things if I may…

I wanted to say that living story does keep things fresh in the game. You aren’t stuck with the same content for months on end. While the frequency definitely needs adjustment, the concept of living story is a great one. There are positives to the concept. It just needs to be executed a bit better.

As someone else in the thread stated… the teams are given multi week cycles to develop this content. I agree with that poster when I say that I just don’t see the quality in the living story lore and content as we have seen with the rest of the game up until this point. You have a phenomenal game here and a chance to take the MMO genre to new heights. The hype machine pre-launch had the entire MMO community buzzing about what GW2 will be. And the living story concept is a bold one. But it has definate flaws that you do not need to be a developer to see. Too little substantial content released too quickly in the form of achievement grinding with poor story telling. Go back to the roots in how you created content and things will improve. I loved the personal stories. I loved the dialogue between NPCs at a camp when we save the town. Things like that is what set this game apart from the rest.

By the way, my previous response and this one come from a player that is currently not playing your game, but is so passionate and attached to the title that he feels it necessary to do every thing he can to make his opinions heard in this thread and hopefully sway some decision making in the hopes that one day, the development direction might shift a bit and he can return to the game that he was so hyped for. Isn’t that the type of player you want?

Edit: One more thing… Its no secret that living story approval is split amongst the player base. People play through the LS because its there and at the end they get rewarded. That doesn’t mean its a slam dunk success. If you feel necessary, don’t be afraid to revert some changes or admit that parts of the Living Story are not going as well as intended and maybe you should re-think some direction behind it. I’d actually have more respect for a developer that would recognize a few flaws than to say that their content is awesome without flaw.

Hi,
I have a few points or opinions Id like to make about Living Story:
(these are my opinions and feelings)

1. The story itself, in contrast to the personal story, is severely void of any substance or continuity. The personal story had a nice ebb and flow. You had nicely written cutscenes that took you from one place to the other both in story and in the world. You knew what your objective was and you really got an idea of what the characters were all about. Currently, we have had some story on molten alliance, upset creatures on south shore, some delegates trying to get to Divinities Reach only to be stopped by some invasion force. Most recently, you had some stuff going on in Caledon regarding more scarlet. I just dont feel the continuity of the story. To sum this up: It feels disjointed and has been poorly explained. Hard to follow.

2. Why does every Living Story event/patch need to come with a dozen or two dozen achievements? It seems that all these patches contain are some disjointed story and achievements. They feel like a laundry list of things to do, almost like a chore. We do them because we want the shiny at the end..the meta-achievement. This goes back to a thread I had created a while ago…intrinsic vs extrinsic rewards. Why can’t the content be intrinsically rewarding? If the content is quality, how come this can’t be the reward, in and of itself? I got burned out of doing the achievements and I bet I am not alone.

3. The cadence, I think is too much for two reasons. 1. I do not feel there is adequate time to complete all that is needed(especially more casual players). You feel rushed. You feel that you need to drop what you are doing, and stop playing how you want to play, in order to experience all of these content patches and everything in them. 2. I feel that conventional and traditional frequency of content updates have been more successful and widely accepted. Typically, 3-6 months has been the conventional frequency where you are trying to push content out the door in 8 weeks development time?(correct me if I am wrong). Maybe more of every month or every two months we receive content updates. That gives developers more time to write meaningful lore and story, more time to test bugs, and we get more with each patch. That gives us as players more time to freely explore the content so that we are not rushed, and once we are done we can play the game as we want to without getting hammered in a few days with more content. Its too much. Overwhelmed at the moment.

3. The substance of the living story updates seems thin and, forgive the term, ‘fluffy’. There are many themed patches, and many patches where a good portion of the content has been mini games. Id like to believe that most anyone would welcome new zones, classes, monsters, skills, dungeons, lore, personal story, etc rather than a few lines of story, some bug fixes, and a temporary open world content or dungeon, mixed in with some mini games.

Currently, I am not playing GW2. I am keeping a vigil watchful eye on it. I visit the forums several times a week, I log in every once in a while to peak around. But I am not playing. Largely because of Living Story for the points described above. Will I return? Maybe. I am currently enjoying other games and other genres. Maybe I will return again to the game, but I hope some development direction changes are able to be seen. Otherwise I fear that I’ll be in the same situation that I am in now..which is quasi disappointed with where the game is headed.

Thanks for your time.

diamondgirl.6315:

cesmode.4257:

Yeah, dont worry about champ trains. Trigger an event when youre darn good and ready. If it messes up the champ train, so be it. If mapchat turns abusive, begin the reports. If I find people being verbally abusive to others who began an event ‘early’…I’ll get in on the fun and start farming my own champs and really mess with their routine.

I do have to say; deliberately being a jerk to punish the two or three people who complained (and incidentally everyone who didn’t), and scattering things on purpose, just because you CAN … that is not exactly the same spirit as the solo guy who is trying to take down champs on his own, and just doesn’t want to get yelled at for it. That might be part of what causes some of the bad feeling surrounding out of rotation kills.

Guild Wars 2 playerbase is toxic, what can I say?

BTW, how in the heck is this subject a Living Story subject? Why was it moved to the living story forums? It is an open world boss. It ties to no living story. It should be in the general forums…sigh…

So…is the overwhelming opinion a negative one when it comes to Tequatl 2,0? I thought he was a good change and people liked the changes.

Cool idea, but probably belongs in suggestions forum.

Very cool idea though..surprised my superior intellect has not thought of this.

I agree with thistopic. I said this way way way back in 2012….They used Lion’s Arch for the first few events. I said we need to utilize other cities. I love divinities reach, and Im glad it got some love during the beginning of ZergWars2…Scarlet Invasions/Queens Gauntlet. It would be nice to see The Grove get some love. Its a gorgeous city.

Charak.9761:

Its there FOREVER.

Only TTS does him now, and they do it on overflow servers.

I really hope youre joking. Even if I wanted to come back to GW2, which I hardly do at the moment, this would be a terrible turn of events for GW2. I understand Arenanet’s need and desire to make the encounter, as well as other world bosses, more difficult… But to degrade a part of the zone like that.. Terrible design. Its like ORR all over again with failed temples and people unable to map complete(or at least, it makes it a pain in the butt to do so).

Nick.6972:

Massive Multiplayer Online Disney Gambling Game – MMODGG.

How about…

Massive Multiplayer Online Disney Gamling Berserker Grinding Gambling Game.

MMODGBGGG

Ive wasted a lot of money in the forge. Its quasi fun to gamble I guess…as is if you do so in AC or Vegas. But then you pull back the layers of the onion and see that arenanet relies on RNG to make aspects of the game last longer.. It is pretty lazy if you ask me.

Hi,
I have not played the game in a few months.

Question: If a server fails tequatl…or if enough people on the server have the achievement and simply don’t care anymore…how long will tequatl’s minions stay around in the area? I logged in the other night to check it out and was surrounded by a ton of undead in Tequatl’s area. The note thingy in the upper right said something about teqautl’s presence still remains. How long do these guys linger on for? Until the next Teq respawn? If so, wouldn’t this be pretty detrimental to those who wish to map complete or simply enjoy the area?