Guild Wars 2

When I read the following statement from the game’s lead designer,

“The answer can be found in the mechanics and choices made in subscription-based MMOs, which keep customers actively playing by chasing something in the game through processes that take as long as possible. In other words, designers of traditional MMOs create content systems that take more time to keep people playing longer. If this is your business motivation and model so you keep getting paid, it makes sense and is an incredibly smart thing to do, and you need to support it.

When your game systems are designed to achieve the prime motivation of a subscription-based MMO, you run the risk of sacrificing quality to get as much content in as possible to fill that time. You get leveling systems that take insane amounts of grind to gain a level, loot drop systems that require doing a dungeon with a tiny chance the item you want can drop at the end, raid systems that need huge numbers of people online simultaneously to organize and play, thousands of wash/repeat item-collection or kill-mob quests or dailies with flavor text support, the best stat gear requiring crazy amounts of time to earn, etc.

But what if your business model isn’t based on a subscription? What if your content-design motivations aren’t driven by the need to create mechanics that keep people playing as long as possible? When looking at content design for Guild Wars 2, we’ve tried to ask the question: What if the development of the game was based on…wait for it…fun?"

I thought, “now there’s an MMO I can get behind. The developers want to make a game that’s fun, not one that concerns itself with stringing players along with things like gear-treadmills or time-gated rewards.” A year latter, now that I’ve seen what the Living Story is all about, I’ve had a change of heart. The Living Story is essentially doing exactly what subscription-based MMOs do…keeping players logging often for the sake of “chasing something in the game”.

The Living Story introduces temporarily-available content. Tied to this content is temporarily-available in-game rewards and – not coincidentally – temporarily-available items in the cash shop. The developers are resorting to the exact kinds of tactics they intended to avoid…“wash/repeat item-collection or kill-mob quests or dailies with flavor text support, the best stat gear requiring crazy amounts of time to earn.” Between the Living Story and the time-gating of things like ascended weapons, we’re pretty much exactly where we would have been with a subscription fee.

The article goes on to say,

“If we chose fun as our main metric for tracking success, can we flip the core paradigm and make design decisions based on what we’d like to play as game players? Can we focus our time on making meaningful and impactful content, rather than filler content meant to draw out the experience? Can we make something so much fun you might want to play it multiple times because it’s fun, rather than making you do it because the game says you have to? It’s how we played games while growing up. I can’t tell you how many times I played Quest for Glory; the game didn’t give me 25 daily quests I needed to log in and do—I played it multiple times because it was fun!”

This is the part that gets me the most. I have no doubt the developers were passionate about making a fun game that got away from the genre-norms when they made this game. But with the Living Story, it’s clear they completely abandoned most of their core principles. I don’t think there’s anyone who would argue that the Living Story hasn’t been mostly filler designed to “draw out the experience.” I don’t think there’s anyone who would argue menial tasks such as breaking pinatas, collecting kites, and riding in hot-air balloons are “fun”. But that’s what we’re getting with each new installment of the Living Story.

A subscription fee, at this point, might have been the lesser of two evils. If I’m going to get a bunch of “filler content meant to draw out the experience” I’d rather get it i one large chunk (as many other MMOs offer in content updates) than in bite-sized portions fed to us one at a time over the course of months. At least with a large content update the developers can work to ensure the content is polished and story (where applicable) is coherent and presented to the players in a way that makes sense, and the players can usually consume the content at their own pace. There’s no pressure to “do it now lest you miss it forever”, and there’s no “guess we’ll have to wait a few months to see where this goes.”

Well, not a wizard…Scarlet. Scarlet did it.

Why did the Dredge and the Flame Legion band together? Scarlet did it.
Who are these Sky Pirates and why are they raiding Tyria? Scarlet did it.
Who assassinated the member of the Captain’s Council? Scarlet did it.
Who ruined the Queen’s Jubilee? Scarlet did it.
What happened to Twilight Arbor? Scarlet did it.
Why have the Elder Dragons abandoned their goal of destroying the world? Scarlet did it.
Why did the Thaumanova Reactor meltdown? At this point, would it shock anyone if Scarlet did it?

I don’t like that this one antagonist has become an omni-villain, the driving force behind every obstacle presented to the main characters. This is compounded by A. the apparent lack of any motivation behind her actions, B. the fact that she’s upstaged a group of all-powerful dragons bent on world destruction, and C. the fact that she has an unbelievable influence/power that gives her the ability to do whatever she wants.

If she is going to be the main villain of this game going forward, at least flesh her out give her more depth than a cardboard cutout. Tell the players why they should look at her as anything other than a Saturday morning cartoon villain, and do it in game. Not on a website…not in a novel…in the game.

roamzero.9486:

Honestly I like the bi-weekly updates that trickle out stuff over an expansion, at least in theory anyway.

I’m being serious here, but how much of the Living Story is actually “expansion caliber”? If ArenaNet were to release a full-fledged expansion, I doubt it would be loaded with stuff like “break 150 pinatas, collect 150 kites, ride in 30 balloons”. And I bet it would feature new zones or regions, more voiced dialogue, and actual in-game presentation of the story.

Bad for you, great for them. And by great, I mean profitable. Nothing says “you must buy this now” like “available for a limited time only”. And that’s exactly why we’re getting Living Story updates every two weeks…so you have a reason to log in and (they hope) buy one of their temporarily-available cash shop items.

MeGaZlo.9516:

darkace.8925:

Is this a secret “I have 20-slot bags in all 8 bag slots” bragging thread? Or is it just a “let’s find a petty gripe and turn it into an major indictment against the developers” thread?

No. It’s a secret “where is colored icon frames which terribly simplify orientation in inventory” perplexity thread.

Then why use such pejoratives as “sinful” and “ridiculous” when a “you guys should consider implementing…” would work just as well?

Is this a secret “I have 20-slot bags in all 8 bag slots” bragging thread? Or is it just a “let’s find a petty gripe and turn it into an major indictment against the developers” thread?

Nike.2631:

You will never be privy to the reasoning behind their decisions: anyone who does know is contractually obligated not to share that knowledge.

We already know the reasoning behind their decisions: money.

lordkrall.7241:

Ah, true.
It is however possible that they have changed that. It was a statement made 2 years before release of the game after all and quite a few things have changed since then.

Yeah, like the level of polish in the game. Or are you going to scrounge up some lore that explains the Honor Guard still waiting to escort emissaries to a balloon that does doesn’t exist so they can get to a Jubilee that’s no longer running?

JustTrogdor.7892:

Off topic forums tend to get real ugly real fast. As soon as religion, politics, or even sports hit the forum you can forget about civil conversation. Sure they could make a rule not allowing political/religious threads but I doubt Anet wants even more things to moderate. People can’t even behave in GW2 discussion forum half the time.

Okay, to avoid those pitfalls let’s just make it a “mope/rage about the Texans” sub-forum. I need some place to

JustTrogdor.7892:

Don’t worry about the Texans though the Bengals were rather embarrassing today and lost to the Browns.

Yeah, no clue how that happened. But I’d rather be “an up-and-coming 3-1 in a bad division” than a “the window is closing on a 2-2 team in a good division”. Being a Texans fan was supposed to be the one thing that made being an Astros fan tolerable.

That way we can discuss things not related to the game…like my Houston Texans again snatching defeat from the jaws of victory…

:(

More of that Living Story polish we’ve all come to expect. I wonder if all those Shatterers are hunting the emissaries those Divinity’s Reach Honor Guard are still supposedly awaiting?

Currently we can toss Experience, Karma, and Magic Find Boosters into the Mystic Forge with a Leather Bag in exchange for a Booster Multipack. This pack serves no function other than to bundle the three boosters into one inventory slot. It would be convenient if we could do the same with the Laureate Coin, Experience, and Magic Find Boosters.

If PvE duels are implemented, I’d hope they’d be restricted to an out of the way location (the Bane seems like a good place for player duels).

Vayne.8563:

The problem with DEs is simple. No matter how many of them you have, eventually players do them all, and they’re bored again. You’ve seen every DE you do a few times…they’re all relatively repetitive (because there really are only so many quest types) and you’re bored again.

I think they developers are very talented at what they do, even if they’re wasting those talents with the Living Story. I’d be willing to bet they could have thought of something to make the Dynamic Event system more appealing to players had they taken the time to address the situation rather than hit the panic button with a new tier of gear.

Suppose precursors were made craftable, but required a rare crafting material that only dropped from Dynamic Events. Then suppose that item only dropped from a randomly determined, undisclosed Dynamic Event and only that Dynamic Event. Only players who earned gold in that event get the material. Then a new Dynamic Event is randomly chosen and the process repeats.

I don’t know if that would have actually got players out doing DEs across all zones, but I suspect it would have done more to increase DE popularity than abandoning them altogether (as the developers seem to have done) If I can come up with that, imagine what the talented professionals at ArenaNet could have come up with had they put their minds to it.

Atmo.1325:

But I guarantee when the next major update comes around that will “set the bar”, players will be referring and comparing future updates to the one that “sets the bar.”

In most regards, the initial game (as it was at release) already set the bar and almost every Living Story update since then has been nothing but a massive disappointment.

MrRuin.9740:

The living story is a horrible design. I don’t even do it anymore, shallow characters, forgettable stories, content thats removed in 2 weeks.

You forgot the menial filler content (collecting kites, breaking pinatas, etc), lack of polish, (good to see Honor Guard standing around waiting for emissaries that are no longer in the game), and the lack of touch that made this game so great at release (I can’t remember the last time I heard my speak).

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

Has anyone else experienced this with their friends? Opinions? Is LS really a reason not to return?

My brother stopped playing solely because of the Living Story. He enjoys the game, but he works a crazy schedule. Between his job and his familial obligations, he had very limited time to play. When he did play (one day a week), he felt torn between trying to “keep up” with the Living Story or progressing his character. That pull in two directions caused him to sour on the game, and thus he quit. The shame of it is he’s the one who turned me onto the game in the first place.

Vayne.8563:

I didn’t say they needed the money or they’d be shut down. I said if you made a game, and people stopped playing it in numbers, keeping in mind that Anet has those numbers and YOU DO NOT, then you don’t know what you’d do, but I strongly suspect you’d try to save your game.

You DID say that. You’re STILL saying that. When you say stuff like “save your game” you’re implying the game was on the verge of failure. You have nothing but speculation to support such a claim.

HiSaZuL.2843:

…You finish it in 1 day…

Not anymore you don’t. They’re now time gating the meta achievements. They’re making the meta achievements require more Living Story achievements than are available, with the remainder being made up at the rate of one Living Story-related Daily Achievement per day.

If Tequatl is Guild Wars 2’s incarnation of raids, then I’d enjoy more of them IF the ratio of bad players to good weren’t so painfully lopsided.

Gray Fox.9178:

I’d love for there to be more voice acting in cinematic moments, but I also question how realistic that is. No idea how much it’d cost to drag those voice actors in every time for a few quips. The NPC’s seem to get new voice clips every event, so I imagine that’s an easier thing to push.

It would be very costly, and a waste of resources considering little to none of their work would actually remain in the game. Personally, and somewhat off-topic (sorry for that, by the way…didn’t mean to steer your thread in this direction) I’d rather the Living Story updates be fewer so that polish like voiced dialogue can actually become a cost-effective endeavor for the developers.

Back on topic, I’m actually okay with the nameless NPCs remaining frozen in time. I’d rather my story advance before some random Lion’s Arch NPC’s story advanced.

Gabby.3205:

I really hope not. He is a Secondborn, and a really proud one (with delusions of grandeur). I don’t think he would follow Scarlet’s plan simply because he would probably see her as someone inferior, since that’s how he see pretty much everybody else. Ending up under Scarlet’s command wouldn’t fit his personality.

I’d say the same thing about the Flame Legion and the Dedge. And I’d say Queen Jenna using Watchknights to protect her city when Logan’s Seraph seemed to be doing a good enough job of it. What makes sense and what’s convenient to the writers are two entirely different things, and so far I’ve seen too much of the latter and too little of the former in the Living Story.

Vayne.8563:

Or people would have viewed the manifesto in the light that I did when I first saw it, and expected what was possible within the context of both technology and what the players would allow/demand.

And you’re once again – for what feels like the thousandth time – making it sound like the players rose up in a unified rabble, pitchforks and torches brought to bear, and physically forced ArenaNet to abandon the ideals they had when they made this game. They didn’t. It’s on ArenaNet, not the players. They were faced with a choice, and they chose to go with “money > ideals” over “ideals > money”.

And before you drop your usual “they needed to make money or the game would have been shut down” reply (forgive me for the hyperbole), let me remind you that anything you say in this regard is purely speculative; none of us have any data to prove one decision or the other was better for the game’s long-term financial well-being.

Vayne.8563:

I still say that any one of you, given the same situation, might have ended up doing the very same things Anet did. It’s so easy to be a back seat developer.

Believe it or not, there actually are people in the industry who are interested in making fun games…games they themselves enjoy playing. ArenaNet used to be this way; that’s why vanilla GW2 is great. But I don’t think even you would argue the folks at ArenaNet consider breaking 150 pinatas, collecting 150 kites, riding in 30 balloons, finding 30 dragon scales scattered across three zones, or charging Quartz Crystals at a rate of one per day to be fun.

I don’t like it at all.

I don’t like the Living Story for what it is…a system designed with two purposes:
1) it’s designed to keep players logging in as often as possible as long as possible. This is something the developers said they wouldn’t do. This is very evident in the lucrative-but-temporarily-available achievements, many of which are time-gated.
2) it’s designed to be a convenient delivery system for a constant stream of temporarily available cash shop items. When was the last time you read Living Story patch notes that didn’t include a “New Items Available in the Gem Shop!”?

I also dislike the Living Story for what it’s not…it’s not a good way to tell a story. So little of the Living Story is actually substantive; it’s mostly menial tasks designed to act as filler. Filler is not story. And what little story there is seems disjointed, at best. There’s no spoken dialogue for our characters, there’s no motivation or development for the antagonist, there’s very little in-game plot exposition…everything feels rushed, unpolished, and just thrown together on the fly.

So no, I do not like the Living Story.

I was sure this was going to be a post calling for our characters to actually speak during the Living Story, or at the very least ask the developers to give us more Living Story exposition through dialogue rather than messages or website short stories, and I was ready to throw my support behind it.

I’m sure at some point Scarlet will corrupt, coerce, or co opt Canach. After all, she’s already managed to bring the Flame Legion, the Dredge, the Aethyrblade Sky Pirates, and who knows who else under her command.

The more we get into the Living Story, the more it’s starting to feel like an ongoing episode of Scooby Doo.

While we’re on the subject of dragonite ore, I want to voice a marginally related complaint. Why does the dragonite ingot look like a sliced pitted fruit and not a bar of metal?

I hear what you’re saying, TC. You don’t like the Living Story, and so you skip it. You do the things you enjoyed when the game first released. But here’s the important question: how long can you do those same things before they grow stale?

That’s the rub. If every resource ArenaNet can muster is poured into the Living Story that means those of us who don’t like it will never see new content we enjoy. Eventually – no matter how great it is – the old content is going to lose its luster. So that leaves us with our fill of the old content, no desire to play the new Living Story content, and no prospect of new old-style content that would have been delivered via formal expansion.

In other words, those of us who don’t enjoy the Living Story have nothing to look forward to. The game is going to stagnate. Where more traditional MMOs release major content updates and expansions to combat stagnation, those of us who don’t enjoy the Living Story content are left with nothing to inject fresh air into the game. That’s a recipe for an ever-shortening desire to log in.

Hopefully the “big project” they’ve claimed to be working on behind the scenes will be something akin to a full-fledged expansion; but given the way the developers have failed to deliver on so much of their Living Story hype, I’m not holding my breath.

Buttercup.5871:

2) distance themselves from the manifesto, and disappoint players that thought they had already reached the “late game”. In order to ease this pain, and to keep the old customer base happy, new content was promised on a 2-weekly basis, which admittedly is something no MMO to date has been able to pull off.

Call my cynical, but where you see the Living Story as something to keep the old customer base happy I see a treadmill designed to get players to log in as often as possible and delivery system for a constant influx of temporarily available items in the cash shop.

panzer.6034:

The enhanced dragon story arc is just starting. We’ve done scavenger hunt investigations, but we don’t have any answers or conclusion about what is going on yet. There’s plenty of time for more-important-than-your-character NPCs to show up.

I’d hardly call that a “story”. It was a message, a quick “chat” with Rox, and the typical “click F a bunch of times” busywork. That’s not a story.

And when I say “all traps”, I’m including things like the engineer’s Throw Mine ability.

What I’d do with the elementalists’ staff skills…
– Lightning Attunement – single target, high damage; mobility boost.
– Fire Attunement – medium aoe, medium damage; dot (burn).
– Water Attunement – large aoe, low damage; crowd control; healing/condition removal.
– Earth Attunement – large aoe, low damage; dot (bleed); crowd control; defense boost.

What I’d do with the elementalists’ traits…
– No clue, but they need a lot of work. There are way too many traits that I can’t imagine anyone runs under any circumstance.

Vayne.8563:

If you think, really think, a game like this could have been created at all without vision and passion, I’d say you’re wrong.

I didn’t say that. I said the opposite, in fact. Re-read my post within the context of what you said about hype.

The last few weeks I’d say 90 to 95% of the time I craft an item (no small amount) the accompanying jingle doesn’t play. The other sound effect (the working sound) still plays, but the jingle is absent most of the time.

Cody.5241:

I grew very tired of the same tired old lines being devliered by the DE protaganists for 30-40 levels of the Personal Story arc. If the writers can engineer a departure from all of those old relationships, then I would be interested in seeing how DE develops.

I’d rather see them make a clean break…just finalize the divorce and go their separate ways. Destiny’s Edge, as they’re currently constituted, do little more than deliver fictional guild drama. Destiny’s Edge, as a fully functional guild, do little more than shove our characters aside as they Mary Sue their way to saving the world. As five individuals who never speak nor think of one another, they’ve got potential to deliver race-specific lore and flavor. That’s the way to go, in my opinion.

DeathPanel.8362:

I’m just pointing out what it could be useful for and in what situations. No one is pretending it’s some OP ability. But it’s far from being useless like what the OP is implying.

I never even hinted at it being useless. Don’t put words in peoples’ mouths.

Vayne.8563:

Nope. it’s pretty clear TO YOU. There are people in this thread who have said it’s mostly accurate.

It’s funny how this entire generation grew up with what computer companies say and do, and they STILL don’t get it. Companies make their games sound good. Your job as a consumer is to see what they’re actually saying, instead of what you want to hear.

Most people seem to be lousy at this. You should spend some time watching the show The Gruen Transfer. They talk about stuff like this all the time.

In a general sense, I agree with you. In this case, though (not just the Manifesto, but all of the pre-release propaganda) I think most people would have felt the developers were genuine and passionate about their vision. I’m a guy who can separate the hype from the substance, but even I was caught off guard when things changed directions so quickly after launch.

Odokuro.5049:

Making these dye packs have guaranteed dyes in them would drastically decrease the amount bought by the playerbase, thus lowering the amount of gems bought from the gem store, ect.

But how many more people would be willing to purchase them?

knives.6345:

It’s not greed – before anyone bashes. It’s how companies work. They always have a goal to get more income – and beat the previous monthly/quarterly/annually record.

Yes, but profits and growth don’t have to be the driving factor behind every decision a company makes. I don’t know if these stores exist overseas, but in Amercia Chick Fil A and Hobby Lobby are closed on Sundays because their owners believe that day should be reserved for religious and familial purposes.

Sunday is obviously a big shopping day since many people actually have the time to do their shopping. Yet these two companies sacrifice the extra money they’d make on that day for something they believe in. Now I’ll admit I don’t know if those companies are publicly owned (I’d guess not), so this isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison.

One of the main reasons I got into this game is because the developers in every blog, interview, and video game the impression that they believed in what they were doing. Their passion for making something better than the genre-norm was as refreshing as their reversal on that ideal was disappointing.

Dolan.3071:

Also stop Greatsword auto attacking you scrub, either GS/Axe+Mace rotation or don’t take Greatsword at all…

Two questions:

1. Are you sure you’re old enough to be here?
2. Does anyone use the greatsword for its autoattack? Anyone at all?

Thanks for the feedback, guys. Please do it them coming.

Zietlogik.6208:

…do you only use 1 weapon set?

Kind of. With each of my characters I stick with their primary weapon where possible and use the swap when necessary. I do this because each of my characters was built to play differently from the others, and building around a single weapon helps to reinforce this principle; and because in open-world PvE (where I spend most of my time) I can get away with it. Unfortunately, the usefulness of the warrior’s hammer in dungeons is such that I’ll feel I’ve crossed the line from “not-optimized” to “drag”.

Zietlogik.6208:

But if you want to be exclusive to PvE, then GS + LB is probably a better option since most champs and world-bosses cannot be effectively CCed by the hammer.

GS/LB is what I’ve been running since I made this character, but after a year I’m willing to admit it’s just not the look or the “feel” I had in mind when I made this character.

Eurhetemec.9052:

but 6 in 25? You have to be kidding me.

There’s no guarantee it’s a 6 in 25 chance. If there’s not an equal chance of getting a new dye as there is an older dye then those chances can be much lower.

DeathPanel.8362:

A block for yourself could still mean the difference between being downed or not. A lot of end game bosses have 1 shot attacks.

I can’t imagine too many guardians are going to rely on VoC’s passive to protect them from end-game boss 1-shot attacks. If it’s, sure. But VoC’s active, or simply dodging, seem to be the much better way to avoid being 1-shot by nasty atttacks. And that’s even assuming it’s up during the 1-shot attack.

And to illustrate my point, think how many dodges we can do (even without Vigor) in the 40 seconds it takes to recharge VoC’s passive. For one block that we can’t control, 40 seconds just seems excessive. The active is great, I’m not saying it isn’t. But the passive (or its cooldown) just doesn’t seem to be on the level of the others (or at least on VoR’s).

Aomine.5012:

To answer your question, I’d just say, you are being spoiled.

How so?

Aomine.5012:

You probably only has one character, which is your guardian.

I have five level 80 characters.

Aomine.5012:

I have every classes lv80.

Congratulations.

Aomine.5012:

That auto aegis is unbelievably useful in a dungeon boss fight.

Unbelievable? Or mildly useful?

Aomine.5012:

And you complain about CD being too long?

Did I complain? Or did I question its cooldown?

Aomine.5012:

Warrior’s block? Though a useful skill, while he uses shield 5, he cant use any other skills while blocking.

Oh no! Whatever will he do!?

Aomine.5012:

Why not talk about your 6 skill having 2 block duration while healing? Not to mention the CD is just 30 too!

Because this post is about Virtue of Courage’s passive bonus, not Shelter.

Aomine.5012:

You also have 90 CD 3 secs invulnerable elite that also grants recharge of all virtue, meaning 2000 healing, 5 secs burning and 1 more aegis.

Again, this post is about Virtue of Courage, not Renewed Focus.

Aomine.5012:

You also have focus which you can block 5 attacks while activating other skills, plus it’s instance, so you can use it even when you’re being crowd controlled.

Yes, I know. I said as much. Again, this post isn’t about the lack of blocking skills, it’s about Virtue of Courage’s passive effect.

Aomine.5012:

You also got multiple skills that block projectiles for a long duration of times, which warrior totally does not has access to.

For the fourth time, this post is about Virtue of Courage, not warriors vs guardians.

Aomine.5012:

Yeah, guardian should totally have aegis that grants invincible for 90 secs right?

Did I say anything even remotely close to that? Stop trying to put words in other peoples’ mouths.

Aomine.5012:

See who’s spoiled.

Again, how does anything said in this post make me spoiled? How about you stop acting like an oversensitive child and actually address what I said, not what you perceived me to say?

Wait, Faren is going to die? They’re going to kill off one of the few likable characters in this game in an attempt to make the worst character in the game not named Trahearne more “menacing”? I use the quotations because none of us – not one – is ever going to see Scarlet as anything more than a cardboard character.

Nabrok.9023:

Well, from a practical standpoint, it probably costs them a lot more to bring the DE voice actors (Felicia Day!) in to record a few lines, than it does for the voice actors they have for the new characters.

The DE actors are also more likely to have scheduling conflicts and not be able to record in time.

It’s not just the cost, it’s the fact that their work would be temporary. If the voiced work were going to remain in the game forever, then it’s a lot easier to justify the expense. If their work is just going to be in the game for two weeks, then that’s a lot harder to swallow.

Yamsandjams.3267:

darkace.8925:

Punch.3507:

Anyone else tired of getting new back items in EVERY content release?

Yep.

Would you prefer… helmets?

Not really. I’m actually okay with the gaming experience being reward in most cases. I thought a weapon skin for completion of an entire campaign (as was the case in Guild Wars) was plenty.

I’d be happy with a 10:1 or even 25:1 conversion rate…anything is better than the stacks of useless Stones clogging up my bank.