Guild Wars 2

That’s the Living Story Season 2 team.

Living Story Season 1 was made up of 4 teams. I’d guess around 10 per team, that’s why I said 20 pulled off.

It’s entirely possible that LS1 was about 20 people in 4 teams, but that’d surprise me given how many roles there are. Perhaps there were four teams with 3-4 “core” members who only worked on that one release as well as 10-12 floating members (QA, audio, UI, programming). But I’d be very surprised if the LS1 team was only 20 people throughout that cycle.

As far as people pulling off, I know about it from tweets etc. :-)

It’s hard to know exactly how many people are working on what for how long, but my best guess is that about 20 people were pulled off LW to work on something else around February. That’s slightly before the current LW team would have started working on Season 2.

Meaning: if those folks have been working on content and at roughly the same place as the existing LW team, they should currently have a content drop the size of the entirety of Season 2 ready right now.

LOTS of assumptions in that, though, so get your hopes up at your own risk.

nekretaal.6485:

… After the current living story which has focused on lesbians investigating the gossip of other lesbians.

Is that what you got out of this?

No wonder most game writers stick with “man with checkered past saves helpless female” tropes.

We really needed a post to shame a dev over a typo?

Grow up.

rapthorne.7345:

A small suggestion that (realistically) affects nothing significant gets implemented a month or so after it’s suggested, yet there have been many amazing suggestions go completely ignored that could change the face of the game

Small amount of effort. (For effect, please re-read this ten times.)

Large potential for future revenue-generating updates.

Gem Store team which works patch-to-patch on content.

It’s a no-brainer.

Argos Helios.4965:

Why is any development effort at all being wasted on things like this when WvW and sPvP are bleeding to death. Not to mention lack of dungeons (read, repeatable end game content).

Because the developers who build content like this do not have the skillset to fix WvW and sPvP. “A Developer” is not a resource which can be tasked to perform any activity. While it might require hours of reflection and thought, I’m sure you can come to an understanding of this simple truth.

As far as mail carriers, there’s only one I want.

Zhaitan.

I would like my mail to be delivered by Zhaitan, please.

(Okay, but in all seriousness, a “thief” option – perhaps even Caithe? – would be great. Pop out of stealth, flip past you, stealth again. Boom, mail delivered.)

I thought the fights in Glint’s Lair had some interesting mechanics and were (mostly) well-delivered.

The absolute maximum number of traits you need to unlock for a single build is 7. (14 trait points, one to minor which requires no unlock, next to major.) If you assume that you need to swap out traits to one COMPLETELY DIFFERENT alternate build, you need to unlock 14 traits.

While I understand gold and skill points may be in short supply, that’s not really a huge task. Given that leveling normally (read: not by karma-training EOTM) will probably unlock a few of these along the way, I really don’t sympathize with this complaint.

Mike Hawk.4835:

Do people use the same build in WvW, sPvP and PvE with the expectation of getting the same results between them? Nope.

Well, actually, yes. In fact, one of my first steps when introducing guild members to WvW or sPvP is to explain that they are very unlikely to be able to use the same build through all three modes successfully.

Or said another way: if you INSIST on running the same build in all three game modes, you will be performing poorly in at least one mode because of your build.

saalle.4623:

joshc.3129:

The games been out for over 2 years. Wait until you been around for a year and you realize LS is really the only thing you’ll get out of the game.

Im here for more then a year and i would quit game if they remove LS…so speak about yourself please.

I think most people critical of the Living Story strategy are concerned about the quantity of content, not the quality. I, for example, really enjoy most of the story instances, but I find that they only occupy my time for a night or two and think the current pace of 16 updates/year is not enough to sustain my interest in this game for time horizons of three to five years.

Said another way: I don’t want them to remove it. I want them to do lots more of it. LOTS more. (And also more dungeons and Fractals etc)

Edit: also, the pace of updates might be a little closer to 12 updates/year depending on how long of a break they take between seasons. They’ve rather impressively scheduled what really are monthly updates into bi-weekly updates with breaks to make it seem much more frequent.

I also love the Living Story. I just want twice as much of it or an expansion.

One thing I want to mention here that might surprise a lot of players looking for guilds…

As a guild leader, I want to find players who want to be in my guild. NOT just a guild. If I ask people what they’re looking for and they respond something like “Whatever/idc/everything/dunno,” that means I walk away.

Consider this also from a player perspective: would you prefer to be in a guild of people who joined the guild because they don’t really care about what the guild does? I’d think not. Most players probably want a guild full of people who have similar interests, playstyles, etc.

The only way to ensure you find a guild that’s a good fit is to be choosy. And your guild should be choosy as well. It’s worth taking the extra time to find a good fit… or you’ll just be bouncing around a bunch of guilds full of people who are just names in /guild chat.

sigh.

They don’t answer questions like those you outlined because company policy is to not talk about things which may or may not be in development.

That decision comes from way above Gaile’s head. It comes from powers higher than the Great and Powerful Colin himself.

Whether or not Gaile, Colin, and others agree with that policy is irrelevant. They’re just doing their jobs as best as they can.

December 15th, Broseph Xivor the Loquacious.

Zylonite.5913:

Lightsbane.9012:

well if you ever want to find the least skilled players in the game, EOTM is the place to do it. and by that i mean be a guardian with a hammer and press 4.

how do you know who is skilled and not skilled? did you 1v1 every player in EoTM and win?

Between this comment and your signature, I’m not sure if you’re a troll or just incredibly hyperbolic.

I thought it was like 130mb. Maybe you had a problem with your .dat?

I am increasingly concerned that ArenaNet hasn’t devoted enough resources to meet both the quality and quantity expectations of the playerbase.

Quality is up substantially, but it appears as though it’s at the expense of quantity.

If the story episodes are only going to be 30-45 minutes, I’d venture you’d have to deliver an episode per week without breaks to keep the playerbase happy. 52 episodes per year. Not the 12/year we’ve had as our Season 2 pace. (Now that said, some other episodes were a bit longer, so we can be generous and call it a 24-episode / year pace… but it’s still not nearly enough.)

What will it take to get double the content we’re getting now at the same quality? Do I just need to buy more gemstore crap? I’ll buy more gemstore crap.

Sadly, my group killed everything too quickly for me to even have time to learn the mechanics. I think there were mechanics in there, though.

I think my point stands: certain gamer archetypes have a much higher tolerance for low variety in content than others.

For example, if you purchased GW2 for competitive PvP game modes (sPvP, WvW) you are feeling preeeeeetty left out. EOTM was supposed to be a WvW expansion, but it didn’t really turn out that way.

I have no problem with people grinding boring content for loot, but that doesn’t seem like the highest-priority crowd to cater to. If you build them a new boring grind, either 1) they’ll all immediately move over to it if it’s more profitable than the current one, leaving EOTM empty or 2) nobody will move over to it if it’s less profitable than the current one, so what’s the point?

Thaddeus.4891:

Guess want, EOTM ppl want more love and content too.

I’d prefer they actually work on real WvW, a game mode that needs the love a lot more than EOTM. Anet could make a map that consisted of 9 Skyhammer maps connected by rope bridges and if they put enough champs and “capture events” in there, people would play it 10 hours a day for the next 8 years because LOOOTZ!!!!

Let’s not pretend people are in EOTM for the content. They’re there for the low risk + high rewards and super-simplistic gameplay.

Old people faces remind me of my impending mortality and launch me into deep depression. ANET PLZ NO OLD PPL FACES WILL QUIT GAME.

You need a good in-game balance between gold generation, gold sinks, materials generation, and materials sinks.

I am against any activity which threatens the balance between those four things whether it be farming buffs or farming nerfs.

(I’ll be the first to admit that the one I wrote for VEX is better…)

I thought you might be sad that I wrote a haiku for VEX but not for you, so here you go.

- – - Rolling With FIRE – - -
- – by Karaoke – -

With FIRE, God’s first
Well, Avenger portal bombs…
Then God gets first port

See you guys soon! :-D

luislasvegas.3107:

Well ty everyone for the kind words. Lol loving some of the nicknames you have given us. still think the Vexy sexy is the best one though

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

But instead of a nickname, I’ll write an official VEX haiku.

- – - VEXing – - -
- by Karaoke -

Like the autumn wind
Those guys from VEX really blow
Up the enemy

Miss you VEXy-poo.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

joshc.3129:

How many times now has Anet said they have no plans to bring GW2 to consoles?

Let’s add one more to the tally.

We currently have no plans to port Guild Wars 2 to console.

No plans because IT’S ALREADY BEEN DONE! trollface.gif

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hmmm. We want to help! What e-mail address are you using?

Thanks Gaile! This was a few months ago, but I used the email address listed on the Content TOU page, community@arena.net. It created a ticket and everything, I just never saw a response.

I would have followed up, but to be honest, I already had felt like I was making extra work for you guys, so I decided to scrap the project.

Lishtenbird.2814:

I don’t see where I wanted to “change” anything or said that I wanted to turn all GW2 into Silverwaste chestfarm. I’ve written enough in this thread to make it clear why moderate farming is good, and how more-than-moderate farming can affect the economy. A lot of people, disregarding entitled ones, are constantly mentioning that the game feels unrewarding and the main gameplay rewards should be improved – and they say it for a reason. People want long-term goals (like precursors) to be shorter, and preferably shorter via actual fun and gameplay; the developers, however, do not want it, as they live from a) retaining players via forcing them to grind for ultimate goals for years and trying to sell them something along the way and b) getting real cash from those players who prefer paying to grinding. So I don’t really see anything changing in the future anyway.

That all seems fair. I took this post as an implicit defense of the SW farm pre-nerf and shouldn’t have.

I’d rather get permission than have to play games with Fair Use laws.

Palador.2170:

You might need someone to hand-draw it for you, with a few minor changes.

Right, but if non-commercial re-use is permitted, why would that matter?

Lishtenbird.2814:

Why ascended or legendaries cannot be easy to acquire?

Because Legendaries are supposed to be difficult (more accurately “expensive and time-consuming,” not difficult) to acquire. That is the fundamental design of the game.

I shouldn’t have to defend the fundamental design of the game. You should have to explain why you want to change that. Furthermore, you should have to explain why the way you want to change that is to allow for people to perform the same simple action for hours and hours on end.

The burden of proving the worth of change is on the party who wishes to change things.

My assumption is that T6 mat requirements would remain the same since you didn’t state in your original post that T7, T8, and T9 mats would be introduced.

You’re of course welcome to your own opinion on farming, but it’s far less obviously beneficial to the entire playerbase than you claim. Farming has a purpose, an IMPORTANT purpose, but there’s still the matter of degree to worry about. A 100 Champ Bag/Hour farm is hard to justify, but I give you credit for trying.

Gaile-

That said, awhile back I was trying to get a few custom-printed mugs with our guild logo on them. One for me, one for my girlfriend, and one for a giveaway to guild members. The logo got caught in a copyright filter. I directed the company to your legal page, but they told me I needed authorization.

You have an email address for the purpose and I sent an email there, but I never heard back.

We’re in the process of doing a guild t-shirt contest, but I have the same worries: will our art assets (probably the Quaggan image from the API with a unicorn horn added and our guild motto #getunicorned) get flagged? And if they do, will somebody’s hours of work creating the design go to waste because we can’t get a quick “this is okay” from the email address you guys have left?

Anyway, just a minor concern I thought might be appropriate to mention. I know there’s a real “it’s not ArenaNet’s job to okay fan art” problem here, butcomeonquagganwithaunicornhatsooooocuteanetplz.

Lishtenbird.2814:

timmyf.1490:

2) You assume demand is constant. Demand is NOT constant.

I do not assume demand is constant.

“After patch, we still have 100 players who need 1 charged lodestone per week each (demand is constant), which makes 100 lodestones per week – nothing changed.”

Then I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.

Lishtenbird.2814:

You’re missing the fact that numeric representation of money is irrelevant, the value of money is. Player X then gets his first exotic drop, sells it for 50 silver, and buys 10 T6 mats for 5 silver each. Player X now gets his first exotic drop, sells it for 5 gold, and buys 10 T6 mats for 50 silver each. However if Player X runs a dungeon then he can get 20 T6 mats, but if Player X runs a dungeon now he can get 2 T6 mats.

Right. The correct way to look at this is by comparing to fixed price items such as dungeon runs. You don’t think an economy in which a single dungeon path is worth 20 T6 mats is horrifically broken?

My point is that an exotic drop could go from 5-paths-of-value down to 1/2-path-of-value. I don’t see why you would immediately assume it’s a good thing.

I mean, there’s two obvious problems here.

1) You assume lower prices for farmable mats are good. Low prices are good for buyers. They are not good for sellers. Let’s consider an extreme case where exotics are all worth 50 silver. Player X gets his first exotic drop… doesn’t need it, goes to sell it… it’s nearly worthless.

2) You assume demand is constant. Demand is NOT constant. Neither is supply. Simple supply/demand curves are not sufficient for this scenario.

In short, if you’re going to farmsplain economics, you need to be more rigorous.

Farmed chests for about 3 hours last night. I feel sort of dirty and embarrassed by it, but that’s mostly because I pride myself on not farming. Buuuuut girlfriend was REALLY close to a Legendary, so we did it together, and last night she made the Predator. Yay!

This is BROKEN. It’s not because of the gold generation. Anybody who tries to defend this by counting the gold either 1) is trying to mislead you or 2) doesn’t understand this game’s economy in the slightest.

As far as I can tell, this is an attempt to equalize mat prices. Mithril and Elder Wood up. Silk down. T5, T6, Cores, and Lodestones down. Can’t be certain, though, it’s too complicated for me. I’m not an economist.

Is there a high demand for guilds where you don’t group with anybody and mostly play by yourself?

As the leader of a small guild (core actives 15-20 per week 10ish daily), here’s my advice.

• Don’t become a guild leader.
• Really, don’t. It’s a ton of work, there’s already too many guilds out there, it’s nearly impossible to start from scratch, and unless you have 5-10 people you trust who will never leave you, you’re more likely to fail than succeed.
• One last try: don’t become a guild leader.
• BEFORE you try to build your guild, find 2-3 people you trust completely. Ensure they are ready to help you build the guild. Make sure you have the same goals. Make sure you can agree on a set of rules. Make sure you agree on the boundaries you set for your guild. Make sure you agree on how to recruit, train, and maintain players.
• Now that you have 2-3 people who you trust completely and who will put everything on the line in order to succeed, take the plan you developed with those individuals and act on it. If it’s not working, discuss why it’s not working and adjust.
• Always give more to your members than they give back to you.
• It’s NEVER about you, your ego, or your desires. It’s about helping to build a community for your members.
• Be prepared for the moment that a member you love and consider vital to your guild leaves.
• Be prepared for the moment that a member becomes toxic, disruptive, and poisonous to your guild. Be prepared for this person to also have friends in your guild.
• Always be in the loop. Be a voice within your community, network with other guild leaders, and make sure you always know what’s going on in the community before your members.

There’s more, but that’s a decent start.

Conncept.7638:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Is it even possible, given the changes that came about in the world?

They said during a livestream that they were going to make all season one content available, even if some things end up in a slightly different form than what they originally came as.

That’s not exactly what they said. They said they hope to find a way to bring us Season One content in the journal, but that it’s difficult and it may require substantial re-working.

They also said they aren’t working on it now and don’t have a date for when it will be available, just that they’d like to do it in the future.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

unless your fun is stemming solely from making their life miserable.

Remind me again who the toxic players are?

Dungeons and Open World are different content.

You don’t dodge in a stack? That’s news to me.

Out of curiosity, how many people complaining about Zerker gear bought themselves a set, tried it out for a few months, and decided it wasn’t for them?

Or are you complaining about it from a place of ignorance?

I used to complain about it as well. Then I tried it and had a lot more fun.

• Walk to run. Raids should start moderately challenging and get progressively more difficult. Rewards should progress along with the challenges.

• Rewarding. Raids should have unique rewards and raiding should be the most rewarding content in the game on a per-unit-time basis.

• Arbitrary-gate free. This is a catch-all for everything from Agony Resistance-checks to unskippable cutscenes. Let me do the content as fast as I can based on my, as Chris said, knowledge and skill.

There’s a few individuals here who are spending far too much time trying to advance their personal agendas rather than attempting to brainstorm ways to make GW2 raids fun and unique.

Chris, my suggestion would be to close this main phase of the CDI and break down your requests into much, much narrower topics. For example: Raid Boss Mechanics, Raid Rewards, Raid Progression Systems, etc.

Additionally, I’d suggest focusing conversation by shifting into specific questions faster. Leaving the floor open for anybody to contribute anything may seem helpful, but it tends to be that constraints bring out creativity.

It’s astounding to me that this thread is still open.

On the topic of combo fields, what if Raids included combo fields of new types… for example, a Draconic Energy Field which gives new effects for each finisher type? Perhaps these combo fields could be created by environmental weapons, so certain players may choose to carry and use the bundle to create the new fields?

That ties together a few different things: using advanced game mechanics, using bundles and other environmental weapons, and allowing some choice and flexibility in class and role.

Elrey.5472:

Okay, let’s fix the problem with hard proffesions, did you think of Inside raid roles?

Some interesting ideas in here. It reminds me a little of Southsun Crab Toss: we need a player to do “x,” who is best equipped and able to perform the role?

Roles like that would be an interesting addition.

I’m less keen to support a random selection by the raid as it’ll make it a bit harder to bring new people in to teach them – if the person played needs to play a pivotal role, it could cause some major drama.

So I think self-selection is the best bet, but either way, could be an interesting mechanic if used wisely.