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[Column] Guild Wars 2: The Future of Holidays
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Now that ArenaNet has had several opportunities to show of Guild Wars 2 holidays, players have begun to wonder what will come next and how what has come before will be topped. We take a look at that in this week's column. Check it out and then leave your thoughts in the comments.
Each holiday also had its own set of weapon skins to help players share their joy for the event. I love the huge Greatsaw Greatsword from Halloween, but as a set the Dragon Jade weapon skins are just amazing. They feel like more time went into creating each one. The Wintersday skins looked nice, and certainly fit the mood of the holiday, but they lacked an epic feel.
Read more of David North's Guild Wars 2: The Future of Holidays.
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I would love to see some Halloween styled head gear.
Comments
Could be worse. WoW has been phoning in the holidays forever. They celebrate 12 holidays a year, but none of them have dungeons (though most retool part of an existing dungeon for a one-fight boss battle that's pass/fail), most are completable on the first day, assuming you can get on as soon as the servers come back up, and no one else was as lucky, so the ground spawn items aren't being camped. Otherwise, you can wait until the last day and try to squeak in under the deadline, lest you wait another year to do them.
I'm already done with Dragon Bash. No competition for the world items means I didn't have to fight for anything. But I also haven't gotten a single Jade Skin ticket, yet. Lots of holo knights, but no tickets. Ah, well. With my luck, I would get a great sword or something my Engineer can't use.
Are you referring to the jade ticket in your last sentence? You get to choose which weapon you want the skin to be if you get a ticket.
Smile
Yes, I was, and that's actually nice to know, not that I have a ticket to use, but knowing that they are usable on any type of weapon skin is nice. See, I'm too used to the crap Blizzard has pushed on us for so long. Its hard to think about how to do anything different. GW2 is so nice. A real breath of fresh air.
I love the event (execept this pirate one, so far nothing "piratey"), but really, they could tweak a little the RNG stuff.
I liked they awarded special wings when u completed most of the content stuff for dragonbash, i wish they could at least give 1 weapon ticket in the same way cause my luck is terribad
now: GW2 (11 80s).
Dark Souls 2.
future: Mount&Blade 2 BannerLord.
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Recommends: Guild Wars 2, Dark Souls, Mount&Blade: Warband, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.
I guarantee that the Effigy ceremony being interrupted with a murder, followed by an escorted chase through the far side of the city, followed by a mysterious investigation/witch hunt (awesome cut-scene too), and then followed by a deep dungeon filled with pirates and Inquest, is nothing like what's come out before. All of it being Sky Pirates content that also overlaps and ties into Dragon Bash, which makes it all one thing.
But, Dragon Bash has/had many things to it that are fun and unique. The fireworks show was "meh", but the Dragon Ball mini-game was spectacular. The hunt for holograms allowed for players to trek the lands of Tyria once again to try to refresh the zones (something that A.Net tires to do so that old content doesn't become dead, useless areas like they are in other games like WoW).
As mentioned above, the story is long exciting, and still not over yet. Mia was set to kill a councilor in Lion's Arch to take the place and get into a seat of power. This was backed by the Sky Pirates, a group with advanced tech that also is in cahoots with the Inquest. However, they're all hired pawns for someone named "Scarlet" (mentioned by Mai before you fight her and Horrik) for this master plan of theirs. It also includes a fleet of plasma-cannon equipped flying ships (we know of three of them: 1 in Guandarren Fields, 1 that's seized when capturing Mai, and 1 more that either gets blown up or gotten away, depending if you can fight Mai&Horrik in 15 minutes or less).
I preffered Halloween. It was the best event ever, liked the instanced zone, the dungeon and The Clocktower. Think i spent 2-3 hours before i got the hang of clocktower. Good memories!
Really nostalgic. But sadly bad players tend to ruin good things and ArenaNet have said they won't do something like the clocktower again.
Honestly, Guild Wars 2 Holidays feel like a step back from what they were in the first game.
Every holiday does add some story, some quests to do, but that's to be expected at this point.
Where it fails at, for me at least, is actually offering anything with it. Every fun little weapon "skin" you could earn, on top of mini pets, have all been relegated solely to RNG loot chests. That was my biggest gripe as well with the Halloween event too, besides the fact that most every other Halloween skin felt lazy and rushed while the Greatsaw seemed to be the only one with any actual attention paid to it.
I was perfectly dandy having the "costumes" in the cash shop with the first game. I preferred my barbarian-styled set up to the pieces offered. And, should I want a Holiday weapon for some reason, all I needed to do was work for it. Yet now they essentially force us to just pay and pay, until we finally get the item we want. It just isn't fun.
We always liked the holiday events in GW1. It was awesome to see so many players inside cities. And this is the reason why we don't enjoy GW2 holidays as much. The player culling inside cities makes them feel very empty during events. During Halloween this was a disaster. Mad king thorn kept disappearing for us if we were on the other side of that plaza. Same for the players surrounding him. If even the event npcs keep disappearing, it is simply not fun anymore for us.
We know that Arenanet can make fun holiday themed content and rewards, but for us it is not about the rewards. It is seeing that we are not alone in enjoying the content. But maybe this is just how it is now, Everyone is busy grinding (holiday) event rewards as if it is a singleplayer game and don't care if they see others enjoying the event.
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
Someone never farmed for sugar/party points in GW1
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
Look holiday events are cute....but thats it....cute.
I think they should just skip the holiday events this year and do something original and then surprise everyone the year after with new holiday content.
From lore perspective, its silly to think something goes horrible every holiday.
MMORPG Gamers/Developers need a reality check!
I never paid much attention to holiday events in MMO's UNTIL GW2. So that says a lot to me. That doesn't mean I always care to do them, but WoW's got boring fast.
As I mentioned earlier, I want a new helm skin for each holiday. I really enjoyed the holiday back-pieces, so maybe alternating between the two would work out. I also want to see more skins that can be worn in combat. I’m not a fan of town clothing, and to be honest I don’t see any players wearing these outfits. Give us something we can wear in combat. If I want to charge at players looking like the Mad King, why not let me?
This is exactly why I stopped playing - there is no wardrobe feature like they had in the first Guild Wars. I LOVED that! If GW2 had it, I'd still be playing it today. I was so incredibly disappointed when I found out my Halloween costumes couldn't be worn in combat.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
You're gushing. If you honestly can't admit that the living story and events that GW2 put out have pretty much had the same formula (do events for some item, events include at least one PvP type at least, and the rest are either based on luck or doing something over and over) than I think you're a bit blind. I like GW2 but jeeze have I not been able to get invested in their living story much simply because it has sub-par writing involved it seems. So for you yo say that it's "long and exciting..." I=Maybe I'll give you that it's long but as for "exciting?" I don't really think so.
Smile
I would kill for lasting content and content I can play on my on pace. It's not like stories suddenly become invalid after a month. We still got the same x DEs in high level zones we have been doing since release. GW2 lacks substance in the progression department and by that I don't mean character progression, I mean true progression of the world that isn't forced by ANet, but by players and environment.
Expand upon what you got, ANet, and don't add more and more bread and games to keep players busy when a lot of stuff is lacking.
Seconding. They laid down some amazing groundwork with existing holidays, they don't need to devote resources to reinventing them every single year. Do some tweaks here and there, include new rewards different from last year's and you'll get people participating.