When I played GW2 I completely failed to see how it lived more than any other MMO. Sorry, OP, but it seems you just complaining about complaining. The strongest part of GW2 was it's B2P system but in my opinion it lacked in most other departments, especially in combat which was just plain dps zerg.
The living story is truly living. How could you do it differently? right now the living story affects zones and or add new zones, adds new story and dungeons, new content to do. What game does this else than GW2?
Of course they need to improve their updates and also keep the story interesting and i think the story have just gotten better and better. I really liked Flame & Frost. That was a great presentation of a living story event and also the karka event was good not the karka queen which caused mega lag, however i remember that event and it was good memories, now i can go there and see her charcoaled corpse laying there and thinking "i was here, i did that, we did that".
Hook line and sinker. They sure hit their target demographic right between the eyes. They even give their demographic talking points complete with buzz words.
We are used to static NPC quest hubs, nothing really happends in the zone you quest in your favorite MMO, sure you can read what happend but you really can't see it.
Anet is trying hard with thier living world thing, yes I find some of them boring and grinding but atleast they are trying to make something that few MMO ever dared to try, they try to make the world living and in a flux of change in a minor degree, for me atleast that is a nice kick in the right direction how a MMO world can feel alive and not static, sure Anet have made some blunders but you have to make some errors to learn from your misstakes.
But sadly some people want the whole power for themselves to change the world and that power is a really bad thing, there are so many gamers out there who love and thrives to just fuck things up and that's why I feel Anet is on the right track, they are making the living world not some moronic and sick players.
You can hate or love this living world events but you have to see that this is a first step in something NOT static and I hope more future MMOs takes after Anets bold aproach on how a gaming world evolves and hopefully improves on it.
Well, considering next step is moving to truly evolving world, which would require real AI, its next best thing. I have yet to experience anything that feels more alive. WoW/AoC/LOTRO/SWTOR/RIft/Lineage all feel mindnumbing after GW2. Yeah its only appearance. But it works best of the lot.
And to some other posters:
the only thing it would "revolutionize" is griefing. And no, "Players will police themselves" rolf, right, i wouldnt have players in charge of anything remotely important ESPECIALLY something that can ruin whole game world (like some suggested)
Players can have some freedom....within firmly set boundaries. Think EvE or SWG.
Originally posted by xeniar You fail to see that This is just quest hubs in disguise. it makes the world apear living but it does not feel living at all.
it succeeded where everyone else failed. It took the exact same old questing system and made it even better, less static, more mixed so anything you do in an area contributes to the questing. Overall more alive. e.g. if a heart quest sends you to kill 10 rats, you actually dont need to kill a single rat to complete the quest! you can just go about your business and do other stuff, and it counts.
So yes. It is more alive than the rest of mmos that didnt want to improve their generic questing one way or another.
It still needs a lot of improvements (more DE evolution and less recyling / restarting them), but still is far better than the old method.
Oh guys you are gettign me wrong. I'm not saying that the questsystem they use is awfull, Its diffrent but your still doing same old same old quests moving from zone to zone and from DE to DE wich in some areas happen abit to frequent.
We are talking about how this makes the world feel more alive. and it does not at all. at least for me. and i explained in in the big post earlier in the thread. Nobody comments on that tho
edit: its all about the hype they created, they did not deliver what they where selling us. Wich was these Dynamic events wich could change the world. It doesn't change a thing tho. That farm wich is taken over by bandits for 5 mins... oh please..
ANET didn't really do anything new here. They just made quest hubs even more simplistic by eliminating the need to bother talking to someone for a quest in the first place. The system actually makes traditional quest hubs look amazing in comparison, since you actually talk to people and get to hear their story, etc. In GW2, about the closest you come to that, aside from your "personal story" thing that happens every blue moon, is the scouts who kind of give you a run-down of what's happening in the region.
That's it. The whole "living world" thing makes no sense to me, because the world feels even more dead and static than most MMO's, which is really saying something.
well give gw 2 vertical progression, actual drops from dungeons, mobs and many many new sets of armor and weapons which are not availible to everyone from trade post for nothing maybe ill be back to gw 2. But for now gw 2 is most casual friednly mmorpg ive ever played, who cares how live the world feels.
ANET didn't really do anything new here. They just made quest hubs even more simplistic by eliminating the need to bother talking to someone for a quest in the first place. The system actually makes traditional quest hubs look amazing in comparison, since you actually talk to people and get to hear their story, etc. In GW2, about the closest you come to that, aside from your "personal story" thing that happens every blue moon, is the scouts who kind of give you a run-down of what's happening in the region.
That's it. The whole "living world" thing makes no sense to me, because the world feels even more dead and static than most MMO's, which is really saying something.
Umm have you played GW2 at all?
GW2 don't have a wall of quest text that few bother to read, GW2 have talking NPC that explains whats going on at every DE, you just have to stick around and listen to what they have to say and then you know why that specific DE is all about.
I apologize for getting hyped up when ArenaNet used this new buzzword called "Living World" and started the hype train moving for this new fantastical genre changing feature. I apologize for being let down when my introduction to this "Living World" was rummaging dead bodies along a path while lighting some fires.
While I'm at it, I apologize for being sold on a lot of things ArenaNet marketed and being later dissapointed.
On the bright side after experiencing Red5 and Firefall I have learned not to take Guild Wars 2 and ArenaNet for granted and look at the good things.
Stop polluting this thread with FACTS. That video totally mislead the public on what dynamic events were like.
In that clip he states there aren't static questgivers. Well technically that's true, but guess where you get your quest rewards. You guessed it, static NPCs.
It simply wasn't that great a change from what existed before and it wasn't more fun to level in GW2 than in some other MMOs.
Red: Well he was 100% accurate in that statement at first there were no hearts or heart vendor NPCs that gave out rewards after completed heart event.
In beta people were so confused where to go and what to do so Anet added hearts and heart vendor NPC to "guide" those who can't think for themselves.
ANET didn't really do anything new here. They just made quest hubs even more simplistic by eliminating the need to bother talking to someone for a quest in the first place. The system actually makes traditional quest hubs look amazing in comparison, since you actually talk to people and get to hear their story, etc. In GW2, about the closest you come to that, aside from your "personal story" thing that happens every blue moon, is the scouts who kind of give you a run-down of what's happening in the region.
That's it. The whole "living world" thing makes no sense to me, because the world feels even more dead and static than most MMO's, which is really saying something.
Umm have you played GW2 at all?
GW2 don't have a wall of quest text that few bother to read, GW2 have talking NPC that explains whats going on at every DE, you just have to stick around and listen to what they have to say and then you know why that specific DE is all about.
GW2 has very few instances of talking NPC's that I've encountered. Maybe I need to just sit around for 10 minutes waiting for their "conversation" to trigger so that I know why I'm collecting a bunch of food while avoiding rabbits... or what special reason there is for me to kill grub worms in a brewery.
That still wouldn't make the world "living" in the slightest. It just means that, instead of clicking on an NPC to read what they have to say, I need to sit there and wait for them to start talking. Amazingly, NPC's have been that in classic quest-hub wall-o-text games forever, just without the voiceovers. But keep telling yourself GW2 has somehow given life to static MMO worlds.
ANET didn't really do anything new here. They just made quest hubs even more simplistic by eliminating the need to bother talking to someone for a quest in the first place. The system actually makes traditional quest hubs look amazing in comparison, since you actually talk to people and get to hear their story, etc. In GW2, about the closest you come to that, aside from your "personal story" thing that happens every blue moon, is the scouts who kind of give you a run-down of what's happening in the region.
That's it. The whole "living world" thing makes no sense to me, because the world feels even more dead and static than most MMO's, which is really saying something.
Umm have you played GW2 at all?
GW2 don't have a wall of quest text that few bother to read, GW2 have talking NPC that explains whats going on at every DE, you just have to stick around and listen to what they have to say and then you know why that specific DE is all about.
GW2 has very few instances of talking NPC's that I've encountered. Maybe I need to just sit around for 10 minutes waiting for their "conversation" to trigger so that I know why I'm collecting a bunch of food while avoiding rabbits... or what special reason there is for me to kill grub worms in a brewery.
You are talking about heart quest not dynamic event system, learn the difference between those two.
I was very hyped about GW2 and subsequently disappointed.
The two biggest problems with GW2's "living" world are:
1) Boxed zones
2) Instant travel from anywhere to anywhere
You will never feel the world is "alive" and "believeable" if it's made of goddamn boxes. It's TOO obvious. I mean, look @ WoW - locations are still kinda separate boxed levels, but how well are they masked. WoW's map looks like a real, believeable world, GW2 map totally doesn't.
Instant travel, in my opinion, just makes the matters worse. Granted, it's not as big offender, but still, world doesn't feel "alive" when you can just teleport around for money (going NOWHERE, I mean, who are we paying this money to?) I can agree with fast travel in single-player games like Skyrim, I mean, it's like "we fast forwarded the boring part for you where you ride your horse along the road for 10 minutes and nothing happens", but even in that game it was negatively affecting it (like, why order a carriage or ship if you can fast travel free?). In Multiplayer games fast travel from anywhere on the map just makes the world fall apart... because you can relate to other players. Someone ran from beacon to beacon for 5 minutes, you teleported instantly in a second...
Next, we have several more offenders:
1) Deposit to bank from anywhere USING A MENU
2) Mail writing and receiving from anywhere USING A MENU
3) Auction an item from anywhere USING A MENU
This, again, can be looked at as a "progres" - I mean, why make players gather at AH or mailbox, it's just a timewaster? However, this is what makes the world less "alive". You just don't believe it! How on earth did that item get auctioned? Did I teleport it to the AH somehow? If so, can I use same tech to teleport bombs inside opponents to kill them instantly? How did that item got mailed to me instantly? A bird brought it? Can I shoot down this bird and loot someone else's mail from it? What is the point of bigger inventory space ever if you can deposit almost everything of value you loot INSTNATLY to the bank?
All this exposes the "gamey" sense of the game, making it less believeable, and as a consequence, less "living".
Because LIVING is not about "no quest hubs" and "dynamic quests" but about you believing that the world truly exists. That is is not an instance, not a server, it's a WORLD where creatures LIVE. Sure, dynamic events were steps in right direction, but all the "streamlining" of travel and auction and bank and stuff were not, and overall, I belive so much more in the World of Warcraft than I believe in the world of Guild Wars.
Finally, dynamic events? Nah. they're just repeatable quests you cannot start when you want to. They happen too damn frequently!
Like, before I quit, I used to farm that god-of-death shrine event in the endgame location (see, I don't even remember the names, they're not "alive" to me!) - the one where a cat thingie spawns and leads you in, and then you have to fight boss that spawns shades that you have to kill by donning a black outfit, while the cat just stands at the entrance and does nothing, and then you hold enemies off whlle the cat does cleansing ritual and you "win" the place. This event happens ALL THE TIME. It's not like you can hold the building, you just lose it immediately because to not lose it, someone must camp the vendor and defend it from waves of attackers, which makes no sense - it's a waste of time. So, basically most of the time, this event is avaiable. It does not make me feel like I'm in an "alive" world! It just makes me feel cheated when I log in and the event was just done, because the game punished me for having to work on a workday!
Other events include that dragon in that icey region in the top of the big map. Yeah, spawns like every 2 or 3 hours, dies, repeats. What's "alive" about it? The fact that you can only do it if you get lucky and he spawns during the time you're online and someone tells you that it spawns or you happen to be in that location? It's like, a raid boss that you cannot choose when to begin, but can drop in during the fight and still get the loot.
They promised in their trailers that "you're gonna save a village that's gonna stay that way, people will remember you as their savior etc"... There's no real "Change". None. There are just repeatable quests that are available until enough ppl gather to complete them, and then become available again (because noone will camp the end quest location to prevent it from being overrun and rolling back to the "uncomplete" state).
ANET didn't really do anything new here. They just made quest hubs even more simplistic by eliminating the need to bother talking to someone for a quest in the first place. The system actually makes traditional quest hubs look amazing in comparison, since you actually talk to people and get to hear their story, etc. In GW2, about the closest you come to that, aside from your "personal story" thing that happens every blue moon, is the scouts who kind of give you a run-down of what's happening in the region.
That's it. The whole "living world" thing makes no sense to me, because the world feels even more dead and static than most MMO's, which is really saying something.
Umm have you played GW2 at all?
GW2 don't have a wall of quest text that few bother to read, GW2 have talking NPC that explains whats going on at every DE, you just have to stick around and listen to what they have to say and then you know why that specific DE is all about.
GW2 has very few instances of talking NPC's that I've encountered. Maybe I need to just sit around for 10 minutes waiting for their "conversation" to trigger so that I know why I'm collecting a bunch of food while avoiding rabbits... or what special reason there is for me to kill grub worms in a brewery.
You are talking about heart quest not dynamic event system, learn the difference between those two.
Oh, you mean the "dynamic events" that aren't really dynamic? The ones that are basically just events that play out at a fairly regular basis? Very few of those are interesting or even touch up on the lore of the world, much less create any sort of impression of the world being some kind of living breathing entity. It's just a bunch of random scripted events, most of which just get zergged through by whatever "train" of players is in the area. Yes, few are actually kind of interesting, but the vast majority of them are mindless zergbate.
My 2 cents worth. Yes, they are adding variety, it is said that a change is as good as a holiday!
What they need to add is a decrease in events difficulty when there are less players than an event is designed for. It is pointless adding all this fantastic content if it is unplayable due to lack of players. The code is already in place to increase the difficulty if there are more players than the designed for number expected, so it would not be a large job to add this!
Yes, players could take advantage of this, but to what end, all they would get is an easier way to get exp. But with max level reachable within a 70 hour playing period would this really make much difference any way!!!
So many people in this thread have misunderstood what the OP was talking about with regards to the "living world" Anet is trying to create.
He's not talking about hearts.
He's not talking about the dynamic events you guys played a year ago before you quit for whatever reason.
He's not talking about personal story.
He's talking about the ongoing fortnightly updates which adds new story, dialogue, map changing events, activities and rewards. Hit or miss, these are both regular and progress an ongoing narrative. Which is how Anet is intending to evolve their world and make it less static.
It's a step in the right direction and can only get better as they learn.
We are used to static NPC quest hubs, nothing really happends in the zone you quest in your favorite MMO, sure you can read what happend but you really can't see it.
Anet is trying hard with thier living world thing, yes I find some of them boring and grinding but atleast they are trying to make something that few MMO ever dared to try, they try to make the world living and in a flux of change in a minor degree, for me atleast that is a nice kick in the right direction how a MMO world can feel alive and not static, sure Anet have made some blunders but you have to make some errors to learn from your misstakes.
But sadly some people want the whole power for themselves to change the world and that power is a really bad thing, there are so many gamers out there who love and thrives to just fuck things up and that's why I feel Anet is on the right track, they are making the living world not some moronic and sick players.
You can hate or love this living world events but you have to see that this is a first step in something NOT static and I hope more future MMOs takes after Anets bold aproach on how a gaming world evolves and hopefully improves on it.
If their goal was to make the world alive then the dynamic events have to be more inter connected to players and their actions.
For example, clearing a forrest of wild life allows for something else to replace it.
Or the npcs have a routine that shows their purpose or what they care for. A blacksmith hammering on the anvil, moving about to get resources. Moves to a local inn with other npcs for a break, and at night they go to sleep. Then other npcs are available, night watch, bandits etc.
The way it is now, is a public quest that is more fluid than previous iterations. Its a lot of hype, and people are seeing beyond the hype.
They want their world to make sense. That their actions have some kind of effect depending on the area. Eqn is doing something like that, but i am not sure what other mmos are doing about npc life. Im guessing not much or nothing at all.
Wouldn't it be nice that at happy hour you can gamble with a certain npc, or at night time there are bandits that play at different stakes which might result in a 'bar brawl'.
So, on other words, its just more fluid sequencing to combat. Not much more than just having an mmo that is mostly combat without any connection to how it fits with the world. You could just button mash any dynamic event, since they are easy, and the result doesn't really matter, especially after the first completion.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
So many people in this thread have misunderstood what the OP was talking about with regards to the "living world" Anet is trying to create.
He's not talking about hearts.
He's not talking about the dynamic events you guys played a year ago before you quit for whatever reason.
He's not talking about personal story.
He's talking about the ongoing fortnightly updates which adds new story, dialogue, map changing events, activities and rewards. Hit or miss, these are both regular and progress an ongoing narrative. Which is how Anet is intending to evolve their world and make it less static.
It's a step in the right direction and can only get better as they learn.
Thank you.
That just manupulative to 1. Generalize want people do not like, and then 2. Suppose it is something else that nobody has complained about as far as i know but insist that the previous reasons are invalid because the new reason ppl are complaining about ( which afaik, are not) ignore how it is an answer to their complaint. Then they should realize how they do not even understand their own emotions.
Ppl are still complaining about the dynamic events sucking. Thats their opinion. Dont try to twist that.
If anything should be learnt, is that all this work gw2 is doing is not helping with changing players opinion by bloating their game. Changing the map seems good, but maybe its not enough to some after what they feel as a whole is not enough to bring them back to the game.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
Anet did some great things with there dynamic events... But, its only a first step, i am expecting even more from upcomming games.
Tough i really really think what Arenanet forgot to add where truely Epic quests, sure there is you personal story, but that was not enough to sattisfy my thirst for stories. If they would combine GW2 and LOTRO, it would be a truely perfect world.
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)
Years ago i realized that players in this sub-genre will never be happy and they have no idea what they want.
It doesn't matter if a game offers a massive world with thousands of activities and ways to shape it with multiple rule sets to engage different player types.
They will still hate it...
If i was wrong games like Darkfall wouldn't be empty, same with The Secret World, RIFT, Fallen Earth and other games that had devs that listened to players only to be betrayed by the same players they catered to.
OP forget these players, and this forum. Just play the games that are fun for you.
Ryzom and SWG had a living world. In Ryzom you had a for that time convincing eco system where hunting animals would hunt prey. Where animals would actually notice you being near. Herds of animals moving across the land, with the hunters keeping close. Hunting animals that would attack you as player if you got to close. Or large herd animals that attacked you if you came to close or started to attack them for resources. In SWG it was a bit more crude, but the random spawns of animal lairs fitted well in the landscape and you could tame them or hunt them for resources. They could be very dangerous too. Creature handler was one of the things that made the worlds feel more alive And the animals felt actually as part of the world like in Ryzom. The wildlife was also not just a gimmick for the typical hunter like class, but usefull for all.
GW2 has a very nice looking world. No doubt about that. But it also feels like little landscape boxes connected with loading screens and barely anything that makes the wold feel living. The mobs that participate (convincingly for a MMO) in a dynamic event look more like very nice animations in front of a landscape painting. This is partly due to that (very isolated) neutral animals have barely any use, except as pet for the typical hunting class. They are more props then anything else.
I hope we get a MMO with a world that looks at Ryzom as example for a living world and will improve on that. And that uses day/night cycles to give sentient npc's actually a day/night rhytm (and animals like in Ryzom). Day/night cycles in current themepark MMO's feel very artificial and would not change anything if left out. Also, those questnpc's stay outside, day and night.
GW2 looks awesome, has fun action and I love the dynamic events. But to me it still feels very artificial and gimmicky in the way it does that. Not like a virtual world anyway.
Ryzom and SWG had a living world. In Ryzom you had a for that time convincing eco system where hunting animals would hunt prey. Where animals would actually notice you being near. Herds of animals moving across the land, with the hunters keeping close. Hunting animals that would attack you as player if you got to close. Or large herd animals that attacked you if you came to close or started to attack them for resources. In SWG it was a bit more crude, but the random spawns of animal lairs fitted well in the landscape and you could tame them or hunt them for resources. They could be very dangerous too. Creature handler was one of the things that made the worlds feel more alive And the animals felt actually as part of the world like in Ryzom. The wildlife was also not just a gimmick for the typical hunter like class, but usefull for all.
GW2 has a very nice looking world. No doubt about that. But it also feels like little landscape boxes connected with loading screens and barely anything that makes the wold feel living. The mobs that participate (convincingly for a MMO) in a dynamic event look more like very nice animations in front of a landscape painting. This is partly due to that (very isolated) neutral animals have barely any use, except as pet for the typical hunting class. They are more props then anything else.
I hope we get a MMO with a world that looks at Ryzom as example for a living world and will improve on that. And that uses day/night cycles to give sentient npc's actually a day/night rhytm (and animals like in Ryzom). Day/night cycles in current themepark MMO's feel very artificial and would not change anything if left out. Also, those questnpc's stay outside, day and night.
GW2 looks awesome, has fun action and I love the dynamic events. But to me it still feels very artificial and gimmicky in the way it does that. Not like a virtual world anyway.
Yes... Ryzom had a great world yet people still abandoned that game and now it has what less that 2k active players?
Comments
The living story is truly living. How could you do it differently? right now the living story affects zones and or add new zones, adds new story and dungeons, new content to do. What game does this else than GW2?
Of course they need to improve their updates and also keep the story interesting and i think the story have just gotten better and better. I really liked Flame & Frost. That was a great presentation of a living story event and also the karka event was good not the karka queen which caused mega lag, however i remember that event and it was good memories, now i can go there and see her charcoaled corpse laying there and thinking "i was here, i did that, we did that".
I'm trying not to laugh at the 'GW2 don't have quest hubs!' logic.
Yeah, they don't. Or they do but they skip the 'talk to NPC' bit and just gives you a bunch of quests all over the map.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Well, considering next step is moving to truly evolving world, which would require real AI, its next best thing. I have yet to experience anything that feels more alive. WoW/AoC/LOTRO/SWTOR/RIft/Lineage all feel mindnumbing after GW2. Yeah its only appearance. But it works best of the lot.
And to some other posters:
the only thing it would "revolutionize" is griefing. And no, "Players will police themselves" rolf, right, i wouldnt have players in charge of anything remotely important ESPECIALLY something that can ruin whole game world (like some suggested)
Players can have some freedom....within firmly set boundaries. Think EvE or SWG.
Oh guys you are gettign me wrong. I'm not saying that the questsystem they use is awfull, Its diffrent but your still doing same old same old quests moving from zone to zone and from DE to DE wich in some areas happen abit to frequent.
We are talking about how this makes the world feel more alive. and it does not at all. at least for me. and i explained in in the big post earlier in the thread. Nobody comments on that tho
edit: its all about the hype they created, they did not deliver what they where selling us. Wich was these Dynamic events wich could change the world. It doesn't change a thing tho. That farm wich is taken over by bandits for 5 mins... oh please..
ANET didn't really do anything new here. They just made quest hubs even more simplistic by eliminating the need to bother talking to someone for a quest in the first place. The system actually makes traditional quest hubs look amazing in comparison, since you actually talk to people and get to hear their story, etc. In GW2, about the closest you come to that, aside from your "personal story" thing that happens every blue moon, is the scouts who kind of give you a run-down of what's happening in the region.
That's it. The whole "living world" thing makes no sense to me, because the world feels even more dead and static than most MMO's, which is really saying something.
You make me like charity
Umm have you played GW2 at all?
GW2 don't have a wall of quest text that few bother to read, GW2 have talking NPC that explains whats going on at every DE, you just have to stick around and listen to what they have to say and then you know why that specific DE is all about.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
Red: Well he was 100% accurate in that statement at first there were no hearts or heart vendor NPCs that gave out rewards after completed heart event.
In beta people were so confused where to go and what to do so Anet added hearts and heart vendor NPC to "guide" those who can't think for themselves.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
GW2 has very few instances of talking NPC's that I've encountered. Maybe I need to just sit around for 10 minutes waiting for their "conversation" to trigger so that I know why I'm collecting a bunch of food while avoiding rabbits... or what special reason there is for me to kill grub worms in a brewery.
That still wouldn't make the world "living" in the slightest. It just means that, instead of clicking on an NPC to read what they have to say, I need to sit there and wait for them to start talking. Amazingly, NPC's have been that in classic quest-hub wall-o-text games forever, just without the voiceovers. But keep telling yourself GW2 has somehow given life to static MMO worlds.
You make me like charity
If that is the case those players should not be buying levelbased themepark games but look further into the category of MMO sandboxes.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
You are talking about heart quest not dynamic event system, learn the difference between those two.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
I was very hyped about GW2 and subsequently disappointed.
The two biggest problems with GW2's "living" world are:
1) Boxed zones
2) Instant travel from anywhere to anywhere
You will never feel the world is "alive" and "believeable" if it's made of goddamn boxes. It's TOO obvious. I mean, look @ WoW - locations are still kinda separate boxed levels, but how well are they masked. WoW's map looks like a real, believeable world, GW2 map totally doesn't.
Instant travel, in my opinion, just makes the matters worse. Granted, it's not as big offender, but still, world doesn't feel "alive" when you can just teleport around for money (going NOWHERE, I mean, who are we paying this money to?) I can agree with fast travel in single-player games like Skyrim, I mean, it's like "we fast forwarded the boring part for you where you ride your horse along the road for 10 minutes and nothing happens", but even in that game it was negatively affecting it (like, why order a carriage or ship if you can fast travel free?). In Multiplayer games fast travel from anywhere on the map just makes the world fall apart... because you can relate to other players. Someone ran from beacon to beacon for 5 minutes, you teleported instantly in a second...
Next, we have several more offenders:
1) Deposit to bank from anywhere USING A MENU
2) Mail writing and receiving from anywhere USING A MENU
3) Auction an item from anywhere USING A MENU
This, again, can be looked at as a "progres" - I mean, why make players gather at AH or mailbox, it's just a timewaster? However, this is what makes the world less "alive". You just don't believe it! How on earth did that item get auctioned? Did I teleport it to the AH somehow? If so, can I use same tech to teleport bombs inside opponents to kill them instantly? How did that item got mailed to me instantly? A bird brought it? Can I shoot down this bird and loot someone else's mail from it? What is the point of bigger inventory space ever if you can deposit almost everything of value you loot INSTNATLY to the bank?
All this exposes the "gamey" sense of the game, making it less believeable, and as a consequence, less "living".
Because LIVING is not about "no quest hubs" and "dynamic quests" but about you believing that the world truly exists. That is is not an instance, not a server, it's a WORLD where creatures LIVE. Sure, dynamic events were steps in right direction, but all the "streamlining" of travel and auction and bank and stuff were not, and overall, I belive so much more in the World of Warcraft than I believe in the world of Guild Wars.
Finally, dynamic events? Nah. they're just repeatable quests you cannot start when you want to. They happen too damn frequently!
Like, before I quit, I used to farm that god-of-death shrine event in the endgame location (see, I don't even remember the names, they're not "alive" to me!) - the one where a cat thingie spawns and leads you in, and then you have to fight boss that spawns shades that you have to kill by donning a black outfit, while the cat just stands at the entrance and does nothing, and then you hold enemies off whlle the cat does cleansing ritual and you "win" the place. This event happens ALL THE TIME. It's not like you can hold the building, you just lose it immediately because to not lose it, someone must camp the vendor and defend it from waves of attackers, which makes no sense - it's a waste of time. So, basically most of the time, this event is avaiable. It does not make me feel like I'm in an "alive" world! It just makes me feel cheated when I log in and the event was just done, because the game punished me for having to work on a workday!
Other events include that dragon in that icey region in the top of the big map. Yeah, spawns like every 2 or 3 hours, dies, repeats. What's "alive" about it? The fact that you can only do it if you get lucky and he spawns during the time you're online and someone tells you that it spawns or you happen to be in that location? It's like, a raid boss that you cannot choose when to begin, but can drop in during the fight and still get the loot.
They promised in their trailers that "you're gonna save a village that's gonna stay that way, people will remember you as their savior etc"... There's no real "Change". None. There are just repeatable quests that are available until enough ppl gather to complete them, and then become available again (because noone will camp the end quest location to prevent it from being overrun and rolling back to the "uncomplete" state).
Oh, you mean the "dynamic events" that aren't really dynamic? The ones that are basically just events that play out at a fairly regular basis? Very few of those are interesting or even touch up on the lore of the world, much less create any sort of impression of the world being some kind of living breathing entity. It's just a bunch of random scripted events, most of which just get zergged through by whatever "train" of players is in the area. Yes, few are actually kind of interesting, but the vast majority of them are mindless zergbate.
You make me like charity
My 2 cents worth. Yes, they are adding variety, it is said that a change is as good as a holiday!
What they need to add is a decrease in events difficulty when there are less players than an event is designed for. It is pointless adding all this fantastic content if it is unplayable due to lack of players. The code is already in place to increase the difficulty if there are more players than the designed for number expected, so it would not be a large job to add this!
Yes, players could take advantage of this, but to what end, all they would get is an easier way to get exp. But with max level reachable within a 70 hour playing period would this really make much difference any way!!!
Thank you.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
If their goal was to make the world alive then the dynamic events have to be more inter connected to players and their actions.
For example, clearing a forrest of wild life allows for something else to replace it.
Or the npcs have a routine that shows their purpose or what they care for. A blacksmith hammering on the anvil, moving about to get resources. Moves to a local inn with other npcs for a break, and at night they go to sleep. Then other npcs are available, night watch, bandits etc.
The way it is now, is a public quest that is more fluid than previous iterations. Its a lot of hype, and people are seeing beyond the hype.
They want their world to make sense. That their actions have some kind of effect depending on the area. Eqn is doing something like that, but i am not sure what other mmos are doing about npc life. Im guessing not much or nothing at all.
Wouldn't it be nice that at happy hour you can gamble with a certain npc, or at night time there are bandits that play at different stakes which might result in a 'bar brawl'.
So, on other words, its just more fluid sequencing to combat. Not much more than just having an mmo that is mostly combat without any connection to how it fits with the world. You could just button mash any dynamic event, since they are easy, and the result doesn't really matter, especially after the first completion.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
That just manupulative to 1. Generalize want people do not like, and then 2. Suppose it is something else that nobody has complained about as far as i know but insist that the previous reasons are invalid because the new reason ppl are complaining about ( which afaik, are not) ignore how it is an answer to their complaint. Then they should realize how they do not even understand their own emotions.
Ppl are still complaining about the dynamic events sucking. Thats their opinion. Dont try to twist that.
If anything should be learnt, is that all this work gw2 is doing is not helping with changing players opinion by bloating their game. Changing the map seems good, but maybe its not enough to some after what they feel as a whole is not enough to bring them back to the game.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
Anet did some great things with there dynamic events... But, its only a first step, i am expecting even more from upcomming games.
Tough i really really think what Arenanet forgot to add where truely Epic quests, sure there is you personal story, but that was not enough to sattisfy my thirst for stories. If they would combine GW2 and LOTRO, it would be a truely perfect world.
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)
Years ago i realized that players in this sub-genre will never be happy and they have no idea what they want.
It doesn't matter if a game offers a massive world with thousands of activities and ways to shape it with multiple rule sets to engage different player types.
They will still hate it...
If i was wrong games like Darkfall wouldn't be empty, same with The Secret World, RIFT, Fallen Earth and other games that had devs that listened to players only to be betrayed by the same players they catered to.
OP forget these players, and this forum. Just play the games that are fun for you.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Ryzom and SWG had a living world. In Ryzom you had a for that time convincing eco system where hunting animals would hunt prey. Where animals would actually notice you being near. Herds of animals moving across the land, with the hunters keeping close. Hunting animals that would attack you as player if you got to close. Or large herd animals that attacked you if you came to close or started to attack them for resources. In SWG it was a bit more crude, but the random spawns of animal lairs fitted well in the landscape and you could tame them or hunt them for resources. They could be very dangerous too. Creature handler was one of the things that made the worlds feel more alive And the animals felt actually as part of the world like in Ryzom. The wildlife was also not just a gimmick for the typical hunter like class, but usefull for all.
GW2 has a very nice looking world. No doubt about that. But it also feels like little landscape boxes connected with loading screens and barely anything that makes the wold feel living. The mobs that participate (convincingly for a MMO) in a dynamic event look more like very nice animations in front of a landscape painting. This is partly due to that (very isolated) neutral animals have barely any use, except as pet for the typical hunting class. They are more props then anything else.
I hope we get a MMO with a world that looks at Ryzom as example for a living world and will improve on that. And that uses day/night cycles to give sentient npc's actually a day/night rhytm (and animals like in Ryzom). Day/night cycles in current themepark MMO's feel very artificial and would not change anything if left out. Also, those questnpc's stay outside, day and night.
GW2 looks awesome, has fun action and I love the dynamic events. But to me it still feels very artificial and gimmicky in the way it does that. Not like a virtual world anyway.
Yes... Ryzom had a great world yet people still abandoned that game and now it has what less that 2k active players?
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing