0
Earlier tonight, MMORPG held a live interview with Colin Johanson. Pokket managed to squeeze out a lot of good information from him, which I will be highlighting below. Instead of writing out a transcription of the interview, I'll paste the questions (some paraphrased) and make bullet points out of Colin's answers. If you want to watch the entire interview, it's up on their Twitch.tv channel.
I know there was a lot of effort put into this Halloween event. It's by far the best holiday event that I've ever taken part in and I have taken part in many different MMO events. ... My question is, is this going to be a one-time thing or are you going to see a lot of this reused next year as well?
- May use a small amount of this years' event as the baseline to build on, but they don't want to have the same holiday festival every year
- Hopefully next year there's something even more over-the-top and crazy
- Going to do a lot of really special one-off events that aren't just holidays
- "I gotta be honest. I gave up after three hours. I did everything else and I couldn't do the Clock Tower. It's really embarrassing but I couldn't do it. I did it internally, but I cheated and teleported a couple of times but once we got on live I couldn't cheat anymore so I totally couldn't do it. It was really embarrassing."
- Something that they're going to talk more about in the future
- Ddded the costume brawl to see if they could make costumes a lot more fun to play around in
- They'll just keep an eye on that and decide on if we want to do anything more with costumes beyond that
- Wintersday is something that is coming in the future that's a Guild Wars 1 tradition
- There will be a different twist now that the Gods don't exist in the world anymore
- You'll see a very different storyline for Wintersday this year
- They're going to start doing a lot of special events in the game as well
- They'll have recurring stories that build out over time and tell stories that occur across the world and change the course of the world over many months - some might be smaller than Halloween, some might take many months
- Want to update the game, tons of free content
- A lot of stuff got lost in the shuffle with Halloween - with that build they added over 50 new events, two mini-dungeons, new jumping puzzles, sPvP tournaments that give out qualifier points for championship tournaments in the future
- Beta version of a new sPvP map for people to test and give feedback on, if people like it they'll add it to the permanent PvP rotation
- Weekend long event that permanently changes the world in some places and opens up a new island that people can explore - small map with a lot of fun stuff and a storyline across the weekend that changes the world
- Brand new type of dungeon to be added - gets harder the further you get in, really big with a ton of levels
- New rewards to the game that are buried deep within the new dungeon
- Still talking on if they want to do server first announcements
- One of the things they want is make sure they have messaging so players can tell who are the best at different things, who have gotten the farthest in different areas
- Going to do more for WvW rankings each week and build towards having an official site where you can go and see all of that information (currently in the works and should be coming out very soon™)
- One-off world events, the events done at the end of betas, the lead-up to Halloween is something they'd continue to do
- The thing that reveals the island and dungeon that gets added to the world is part of a big sweeping event
- Going to be adding a ton of new stuff for higher level characters
- Going to be adding a lot more to the WvW side
- That they need to do better messaging both in the game such as where things are, and better messaging outside of the game to make sure people know what time things are happening and where to show up
- Need to do a better job at getting the word out
- Make sure they know where people are going to go and what they are going to do and planning ahead of time all of the different places they'll log in to
- It's feedback that they will listen to, they'll make the choice design-wise for things like this in the future
- They want people to have fun
- It's a challenge because it's an MMO and they want it to be social, they want you to be able to go in with different players, so they need to find a good middle ground
- It's not a full-sized map, it's a place where they want the storyline to play out
- It will stay behind after the weekend with new content
- Not intended as a big end-game expansion
- Live team will add more and more content to the island later down the road
- Will have new rewards that you can't get anywhere else in the game
- Theme-wise - have to wait and see
- Competitive tournaments that came out with the Halloween update - rewards such as qualifier points and gems
- Down the road there will be custom arenas that they will talk more about later
- Working on things that need to be finished that are mandatory for any game that wants to be a large competitive game
- Working on additional rewards
- It's something they are talking about and they haven't made a decision yet
- Something they are talking about, a feature they added to Guild Wars 1 a while after the game initially released
- Not currently being worked on
- Haven't planned anything like that
- Certainly something they might do in the future
- Someday there will be Guild Halls but it's not something that is actively being worked on
- Will expand on guild features down the road as well
- Not currently working on but housing is another thing they think is awesome and someday it might find itself in GW2
- Doesn't want to go into specifics yet
- They're evaluating every part of the game to see what kind of stuff to add
- Not currently, but you never know what might happen in the future
- Down the road we might take a look at that
- Not currently being worked on because they are working on more important issues
- Actively working on dungeon rewards to make it more fun for people
- Want to make sure that it feels like a challenge and that you get good rewards for the time you spend in them
- He thinks that came from years ago when they played around with one of those and someone did an interview a while ago where they talked about how they had a MOBA map early on
- It's something that was scrapped because it wasn't working well
- Things like that are always open and on the table as projects they might go after again, they tend to pop up in the form of mini-games like the skeleton battle for the Halloween event
- Other areas of PvP that they really want to focus on first
Comments
#1 Azure Skye
Seraph Guardian
Posted 02 November 2012 - 03:02 AM
#2 phani_kaushik
Vanguard Scout
Posted 02 November 2012 - 03:55 AM
That's really funny! xD
#3 omar316
Vanguard Scout
Posted 02 November 2012 - 05:54 AM
I have to say they do have their priorities down, but still, I feel that it should have been already in game:
Can you talk about what's in the November 15th build?
snip
Do you plan on having any sort of server first announcements for the dungeon?
snip
So on and so forth.
Few other examples I want to quote but iPhone is annoyingly low on battery.
#4 Ritualist
Golem Rider
Posted 02 November 2012 - 06:26 AM
Quote
Certainly something they might do in the future.
Brand new type of dungeon to be added - gets harder the further you get in, really big with a ton of levels
New rewards to the game that are buried deep within the new dungeon
Why would they even consider adding more vertical progression or more insanely time-consuming parts? It's bullshit to have content that people are excluded from simply because they can't invest shit-ton of time into the game.
As for the new PvP map, I hope this means they'll delete Capricorn.
#5 Lordkrall
Vigil Crusader
Posted 02 November 2012 - 07:32 AM
Why would they even consider adding more vertical progression or more insanely time-consuming parts? It's bullshit to have content that people are excluded from simply because they can't invest shit-ton of time into the game.
As for the new PvP map, I hope this means they'll delete Capricorn.
And you assume that you will have to do the whole dungeon in one sitting?
Maybe they will save the progress after each floor?
#6 Soki
Sylvari Specialist
Posted 02 November 2012 - 08:00 AM
Why would they even consider adding more vertical progression or more insanely time-consuming parts? It's bullshit to have content that people are excluded from simply because they can't invest shit-ton of time into the game.
As for the new PvP map, I hope this means they'll delete Capricorn.
If you can only commit an hour a day to play, you're less progressed on the gals you have than someone who has the free time to play 3 hours a day or more. That's not game design, that's just how time works. It sucks, I know.
It's also a very bad design to have NOTHING to progress toward - like GW2 right now.
Your progress is armor skins. Once you have those, I guess you can go for a Legendary - but it's so boring to do because all it is is a flat, straight-out grind for it. (Another point entirely is how poorly-implemented Legendaries are; but yeah)
If GW2 gets some form of alternate progress - some sort of Glyph system that augments how your skills work that costs a high amount of Skill Points; or (preferably) requires you to do Profession-specific quests with a group.
FFXI had so much longevity and a tight community because people needed to help eachother, even if they didnt need anything from the particular thing they're doing - because they knew they'd need help eventually, too.
That sort of design should be emulated with every MMO - particularly with non-required but cool rewards.
#7 skuko
Asuran Acolyte
Posted 02 November 2012 - 08:18 AM
#8 Eon Lilu
Golem Rider
Posted 02 November 2012 - 08:28 AM
Quote
Quote
This one is biggest dissapointment. The game needs more guild support, functions and social tools, its screaming for it. It's not really something that should be last on there list of things to do...dungeon group finder would also be something the game needs.
I would rather see a whole build devoted to guild halls, guild tools and support, social mechanics than anything else right now.
#9 Ritualist
Golem Rider
Posted 02 November 2012 - 08:41 AM
If you can only commit an hour a day to play, you're less progressed on the gals you have than someone who has the free time to play 3 hours a day or more. That's not game design, that's just how time works. It sucks, I know.
The problem I was addressing isn't having to invest 5 hours. The way the mode is described seems to imply that it will only provide a meaningful experience to the people that are able to invest 5 hours at a time instead of also to the players that invest 5 hours by playing 5 times for an hour.
It's the legendary weapons approach all over again: all or nothing.
#10 Agrik
Asuran Acolyte
Posted 02 November 2012 - 08:46 AM
bothplayersand guilds?#11 Lordkrall
Vigil Crusader
Posted 02 November 2012 - 08:50 AM
It's the legendary weapons approach all over again: all or nothing.
And that is because you assume that you will have to do it all in one sitting.
There is no information if you have to do that or not, so why whine about it without knowing how it will work?
#12 Sevens
Vanguard Scout
Posted 02 November 2012 - 09:14 AM
There is no information if you have to do that or not, so why whine about it without knowing how it will work?
#13 Omedon
Seraph Guardian
Posted 02 November 2012 - 09:16 AM
I'd been of the impression that player housing *will* be added (not *might* be added), at the same time guild halls are added. Hopefully this is just semantics and player housing is a priority that will be added (not right away, I know fixing broken areas and such are more important, but to me there is a huge difference between "will be added" and "might be added" so this was disappointing. Hopefully a clarification that it "will be added" will be forthcoming, I know I used the fact that housing "will be added" as a recruiting tool to lure other players to gw2 and hope that doesn't backfire on me
I'm with you on this. That "might" just soured my day. However, that "might" was the best sales pitch for "RIFT: Storm Legion" (more specifically, dimensions) I've seen yet lol.
http://omedon.tumblr.com/
#14 Sevens
Vanguard Scout
Posted 02 November 2012 - 09:30 AM
#15 Omedon
Seraph Guardian
Posted 02 November 2012 - 09:34 AM
This has been my thought/hope as well. Housing would be a huge sales pitch to push an expansion.
Actually, before I get all sourish at the top of my day, I should ask if that "might" wording was straight from the interview or part of the summary.
http://omedon.tumblr.com/
#16 Sevens
Vanguard Scout
Posted 02 November 2012 - 09:36 AM
Actually, before I get all sourish at the top of my day, I should ask if that "might" wording was straight from the interview or part of the summary.
#17 Omedon
Seraph Guardian
Posted 02 November 2012 - 09:38 AM
Ya, that was my more optimistic outlook on it as well. It's sad that he has to do that, I mean... you might even get some crazy forum people getting all upset that he chose a certain word over another!
http://omedon.tumblr.com/
#18 Soki
Sylvari Specialist
Posted 02 November 2012 - 12:39 PM
It's the legendary weapons approach all over again: all or nothing.
Legendaries: You can put in an hour every day for a year; or play 8hrs a day and get it way faster.
This mode: One long stretch.
I think it's silly that you're already complaining about how long you project it will take from the very small amount of information currently out about it (basically nothing).
If you seriously can't afford the time to put more than an hour into an MMO per day, maybe you should try more session-based games - or stick to sPvP. I say that not as a jab at you; but as a legitimate suggestion.
The average MMO player puts 3hours per day into their MMO gaming.
#19 blindude
Seraph Guardian
Posted 02 November 2012 - 01:15 PM
It's the legendary weapons approach all over again: all or nothing.
It makes sence
#20 Ritualist
Golem Rider
Posted 02 November 2012 - 01:20 PM
Legendaries: You can put in an hour every day for a year; or play 8hrs a day and get it way faster.
This mode: One long stretch.
I think it's silly that you're already complaining about how long you project it will take from the very small amount of information currently out about it (basically nothing).
If you seriously can't afford the time to put more than an hour into an MMO per day, maybe you should try more session-based games - or stick to sPvP. I say that not as a jab at you; but as a legitimate suggestion.
The average MMO player puts 3hours per day into their MMO gaming.
The problem with legendaries is that they function the same way that this does - A.Net created content/goals that only the people that invest serious amounts of time have access to. If you can not invest that much time, due to the all or nothing approach, there's absolutely no point in even trying.
As for its length:
"Brand new type of dungeon to be added - gets harder the further you get in, really big with a ton of levels
New rewards to the game that are buried deep within the new dungeon"
I normally do not use terms like "really big with ton of levels" "buried deep" if I am describing something that should only take a short time to complete. But maybe that just me and I am using the English language wrong.
(Also, do we really think that the game can grow if only the people who can invest multiple hours in a sitting should play it?)