446 replies to this topic

[raspberry jam]

XPhiler, on 07 January 2013 - 04:27 PM, said:

... you kill them and thats it, they're gone they will not respawn 5 seconds later.

(...)

Sure its not perfect, in 30 minutes the bandits will try to retake the town again

XDerp strikes again, you just said exactly what the problem is here. Or actually, the problem isn't even that they'll return in half an hour, the problem is that they will predictably return. The fact that even as you kill the bandits you know that you are doing absolutely nothing since they will return, breaks all immersion whatsoever.

[Gilles VI]

raspberry jam, on 07 January 2013 - 04:55 PM, said:

XDerp strikes again, you just said exactly what the problem is here. Or actually, the problem isn't even that they'll return in half an hour, the problem is that they will predictably return. The fact that even as you kill the bandits you know that you are doing absolutely nothing since they will return, breaks all immersion whatsoever.

And he wasn't saying it's perfect..
Only saying it's much better/much more immersive than in other MMO's.
And he was also talking from a RP PoV.

Edited by Gilles VI, 07 January 2013 - 05:10 PM.

[Fizzypop]

witteker, on 07 January 2013 - 03:55 PM, said:

Yah, right.  90% of WoW players do not care about the lore.  If people only cared about the lore and story, everyone should be playing Lotro.  What kept me playing WoW for years was its immersiveness, and I did not care less about the story behind some mob like Magtheridon.

Where did I say anything about mmos? I thought we were talking about rpgs which is exactly what I was talking about which is why I said single player rpgs. Skyrim is a single player rpg. I expect way more than 20 hours of entertainment from a single player rpg. RPGs were created for the story. The idea of multi-player system is a recent invention. Rpgs have been around for much longer than any mmo. Fyi, the majority of people I know who play wow do enjoy the story in fact they grew up with it from its previous RTS games. I know hard to believe that there are some of us who really enjoy the story in mmoRPGs!

Edited by Fizzypop, 07 January 2013 - 05:25 PM.

[Moon Electric]

raspberry jam, on 07 January 2013 - 04:55 PM, said:

XDerp strikes again, you just said exactly what the problem is here. Or actually, the problem isn't even that they'll return in half an hour, the problem is that they will predictably return. The fact that even as you kill the bandits you know that you are doing absolutely nothing since they will return, breaks all immersion whatsoever.

What exactly would the solution be to this problem? They've already tried to implement one time only events (Karka finale) and look at the backlash they received from the community when people were unable to logon during that specific time to experience it?

I think events are fundamentally a great way to break the monotony of leveling in an MMO. In my opinion, events seem to be on a short timer to ensure there is enough repeatable content to allow players to level.

[Fizzypop]

Lucas Ashrock, on 07 January 2013 - 04:16 PM, said:

Eh ye, it's still not clear. Now imagine what happens if it's f2p and gw2 is still the same goty junk we have today

If they went f2p I'm sure they'd be very successful based on the brand name alone. I'm betting though that they won't score much with the crowd who want no trinity and not so sure on the gear issue either. I don't mind the trinity itself, but my biggest problem with it is I never get to play DPS in those games because no one wants to do the hard job. I almost always take up either tanking or healing. I can forgive a trinity system, but I really want low requirements to gearing and more of the story in open world.

Edited by Fizzypop, 07 January 2013 - 05:34 PM.

[Arewn]

Arquenya, on 07 January 2013 - 10:05 AM, said:

Yes, which a lot of people said about GW2 before it got released!

Absolutely true xD in fact I'd say it was worse with GW2 then many other games because of the ambitious "we'll be different from WoW" goals.

Lucas Ashrock, on 07 January 2013 - 11:27 AM, said:

No doubt. I'm not a leader of the core group playing now. I'm just... pretty sure of it, let's say And as i said, not just Teso, add pso2, or ff reborn.
Just look this forum (besides my posts) or maybe ok, the main one, wanna try? 9999 complains directly towards devs about everything, even on festivities sections a moment of happyness and relax calling this company a gambler and scammer company, one "wow this game is great, ty Anet". Now guess what happens when not just one real goty is out, but even two .
You have no idea what happens if teso is f2p roflmao, not even goldsellers will be left hahahaah
Just look at the /map, home server , full server capped (and even most overflows). Silent. Sometimes a lfg lv5 fractal pops. Oh ye, 1 million player are on gw2lfg right? Ah no wait.. XD
And don't write me now an other antihater standardized post about freedom of taste and don't talk for a whole but by yourself, not to me

Have you been to other MMORPG forums? It's the same thing. Forums are simply not representative of the actual state of the game. Of course the forums are covered in negativity and complaints, complaining is one of the primary motives for coming to post on a forum.

[Millimidget]

Moon Electric, on 07 January 2013 - 05:17 PM, said:

What exactly would the solution be to this problem? They've already tried to implement one time only events (Karka finale) and look at the backlash they received from the community when people were unable to logon during that specific time to experience it?

Of course people were pissed when they expected the rewards to be the same junk they hand out everywhere else, and instead there's a chest with a much higher chance than anywhere else in the game for the single most valuable commodities to drop.

It's their own damn fault for dialing the rewards up to 11. Worse, it was clearly done because Anet could see that the event was total suck unless they attached these rewards to it, but players aren't privy to that information, and many correctly identified the event itself as terrible and left without knowing that such valuable rewards could be attained.

Arewn, on 07 January 2013 - 05:50 PM, said:

Have you been to other MMORPG forums? It's the same thing. Forums are simply not representative of the actual state of the game. Of course the forums are covered in negativity and complaints, complaining is one of the primary motives for coming to post on a forum.

Forums are indicative of the state of the community. Which is to say, if forums are all cheery and friendly, then the game has probably lost 95% of its lifetime players, and is left with that 5% who are happy with anything the developer craps out.

Edited by Millimidget, 07 January 2013 - 07:26 PM.

[Moon Electric]

Millimidget, on 07 January 2013 - 07:22 PM, said:

Of course people were pissed when they expected the rewards to be the same junk they hand out everywhere else, and instead there's a chest with a much higher chance than anywhere else in the game for the single most valuable commodities to drop.

It's their own damn fault for dialing the rewards up to 11. Worse, it was clearly done because Anet could see that the event was total suck unless they attached these rewards to it, but players aren't privy to that information, and many correctly identified the event itself as terrible and left without knowing that such valuable rewards could be attained.


Forums are indicative of the state of the community. Which is to say, if forums are all cheery and friendly, then the game has probably lost 95% of its lifetime players, and is left with that 5% who are happy with anything the developer craps out.

While I agree the event itself was rather craptastic the backlash from the community was there even before the event took place.

[Millimidget]

Moon Electric, on 07 January 2013 - 07:41 PM, said:

While I agree the event itself was rather craptastic the backlash from the community was there even before the event took place.

I didn't see much (or any, really) until people started realizing that it spat out precursors. There was alot of backlash against Ascended gear, though, but that's independent from the one-time event.

[Lucas Ashrock]

Millimidget, on 07 January 2013 - 07:22 PM, said:

Forums are indicative of the state of the community. Which is to say, if forums are all cheery and friendly, then the game has probably lost 95% of its lifetime players, and is left with that 5% who are happy with anything the developer craps out.

Perfect answer, i couldn't type better.

Edited by Lucas Ashrock, 07 January 2013 - 07:52 PM.

[Arquenya]

XPhiler, on 07 January 2013 - 04:27 PM, said:

As opposed to what if I may ask? Finally an MMO where you can actually experiance first hand the narrative as it evolves when you RP. If say you're RPing defending a town. You go on a couple of patrols, investigating infrastructure and get actually jumped by bandits. We're not talking bandits roaming the area all the time walking a few random directions now and then but actual jumping you out of a bush, you kill them and thats it, they're gone they will not respawn 5 seconds later.
Same with a logical living breathing world, again which game comes even close? outposts sending supplies to each other, with actual caravans walking all the way. If bandits assault a town they actually leave from their hideout, go attack the town and if they fail they actually run back in some cases they just dont even despawn when they get back to their base but rather resume patroling the permitter next to their base. Whole storylines that play out from start to finish with great attention to detail such as npc calling in a raven, attaching a message to its leg and sending it off in order to order a transport to come pick up goods that npc wants to ship.
How can you call this level of immersion poor / mediocre or even non-existant. Which other MMO does even a fraction of this in the realism department?

Playing the game isn't neccessarily " RPing" - that would mean that any other game is RPing too and playing Monopoly is "RPing" a business tycoon. And "defending", "escorting" and spawning enemies if you trigger a quest aren't something new. What game have you been playing that doesn't have these?

And the graphical effects may be nice but in the end it's still the static situation with a lot of default contested waypoints and enemies occupying outposts and players that can temporarily push them back. Only for it to revert to the same orgininal static situation after they leave. The Orr temples may be the best example of this.
Outposts sending supplies as a logical way to do "escort" quest, because nothing happens if the supply dolyak doesn't arrive. I do realise that it's already a bit better than usual, of course.

Also see my post #171.

Edited by Arquenya, 08 January 2013 - 09:06 AM.

[raspberry jam]

Moon Electric, on 07 January 2013 - 05:17 PM, said:

What exactly would the solution be to this problem? They've already tried to implement one time only events (Karka finale) and look at the backlash they received from the community when people were unable to logon during that specific time to experience it?

I think events are fundamentally a great way to break the monotony of leveling in an MMO. In my opinion, events seem to be on a short timer to ensure there is enough repeatable content to allow players to level.

The problem with the Karka finale (and the entire horrorshow leading up to it) wasn't even all the bugs, it was that it was a rare thing. If every single event in the game would be "one-time", no one would care about missing a few of them.

And in fact, you will most likely miss out on quite a few of GW2's repeating events as well. Do you care? No you don't.

[raspberry jam]

Gilles VI, on 07 January 2013 - 05:10 PM, said:

And he wasn't saying it's perfect..
Only saying it's much better/much more immersive than in other MMO's.
And he was also talking from a RP PoV.

But being better or more immersive than other MMOs, even if it was true, would not mean anything since practically all MMOs on the market are extremely bad and entirely non-immersive. Hell I get more immersion from Sheva's bad AI in RE5 than all these WoW clones put together.

"RP PoV" doesn't mean anything. Ideally, the "RP" PoV would be the same as that of the above-75-IQ player. As for RP immersion it is completely nonexistent since you know that you are having literally no effect whatsoever on the game world. The literally only thing you do is to kill X baddies for some reward.

[Gilles VI]

raspberry jam, on 08 January 2013 - 10:45 AM, said:

The problem with the Karka finale (and the entire horrorshow leading up to it) wasn't even all the bugs, it was that it was a rare thing. If every single event in the game would be "one-time", no one would care about missing a few of them.

And in fact, you will most likely miss out on quite a few of GW2's repeating events as well. Do you care? No you don't.

My biggest problem with that event was the completely unexpected huge rewards (legendary pre-cursors) and the complete RNG of it..
I wasn't playing because I thought it was going to give crap rewards, and then some guildies of me got 2 weaps worth of 400g or more..

And then there are people who also endured all the lag and dc's and deaths and they get some worthless exo junk..

[raspberry jam]

Gilles VI, on 08 January 2013 - 11:03 AM, said:

My biggest problem with that event was the completely unexpected huge rewards (legendary pre-cursors) and the complete RNG of it..
I wasn't playing because I thought it was going to give crap rewards, and then some guildies of me got 2 weaps worth of 400g or more..

And then there are people who also endured all the lag and dc's and deaths and they get some worthless exo junk..

Hah, sure, that too. That's marketing though.

[XPhiler]

raspberry jam, on 07 January 2013 - 04:55 PM, said:

XDerp strikes again, you just said exactly what the problem is here. Or actually, the problem isn't even that they'll return in half an hour, the problem is that they will predictably return. The fact that even as you kill the bandits you know that you are doing absolutely nothing since they will return, breaks all immersion whatsoever.

Yes sure, cause the bandits never attacking and instead just standing in a field roaming around 24/7, 356/355 for as long as the game runs  is so much more immersive then having them attack every 30 minutes or so which in game terms are actually 2 hours.

Like I said its not perfect would be great if events repeated in days / weeks cycle no doubt. But saying that this repeat cycle breaks immersion more then having everything remain static forever is unbelievable.

With all due respect thinking that you're not acomplishing anything by defending a town simply because it will be attacked again later is very short sighted. Thats how things work even in real life. Take a city like Jerusalem for example (selected for no other reason then because it was one of the location most sought after in history) it was attacked 52 times, sieged 23 times and conquered 44 times. So what should each time the city came undersieged the inhabitants simply picked their stuff and left thinking a fight is pointless because even if they win the city would be attacked again in the future? Of course not. In the end It would be a lot more immersion breaking had everytime you repel an attack the attackers wouldnt try again. EVER.

Again not saying the game is perfect, you're right the frequent repeat cylce definitely detracts from immersion but for me even so thats much much much better then having a game that just never ever changes in anyway.

[Gilles VI]

raspberry jam, on 08 January 2013 - 11:08 AM, said:

Hah, sure, that too. That's marketing though.

How is that in any way marketing?

[XPhiler]

Arquenya, on 08 January 2013 - 09:05 AM, said:

Playing the game isn't neccessarily " RPing" - that would mean that any other game is RPing too and playing Monopoly is "RPing" a business tycoon. And "defending", "escorting" and spawning enemies if you trigger a quest aren't something new. What game have you been playing that doesn't have these?

And the graphical effects may be nice but in the end it's still the static situation with a lot of default contested waypoints and enemies occupying outposts and players that can temporarily push them back. Only for it to revert to the same orgininal static situation after they leave. The Orr temples may be the best example of this.
Outposts sending supplies as a logical way to do "escort" quest, because nothing happens if the supply dolyak doesn't arrive. I do realise that it's already a bit better than usual, of course.

Also see my post #171.

Actually I was talking about RP not simply playing the game. Specifically I was giving an example from my first experiance RPing with my RP guild. It was an event we organized to sort of create the backstory of how the guild was founded. The story was the guild leader got sick of the bandit attacks (who can blame her who wouldnt be sick with coming under siege every 30 mins ? ) And issued a call for people to help deal with the problem. There were several stages to the story in the part I quoted, me and few others went to investigate if the bandits were tampeing with the infrastructure. During said investigation a couple of bandits jumped out of the bushes. It was a great addition the RP and much more immersive then having a few bandits roam around in the open. It fits a lot better with the event and integrates the RP with the enviroment that is difficult to do in other MMOs.

Nearly all MMOs dont have anything like this. Most quests in nearly every MMO I played use static NPCs on the MAP. Repelling a siege generally involves a 5 minute walk away from the objective you're defending and killing x amount of y. You leave, leaving behind the same force you found when you came at the start of the quest in many cases.  "Escort" Quests are generally no escort at all instead its just about walking to some npc and interacting with him since you're simply given the package you have to deliver. In most other MMOs nothing ever happens visually to evolve the storyline. The only change that happens is the dialog offered by NPCs everything else is generally entirely static. Its all because of how MMOs are designed. If a generic MMO A where to spawn the bandits once you take the quest, that are going to assault the town you're defending and have them charge the town what happens if they're intercepted by another player before they reach you? How are you going to kill the X the quests wants you to kill? So with such a design the game is left with no choice but to offer an endless supply of bandits so you can never run out of bandits to kill before you reach the quests quota.


I completely agree with most of your post #171. All very valid points and I am particularly disappointed with the inability to sit on chairs myself. It kinda makes me angry that arenanet designed such a wonderful world to RP in but never really polished it for RPing. Not exactly sure if duels would add or detract from immersion and dont think the price of a hair change has really any weight but the rest are all very good points.

Also being an expert crafter does take some dedication. A lot of it really. If you dont go on the wiki to research recipes it takes a lot of time and effort to discover some of them. Crafting like anything else is a tiered experiance. Getting your crafting profession to 400 is just the tip of the iceberg, its doesnt make you an expert crafter it makes you a basic crafter. An expert crafter is one who has unlocked named weapons / named armor sets and that also leaves the mystical forge that has other sets that are even harder to discover.

[Arquenya]

XPhiler, on 08 January 2013 - 11:39 AM, said:

Like I said its not perfect would be great if events repeated in days / weeks cycle no doubt. But saying that this repeat cycle breaks immersion more then having everything remain static forever is unbelievable.

With all due respect thinking that you're not acomplishing anything by defending a town simply because it will be attacked again later is very short sighted. Thats how things work even in real life. Take a city like Jerusalem for example (selected for no other reason then because it was one of the location most sought after in history) it was attacked 52 times, sieged 23 times and conquered 44 times. So what should each time the city came undersieged the inhabitants simply picked their stuff and left thinking a fight is pointless because even if they win the city would be attacked again in the future? Of course not. In the end It would be a lot more immersion breaking had everytime you repel an attack the attackers wouldnt try again. EVER.

Again not saying the game is perfect, you're right the frequent repeat cylce definitely detracts from immersion but for me even so thats much much much better then having a game that just never ever changes in anyway.

Well what’s exactly the difference between events happening on some timer or them happening by triggering them by clicking an NPC? Does it really make it so much more immersive - just because of that? As I asked you before: do other games have no defend, escort quests and extra enemies that spawn when you trigger a quest or event? Stealthed NPCs? Or structures that can be destroyed?

Realizing that whatever you do has no impact on the game world whatsoever, how is that shortsighted? Cities as Jerusalem had religious and probably strategic values. Outposts in GW2 (and for that matter : a lot of other things as being an order member or your storyline) don’t matter at all. If for example guild halls would be in villages and access to vendors and stuff and WPs would be determined by your ability to fend off attackers, then yes it would be a lot more of a “realistic, living and breathing world”. But not as it is now. Sure, the first few events are nice and all but it’s the same meaningless stuff throughout the whole game.

XPhiler, on 08 January 2013 - 12:09 PM, said:

Also being an expert crafter does take some dedication. A lot of it really. If you dont go on the wiki to research recipes it takes a lot of time and effort to discover some of them. Crafting like anything else is a tiered experiance. Getting your crafting profession to 400 is just the tip of the iceberg, its doesnt make you an expert crafter it makes you a basic crafter. An expert crafter is one who has unlocked named weapons / named armor sets and that also leaves the mystical forge that has other sets that are even harder to discover.

But there's no recognition or accomplishment in that. I can craft everything I'd want at 400. It being in my list or not doesn't really matter in any way. My abiliy is exactly the same. My "skill" or efficiency don't get any better if I just leveled to 400 compared to when I've crafted 1,000s of sets and made every single legendary in the Mystic Forge.

In other words: there's no effective difference between your "basic crafter" at 400 and what you call "an expert". While IRL you'd expect a master to be more efficient (need less mats, need less time) and be able to make more different and higher quality stuff. People would seek you out because of your expertise and mastery.
But there's no such thing in GW2. Which is a great pity.

You say, "if you don't use the wiki", why wouldn't anyone do that?!

Edited by Arquenya, 08 January 2013 - 01:23 PM.

[NerfHerder]

GotY? To me, yes it is. I haven't played many new titles this year so I cant judge anything else. But from what I've played in recent MMO history, yeah it deserves MMO of the year.

Its all a matter of personal preference. Some like it, some don't. I like it with all its flaws and a friend of mine from GW1 hates it. But still plays because they have friends here. I don't get the whiners though. Its one thing if you kinda like the game, but complain because you think it could be better. But its another issue if you utterly hate it. Whenever I hate a game I never even look at their forums, much less bother to post. Of course I don't think I've ever really hated a game, more like not enjoyed.

[XPhiler]

raspberry jam, on 08 January 2013 - 10:45 AM, said:

The problem with the Karka finale (and the entire horrorshow leading up to it) wasn't even all the bugs, it was that it was a rare thing. If every single event in the game would be "one-time", no one would care about missing a few of them.

And in fact, you will most likely miss out on quite a few of GW2's repeating events as well. Do you care? No you don't.

Of course we care. Some people play for the story more then anything else. Not everyone plays MMOs primarily for the combat and gear. if every single event in the game would be a one-time event it would be litterally a tragedy. Its like being offered a great novel with random pages torn out.

This continuity issue if I can call it that way is the price of playing MMOs. You either go the gw1 route and have story walled behind instances or you go the way of other MMOs where quests are available for everyone to do one time but other then the narrative provided by NPCs nothing really changes or you can go the Gw2 route where things change by the price for that is they repeat so others can do them as well. Personally I like the Gw2 way the most, followed by the instancing approach of Gw1.

[Arquenya]

XPhiler, on 08 January 2013 - 12:43 PM, said:

Of course we care. Some people play for the story more then anything else. Not everyone plays MMOs primarily for the combat and gear. if every single event in the game would be a one-time event it would be litterally a tragedy. Its like being offered a great novel with random pages torn out.

Only if the stories were related at all. I don't see how much of a tragedy it is if you miss the "bring ripe apples to farmer A", "Defend this village against the centaur" and "escort npc B to village C". Because there isn't. They're all seperate little stories.

[XPhiler]

Arquenya, on 08 January 2013 - 12:19 PM, said:

Well what’s exactly the difference between events happening on some timer or them happening by triggering them by clicking an NPC? Does it really make it so much more immersive - just because of that? As I asked you before: do other games have no defend, escort quests and extra enemies that spawn when you trigger a quest or event? Or structures that can be destroyed?

Realizing that whatever you do has no impact on the game world whatsoever, how is that shortsighted? Cities as Jerusalem had religious and probably strategic values. Outposts in GW2 (and for that matter : a lot of other things as being an order member or your storyline) don’t matter at all. If for example guild halls would be in villages and access to vendors and stuff and WPs would be determined by your ability to fend off attackers, then yes it would be a lot more of a “realistic, living and breathing world”. But not as it is now. Sure, the first few events are nice and all but it’s the same meaningless stuff throughout the whole game.

There is a huge difference in my opinion. On one level, events triggering because players trigger them makes the game revolve around the player and thats well unrealistic. Essentially in a generic MMO the best way to save a town is by doing nothing. If I never talk to NPC and accept the quest the invasion will just never happen. Well even if you accept the quest it will never happen anyway. On the other hand having evens trigger automatically makes those event happens because of "motivations" I mean Obviously the bandits attack a town not because they really want to pillage it but it feels that way. Makes the world feel a lot more alive. And yes most other MMOs dont have NPCs that spawn with quests. Most other MMOs defend quests arent really defend quest they're kill quest disguised as defend quests. You dont defend anyone, there is no need the attacking npcs will never attack, you're just told to kill these NPCs to deter their attack which again even though the npc giving you the quest will thankyou and tell you that thanks to you the attack is not going to happen the attackers will still remain where they are so you didnt really exactly deter them from anything. A few MMOs do have a small number of escort quest and in many cases this results in 2 copies of the npcs you're escorting. Still generally Few MMOs really do escort quest. the majority have you deliver the packages yourself. Once again the world isnt alive nothing is happening everything is centered around you. You destroying buildings is fairly common in other MMOs true, but how many MMOs has NPCs destorying buildings you are tasked with protecting? Nearly none which brings us to the next issues. In how many MMOs can you really fail? 99.9% you cant even fail a quest if you try hard. Defending a town means you can go for a 10 year long break, reload the game and pickup killing the remaining X of Y right were you left off. In those 10 years that invasion never takes place because well the world is litterally revolving around you. In the other 0.1% that might include a timer making it possible to fail a quest you dont really fail either. All it has you do is restart the quest. Not so In Gw2, in Gw2 a failure will result in real failure both visually and logically. Still has some similarities in that you can do something about the failure and turn it to success again just like abondoning and retaking the quest but the experiance is so much better from an immersion point of you.

If in a generic MMO you're given 10 minutes to repel an invasion by bandits and you fail visually nothing changes. You abandone the quest talk to the same npc and you get another 10 minutes to try again. If you give up and leave failing to stop the bandits will not have really changed anything, the villagers are still safe and sound and they will be each time you pass throught that village even though you never managed to stop the bandits. In Gw2 its worlds apart for the most part. Failing to defend the town will end up with buildings on fire, villagers killed / kidnapped or driven off. If you walk away without succeeding in saving the village that state will persist until other players drive those bandits out. Next time you pass around the village might still be occuptied or it might be free.

This is exactly what I am talking about, you're viewing the game as if your character is at the center of it. The bandits should never assault the village because your character has a presence there. Thats not realistic at all. The bandits assault the village because they have their own motivations. In some areas its to drive the farmers out to gain control over the food supply. The beauty that makes the world feel even more alive is the game is designed to have these objective reflected in most of the zone. Like taking Queensdale for example, the bandits try to sabotage the water supply to kill crops and cause a scarcity. If they succeed that creates an unintended sideffect on litterally the other side of the map where the water supply gets tainted NPCs will complain they are sick and you can see a little green myst coming out from the well there. The bandits will also assault and try to gain control of the mill and the warehouse in the basement of the mill. They will also assault the nearby farms trying to take control of the animals. And you can see all of this happening right in front of your eyes, its not just a couple of lines of text told to you by an NPC how can anyone say thats not a lot more immersive then anything any other MMO has to offer?

Anyway I deviated, sorry, so well we determined that Bandits have thier own motivation to attack a village or whatever. The defenders obviously dont want to loose everything and be driven out of their homes. Now you as a player seeing this happening right infront of your eyes have a choice. You can decide that since you dont have a personal stake you dont care enough to take action and try to save the villagers. You can also decide its the right thing to do and lend a hand, its entirely up to you. Quests arent any better either in this regards. How many quests that ask you to defend a village put players personal holidings at risk should you fail to defend that village? None not aware of a single one. Its even a problem in single player RPGs. Most of them the only incentive they give you is to clear out your name, which you end up doing by killing so many people that I am not so sure you'd have really cleared anything in the end. I mean most games should end along the lines of "ohh okey sorry we were pretty sure you were the one who killed our king but alas we were mistaken sorry. Ohh but we're pretty sure you're the one who killed all our brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers and those other 1000s of people you slautered in your pursuit to clear out your name. you know what I liked you better when I thought you had only killed the king"

Bottom line I dont really see it as meanigless, Its stuff that makes the game feel alive. It keeps the game dynamic, NPCs running around, assaults, convoys moving around, a theiving skirt here and there, prisonners, patrols, ambushes.  Things happening around you. How can any of these things not add to making the world feel alive?

[XPhiler]

Arquenya, on 08 January 2013 - 01:29 PM, said:

Only if the stories were related at all. I don't see how much of a tragedy it is if you miss the "bring ripe apples to farmer A", "Defend this village against the centaur" and "escort npc B to village C". Because there isn't. They're all seperate little stories.

Some are some arent. Very few events are as simple as bring ripe apples to farmer A and just stop there. Most of them collectively tell a much bigger story. There are two different kind, dynamic event chains that span just 4 events as well as some that have different dynamic events coming together to tell a whol story.  Like defend the village against the centaurs is just one small segement of the bigger story. The actual story is Centaurs and humans are trying to drive each other's out. Centaurs try to do that by attacking and taking over a number of villages. They employ a number of strategy, using siege weapons, training rock dogs to fight along side them as well as  a champion war beast. Each of these doesnt simply occur though they're all depended on other events. Nebo Terrace will not be attacked by Siege weapons if you stop the bombardier and the warmaster from reaching the bloodfields. Like wise if you disrupt the training of the rock dogs you will not have to fight them along side the centaurs.

What I am trying to say its just two centaurs (bombardier and warmaster) that are taking a relaxing walk in the country side. There is a back story to it. Its the Centaurs trying to gain control of nebo terrace. The Bombardier and warmaster are on the move trying to set up seige weapons to accomplish that. It will not stop there either, ground forces will invade Nebo terrace and if you didnt stop the centaurs from training rock dogs they'll have rock dogs with them. If you dont stop the invasion then the centaurs will not only completely take control of nebo terrace but the villagers will be taken prisonners and players will need to save them.  One event simply builds on another giving more context to the story. You failed to stop the centaurs from training rock dogs, some poor kid in nebo terrance might end up mauled to death by one.

[Gilles VI]

Arquenya, on 08 January 2013 - 01:29 PM, said:

Only if the stories were related at all. I don't see how much of a tragedy it is if you miss the "bring ripe apples to farmer A", "Defend this village against the centaur" and "escort npc B to village C". Because there isn't. They're all seperate little stories.

A story feels fake if the small details aren't there.
Imagine the GW2 main story to be very good, how would it feel if it took place on a entire empty world?

It are the little details that form the foundation for the bigger stories.
That's why all the good literature/stories always go in depth to every character, details make the story recogniseable and real.

[typographie]

Arquenya, on 08 January 2013 - 01:29 PM, said:

Only if the stories were related at all. I don't see how much of a tragedy it is if you miss the "bring ripe apples to farmer A", "Defend this village against the centaur" and "escort npc B to village C". Because there isn't. They're all seperate little stories.

I think that's the point. They were trying to make the world feel "lived in" by ordinary people, not just heroes, in that not everything is a struggle for the survival of the planet. Most of the stories early-on aren't related because they are meant not to be related. You may disagree with the importance of that, or feel they failed at creating that, but this was one of their stated goals so it seems odd to fault them for focusing on it.

I never thought Anet achieved a "revolutionary" change in questing with their heart/event system, but I do think the system they created is a little better than simple NPC-based questing. It feels more natural to have events going off whether you're there or not. Outposts do change hands, bridges can be destroyed and rebuilt and etc.—I know, its basically meaningless, but I think that's a bit better than the alternative.

Edited by typographie, 08 January 2013 - 02:24 PM.

[Arquenya]

Gilles VI, on 08 January 2013 - 02:11 PM, said:

A story feels fake if the small details aren't there.
Imagine the GW2 main story to be very good, how would it feel if it took place on a entire empty world?

It are the little details that form the foundation for the bigger stories.
That's why all the good literature/stories always go in depth to every character, details make the story recogniseable and real.

I didn't say little stories aren't good, I was just saying that missing a few doesn't matter in the big picture.
It's not that you miss chapter 3 and 7 from a story of 20 chapters.

[witteker]

Fizzypop, on 07 January 2013 - 05:14 PM, said:

Where did I say anything about mmos? I thought we were talking about rpgs which is exactly what I was talking about which is why I said single player rpgs. Skyrim is a single player rpg. I expect way more than 20 hours of entertainment from a single player rpg. RPGs were created for the story. The idea of multi-player system is a recent invention. Rpgs have been around for much longer than any mmo. Fyi, the majority of people I know who play wow do enjoy the story in fact they grew up with it from its previous RTS games. I know hard to believe that there are some of us who really enjoy the story in mmoRPGs!

I enjoy RPG, but RPG without the gameplay and immersiveness is like playing D&D the old fashioned way.  Demon Souls and Dark Souls have awesome storyline.  In fact every move you make uncovers a story.  But it also has awesome gameplay and interactivity in addition to that.  Dark Souls to me wins over Skyrim by a wide margin because of this.

Edited by witteker, 08 January 2013 - 02:39 PM.

[raspberry jam]

XPhiler, on 08 January 2013 - 12:43 PM, said:

Of course we care. Some people play for the story more then anything else. Not everyone plays MMOs primarily for the combat and gear. if every single event in the game would be a one-time event it would be litterally a tragedy. Its like being offered a great novel with random pages torn out.

This continuity issue if I can call it that way is the price of playing MMOs. You either go the gw1 route and have story walled behind instances or you go the way of other MMOs where quests are available for everyone to do one time but other then the narrative provided by NPCs nothing really changes or you can go the Gw2 route where things change by the price for that is they repeat so others can do them as well. Personally I like the Gw2 way the most, followed by the instancing approach of Gw1.

No, you don't, because the bulk of the events are stuff like the spider queen spawning in the Queensdale apple orchard. No one cares about that *ing spider. No one. Well, that is, no one except that *ing NPC bitch who can't be bothered to pick her own apples yet insists on baking one apple pie every 5 minutes without fail.

Imagine if all events were one-shot... Then you'd have a point. You'd go through an actual narrative of these bandits appearing somewhere, tormenting the countryside, maybe killing NPCs and then raiding the village. If you manage to stop them then these bandits would be gone and actually dead. Other bandits, based somewhere else and raiding some other place would appear instead. There would be no end of bandit raids to stop, but it would not be the same bandits.

Gilles VI, on 08 January 2013 - 11:51 AM, said:

How is that in any way marketing?

• Give people tons of high end gear
  
• A lot of people now have high end gear
  
• One of those people talk to a friend who doesn't have GW2
  
• The GW2 player will get retard-amnesia and forgets that he didn't grind for the gear
  
• Says "yes it's super easy to get awesome gear"
  
• The non-GW2 player falls for it and buys GW2

[TooBoredForAName]

GotY?

For gw2 beta and pre-november update i could agree, but not in the current state of game.

Aside this, the client game engine is far from being optimized, so GotY? meh, did also SWToR received GotY award didn't?

Edited by TooBoredForAName, 08 January 2013 - 02:51 PM.