If you try to 'run' Dynamic Events and you run from one to the other, you will never actually get to see their effects. Most of the dynamic events you see are part of a bigger chain. If you and your group complete one link of the dynamic event, it will trigger the next link in the chain. For example if you stop a centaur invasion and you stick around afterwards, you may see a couple of npc's talking, walking off, and if you follow them, this may get you to the next link in the chain.
If you run away in search for another dynamic event, the npc's will probably get themselves killed on the way and the next link in the chain will have failed... meaning that 10 minutes later the centaurs try to take over the outpost that you just saved again (yes, that 10 minute thing definitely needs some tweaking... I think they just lowered those respawn timers because during the beta weekends everyone is in the same lower level zones, as none of the higher level zones are accessible yet)
There are several of these dynamic event chains spread throughout the area, but it takes some patience (and sometimes following the right npc's) to see them in their entirety. Also, as some others have already remarked, in the lower level zones these events are fairly forgiving when they are failed... you will not see drastic changes to the environment. In higher level zones, events are much less forgiving and may affect significantly larger areas of the zone.
Like I said earlier, was not out to see them, just did them as they came to me. Now alot of people will say people zerging them will ruin them, but to be honest I think these "zergs" were just like me in the sense of seeing something and jumping right in, and I dont blame them. Seeing a flame legion platoon attacking an outpost is an awesome sight, even better when your a part of the event.
Like I said earlier, was not out to see them, just did them as they came to me. Now alot of people will say people zerging them will ruin them, but to be honest I think these "zergs" were just like me in the sense of seeing something and jumping right in, and I dont blame them. Seeing a flame legion platoon attacking an outpost is an awesome sight, even better when your a part of the event.
I definitely agree. It's great to see things just happening around you and be able to jump in. Just keep in mind that, when the game gets released, people will soon be much more spread out throughout the game, severely reducing the number of "zergs" in one particular zone... thus increasing the chance that an event fails and triggers a subsequent event. And if you actively want to see the follow-up links to succeeded events... stick around, listen in on the conversations between npc's and don't hesitate to follow them around... it may well get you to an unexpected next link in the chain.
Also they've shown SEVERAL videos of dynamic events that do exactly what you're asking. The Area right after Shaemoor (I believe it's in the first zone) has the giant Shadow Behemoth that also has a large impact on the areas around it if left to it's own devices.
Anet has already said you won't see everything there is to see in the game in one playthrough but if you look closely enough you'll see what they are talking about.
That is actually pretty cool, but at the same time I have to look at the dark side on this one. I used to be extremely excited for swtor thinking that the full voice story would immerse you and such, but besides your class story no one cared what the npc's thought or had to say. This guy had the personal drive to follow this npc around and make sure that his event had led to this npc's progression down its agenda. The normal player would not do this, and probably wouldn't care considering there is no incentive to doing so. Like you said "if you look closely enough". I myself will definitly do so every once and a while, but 9/10 people wont.
Yeah I suspect the whole thing is just like Rift's rifts. I.e. fluff and marketing hype.
Your suspicion is incorrect.
There, I contributed as much as you to this thread with a post with the same amount of substance and facts / links / arguments backing up my opinion :P
Also they've shown SEVERAL videos of dynamic events that do exactly what you're asking. The Area right after Shaemoor (I believe it's in the first zone) has the giant Shadow Behemoth that also has a large impact on the areas around it if left to it's own devices.
Anet has already said you won't see everything there is to see in the game in one playthrough but if you look closely enough you'll see what they are talking about.
That is actually pretty cool, but at the same time I have to look at the dark side on this one. I used to be extremely excited for swtor thinking that the full voice story would immerse you and such, but besides your class story no one cared what the npc's thought or had to say. This guy had the personal drive to follow this npc around and make sure that his event had led to this npc's progression down its agenda. The normal player would not do this, and probably wouldn't care considering there is no incentive to doing so. Like you said "if you look closely enough". I myself will probably do so every once and a while, but 9/10 people wont.
If those people don't leave the game after the starting area then they'll probably see AT LEAST ONE major cascading event before they even reach level 30. If they don't, then they probably have bad luck.
The normal player would not do this, and probably wouldn't care considering there is no incentive to doing so. Like you said "if you look closely enough". I myself will definitly do so every once and a while, but 9/10 people wont.
Maybe not initially, because it's so different from what other games offer. But once players realize that this *is* in fact what dynamic event chains in GW2 are all about, and that exploration is actually rewarded (and can result in these cool situations), I believe the majority of players will definitely want to do this. So yes, it will take a little while to get that mentality change in, but I doubt it will stay like that for long.
My initial review of at least the first 17 levels was similar to the OP. I found a handful of dynamic events centered around the hart quest locations, and the majority of my gameplay revolved around running those same DEs over and over again until I was able to move farther through the map. I found some additional DEs off the beaten path, and I'm sure there were others I missed; however, I don't believe there are enough to where one can go through an entire area only completing each DE a single time, and even if there were, I can't imagine it being anything but a slow, laborious chore as you roamed every corner of the map searching for new events that you've missed. To make matters worse, you really aren't rewarded for completing those unique DEs any differently than you would by completing the cmmon ones.
As a result, my experience in PvE was a shallow one. I felt like the PvE was little else than zergfest minigame after zergfest minigame and there weren't enough unique DEs or DEs with enough variety for me to say that GW2's approach to PvE progression is a major improvement towards the traditional questing model.
I think they should create "instances" of the same zone. When the population in Queensdale exceeds a certain number, a new instance of Queensdale is created. Something like the overflow system but with less numbers and more instances. That way the population will spread more evenly at the starting zones and we will see more DEs (I remember Aion having 35 instances of the starting zone at release)
That is basically all the overflow servers really are though. New instances of the same areas. The only defferance is that they weren't numbered, and it became dificult to get on the same server as another person. I think that was overall the biggest "bug" of the BWE though, and they have said "we are working on it." As a side note, they added something like 420 new server clusters as well (thats why BWE2 got delayed) so, hopefully, we will see fewer people on a individual server, and hopefully have a bit more control come June 8th on which one we playon.
Edit: to the OP
In the Human starting area, there were at least 3 locations I came across that would get overrun by the centaurs on occasion. If they were not fought off, you lost access to the waypoint, NPC, and other services untill you could drive them off. I don't know if they went any further, because a new zerg group would come by in about 3 mins, and destroy the centaurs.
My initial review of at least the first 17 levels was similar to the OP. I found a handful of dynamic events centered around the hart quest locations,...
allow one. I felt like the PvE was little else than zergfest minigame after zergfest minigame and there weren't enough unique DEs or DEs with enough variety for me to say that GW2's approach to PvE progression is a major improvement towards the traditional questing model.
I would point out that exploring (running around your home instance/town, finding places of interest, finding waypoints, etc.) gave substantial amounts of exp...you should honestly be able to explore and play a whole leveled section in 'your' areas and progress to a level to move on to the next level area without to much grind (keeping in mind beta is beta and the leveling might be needing a tweak here and there). Also keep in mind that there are currently 3 other sarting zones in the game to go to if you can't get enough exp in your 'home' area.
1. They are like chains, that means I can miss several parts of the story, but this is exactly what gives me the impression of a living world. Everything changes constantly no matter if I am there or not. However, if I want to experience the whole chain, I just have to stick around and wait for help, because eventually most DEs repeat all the time.
2. There are at least 3 types of DEs. The first ones are more static and just repeat themselves again and again. The second ones depend on players' actions and start only under certain conditions. The third ones seem to start out of nowhere and are often like surprise attacks.
3. No stupid quest-texts that artificially try to give boring quests some kind of a meaningful story. Just look around and talk to NPCs. When they poison the water, the water eventually gets poisoned. When the water is poisened, people get sick, etc.
4. Failure. Welcome to a completely new content in MMOs. We can fail to do a quest. How crazy is that? In traditional MMOs you can only die, but MOBs and NPCs are endlessly patient and waiting all the time for you to be killed or to come back with your collection of quest items. Everything stays as it is all the time. Failure makes a world dynamic.
5. DEs can change the world. Obviously it would be too overwhelming if the first few DEs in the starter-area would change everything around you. But I remember this giant in the charr-world who destroys a whole village with the result that NPCs and the teleport-point are gone.
6. I can leave them out. In traditional MMOs there is often one way to level up and everybody goes the same path. Here I can choose. If i am tired of DEs, I can concentrade on my personal story, do some dungeons or PvP.
What I do not like is, that sometimes they look too much all the same. For instance there are far too many "defend this camp against a centaur-attack"-DEs in the human area.^^
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.
I came accross several places where mobs where owning a place (camp/fort/castle) because of a previous DE failure and we had to take it back in order to access the facilities. I've also run into quick travel spots that were unusable because owned by mobs.
So yes, dynamic events are out there - ANet just doesn't throw them at your face just as you leave the tutorial area, that's all.
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
I came accross several places where mobs where owning a place (camp/fort/castle) because of a previous DE failure and we had to take it back in order to access the facilities. I've also run into quick travel spots that were unusable because owned by mobs.
So yes, dynamic events are out there - ANet just doesn't throw them at your face just as you leave the tutorial area, that's all.
I pretend that the full game was released and that people could spread out.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
Throughout my time testing the game, I have tried to do every event that I can find in my area ( Charr zones ). I came across many, ran many, and repeated many, but I never felt that Impact that Arenanet has hyped as a key game component. When I killed the fire shaman, the game was not affected. When I stopped the harpy invasion on the gates of a city, I felt like a complete hero. Until they respawned 10 minutes later. Now I can go on and on with how many events I did ( and trust me I did alot ) but im just wondering if anyone has felt this impact that I haven't, sadly these events have left me with the impression of a slightly more difficult public quest system.
Sometimes i read this forums and i ask myself if i'm playing the same game as other people...
Let me list a few events i did that had impact:
- Grawl event, in the end of the event the Grawl were pacified and Grawl Vendors were available.
- Destroy the ghost altars, at the end of the event the ghost area was empty and they started an invasion on the outpost.
- Remove the icebrand, at the end of the event the outpost got repopulated by Norn, vendors appear and defenses were built.
And i could go on.
I guess that what you were expecting is that your event actions would be permanent?
I came accross several places where mobs where owning a place (camp/fort/castle) because of a previous DE failure and we had to take it back in order to access the facilities. I've also run into quick travel spots that were unusable because owned by mobs.
So yes, dynamic events are out there - ANet just doesn't throw them at your face just as you leave the tutorial area, that's all.
I've seen this before in another game.
I've played all mainstream MMORPGs and many smaller ones since Ultima Online, and I never saw something similar PvE wise, at least not to that extent. A failure on a DE can ripple through a whole area.
Sure, there's been cars with wheels pulled by horses before the invention of the motor, but are you sure is was the same? ;-)
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
Throughout my time testing the game, I have tried to do every event that I can find in my area ( Charr zones ). I came across many, ran many, and repeated many, but I never felt that Impact that Arenanet has hyped as a key game component. When I killed the fire shaman, the game was not affected. When I stopped the harpy invasion on the gates of a city, I felt like a complete hero. Until they respawned 10 minutes later. Now I can go on and on with how many events I did ( and trust me I did alot ) but im just wondering if anyone has felt this impact that I haven't, sadly these events have left me with the impression of a slightly more difficult public quest system.
Well, one cannot simply expect every event to have massive and reverberating reprocussions to an area. It has been stated that later areas will have much more of this, as it may be confusing to new players; this may also play into the fact that so many people will be crammed in the starting areas (though this part is pure conjecture on my end).
To answer your question, I have in fact witnessed a dynamic event you are looking for in the human area. While walking across the fields, an NPC ran up to me and started screaming for help. I followed her to the water plant where bandits were poisoning the water. Unfortunately this event failed as when I got there it was half way over, and people didn't show up towards the end. When I returned to the area where I was, I noticed people starting to get sick and complaining that the water had be poisoned.
Shaking that feeling of defeat off, I decided to do a little more exploring and saw that the water sprayers that originally drenched the massive crop field began to splurg out a massive amount of green liquid instead of the pristine water colors. It was poisoning the field, and killing off the worms. Going back to the water plant, I noticed dozens of poison slimes and a new event that shot off due to the previous failure that I participated in. It was to collect the poison from these slimes in which to make an antidote.
This antidote was then applied, and shortly after the people were getting well again, and the water was a pristine color all over the zone once more.
When a new event shot off later in the day, the pipes were being destroyed by centaurs. When victorious we had to repair the pipes so that the area would have water; I was told that water would stop spraying in general if you lost and the wells would be dry. We then had to protect workers as they repaired the pipes that were destroyed in the previous attack.
In addition, I also read that dynamic events were sped up due to it only being a 48 hours event; when they will occurr when the game is live is anyone's guess. Though it may be not as frequent as people think.
Thanks for sharing Yaevindusk.... that sounds very cool
I'm curious what kind of effects people are expecting or wanting beyond different factions/mobs gaining control of an area (and starting off their own chain of events) or triggering general events based on the changes brought about by other events. It seems like variations of those pretty much cover all the bases.
I'm sure there could be other examples I'm forgetting, but these were the two main ways areas were effected by DEs. Although I felt the 1-15 zones could stand to adopt the complexity of some higher level events, but perhaps overall players need those examples to ease in to the games mechanics.
What kind of changes were people expecting beyond what we already see that when boiled down, isn't covered by those two? I haven't given it much thought as that's not really one of the big draws for me. Seeing various factions come to power in an area based on events seemed like enough of an overall change to me, but if others are interested in seeing more, I'm honestly curious as to what some realistic ideas could be?
I came accross several places where mobs where owning a place (camp/fort/castle) because of a previous DE failure and we had to take it back in order to access the facilities. I've also run into quick travel spots that were unusable because owned by mobs.
So yes, dynamic events are out there - ANet just doesn't throw them at your face just as you leave the tutorial area, that's all.
I've seen this before in another game.
I've played all mainstream MMORPGs and many smaller ones since Ultima Online, and I never saw something similar PvE wise, at least not to that extent. A failure on a DE can ripple through a whole area.
Sure, there's been cars with wheels pulled by horses before the invention of the motor, but are you sure is was the same? ;-)
Rift. The planar mobs would take the towns during the invasions if there weren't enough players to defend. The players would lose access to quests, vendors etc. I think they resolved the issue of lower populated servers not beng able to take them back by only having them occupied for a set time.
I'm curious what kind of effects people are expecting or wanting beyond different factions/mobs gaining control of an area (and starting off their own chain of events) or triggering general events based on the changes brought about by other events. It seems like variations of those pretty much cover all the bases.
From the reading of some posts i would say people were expecting statues of their character and the event to never repeat.
Seriously now, for the small scale DE i found alot of different effects, new events, new npcs, new areas, new vendors, new enemies, new allies and so on.
I do believe that somewhere along the way we will get massive DEs that change the game in more persistent ways, but i don't expect them to be very common.
Rift. The planar mobs would take the towns during the invasions if there weren't enough players to defend. The players would lose access to quests, vendors etc. I think they resolved the issue of lower populated servers not beng able to take them back by only having them occupied for a set time.
I've played Rift too, and Rift's invasion were the cart with the horse compared to GW2"s motor powered dynamic events. Spawning "deus ex machina" mobs that don't even fit the area they are in, and with no relation to the local setting, is really a poor excuse of a dynamic event. GW2 events are way more than just mob spawners.
Just comparing GW2 to that sub par WOW clone is actually pointless.
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
I'm curious what kind of effects people are expecting or wanting beyond different factions/mobs gaining control of an area (and starting off their own chain of events) or triggering general events based on the changes brought about by other events. It seems like variations of those pretty much cover all the bases.
From the reading of some posts i would say people were expecting statues of their character and the event to never repeat.
Seriously now, for the small scale DE i found alot of different effects, new events, new npcs, new areas, new vendors, new enemies, new allies and so on.
I do believe that somewhere along the way we will get massive DEs that change the game in more persistent ways, but i don't expect them to be very common.
Oh I saw them as well, I saw enough of an effect that I never once thought of it as 'not good enough', different monster factions gaining control and making their particular events available/active was exactly what I was expecting.
I was just hoping people had some realistic (and hopefully very cool) ideas that would be an example of events effecting areas in a bigger way than what we see. Everything I end up imagining seems like it would be arbitrary and not really conducive to the flow of gameplay.
At the far end of that spectrum is the fact that I wouldn't want to see truly permanent events that finalize a factions standing in an area. Like the harpy example, I would personally be disappointed if they ever stopped trying to attack the city for good, that would just suck.
Rift. The planar mobs would take the towns during the invasions if there weren't enough players to defend. The players would lose access to quests, vendors etc. I think they resolved the issue of lower populated servers not beng able to take them back by only having them occupied for a set time.
I've played Rift too, and Rift's invasion were the cart with the horse compared to GW2"s motor powered dynamic events. Spawning "deus ex machina" mobs that don't even fit the area they are in, and with no relation to the local setting, is really a poor excuse of a dynamic event. GW2 events are way more than just mob spawners.
Just comparing GW2 to that sub par WOW clone is actually pointless.
You asked what game has events that change the surrounding area. I named one. Don't get your pants in a bunch.
Some are making DEs out to more than they really are, and that is why some are questioning. Questions are good, blindly accepting buzz words or rebranding of an existing product is not.
You could even say they are doing exactly what Blizzard did, they looked around at what gamers liked and tweaked it a bit and gave it a bit more polish. And there is nothing wrong with that approach.
I remember Tabula Rasa having something similiar to what we call DE today.
TR had a good system down where it made the game feel alive since you can see these Huge Enemy NPC's constantly battling either ground forces or them taking over bases in which you had to recapture them to get the mission quests.
I think RIFT just capitalized it better through marketing the game that way even over Warhammer Online.
So if anyone else can figure out where DE started my guess it started with Tabula Rasa, Warhammer Online, Rift and now GW2.
Here's a vid of TR where the aliens take over a base where you grab missions from.
Rift. The planar mobs would take the towns during the invasions if there weren't enough players to defend. The players would lose access to quests, vendors etc. I think they resolved the issue of lower populated servers not beng able to take them back by only having them occupied for a set time.
I've played Rift too, and Rift's invasion were the cart with the horse compared to GW2"s motor powered dynamic events. Spawning "deus ex machina" mobs that don't even fit the area they are in, and with no relation to the local setting, is really a poor excuse of a dynamic event. GW2 events are way more than just mob spawners.
Just comparing GW2 to that sub par WOW clone is actually pointless.
+1
Couldn't agree more. All "dynamic" activity in games is really an illusion that either does it's job effectively....or doesn't. GW2 does, RIFT doesn't, in my opinion. GW2 "dynamic" events make the world feel more alive and they scale. They are definitely an evolution from both WAR and RIFT. Related, yes....the same.....no.
So if anyone else can figure out where DE started my guess it started with Tabula Rasa, Warhammer Online, Rift and now GW2.
WAR public quests have never been anything dynamic. They were static quests spot, and they also required a specific amount of people to complete, they weren't adapting to the number of participants.
Rift's rifts and invasions where only alternate versions of mob spawners, nothing more, they didn't fit the setting of the area they were in, it was always the same crap with a higher number on it. Rift was only "marketing dynamic", there was no real dynamism in that game, only random mob spawners.
I agree, TR was most likely the closest to what GW2 events are.
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
Comments
Like I said earlier, was not out to see them, just did them as they came to me. Now alot of people will say people zerging them will ruin them, but to be honest I think these "zergs" were just like me in the sense of seeing something and jumping right in, and I dont blame them. Seeing a flame legion platoon attacking an outpost is an awesome sight, even better when your a part of the event.
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
I definitely agree. It's great to see things just happening around you and be able to jump in. Just keep in mind that, when the game gets released, people will soon be much more spread out throughout the game, severely reducing the number of "zergs" in one particular zone... thus increasing the chance that an event fails and triggers a subsequent event. And if you actively want to see the follow-up links to succeeded events... stick around, listen in on the conversations between npc's and don't hesitate to follow them around... it may well get you to an unexpected next link in the chain.
That is actually pretty cool, but at the same time I have to look at the dark side on this one. I used to be extremely excited for swtor thinking that the full voice story would immerse you and such, but besides your class story no one cared what the npc's thought or had to say. This guy had the personal drive to follow this npc around and make sure that his event had led to this npc's progression down its agenda. The normal player would not do this, and probably wouldn't care considering there is no incentive to doing so. Like you said "if you look closely enough". I myself will definitly do so every once and a while, but 9/10 people wont.
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
Your suspicion is incorrect.
There, I contributed as much as you to this thread with a post with the same amount of substance and facts / links / arguments backing up my opinion :P
If those people don't leave the game after the starting area then they'll probably see AT LEAST ONE major cascading event before they even reach level 30. If they don't, then they probably have bad luck.
This is not a game.
Maybe not initially, because it's so different from what other games offer. But once players realize that this *is* in fact what dynamic event chains in GW2 are all about, and that exploration is actually rewarded (and can result in these cool situations), I believe the majority of players will definitely want to do this. So yes, it will take a little while to get that mentality change in, but I doubt it will stay like that for long.
My initial review of at least the first 17 levels was similar to the OP. I found a handful of dynamic events centered around the hart quest locations, and the majority of my gameplay revolved around running those same DEs over and over again until I was able to move farther through the map. I found some additional DEs off the beaten path, and I'm sure there were others I missed; however, I don't believe there are enough to where one can go through an entire area only completing each DE a single time, and even if there were, I can't imagine it being anything but a slow, laborious chore as you roamed every corner of the map searching for new events that you've missed. To make matters worse, you really aren't rewarded for completing those unique DEs any differently than you would by completing the cmmon ones.
As a result, my experience in PvE was a shallow one. I felt like the PvE was little else than zergfest minigame after zergfest minigame and there weren't enough unique DEs or DEs with enough variety for me to say that GW2's approach to PvE progression is a major improvement towards the traditional questing model.
That is basically all the overflow servers really are though. New instances of the same areas. The only defferance is that they weren't numbered, and it became dificult to get on the same server as another person. I think that was overall the biggest "bug" of the BWE though, and they have said "we are working on it." As a side note, they added something like 420 new server clusters as well (thats why BWE2 got delayed) so, hopefully, we will see fewer people on a individual server, and hopefully have a bit more control come June 8th on which one we playon.
Edit: to the OP
In the Human starting area, there were at least 3 locations I came across that would get overrun by the centaurs on occasion. If they were not fought off, you lost access to the waypoint, NPC, and other services untill you could drive them off. I don't know if they went any further, because a new zerg group would come by in about 3 mins, and destroy the centaurs.
I would point out that exploring (running around your home instance/town, finding places of interest, finding waypoints, etc.) gave substantial amounts of exp...you should honestly be able to explore and play a whole leveled section in 'your' areas and progress to a level to move on to the next level area without to much grind (keeping in mind beta is beta and the leveling might be needing a tweak here and there). Also keep in mind that there are currently 3 other sarting zones in the game to go to if you can't get enough exp in your 'home' area.
A few things I like about DEs:
1. They are like chains, that means I can miss several parts of the story, but this is exactly what gives me the impression of a living world. Everything changes constantly no matter if I am there or not. However, if I want to experience the whole chain, I just have to stick around and wait for help, because eventually most DEs repeat all the time.
2. There are at least 3 types of DEs. The first ones are more static and just repeat themselves again and again. The second ones depend on players' actions and start only under certain conditions. The third ones seem to start out of nowhere and are often like surprise attacks.
3. No stupid quest-texts that artificially try to give boring quests some kind of a meaningful story. Just look around and talk to NPCs. When they poison the water, the water eventually gets poisoned. When the water is poisened, people get sick, etc.
4. Failure. Welcome to a completely new content in MMOs. We can fail to do a quest. How crazy is that? In traditional MMOs you can only die, but MOBs and NPCs are endlessly patient and waiting all the time for you to be killed or to come back with your collection of quest items. Everything stays as it is all the time. Failure makes a world dynamic.
5. DEs can change the world. Obviously it would be too overwhelming if the first few DEs in the starter-area would change everything around you. But I remember this giant in the charr-world who destroys a whole village with the result that NPCs and the teleport-point are gone.
6. I can leave them out. In traditional MMOs there is often one way to level up and everybody goes the same path. Here I can choose. If i am tired of DEs, I can concentrade on my personal story, do some dungeons or PvP.
What I do not like is, that sometimes they look too much all the same. For instance there are far too many "defend this camp against a centaur-attack"-DEs in the human area.^^
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.
I came accross several places where mobs where owning a place (camp/fort/castle) because of a previous DE failure and we had to take it back in order to access the facilities. I've also run into quick travel spots that were unusable because owned by mobs.
So yes, dynamic events are out there - ANet just doesn't throw them at your face just as you leave the tutorial area, that's all.
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
I've seen this before in another game.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
Sometimes i read this forums and i ask myself if i'm playing the same game as other people...
Let me list a few events i did that had impact:
- Grawl event, in the end of the event the Grawl were pacified and Grawl Vendors were available.
- Destroy the ghost altars, at the end of the event the ghost area was empty and they started an invasion on the outpost.
- Remove the icebrand, at the end of the event the outpost got repopulated by Norn, vendors appear and defenses were built.
And i could go on.
I guess that what you were expecting is that your event actions would be permanent?
I've played all mainstream MMORPGs and many smaller ones since Ultima Online, and I never saw something similar PvE wise, at least not to that extent. A failure on a DE can ripple through a whole area.
Sure, there's been cars with wheels pulled by horses before the invention of the motor, but are you sure is was the same? ;-)
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
Thanks for sharing Yaevindusk.... that sounds very cool
http://medias.luna-atra.fr/gw2/char_tool/CT_imageGenerator.php?pseudo=Centurion Mikal&lang=EN&code=&code=TSwtLDUsLSw2LC0sMjksOSwyMiwyMywyNCwtLDEwMiwzNiw4MSw4NCw4OQ==
I'm curious what kind of effects people are expecting or wanting beyond different factions/mobs gaining control of an area (and starting off their own chain of events) or triggering general events based on the changes brought about by other events. It seems like variations of those pretty much cover all the bases.
I'm sure there could be other examples I'm forgetting, but these were the two main ways areas were effected by DEs. Although I felt the 1-15 zones could stand to adopt the complexity of some higher level events, but perhaps overall players need those examples to ease in to the games mechanics.
What kind of changes were people expecting beyond what we already see that when boiled down, isn't covered by those two? I haven't given it much thought as that's not really one of the big draws for me. Seeing various factions come to power in an area based on events seemed like enough of an overall change to me, but if others are interested in seeing more, I'm honestly curious as to what some realistic ideas could be?
Rift. The planar mobs would take the towns during the invasions if there weren't enough players to defend. The players would lose access to quests, vendors etc. I think they resolved the issue of lower populated servers not beng able to take them back by only having them occupied for a set time.
From the reading of some posts i would say people were expecting statues of their character and the event to never repeat.
Seriously now, for the small scale DE i found alot of different effects, new events, new npcs, new areas, new vendors, new enemies, new allies and so on.
I do believe that somewhere along the way we will get massive DEs that change the game in more persistent ways, but i don't expect them to be very common.
I've played Rift too, and Rift's invasion were the cart with the horse compared to GW2"s motor powered dynamic events. Spawning "deus ex machina" mobs that don't even fit the area they are in, and with no relation to the local setting, is really a poor excuse of a dynamic event. GW2 events are way more than just mob spawners.
Just comparing GW2 to that sub par WOW clone is actually pointless.
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
Oh I saw them as well, I saw enough of an effect that I never once thought of it as 'not good enough', different monster factions gaining control and making their particular events available/active was exactly what I was expecting.
I was just hoping people had some realistic (and hopefully very cool) ideas that would be an example of events effecting areas in a bigger way than what we see. Everything I end up imagining seems like it would be arbitrary and not really conducive to the flow of gameplay.
At the far end of that spectrum is the fact that I wouldn't want to see truly permanent events that finalize a factions standing in an area. Like the harpy example, I would personally be disappointed if they ever stopped trying to attack the city for good, that would just suck.
You asked what game has events that change the surrounding area. I named one. Don't get your pants in a bunch.
Some are making DEs out to more than they really are, and that is why some are questioning. Questions are good, blindly accepting buzz words or rebranding of an existing product is not.
You could even say they are doing exactly what Blizzard did, they looked around at what gamers liked and tweaked it a bit and gave it a bit more polish. And there is nothing wrong with that approach.
No need to get all defensive.
I remember Tabula Rasa having something similiar to what we call DE today.
TR had a good system down where it made the game feel alive since you can see these Huge Enemy NPC's constantly battling either ground forces or them taking over bases in which you had to recapture them to get the mission quests.
I think RIFT just capitalized it better through marketing the game that way even over Warhammer Online.
So if anyone else can figure out where DE started my guess it started with Tabula Rasa, Warhammer Online, Rift and now GW2.
Here's a vid of TR where the aliens take over a base where you grab missions from.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV9G89oclIA
+1
Couldn't agree more. All "dynamic" activity in games is really an illusion that either does it's job effectively....or doesn't. GW2 does, RIFT doesn't, in my opinion. GW2 "dynamic" events make the world feel more alive and they scale. They are definitely an evolution from both WAR and RIFT. Related, yes....the same.....no.
Again, just my singular opinion.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
WAR public quests have never been anything dynamic. They were static quests spot, and they also required a specific amount of people to complete, they weren't adapting to the number of participants.
Rift's rifts and invasions where only alternate versions of mob spawners, nothing more, they didn't fit the setting of the area they were in, it was always the same crap with a higher number on it. Rift was only "marketing dynamic", there was no real dynamism in that game, only random mob spawners.
I agree, TR was most likely the closest to what GW2 events are.
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023