guild wars 2 events are not much better than all the newer ones in rift . You can go to ember isle and see about 10 different zone events just like guild wars 2 has that changes as the players do different things. Also Warhammer PQs actually gave rewards not just karma and coin so thats a huge plus in itself right there. I do not get the cult following of guild wars 2 , they did what every other game has done since 1999 and EQ , thats improve on the older games that people play and enjoy. Seriously they did nothing different but improve on somethings and make other things worse than older games, dissing every other older game out there by some blind fanbois here gets old when its full of just lies.
Originally posted by ShakyMo The is true, there was much more variety in wars pqs. And you could actually fail them.
This. In GW2 all the events are the same with differents names and mobs, also, they are statics like the PQs on War, to be honest is just a quest with a timer. In GW2 you can just die and run back or not even that and you´ll get credits and xp anyway, i remember in war when you died and that was pretty much a fail.
GW2 DE are a copy and paste of warhammer PQs from a casual and cheap point of view.
Every once in a while the events system in GW2 will surprise me.
Like yesterday, I'm randomly wandering around a level 40-50 zone or some such and stumble upon a frog-people village that's been overrun by the Krayt or whatever.
Slaughter a bunch of them, revive the frog people, they actually help me finish killing the Krayt and reviving the rest of the town.
Shortly after, call is placed to attack the Krayt village/tower thing and free slaves they took, so I go and do that.
Then I get to the top of this tower thing to find a Vista, and I now have a Champion Krayt queen standing between me and an inticing looking treasure chest.
So I solo the Champion down, takes a good 4-5 minutes of pretty difficult combat, had to use my Elite twice in the fight.
But I get her down, loot the chest, get a nice Rare lvl 80 Axe (TY Salvage for Globs!)
Do I know that eventually the Krayt will get themselves together and attack and reclaim the frog-people town?
Probably.
Do I care? Nope. I've moved on.
But it was a good, fun chunk of content.
The real problem I think all along is that Anet didn't have the balls to up the challenge enough to counter the zergs of players roaming around during the launch and such.
Some of the stuff I did was quite tough, and it was because I was solo.
Though I did another chain in some Asura research camp that was a lot of fun and challenging and it was me and 2 other random players.
So TLDR -
Event system would be much, much better if it was better balanced to be more difficult and scale up properly to combat the large player zergs.
That is clearly a thing that should be improved.
The problem lies in the fact that 1 player is much more powerful than the extra 1 or 2 mobs its added to conter that player.
Even 5 mobs per player wouldn't do much.
AoE, the fact it will be so easy to get combos (even if people aren't thinking about it), the rez power, the extra dodges, etc, mean that events will be best with 5-10 people.
I hope that going forward they add mobs with different abilities and tactics to counter more players, mobs with mortars and whatnot.
An event like the one in the below screenshot will always be not be that hard - even if somehow the champion decides to tag you, it is easy to just run around while the others kill it.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
You're arguing semantics. The simple fact is whether they move across the map or not. They are the same exact repetitive staged content. There is nothing dynamic about it. The same amount of mobs spawn in the same amount of waves in the same amount of stages and run along the exact same paths EVERY time you do it.
Now, had it been a case where it could truly have branched off into different possibilities, i.e. stage 1 was kill this wave of centaurs, and depending on how quickly and easily you crushed them determined whether next stage was the centaur captain coming after you, OR, you then had to go take the fight to the centaur camp yourselves. THAT would be dynamic. [mod edit]
I have to assume you don't play the game then considering the part in red? One of the main features of DE's is dynamic scaling of mobs based off of contributing players. This is extremely evident when comparing DE's from launch day zerg rush to the current less zergy population.
Also I assume you haven't made it to the Harathi Highlands...that meta event is what you are describing in your second paragraph. Granted it doesn't give you bonus stages based off of speed but that meta event is a series of stages that push Centaur or Human control both ways across half the zone.
I had forgotten about this video that demonstrates what GW2 dynamic events can do at times. Some people who haven't played GW2 or only gave it a short glimpse might not understand how involved DE's can actually get.
If in 1982 we played with the current mentality, we would have burned down all the pac man games since the red ghost was clearly OP. Instead we just got better at the game.
I had forgotten about this video that demonstrates what GW2 dynamic events can do at times. Some people who haven't played GW2 or only gave it a short glimpse might not understand how involved DE's can actually get.
That video demonstrate how DEs works to it's fullest.
What many people miss is really stick around and see what happends next, that's why I've seen so many write on this boards that DE are just circles on the map and they run there do em and win win and then run off and don't see the whole circle why this DE began and it progressed and how it ended.
Um... you know that a chain = Series of events that occur one after another.
Stages = Series of events that occur one after another.
You kind of discredited the notion with that line...
Really I can't see how you can 'claim' Rift fits War but yet you can't consider GW2 the same. Its not a bad thing and GW2 IS taking those elements from those games and expanding on it, which you can even claim War (which popularized it) took it from other games that formed in other methods such as live events in other games. If anything I feel that GW2 takes MORE from War then Rift actually does in terms of making things very stiff and restricted in where it is. The biggest thing they expand on it and make it a scripted event (yes scripted, lets not pretend the events feel very dynamic, they are very scripted which to their credit, would be difficult to really do otherwise) to 'enhance' in some ways how it works.
GW2 gets a lot of its ideas from other games. You know what? All games get elements from other games. Theres no reason to cry and try to defend a game for being original since you know what, there is no such thing. Even the very first video games took elements from elements in real life (pong from table tenis for example as a popular first one).
Um... you know that a chain = Series of events that occur one after another.
Stages = Series of events that occur one after another.
You kind of discredited the notion with that line...
Really I can't see how you can 'claim' Rift fits War but yet you can't consider GW2 the same. Its not a bad thing and GW2 IS taking those elements from those games and expanding on it, which you can even claim War (which popularized it) took it from other games that formed in other methods such as live events in other games. If anything I feel that GW2 takes MORE from War then Rift actually does in terms of making things very stiff and restricted in where it is. The biggest thing they expand on it and make it a scripted event (yes scripted, lets not pretend the events feel very dynamic, they are very scripted which to their credit, would be difficult to really do otherwise) to 'enhance' in some ways how it works.
GW2 gets a lot of its ideas from other games. You know what? All games get elements from other games. Theres no reason to cry and try to defend a game for being original since you know what, there is no such thing. Even the very first video games took elements from elements in real life (pong from table tenis for example as a popular first one).
Exactly what in a piece of software isn't scripted?
Even random is a script.
But it has been said before the events chains take into account what happened before.
Number of farmers kidnapped, submarines that survived, etc, are "remembered" by the next event in the chain.
Could it be expanded to take more variables into account to choose the net event in a chain?
Sure and I hope so.
It will still be scripted.
Even a hypotetical random DE generator will be based on a script.
GW2 DEs expand on public events by adding story and present it visualy and real time action, by adding faillure that will spawn a different event, by remembering certain aspects of the previous DE when spawning the next event in the chain, by dynamicaly adjusting the event to accomodate varying number of players.
All those things are enough to call it an evolution, an innovation over previous systems.
And no doubt it changed the way people level and do quests, which is enough to be called revolutionary.
Now, evolution, innovation, revolutionary, don't mean what most people think it means,it doesn't mean unique, it doesn't mean new, it doesn't mean best ever,
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
The problem with GW2 DEs imo is that they do a pretty bad job of telling you the story.
The stories are on the whole bad enough as it is (hardly ever do I feel emotionally involved in the story or my character) but how many times do you drop into an event as it has already started? Your goals are clear enough but the story is already lost on you.
How long do you wait after an event ended to see if something else is gonna happen? 1 minute? 2? 5? 10 minutes?
Lots or even most of the time nothing is gonna happen or the same DE you just finished. Not very exciting.
Or are you gonna wait and do the event/chain from the beginning again to learn the story? To me that sort of defeats the reason to have chains in the first place.
This might very well be a fundamental flaw in public events and especially chains/stages.
It keeps you busy but it doesnt tell a good story.
I dont see the big difference. Obviously there are differences but fundamentally the same. Chained, staged etc is not all that different. They are all quest type events which are happenning on a persistant map and anyone can join in the "fun" and they all have different stages culimating in a success or fail which resets it back to the first stage.
GW 2 is a bit more complex as they, allegedly have different branches but most are not like that and still linear. In any case they still go around in circles and always reset to the first level. For me the end experience was not that different from Rifts except they were more varied like WAR PQs but more mobile.
So essentially GW 2 events are like Rift mobile events with the variety of WAR PQs and branches rather than linear progression (in some cases).
I dont see the big difference. Obviously there are differences but fundamentally the same. Chained, staged etc is not all that different. They are all quest type events which are happenning on a persistant map and anyone can join in the "fun" and they all have different stages culimating in a success or fail which resets it back to the first stage.
GW 2 is a bit more complex as they, allegedly have different branches but most are not like that and still linear. In any case they still go around in circles and always reset to the first level. For me the end experience was not that different from Rifts except they were more varied like WAR PQs but more mobile.
So essentially GW 2 events are like Rift mobile events with the variety of WAR PQs and branches rather than linear progression (in some cases).
The main reason why you can't tell the difference, is probably to do with you painting all of them with such a large brush. You're essentially viewing them all with such a generalized perspective, that none of the details are relevant to you (which is indeed what makes them each different from one another).
If you view ANY genre with such a broad perspective, then every single game within that genre will sound the same. Hell, you can trace questing events back to the very beginning of RPGs. The main problem w/ GW2's event system, is that people experience events in bite sized pieces. Very few people remember the whole chain. Most only remember 1 link of an event chain, because they are so used to hopping from one thing to another. For example, the norn snowman video posted earlier in this thread shows an event chain. It's actually 3-4 DEs linked together, determined by the player's actions.
- In regards to the OP, what he says is absolutely correct. I don't know why people have such a hard time with this concept, but most studios tend to develop ideas alongside one another. Yes, there's a lot of situations where a game blatantly copies another (SWTOR), but there are just as many cases where 2+ studios have similar ideas and approach them in slightly different ways.
Questing 'events' are one of those ideas. A lot of companies were toying with this idea when it first immerged. Mythic may have been the company to first release a game featuring this mechanic, but they weren't the first ones talking about it. Anet has been toying with the idea since before Utopia (and yes it was originally intended to be part of Utopia). Blizzard & Turbine started using Quest Phasing, which is a different mechanic born of the same idea.
The main reason why GW2, WAR, and Rift's event systems seem so similar, is because they are all approached from the idea of making quests more of a community-oriented experience. A key difference from other forms of questing, but not one you can reasonably credit to one specific company.
The problem with GW2 DEs imo is that they do a pretty bad job of telling you the story.
The stories are on the whole bad enough as it is (hardly ever do I feel emotionally involved in the story or my character) but how many times do you drop into an event as it has already started? Your goals are clear enough but the story is already lost on you.
How long do you wait after an event ended to see if something else is gonna happen? 1 minute? 2? 5? 10 minutes?
Lots or even most of the time nothing is gonna happen or the same DE you just finished. Not very exciting.
Or are you gonna wait and do the event/chain from the beginning again to learn the story? To me that sort of defeats the reason to have chains in the first place.
This might very well be a fundamental flaw in public events and especially chains/stages.
It keeps you busy but it doesnt tell a good story.
What you see as a problem i see as an advantage. Main culprit: CHOICE.
Events do tell a story, but it isnt shoved down your throat and youll probably have to poke around a bit to get the background. If you want to.
If you dont want to, you know what your goal is and can just "kill stuff" and be merry on your way.
OTOH, WoW and its clones conditioned people pretty hard and it will take a while to break that conditioning when game doesnt shove things down your throath (aka handholding).
Wasnt there a guy on Massively that complained game isnt "handholding enough" already?
.....yeah no previous mmo's ever influenced GW2's design....if WAR had not come out; GW2 would be exactly as it is today....irrefutably. EQ, WoW, GW1, DAOC - no impact whatsoever. This is a completely unique product which would have existed as the first mmo exactly as is if nothing ever came before it.
- Why is it not OK with you to have WAR be the impetus for the idea of dynamic events?, the GW2 devs thought about how they could take that idea and make it better, y'know, be 'influenced' by it.
If anyone says it is a clone, that would be arguable; but you are on the other side of the spectrum.
The good lord will give you permission to still like GW2 if you admit it was influenced by a particular mechanic in what you consider a 'bad' game.
Its not a sign of weakness, it is exactly how ideas have been born from the dawn of time.
It wasn't WAR however.
First game with DYNAMIC events was TABULA RASA with its system of DYNAMIC BATTLEFIELDS. WAR pretty much ripped it off without any major alternation, and its essentially the same system GW2 uses today.
I had forgotten about this video that demonstrates what GW2 dynamic events can do at times. Some people who haven't played GW2 or only gave it a short glimpse might not understand how involved DE's can actually get.
That video demonstrate how DEs works to it's fullest.
What many people miss is really stick around and see what happends next, that's why I've seen so many write on this boards that DE are just circles on the map and they run there do em and win win and then run off and don't see the whole circle why this DE began and it progressed and how it ended.
That's what I was trying to get across. So many people waiting on the wings listen to people say, "It's like WAR or RIFT" when it really isn't at all. The only thing they have in common is that they are dynamic events. GW2's version is really a different way of doing it. People that say that GW2 DE's don't tell the story aren't really listening or watching what's happening on their screen. The glue that connects various chains aren't usually accompanied by a sound or UI element guiding them. The player actually has to pay attention. A lot of players probably have their sound off and just don't notice since there isn't a big text wall that tells you what to do in between chains.
If in 1982 we played with the current mentality, we would have burned down all the pac man games since the red ghost was clearly OP. Instead we just got better at the game.
I still don't understand how people can try to claim DE's are influenced by Rift at all, considering they were developing both games in parallel and the DE concept actually pre-dates GW2 development (See Guild Wars: Utopia, which was "well underway" in development in 2006).
Like all evolution it is a minor difference on an existing pattern.
Fun - sure!
Groundbreaking, awe inspiring, worth so much excitement and such an involved argument over semantics? Not even remotely. Dress it up as much as you want - Its just a questchain with no questgiver.
Like all evolution it is a minor difference on an existing pattern.
Fun - sure!
Groundbreaking, awe inspiring, worth so much excitement and such an involved argument over semantics? Not even remotely. Dress it up as much as you want - Its just a questchain with no questgiver.
Well, it's a quest chain with no quest giver that can be passed or failed at each link in the chain kicking off the appropriate event, that scales to the number of players involved, that can happen with or without players even present in the area, that can interact with other event chains, that can reach points where they hold (instead of reset automatically)... so yeah, aside from all the differences they're exactly the same.
honestly ,these inepcy are frivolous ,i played rift it isnt the same at all,gw2 story make more sense as a lot of with ,they play with the mood a lot in gw2 the other 2 mention?no so much!it is all small detail clear the map (everything ,look up etc say for the norn frozen content ,i tell you you will have a grin .it isnt all rose (they are at war vs the ice dragon after all,but some stuff is very nice!
would i add to gw2?yes ,i would reuse most of the puzzle zone as pvp zone with goal etc(ya they re that great!aside from that ,i love3 gw2 ,wvw need polish ,too wide open or they should add penality to the winner (to prevent same faction from always winning and if they do its because they are good!
[mod edit]. Let me run down this on a strike by strike basis.
In Warhammer they are permanently located on the map on a small parcel of space.
You mean opposed to how Guild Wars 2 has zone-wide events, or events that move around so that they don't always start in exactly the same place? Oh, wait. Yes, that was sarcasm. GW2's events also are permanently located in the same parcel of space. WAR and GW2 are just alike in this respect.
They run in a cycle [...]
You mean when renown or dynamic events are done in GW2, they change the world completely, and never run again? Oh wait. Just because GW2 is dishonest enough to hide the cycle, doesn't mean that they don't. The same cycle of events happens in the same way. The event runs again and again, in the same spot, doing the same thing, basically resetting the world so that the event can run again. WAR and GW2 are just alike in this respect.
[...] that is clearly visible in the UI with a countdown timer that clearly shows what stage a player is on.
So what you're saying is that the GW2 UI is worse because it provides less information? Since the same mechanics apply in both games. Okay, I can agree with that. One point up for WAR, then.
At the end of the event, contribution is weighed and a random lottery [...]
Uh. No. When I played it back in beta it allots it to players based upon their contribution score. It clearly shows the contribution score at the end of the public mission. Unless they've drastically changed things since then, it still does that. What else bases reward upon contribution score? Oh, right - GW2 does. So... WAR and GW2 are just alike in their allotment of rewards. The only difference is that WAR has a little more competition involved in regards to participation.
These events do not scale based on a player level so higher level players can make quick work of them [...]
This is a lol comment, because it assumes that GW2's do. Have you seen the scaling in GW2? It's made of fail. If you take a level 80 back to an earlier zone, no matter what zone, then you're going to just stomp through events with the greatest of ease. It's pitifully easy. It's because gear matters more than levels or traits in GW2, and the gear isn't scaled. So GW2 and WAR are, once again, very much alike in this respect.
Really, the scalilng in GW2 is so pitiful and poorly executed that they may as well not have bothered including it at all.
Conclusion!
Going by the above, GW2 is pretty much just a cheap rip-off of WAR. The thing is is that, yes, whilst it is undeniably true that Rift shares no similarity with GW2, that doesn't make GW2 any less of a WAR rip-off. It's kind of like saying that because Warcraft isn't anything like D&D, it can therefore not be a Warhammer IP rip off.
The OP is factually wrong in many ways but that is expected if one does not know about game design.
Kinda like how people think different cars are 'so different because of XYZ' but to a car mechanic that's not why they are different.
GW2 DE, War PQ, RIFT are identical from a game design's perspective.
All 3 implements that design in kind of a similar way but presents them differently.
Most of the OP's reasons are the presentation rather than actual game design.
I'd like to point out that this game design has been around for AGES. The original Elite was probably the first to have this although since it was released in 1984, the execution of it wasn't there and players didn't really see it. However, we are talking about 1984!!
A more recent example would be X-series / Space Rangers which was released 10+ years ago.
Gdemami - Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I think GW2's events are a bit more varied gameplay-wise than Rift and WAR, even if not necessarily any more fun. You get to sometimes click stuff in different ways, while in WAR and Rift you pretty much only kill stuff until the timer runs out, then start killing the next wave, etc.
GW2 does hide the stage timers from the UI, but that does not mean there aren't stages. It also hides the event reset timers, but that does not mean the events are any less repetitive. After running through a given set of stages it will reset just like in the other games. Don't really see any difference in the gameplay mechanic here.
I do think GW2's events have one real advantage over the WAR / Rift counterparts: the fact that some events, depending on their outcome, trigger follow-up events that are different enough to make the experience a little more like meaningful.
I know it's really just a overglorified "second stage" to the first event, but it does seem like most of the times things are different enough to make the whole thing seem a bit more like part of a living world, and not a looping whack-a-mole.
Even so, I think it's clear that the idea behind all three implementations is very similar, regardless of whether each was inspired by the other or not.
Not gonna address the level-scaling comparison from the OP as I feel it is not really a feature related to the events at all, but a more general game design decision.
[mod edit] Let me run down this on a strike by strike basis.
In Warhammer they are permanently located on the map on a small parcel of space.
You mean opposed to how Guild Wars 2 has zone-wide events, or events that move around so that they don't always start in exactly the same place? Oh, wait. Yes, that was sarcasm. GW2's events also are permanently located in the same parcel of space. WAR and GW2 are just alike in this respect.
They run in a cycle [...]
You mean when renown or dynamic events are done in GW2, they change the world completely, and never run again? Oh wait. Just because GW2 is dishonest enough to hide the cycle, doesn't mean that they don't. The same cycle of events happens in the same way. The event runs again and again, in the same spot, doing the same thing, basically resetting the world so that the event can run again. WAR and GW2 are just alike in this respect.
[...] that is clearly visible in the UI with a countdown timer that clearly shows what stage a player is on.
So what you're saying is that the GW2 UI is worse because it provides less information? Since the same mechanics apply in both games. Okay, I can agree with that. One point up for WAR, then.
At the end of the event, contribution is weighed and a random lottery [...]
Uh. No. When I played it back in beta it allots it to players based upon their contribution score. It clearly shows the contribution score at the end of the public mission. Unless they've drastically changed things since then, it still does that. What else bases reward upon contribution score? Oh, right - GW2 does. So... WAR and GW2 are just alike in their allotment of rewards. The only difference is that WAR has a little more competition involved in regards to participation.
These events do not scale based on a player level so higher level players can make quick work of them [...]
This is a lol comment, because it assumes that GW2's do. Have you seen the scaling in GW2? It's made of fail. If you take a level 80 back to an earlier zone, no matter what zone, then you're going to just stomp through events with the greatest of ease. It's pitifully easy. It's because gear matters more than levels or traits in GW2, and the gear isn't scaled. So GW2 and WAR are, once again, very much alike in this respect.
Really, the scalilng in GW2 is so pitiful and poorly executed that they may as well not have bothered including it at all.
Conclusion!
Going by the above, GW2 is pretty much just a cheap rip-off of WAR. The thing is is that, yes, whilst it is undeniably true that Rift shares no similarity with GW2, that doesn't make GW2 any less of a WAR rip-off. It's kind of like saying that because Warcraft isn't anything like D&D, it can therefore not be a Warhammer IP rip off.
Poor Warhammer, so frequently ripped off.
Gear is scaled down.
GW2 doesn't reset the world - if players don't play, the mobs will have the map conquered forever.
GW2 rewards are based on the participation and don't prevent anyone from getting the same level of participation and the rewards are equal for every one in the same tier (out of 3, with bronze being most likely caused by you killing a mob involved in the DE but spawning far from it while you ran around, silver being caused by you doing some damage and gold for major damage or reviving/killing/destroying major DEs objectives).
If DEs changed world permanently they would be static one ofs. And it is absurd thinking it is technologicaly feasible to get continuous flowing content.
Rift and WAR and Tabula Rasa (which predates WAR, again the prejudice against Tabula Rasa) all have "invasion" type events - GW2 has short stories events.
And well, WAR and Rift must have done something wrong because just a few months after they were out PQs and Rifts were being ignored while GW2 DEs are sought after.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
From the Tabula Rasa Wikipedia page a game that started development in 2001
Dynamic battlefield
"AFS and Bane forces are in constant battle with NPC forces warring over control points and bases. Which side controls these areas greatly impacts the players. Losing one of these to the Bane means that the respawn hospital, waypoints, shops, NPCs access, and base defenses are lost and turned to the Bane's advantage. Players were able to help NPC assaults to take over bases or defend ones under attack. Control of these points was meant to change back and forth commonly even without player involvement, although the current implementation rarely let the Bane muster enough forces to invade a control point during peak player times. The Control Point System was one of the main gameplay features. Players that are fighting to defend or capture a CP (control point) got Prestige points which they could trade in for item-upgrades, experience boosters, a reset of either their attributes or their learned abilities or the purchase of superior or rare equipment at grey market vendors. Prestige could also be earned by defeating bosses, looting rare items, getting the max XP multiplier and by completing special missions. Later in the game, Control points became more and more important to the players, as they were necessary to be either in Bane or AFS hands to accept or complete certain missions and they become the centerpoint of most of the later map"
At the end of the day its a moot point as to who influenced who in a transient world such as game development, as the basic idea for Dynamic Events is old probably older than Tabula Rasa and thus influenced it, Warhammer, Rift and GW2 making them heavily related, they are just different implimentations of the same basic concept.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
At the end of the day its a moot point as to who influenced who in a transient world such as game development, as the basic idea for Dynamic Events is old probably older than Tabula Rasa and thus influenced it, Warhammer, Rift and GW2 making them heavily related, they are just different implimentations of the same basic concept.
Comments
This. In GW2 all the events are the same with differents names and mobs, also, they are statics like the PQs on War, to be honest is just a quest with a timer. In GW2 you can just die and run back or not even that and you´ll get credits and xp anyway, i remember in war when you died and that was pretty much a fail.
GW2 DE are a copy and paste of warhammer PQs from a casual and cheap point of view.
That is clearly a thing that should be improved.
The problem lies in the fact that 1 player is much more powerful than the extra 1 or 2 mobs its added to conter that player.
Even 5 mobs per player wouldn't do much.
AoE, the fact it will be so easy to get combos (even if people aren't thinking about it), the rez power, the extra dodges, etc, mean that events will be best with 5-10 people.
I hope that going forward they add mobs with different abilities and tactics to counter more players, mobs with mortars and whatnot.
An event like the one in the below screenshot will always be not be that hard - even if somehow the champion decides to tag you, it is easy to just run around while the others kill it.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
I have to assume you don't play the game then considering the part in red? One of the main features of DE's is dynamic scaling of mobs based off of contributing players. This is extremely evident when comparing DE's from launch day zerg rush to the current less zergy population.
Also I assume you haven't made it to the Harathi Highlands...that meta event is what you are describing in your second paragraph. Granted it doesn't give you bonus stages based off of speed but that meta event is a series of stages that push Centaur or Human control both ways across half the zone.
I had forgotten about this video that demonstrates what GW2 dynamic events can do at times. Some people who haven't played GW2 or only gave it a short glimpse might not understand how involved DE's can actually get.
Wandering into Awesomeness
If in 1982 we played with the current mentality, we would have burned down all the pac man games since the red ghost was clearly OP. Instead we just got better at the game.
That video demonstrate how DEs works to it's fullest.
What many people miss is really stick around and see what happends next, that's why I've seen so many write on this boards that DE are just circles on the map and they run there do em and win win and then run off and don't see the whole circle why this DE began and it progressed and how it ended.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
Um... you know that a chain = Series of events that occur one after another.
Stages = Series of events that occur one after another.
You kind of discredited the notion with that line...
Really I can't see how you can 'claim' Rift fits War but yet you can't consider GW2 the same. Its not a bad thing and GW2 IS taking those elements from those games and expanding on it, which you can even claim War (which popularized it) took it from other games that formed in other methods such as live events in other games. If anything I feel that GW2 takes MORE from War then Rift actually does in terms of making things very stiff and restricted in where it is. The biggest thing they expand on it and make it a scripted event (yes scripted, lets not pretend the events feel very dynamic, they are very scripted which to their credit, would be difficult to really do otherwise) to 'enhance' in some ways how it works.
GW2 gets a lot of its ideas from other games. You know what? All games get elements from other games. Theres no reason to cry and try to defend a game for being original since you know what, there is no such thing. Even the very first video games took elements from elements in real life (pong from table tenis for example as a popular first one).
Exactly what in a piece of software isn't scripted?
Even random is a script.
But it has been said before the events chains take into account what happened before.
Number of farmers kidnapped, submarines that survived, etc, are "remembered" by the next event in the chain.
Could it be expanded to take more variables into account to choose the net event in a chain?
Sure and I hope so.
It will still be scripted.
Even a hypotetical random DE generator will be based on a script.
GW2 DEs expand on public events by adding story and present it visualy and real time action, by adding faillure that will spawn a different event, by remembering certain aspects of the previous DE when spawning the next event in the chain, by dynamicaly adjusting the event to accomodate varying number of players.
All those things are enough to call it an evolution, an innovation over previous systems.
And no doubt it changed the way people level and do quests, which is enough to be called revolutionary.
Now, evolution, innovation, revolutionary, don't mean what most people think it means,it doesn't mean unique, it doesn't mean new, it doesn't mean best ever,
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
The problem with GW2 DEs imo is that they do a pretty bad job of telling you the story.
The stories are on the whole bad enough as it is (hardly ever do I feel emotionally involved in the story or my character) but how many times do you drop into an event as it has already started? Your goals are clear enough but the story is already lost on you.
How long do you wait after an event ended to see if something else is gonna happen? 1 minute? 2? 5? 10 minutes?
Lots or even most of the time nothing is gonna happen or the same DE you just finished. Not very exciting.
Or are you gonna wait and do the event/chain from the beginning again to learn the story? To me that sort of defeats the reason to have chains in the first place.
This might very well be a fundamental flaw in public events and especially chains/stages.
It keeps you busy but it doesnt tell a good story.
I dont see the big difference. Obviously there are differences but fundamentally the same. Chained, staged etc is not all that different. They are all quest type events which are happenning on a persistant map and anyone can join in the "fun" and they all have different stages culimating in a success or fail which resets it back to the first stage.
GW 2 is a bit more complex as they, allegedly have different branches but most are not like that and still linear. In any case they still go around in circles and always reset to the first level. For me the end experience was not that different from Rifts except they were more varied like WAR PQs but more mobile.
So essentially GW 2 events are like Rift mobile events with the variety of WAR PQs and branches rather than linear progression (in some cases).
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The main reason why you can't tell the difference, is probably to do with you painting all of them with such a large brush. You're essentially viewing them all with such a generalized perspective, that none of the details are relevant to you (which is indeed what makes them each different from one another).
If you view ANY genre with such a broad perspective, then every single game within that genre will sound the same. Hell, you can trace questing events back to the very beginning of RPGs. The main problem w/ GW2's event system, is that people experience events in bite sized pieces. Very few people remember the whole chain. Most only remember 1 link of an event chain, because they are so used to hopping from one thing to another. For example, the norn snowman video posted earlier in this thread shows an event chain. It's actually 3-4 DEs linked together, determined by the player's actions.
- In regards to the OP, what he says is absolutely correct. I don't know why people have such a hard time with this concept, but most studios tend to develop ideas alongside one another. Yes, there's a lot of situations where a game blatantly copies another (SWTOR), but there are just as many cases where 2+ studios have similar ideas and approach them in slightly different ways.
Questing 'events' are one of those ideas. A lot of companies were toying with this idea when it first immerged. Mythic may have been the company to first release a game featuring this mechanic, but they weren't the first ones talking about it. Anet has been toying with the idea since before Utopia (and yes it was originally intended to be part of Utopia). Blizzard & Turbine started using Quest Phasing, which is a different mechanic born of the same idea.
The main reason why GW2, WAR, and Rift's event systems seem so similar, is because they are all approached from the idea of making quests more of a community-oriented experience. A key difference from other forms of questing, but not one you can reasonably credit to one specific company.
What you see as a problem i see as an advantage. Main culprit: CHOICE.
Events do tell a story, but it isnt shoved down your throat and youll probably have to poke around a bit to get the background. If you want to.
If you dont want to, you know what your goal is and can just "kill stuff" and be merry on your way.
OTOH, WoW and its clones conditioned people pretty hard and it will take a while to break that conditioning when game doesnt shove things down your throath (aka handholding).
Wasnt there a guy on Massively that complained game isnt "handholding enough" already?
It wasn't WAR however.
First game with DYNAMIC events was TABULA RASA with its system of DYNAMIC BATTLEFIELDS. WAR pretty much ripped it off without any major alternation, and its essentially the same system GW2 uses today.
REALITY CHECK
That's what I was trying to get across. So many people waiting on the wings listen to people say, "It's like WAR or RIFT" when it really isn't at all. The only thing they have in common is that they are dynamic events. GW2's version is really a different way of doing it. People that say that GW2 DE's don't tell the story aren't really listening or watching what's happening on their screen. The glue that connects various chains aren't usually accompanied by a sound or UI element guiding them. The player actually has to pay attention. A lot of players probably have their sound off and just don't notice since there isn't a big text wall that tells you what to do in between chains.
If in 1982 we played with the current mentality, we would have burned down all the pac man games since the red ghost was clearly OP. Instead we just got better at the game.
Oderint, dum metuant.
Like all evolution it is a minor difference on an existing pattern.
Fun - sure!
Groundbreaking, awe inspiring, worth so much excitement and such an involved argument over semantics? Not even remotely. Dress it up as much as you want - Its just a questchain with no questgiver.
Well, it's a quest chain with no quest giver that can be passed or failed at each link in the chain kicking off the appropriate event, that scales to the number of players involved, that can happen with or without players even present in the area, that can interact with other event chains, that can reach points where they hold (instead of reset automatically)... so yeah, aside from all the differences they're exactly the same.
Oderint, dum metuant.
The OP is actually quite right. If you don't care to find out actual information about GW then what are you doing here?
honestly ,these inepcy are frivolous ,i played rift it isnt the same at all,gw2 story make more sense as a lot of with ,they play with the mood a lot in gw2 the other 2 mention?no so much!it is all small detail clear the map (everything ,look up etc say for the norn frozen content ,i tell you you will have a grin .it isnt all rose (they are at war vs the ice dragon after all,but some stuff is very nice!
would i add to gw2?yes ,i would reuse most of the puzzle zone as pvp zone with goal etc(ya they re that great!aside from that ,i love3 gw2 ,wvw need polish ,too wide open or they should add penality to the winner (to prevent same faction from always winning and if they do its because they are good!
[mod edit]. Let me run down this on a strike by strike basis.
In Warhammer they are permanently located on the map on a small parcel of space.
You mean opposed to how Guild Wars 2 has zone-wide events, or events that move around so that they don't always start in exactly the same place? Oh, wait. Yes, that was sarcasm. GW2's events also are permanently located in the same parcel of space. WAR and GW2 are just alike in this respect.
They run in a cycle [...]
You mean when renown or dynamic events are done in GW2, they change the world completely, and never run again? Oh wait. Just because GW2 is dishonest enough to hide the cycle, doesn't mean that they don't. The same cycle of events happens in the same way. The event runs again and again, in the same spot, doing the same thing, basically resetting the world so that the event can run again. WAR and GW2 are just alike in this respect.
[...] that is clearly visible in the UI with a countdown timer that clearly shows what stage a player is on.
So what you're saying is that the GW2 UI is worse because it provides less information? Since the same mechanics apply in both games. Okay, I can agree with that. One point up for WAR, then.
At the end of the event, contribution is weighed and a random lottery [...]
Uh. No. When I played it back in beta it allots it to players based upon their contribution score. It clearly shows the contribution score at the end of the public mission. Unless they've drastically changed things since then, it still does that. What else bases reward upon contribution score? Oh, right - GW2 does. So... WAR and GW2 are just alike in their allotment of rewards. The only difference is that WAR has a little more competition involved in regards to participation.
These events do not scale based on a player level so higher level players can make quick work of them [...]
This is a lol comment, because it assumes that GW2's do. Have you seen the scaling in GW2? It's made of fail. If you take a level 80 back to an earlier zone, no matter what zone, then you're going to just stomp through events with the greatest of ease. It's pitifully easy. It's because gear matters more than levels or traits in GW2, and the gear isn't scaled. So GW2 and WAR are, once again, very much alike in this respect.
Really, the scalilng in GW2 is so pitiful and poorly executed that they may as well not have bothered including it at all.
Conclusion!
Going by the above, GW2 is pretty much just a cheap rip-off of WAR. The thing is is that, yes, whilst it is undeniably true that Rift shares no similarity with GW2, that doesn't make GW2 any less of a WAR rip-off. It's kind of like saying that because Warcraft isn't anything like D&D, it can therefore not be a Warhammer IP rip off.
Poor Warhammer, so frequently ripped off.
The OP is factually wrong in many ways but that is expected if one does not know about game design.
Kinda like how people think different cars are 'so different because of XYZ' but to a car mechanic that's not why they are different.
GW2 DE, War PQ, RIFT are identical from a game design's perspective.
All 3 implements that design in kind of a similar way but presents them differently.
Most of the OP's reasons are the presentation rather than actual game design.
I'd like to point out that this game design has been around for AGES. The original Elite was probably the first to have this although since it was released in 1984, the execution of it wasn't there and players didn't really see it. However, we are talking about 1984!!
A more recent example would be X-series / Space Rangers which was released 10+ years ago.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I think GW2's events are a bit more varied gameplay-wise than Rift and WAR, even if not necessarily any more fun. You get to sometimes click stuff in different ways, while in WAR and Rift you pretty much only kill stuff until the timer runs out, then start killing the next wave, etc.
GW2 does hide the stage timers from the UI, but that does not mean there aren't stages. It also hides the event reset timers, but that does not mean the events are any less repetitive. After running through a given set of stages it will reset just like in the other games. Don't really see any difference in the gameplay mechanic here.
I do think GW2's events have one real advantage over the WAR / Rift counterparts: the fact that some events, depending on their outcome, trigger follow-up events that are different enough to make the experience a little more like meaningful.
I know it's really just a overglorified "second stage" to the first event, but it does seem like most of the times things are different enough to make the whole thing seem a bit more like part of a living world, and not a looping whack-a-mole.
Even so, I think it's clear that the idea behind all three implementations is very similar, regardless of whether each was inspired by the other or not.
Not gonna address the level-scaling comparison from the OP as I feel it is not really a feature related to the events at all, but a more general game design decision.
Gear is scaled down.
GW2 doesn't reset the world - if players don't play, the mobs will have the map conquered forever.
GW2 rewards are based on the participation and don't prevent anyone from getting the same level of participation and the rewards are equal for every one in the same tier (out of 3, with bronze being most likely caused by you killing a mob involved in the DE but spawning far from it while you ran around, silver being caused by you doing some damage and gold for major damage or reviving/killing/destroying major DEs objectives).
If DEs changed world permanently they would be static one ofs. And it is absurd thinking it is technologicaly feasible to get continuous flowing content.
Rift and WAR and Tabula Rasa (which predates WAR, again the prejudice against Tabula Rasa) all have "invasion" type events - GW2 has short stories events.
And well, WAR and Rift must have done something wrong because just a few months after they were out PQs and Rifts were being ignored while GW2 DEs are sought after.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
From the Tabula Rasa Wikipedia page a game that started development in 2001
Dynamic battlefield
"AFS and Bane forces are in constant battle with NPC forces warring over control points and bases. Which side controls these areas greatly impacts the players. Losing one of these to the Bane means that the respawn hospital, waypoints, shops, NPCs access, and base defenses are lost and turned to the Bane's advantage. Players were able to help NPC assaults to take over bases or defend ones under attack. Control of these points was meant to change back and forth commonly even without player involvement, although the current implementation rarely let the Bane muster enough forces to invade a control point during peak player times. The Control Point System was one of the main gameplay features. Players that are fighting to defend or capture a CP (control point) got Prestige points which they could trade in for item-upgrades, experience boosters, a reset of either their attributes or their learned abilities or the purchase of superior or rare equipment at grey market vendors. Prestige could also be earned by defeating bosses, looting rare items, getting the max XP multiplier and by completing special missions. Later in the game, Control points became more and more important to the players, as they were necessary to be either in Bane or AFS hands to accept or complete certain missions and they become the centerpoint of most of the later map"
At the end of the day its a moot point as to who influenced who in a transient world such as game development, as the basic idea for Dynamic Events is old probably older than Tabula Rasa and thus influenced it, Warhammer, Rift and GW2 making them heavily related, they are just different implimentations of the same basic concept.
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Yep. Same concept but with some variations.
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