Simple: Expand their DE System. DEs are great to spread population and make the world feel alive and big. Living stories reduce the whole playable area to a couple of updated regions. This month regions x and y are important, next month regions a and b. ANet is turning GW2 into a lobby based game if they continue to tread this path. Instead of pre-designed bits and pieces of story, ANet should add new stories to existing DEs and add more cascading events that not only affect one but two or more zones.
There is so much wasted potential in GW2.
Do that and get:
"The world is empty. You can't see players. The game is dying."
GW2 world is big. Not only it is big horizontally it is also big vertically.
The Living Story exists to focus people in the same regions for a while, complementing the Meta Events that give bonus chests and boss chests.
It is something similar to the Zaishen Quests they've implemented in GW1.
In fact, players themselves try to compact the world by running champ trains only in Queensdale and Frostgorge Sound.
Caledon Forest also has a ton of champions. In fact most areas could have a train running.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Originally posted by IPolygon Sounds like the people who like handholding won.
I don't think it is that simple.
Lets not forget that for a while people were complaining that there were barely any reasons to go into the open World compared to dungeons.
The champion trains were the creation of the community.
The Living Story simply create hot spots for the community - short duration hot spots that have the benefit of familiarizing players with certain areas.
I would wager from my observations that the open world is much more populated and used now than a 14 months ago.
For example today, in Iron Marches, there were 5 people doing a heart and then we did a couple of events together.
What is the draw to Iron Marches?
The problem of DEs is that you don't know if they are there or not (well with API you can know, but these tools are still primitive and clunky to use, especially for the regular events).
Why would people be at event #345 if there are another 250 going on at any given moment in the world?
The upside of DEs is that they create a random experience (until you use APIs and/or know from memory) but the downside is that they generate a random experience.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Originally posted by Arakazi Like it or not GW2 is a success, sold millions and plenty are playing. It may not be the revolution that was promised and is a more PVE centric than expected, but none the less can be regarded as a success.
This pretty much ends the thread. You didn't call it at all.
Did it work its way up to 10+ million players? No.
Did it become the next WoW? No.
Did it make huge money on box sales and continues to enjoy a dedicated playerbase? Yes.
If the first two are your criteria of success and fail, don't ever go into business for yourself.
Originally posted by IPolygon Sounds like the people who like handholding won.
I don't think it is that simple.
Lets not forget that for a while people were complaining that there were barely any reasons to go into the open World compared to dungeons.
The champion trains were the creation of the community.
The Living Story simply create hot spots for the community - short duration hot spots that have the benefit of familiarizing players with certain areas.
I would wager from my observations that the open world is much more populated and used now than a 14 months ago.
For example today, in Iron Marches, there were 5 people doing a heart and then we did a couple of events together.
What is the draw to Iron Marches?
The problem of DEs is that you don't know if they are there or not (well with API you can know, but these tools are still primitive and clunky to use, especially for the regular events).
Why would people be at event #345 if there are another 250 going on at any given moment in the world?
The upside of DEs is that they create a random experience (until you use APIs and/or know from memory) but the downside is that they generate a random experience.
That's why I said to expand the DE system. Give DEs more meaning, make them less random and make the stories affect bigger parts of the map or regions for longer than some countdown. ANet could introduce DEs that start at in one map and end in one three steps to the north, all telling an ad-hoc story. They could add sandbox content along the way and add another dimension to the persistence of their maps. Make NPCs react to content players create and make them truly dynamic. Its all in their hands, yet they to decide to turn GW2 into GW1 with their guided quest structure.
I didn't personally enjoy GW2 but it has definitely not failed. The most hilarious part is where you called "Archeage" a sandbox game. Not only were you completely wrong about GW2 but you were also wrong about where Archeage was going. It's been pretty much settled that it isn't anything but a themepark MMO with minor sandpark elements.
Simple: Expand their DE System. DEs are great to spread population and make the world feel alive and big. Living stories reduce the whole playable area to a couple of updated regions. This month regions x and y are important, next month regions a and b. ANet is turning GW2 into a lobby based game if they continue to tread this path. Instead of pre-designed bits and pieces of story, ANet should add new stories to existing DEs and add more cascading events that not only affect one but two or more zones.
There is so much wasted potential in GW2.
Do that and get:
"The world is empty. You can't see players. The game is dying."
GW2 world is big. Not only it is big horizontally it is also big vertically.
The Living Story exists to focus people in the same regions for a while, complementing the Meta Events that give bonus chests and boss chests.
It is something similar to the Zaishen Quests they've implemented in GW1.
In fact, players themselves try to compact the world by running champ trains only in Queensdale and Frostgorge Sound.
Caledon Forest also has a ton of champions. In fact most areas could have a train running.
If you want to find people in GW2.....hang out in Lion's Arch. The majority are just standing there waiting to take a port to their instance.
The ones you don't see are in Fractals...or following the champ train.
GW2 was looking good at release. Plenty of issues but the core was good.
Too bad ANET then did a 180 and turned GW2 into the "every other MMO" so the game is now rotten with farming, grind and other stupid MMO aspects. The lore also went down the drain with Scarlet and many issues were never fixed. s/cPvP is still crap, WvW and PVE are mostly about zerg fests, client performance is bad... it is not a giant fail but i d call it a fail nontheless at least for me personally.
Moneywise they seem to be doing ok. Well, at least NC is as they are taking all the profits and putting them into other projects. Last sales figures were 3,5mil in august 2013. Not quite the 5-6 i predicted but that s what they get for lying to their playerbase. I can still see them getting to 4 or even 4,5 with clever marketing though.
GW2 is one of the few MMORPGs with a semi decent physics engine. On top of that tons of AI moving and other scripts running.
[mod edit] it is simply people not understanding how it works.
First, investments in games mean more people and wages.
Last time I saw Anet is still growing in size so NCSoft is actually investing more money in GW2 now than it was before.
Also GW2 was in development for 5 or so years and it was financed by NCSoft, which by your logic was diverting profits from other games.
The truth is Anet is 100% owned by NCSoft.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Proper game design dictates that you need to keep performance in mind, yes even in an MMO. GW2 runs like dog shit and the devs have made no effort in making non-zerg events in the game further enlarging the problem of performance in their game which mind you has nothing to do with AI, scripts etc. but the main render thread. Even SOE can get their shit together and fix things in PS2. There is no excuse for this.
A company hiring a few more entry wage people doesnt mean jack in investments. Many things in game development are outsourced and quite a few senior leads have left the company. The content coming out for GW2 is terrible and compared to GW1s expansions barely 10-20% in scope and size in the same time frame. If NC is investing a ton of money, the game sure aint showing none of it.
And yes GW2 did divert everything, not just profits... from GW1. With the promise to deliver a game worthy of that name. Now it might as well be called World of Grind Wars.
[mod edit]
I'm sure that is why the world is filled with games with decent physic engines that allow tons of players... or not and maybe that is the reason only a few games allow up to 64 players and they don't even AI also running while most MMORPGs require a target before you use a skill and once the skill is fired it will always hit (save passive effects) and go through obstacles.
GW2 probably has more content than all GW1 combined.
Content coming from GW2 is just content created by a live team of 40-100 people. The bulk of Anet is not working on GW2 vanilla. It is also free opposed to a paid expansion/stand alone campaign.
So lets wait until we see a proper expansion.
The company grew from under 300 to 350+ people since release. Even at low wages 50 people is considerable. Also lets not forget that 3 years ago Anet was like 150-200 people.
I've heard people talking about Anet outsourcing but no evidence of that actually happening.
It is a way more successful game than GW1. The revenue generated by the quarterly microtransactions outpaces GW1 expansions revenue.
As if GW1 wasn't since Nightfall and Eye of the North about PvE and grinding titles and skins.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Comments
Do that and get:
"The world is empty. You can't see players. The game is dying."
GW2 world is big. Not only it is big horizontally it is also big vertically.
The Living Story exists to focus people in the same regions for a while, complementing the Meta Events that give bonus chests and boss chests.
It is something similar to the Zaishen Quests they've implemented in GW1.
In fact, players themselves try to compact the world by running champ trains only in Queensdale and Frostgorge Sound.
Caledon Forest also has a ton of champions. In fact most areas could have a train running.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
I don't think it is that simple.
Lets not forget that for a while people were complaining that there were barely any reasons to go into the open World compared to dungeons.
The champion trains were the creation of the community.
The Living Story simply create hot spots for the community - short duration hot spots that have the benefit of familiarizing players with certain areas.
I would wager from my observations that the open world is much more populated and used now than a 14 months ago.
For example today, in Iron Marches, there were 5 people doing a heart and then we did a couple of events together.
What is the draw to Iron Marches?
The problem of DEs is that you don't know if they are there or not (well with API you can know, but these tools are still primitive and clunky to use, especially for the regular events).
Why would people be at event #345 if there are another 250 going on at any given moment in the world?
The upside of DEs is that they create a random experience (until you use APIs and/or know from memory) but the downside is that they generate a random experience.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
This pretty much ends the thread. You didn't call it at all.
Did it work its way up to 10+ million players? No.
Did it become the next WoW? No.
Did it make huge money on box sales and continues to enjoy a dedicated playerbase? Yes.
If the first two are your criteria of success and fail, don't ever go into business for yourself.
That's why I said to expand the DE system. Give DEs more meaning, make them less random and make the stories affect bigger parts of the map or regions for longer than some countdown. ANet could introduce DEs that start at in one map and end in one three steps to the north, all telling an ad-hoc story. They could add sandbox content along the way and add another dimension to the persistence of their maps. Make NPCs react to content players create and make them truly dynamic. Its all in their hands, yet they to decide to turn GW2 into GW1 with their guided quest structure.
If you want to find people in GW2.....hang out in Lion's Arch. The majority are just standing there waiting to take a port to their instance.
The ones you don't see are in Fractals...or following the champ train.
Pretty much feels like WoW.
GW2 is one of the few MMORPGs with a semi decent physics engine. On top of that tons of AI moving and other scripts running.
[mod edit] it is simply people not understanding how it works.
First, investments in games mean more people and wages.
Last time I saw Anet is still growing in size so NCSoft is actually investing more money in GW2 now than it was before.
Also GW2 was in development for 5 or so years and it was financed by NCSoft, which by your logic was diverting profits from other games.
The truth is Anet is 100% owned by NCSoft.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
I'm sure that is why the world is filled with games with decent physic engines that allow tons of players... or not and maybe that is the reason only a few games allow up to 64 players and they don't even AI also running while most MMORPGs require a target before you use a skill and once the skill is fired it will always hit (save passive effects) and go through obstacles.
GW2 probably has more content than all GW1 combined.
Content coming from GW2 is just content created by a live team of 40-100 people. The bulk of Anet is not working on GW2 vanilla. It is also free opposed to a paid expansion/stand alone campaign.
So lets wait until we see a proper expansion.
The company grew from under 300 to 350+ people since release. Even at low wages 50 people is considerable. Also lets not forget that 3 years ago Anet was like 150-200 people.
I've heard people talking about Anet outsourcing but no evidence of that actually happening.
It is a way more successful game than GW1. The revenue generated by the quarterly microtransactions outpaces GW1 expansions revenue.
As if GW1 wasn't since Nightfall and Eye of the North about PvE and grinding titles and skins.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders