Immersion: What Guild Wars 2 Needs

NOTE: I just finished writing it, and this is a long post. 4283 words. It is not shy. If you don't read the whole thing, that's cool. You can just read a few points. The TL;DR would basically just be "Tyria needs to be more immersive." I would gladly welcome discussion and thoughts on more suggestions. If this isn't your playstyle, that's fine. It won't fit most people's playstyle. But there is certainly room for it, especially in Guild Wars 2, a game where it feels like this should be second-nature (even just going from the name). However, no matter what kind of player you are, you must either agree with some of these points or perhaps have your own thoughts on what makes an immersive experience.

Alright, first of all, I want to say that I love Guild Wars 2. I think the devs are doing a fantastic job, and they're going in the right direction.That being said, no game is perfect. Everyone has that one thing they don't like about the game - the new mount skin randomized sales, the difficulty involved in acquiring some items (save legendaries), PvP, WvW, the lack of dungeon updates, and some people even dislike mounts.

I want to bring something up that I feel has been sidelined from the game, and it's something that Guild Wars 2 inherently promises from its design and fails to deliver on.Immersion.Now, the devs frequently focus on gameplay and new content, and I absolutely stand by this. They should absolutely keep doing that. That's the kind of game Guild Wars 2 is.However, some small changes in certain areas would go pretty far in improving certain aspects of immersion to open the game up to more playstyles.

Most people go about this game in relatively the same mindset - play, grind for gear, maybe play fractals, etc. Some people play it for the story, some people play it for other reasons.I play it for exploration. I love exploring, and I love how big Guild Wars 2 is.But my ideal playstyle is a fully immersive experience - I want to be a part of the world. And I feel like there's a definite portion of players who would agree with the changes I'm going to suggest below. It opens up the game to a very different style of play, and a very different way of perceiving the game.

1. First person view. Now, we have this, but it's not perfect. You can't see your arms or weapons. Yeah, it's not meant for combat, but it would still be nice to be able to see what you can see IRL. The main thing here though is first person view on your mount. This doesn't exist. Being able to climb on your mount and view first person, so you can still see your mount in front of you (Raptor neck and head, Springer upper body and head) would be fantastic for those of us that actually use first person view. This was added to the game after a long time, and everyone loved it (or, you know, just didn't use it, but I've never heard a negative comment about it). But then it was just kind of sidelined, like "okay, it's here now, so we can ignore it".

2. Chairs you can sit in. Kinda speaks for itself. If there's a chair or a bench, you should be able to sit there. And not just designated chairs across Tyria that are added with an update - you should be able to sit on any chair, bench, or sitting surface.

3. Taverns. We only have one real tavern in the game, and it's an instance that you only visit once or twice. If we had public taverns, with bartenders that sold a wide variety of alcohol (more than just one or two different beverages), including ones that got you drunk faster, that would be fantastic. The taverns could still be instances, but make them public ones, almost like an extra map. You go in, and it acts like a map - the tavern fills up. This avoids problems like 5 maps of the same city being full, and each of them having 2 people in the tavern. Doing it in the map has advantages too, namely being able to talk to the entire map in map chat. Maybe make the taverns bigger than The Dead End.You can add achievements for taverns to encourage people to spend time in there. Maybe something like, spend 5 hours in a tavern and you get some points or something. Buy so many drinks. They would also be a fantastic place for bard guilds to go to perform. Taverns would promote socialization within the game, making friends outside of map chat in the latest map. They would also bring focus back to starter cities, and have a reason for them to exist outside of the story points. One really cool idea is an open mic thing in taverns. One person is using a mic at a time. This opens the game to their actual mic, their IRL microphone. So this works for Spoken Word Art and bard stuff - songs. Real instruments, if people prefer those over to in-game ones. The problem is that people could abuse this with random shrieking or whatever, but that's easy to resolve with a kick system. Maybe only one or two taverns would have this feature as opposed to all of them, so you can choose if you want to have that or not. Taverns would also kind of need you to be able to sit in chairs and booths and on stools. Sit down, have a drink, be merry.

4. Festivals. Celebrations outside of "oh no the bloody prince is a bad dude". Dragon Bash was amazing. Bring that back. It was supposed to be annual anyway, wasn't it? Wasn't it called an annual festival? Or something like it. Just... events that happen in the world that don't deal with "oh no we are all gonna die from this dude/dragon/god". Let people just have fun.

5. Bring life to the cities! The biggest reason why I always hated Lion's Arch's new design was because it doesn't feel like a city anymore. It's a plaza, and that's it. There's no skeevy people hiding in corners, there's no livelihood, no markets to browse and hear gossip, and not even places to just walk and feel like you're in a city. Before Scarlet, Lion's Arch had that city feel. But now it's almost designed just to be a place where players go to craft. That's it. It feels like it's built for convenience, not for immersion or lore. I mean, you can't even go into the sewers anymore. I saw someone say on a suggestions tab that a Before Scarlet Lion's Arch Pass should be a thing, and that honestly would be perfect. Create reasons for people to be in cities. As it is, all of the action is on the new maps, and while that's cool and all, I miss being able to sit in the Grove or Divinity's Reach and just... be a part of the world. Now nobody's there. An alternative solution to this, or an extra solution, would be to create a new safezone city for the next expansion. Amnoon was a step in the right direction, but it didn't feel like a city, you know? In an MMO, I want to be able to be a part of the world, not just the maps where the story is taking place. I want to be in a city where people go because they want to experience the sights, the festivals, the city itself. I'm glad for new content, but it pulls away from the old content, the part of the game that feels like magic, like this new world that I can go to to escape my own. That's why I love fantasy games so much. I play Skyrim not because it's a good game or the combat. The biggest reason is because I can walk down a road, meet a passing traveler, say hi to them, and them bribe them to hand me their bounty so I can finish it for them. In the cities, there's people being racist, drunks, worshipping Talos, and begging for money. There's real city interaction. That's the kind of thing I want in Guild Wars 2. I want to experience that with a world of other players.

6. Mounts are cool and all, but for real immersion, if I use one, I won't be using the movement ability. Not unless I need to to get over something where I need it. I also try to avoid using gliders. Now I know most people have no problem using the mounts to get around faster. This is more of a personal preference, but it also reflects a certain playstyle - I want to feel as though I am a part of the world. Waypoints don't really help with this, because being able to teleport anywhere instantly is kind of a problem for breaking immersion. Now normally, this just means I'll walk across the world. The problem here is that I can't actually walk to Bloodstone Fen and the Crystal Desert. Bloodstone Fen is right next to another map, so setting up a walking path should be easy. The Crystal Desert would have a harder time with this, but if no maps are added to bridge the gap, then even just an option to go there on a ship or airship would be great. I'm not talking a 30 minute cinematic. Give the players 5-10 minutes on the airship to chill. If people don't want to take this, then don't - just WP, as everyone does, but it would offer that travel time experience for people who want it.

7. The first time you enter a city, especially Lion's Arch (not actually sure about the others, but LA for sure), it puts you a ways in front of the "main entrance", the one you'd be expected to take. This really cuts immersion, because while there is a nice cinematic, you are placed well in front of that entrance, and if you choose to take an asura gate, you don't actually come out on the other side of the gate. If I take an Asura gate to Lion's Arch for my first visit there with that character, I want to come out on the other side of that Asura gate.

8. There are areas on the map that still have artwork fuzz (if you look at the south part of Orr or anywhere far north on the map, that stylistic artwork that shows that you can't see what's there or there is no map). Some of these areas are quite small and between two or three maps. A prime example of this is in the Maguuma jungle. Getting rid of these would make the map much more map-like. Like, you didn't fill these in with your map, and that's fine, but they're too small for you to ever do anything with them, so get rid of them. Make it look better.

9. Some areas on the map are right next to other maps, and by all reasoning, you should be able to swim from Siren's Landing to the Straits of Devastation. But you can't. But you really should! I mean, still have a loading screen and all, but maybe just edit areas like this so that you can enter at one point, and it enters you on the other map at the same point where you left the previous one.

10. Fill in the artwork areas. Bride the gap to the crystal desert. I know Anet likely has plans for all of this, but Anet, if you don't have plans, like maybe there's an area that you know you'll never use, fill it in with mountains or something. Give the explored look.

11. When Bubbles' underwater map inevitably comes (which I am really looking forward to), give us real depth. Nothing in Tyria is really all that deep. I want to dive deep into the ocean and see a leviathan swim past me. I want the map to be as deep as the PoF maps are wide. Make an underwater mount. But make the ocean feel like the ocean. A mosty empty thing that has hidden gems, and maybe a massive megalodon or something even bigger is going to come swooping at you from above or below or the sides, but you won't be able to see very far because of the darkness, so it will catch you off-guard. I want it to feel as though I were in the actual ocean.

12. Give more attention to bards. Maybe this is just me being biased, because I actually am in a bard guild, but even aside from more instruments, something similar to open mic (that I mentioned earlier in 3, taverns). Something to give bards a chance to be bards, to really play instruments. Don't make it a competition, don't have achievement points. It shouldn't be a contest to see who's best. I honestly don't know what to suggest. If there could be an open mic where people had to sing, and we could trust people to sing it it, that would be great. Of course, we can't, but maybe a squad-like thing. Have a commander-tag-like bard icon - not one that appears on the map, just something that hovers over your head while you're playing an instrument and have open mic active, so anyone who joins your "squad" would be able to hear you singing.

13. Lore books. Wooden Potatoes actually mentioned this, and that's what got me thinking about it. So credit goes to him. But I completely agree. Get lore books in here. Like, actual books, like the ones you find in Skyrim. What we have now is just interface options. I want to look at a book. Something like this would also bring more attention to cities, because people would go there to read the lore (again, not most people, but there's a definite market for it). Have libraries in cities (and the library in the Priory). Create discoverable books out there that you could find, and finding them is an achievement but also adds them to city libraries for you to read (home instance is also an option, but we want socialization between players, so a city library is a big one). If you don't want to edit cities to insert a library, this would be something to add to a new Safe Zone city map. I actually got really excited when I saw the collections in season 3, because they looked like books, and I wanted to read the full book without an interface.

14. Similar to lore books - more songs (with lyrics). I LOVE GW2 music, but when it comes to lore music, stuff that there characters hear, there honestly isn't much. The only two I can think of are Fear Not This Night and Alas, Alas (Are there others?). Introducing these with taverns, maybe as an NPC bard thing, would be cool. So maybe if there's 6 taverns, two have an open mic, two have bards who you can pay to play songs, and two that have nothing, and players just play instruments if they want to. Maybe some light background music that fades when a player plays their instrument. And for the bards who you can pay to play songs (trivial fee, but you know, even NPCs have to eat), have a queue-type system. Everyone would hear the selected song, and if someone wants a specific song, there's a stool or something with a pull-up list of the songs that are in the queue, and the time for them to all finish, so the person would know if they're going to be in the tavern long enough to hear the song they pay for. I would really prefer if this list was a lore book style thing and not just an interface. Or maybe something like the server selection menu, that kind of look.

15. Gossip. I mentioned this earlier briefly, but a way to bring people back to markets and cities (and a new safe zone city) would be gossip. I'm not talking like a quest-style thing, but people talking about the world at large. Current events. This happens a bit already - you pass someone in Lion's Arch who says that Balthazar is right and we shouldn't be fighting him, because a few thousand sacrificed are worth the millions. Things like that, only maybe less serious. Like Taimi's line about the queen not wearing shoes. Tiny bits of lore about the game that you may not have noticed. Just please don't be Bethesda - have more than 5 different gossip lines. With every living story or expansion, add more lines. Have hundreds. They don't need to be long. Just something brief. You could tie achievements to this - hear all the gossip in Divinity's Reach. Hear all the gossip in Rata Sum. It would encourage people to stay in cities, and paired with festivals and taverns and stuff, you could bring life to cities again.

16. A proper world map. We know that one exists. Even if we never go to the opposite side of the continent of Tyria that Kryta is on, even if we never go west at all, even if we only ever go to Elona and Cantha, I would love a world map to put things in perspective. Maybe hanging as a tapestry somewhere, maybe accessible in your world map, but actually being able to see everything would be amazing. Right now, we see what we need to. Add more. Even if I never go to Antartica, it's still nice to know that it'll exist on my globe.

17. Airships. They're a big thing in the lore of GW2. I want to be able to board an airship and say "take me here", and it will. And I'll be sitting in that airship for 5 or 10 minutes, but the scenery down below will be of Kryta or Elona. It won't be instantaneous like waypoints, but it will be fun. It wil be a way to just stretch back and relax and pretend like I'm in that world.

18. NPCs with names. I'm not talking significant ones, or vendors, or even just random people, but relating to gossip. Add more NPCs. Take away the standard "villager" tag, and give them names. When gossip happens, people will talk about specific people. They'll say things like "did you hear that Robben the beggar has a wig??", and Robben would be an actual character. Have twins. Have children who mug people. Have crappy bards on the sidewalk. Make the city feel populated with NPCs.

19. A new safe zone city. I've mentioned this a couple times above, but I don't feel like I should end this list without it having its own point. Now, this could absolutely be the Tengu, if they ever get added, but a new city in Elona would be better. As it stands, Elona is far away. Really far. Sure, you can go to Amnoon, and it is a place where you won't get hurt, but there's still that feeling of danger. There's no barrier. Maybe Choya break through the gate. Maybe Kralkatorric flies overhead. And I get why Amnoon was made as it was, with the new story coming. I'm not against Amnoon not being a safe zone. Under the circumstances, I'm glad that it is. But... even with Amnoon, the Crystal Desert is just really far from everything. With the jungle, we went deep into Mordremoth's territory. Not having major civilizations was a bit to be expected. But in the crystal desert, Elona is a thing. Cities are a thing. So make them. Right now, it feels wild. Out of place. The nearest safe zone city is still so far away, and it makes the Crystal Desert feel disconnected from the world. Add that factor to its actual disconnection in terms of maps, and it's even worse. The Crystal Desert isn't the jungle. There ARE civilizations. Show them to us. Give us a true city vibrant with culture. At this point, I'm looking at when we'll eventually go to Cantha, and I'm a little worried. It's not even just part of the same supercontinent, it's on a completely different continent. So you cross an ocean to go here, but if you want to get back to a city then you gotta get back to Tyria? No! Give us an even playing world. Give us a world we can live in at any point - just because we're in Elona or Cantha doesn't mean we should be worrying that we're gonna die because no safe zone city is anywhere nearby. Make the world livable (I know I've repeated that several times, but I'm trying to think of another way to word it and I can't).

20. A new safe zone city also brings the possibility of a new race. Now, I know this has been brought up and talked about to death, but hear me out. It's more than just "I want to play as a Kodan". Adding an extra race allows for a new city and new lore. You wouldn't even have to have them start at the living story - have the new characters jump in at the expansion where they're released. They wouldn't be the commander, but someone else who just joined the fray. Lore-wise, the Tengu would be perfect for this. Maybe a new race from east of Elona that we haven't encountered yet. I never played the original Guild Wars - is there a race in there that would be well suited? Maybe have an NPC commander, or just void the commander from their story, and have their origin story be joining the fight against whoever we're fighting now, and then after a period of their own origin story, they pick up and their story kind of merges with the commander's, they'd just be playing a slightly different role. It wouldn't be that hard, story-wise. The lore would support this too. Another suggestion is another human city, and new human characters would be able to choose if they come from a city in Cantha or Divinity's Reach. And that's where you start. Sylvari would be able to start from the other pale tree (that we know exists but have never seen). I know something similar to this happened with Guild Wars - your character started with an expansion, and they unlocked other areas of the map from there. So they could start in Cantha and unlock Kryta through a story mission, or start in Kryta and unlock Cantha.

21. Most of the new content is time-gated. Not in the sense of "you can only craft 1 per day", but in the sense of if you want a full set of 32-slot bags, you're screwed. Guild Wars 2 is friendly towards new and casual players, but only because they can choose not to get a legendary, not to get ascended weapons. Yes, they can be a part of the world, but in terms of equipment, they will always be behind the players who spend hours gold grinding. I hate gold grinding. I hate grinding of any sort. I shouldn't have to do it. I wouldn't call myself a casual player - casual playstyle definitely. Even with the kind of hours I put into the game, so many things are just off limits to me. Add things that are intended for casual players. Taverns and gossip are great for this. Add things that more serious players may not get. Something that defines someone as a casual player without there being a superior version of it for more intense players. It shouldn't make fun of casual players, and it should be something that's relatively difficult to achieve for a serious player. Even just an immersive experience contributes towards this, even if there are no rewards tied in.

I guess the main point is... make the game a game you can live in. Make it immersive. I know that realistically, the game will always have loading screens. Because of how maps fill up, even if it were possible engine-wise, without drastically redesigning how maps fill up and what is defined as a map, we will never be rid of loading screens. Maybe if GW3 is ever a thing, think about that. Sure, it would be nice to fly across all of Tyria, but I don't think it will ever happen. However, there are so many other steps that can be taken towards a proper immersive experience. Guild Wars 2 is an amazing game, but it can be improved. Adding these elements will not only add to the lore, but also the livelyhood of the game. People will come not just to fight elder dragon minions, but also to sit in a tavern and talk with friends, guild mates or not.I want to play this game, and then sit in a tavern and IRL curl up with some tea and leave the game playing. People will talk, and people will play and dance and sing (and get drunk), and I'll be able to enjoy the game without actively pressing buttons. I want to talk to people in cities and make friends. I want something to do with my guild mates other than dungeons, raids, guild missions, and WvW.

I want to live in Tyria.

These are okay I guess but the real immersion breakers are the huge unusually straight walls tracing every single map's border

@Abelisk.4527 said:These are okay I guess but the real immersion breakers are the huge unusually straight walls tracing every single map's border

I completely agree, but there's only so much you can do about that. The "swim to straits of devastation" point was a counter to that. Some rare maps are round or shaped slightly differently. Southsun has a good counter to this, it being an island. Same with the Fire Islands.They could build differently shaped maps in the future, but they can't really fix current ones.

But this is less about what breaks immersion and more about what makes immersion. I want to feel like I live in the world outside of just being the pact commander. Remember those friends each race has at the very beginning of the living story? We never hear from them again. WHY? Everyone we knew from the original story is either dead or a Destiny's Edge person (and most of them aren't really in the story at this point). What about acquaintances?

While we are it I would want removing of all soul-bound and account bound equipment. Everything single item in the game should be treated like the white/junk items.And maybe Open world PvP so we can have PK (bandit) guilds. And looting players you've killed players. No item should be safe unless it is in the bank.And limiting the guilds a player can be in to 1.And removing instanced contents. If you are doing a raid PKs should be able to come and kill you, so you better hire guards to keep you safe.

@Kingkiller.9645 said:But this is less about what breaks immersion and more about what makes immersion. I want to feel like I live in the world outside of just being the pact commander. Remember those friends each race has at the very beginning of the living story? We never hear from them again. WHY? Everyone we knew from the original story is either dead or a Destiny's Edge person (and most of them aren't really in the story at this point). What about acquaintances?

You make a good point. My (human) character has a sister she hasn't seen since the invasion of Orr. If I remember correctly, said sister retired and went to the outskirts of Divinities Reach to look after her dead-lover's family... which has since been hit by the White Mantle Invasion. Not so much as a letter was sent, though, we did get to meet Demmi again...

Actually, on second thought, we should probably keep all of the optional characters we liked in personal story in the past.

You have a lot of nice ideas. Although I guess some of them are not on anet's list of priorities time/budget -wise (like being able to walk to a map instead of just porting).

I do agree with you on some points though, I really think that they would make the game better.

1. Making cities feel more alive. I couldn't agree more. Right now only Rata Sum feels like a real city tbh.New Lion's Arch NEEDS to be changed. It's where most people go to socialize and afk. But now it's not even a pirate city anymore, it just looks like some unfinished Seaworld Extravaganza building site to me (and to many many others as I've heard). It's boring, it's colorless, it's empty. It's supposed to be a hub of marketing activity with travelers from all over the world. Instead there are barely any npc merchants and they all look as generic as possible. Why does the city look so clean like it's being washed with shampoo every friday? Where are all the pirates? There barely any ships (lol) in what is meant to be one of the biggest havens. Instead of shady npcs discussing city's secrets and trading business you have some random children running around 'If you're Marjory you'll have to give me a kiss!' (cringe), a tour guide (???) and everyone's favourite 'More violets, less violence'. New LA just doesn't fit it's own lore anymore. And please, get rid of the concrete lobster/jellyfish/stingray monstrosities, they're the biggest offenders.

2. Taverns. Would be really cool. Perhaps they can even introduce some mini games to them (like help the chef/waiter with their stuff and earn a few silvers, almost like you have a job XD). And bards giving performances on a stage would be great. This is how you make a city feel alive. Not so sure about an open mic thing though, as there are always some trolls around, so that could get annoying pretty fast.

3. Lore books. Yes please. It's not hard to do as it's just a bunch of text on the screen, but it gives so much more depth to the world. And it is also a good opportunity to fill in the story gaps for content that had to be cut, or something from GW1 that might become relevant again but not everyone will know about, or story locked behind raids, etc.

4. Npcs with names. Would also be nice. Definitely feels more personal than just a villager # 3. There is a possibility to add small daily quests to such stuff. Let's say there is a certain npc in LA. You only know that he is a fish vendor for example. The quest could be to find him (as he roams around the city near the docks), talk to him, and help him with something (he could send you to find another npc for him/retrieve an item from somewhere etc), in the end he sells/gives you some rare cooking ingredient or trades some information with you.

As for the world map being expanded, they're doing it as they add more content. Take Crystal Desert for example. And time-gated stuff and grind - it's in every game, you'll just have to deal with it :)

@electricwater.1572 said:You have a lot of nice ideas. Although I guess some of them are not on anet's list of priorities time/budget -wise (like being able to walk to a map instead of just porting).

Well yeah, it's not like I expect all of these ideas to happen. The biggest one is mainly just making cities feel alive and bringing taverns in.

As for the world map being expanded, they're doing it as they add more content. Take Crystal Desert for example. And time-gated stuff and grind - it's in every game, you'll just have to deal with it :)

I don't particularly have a problem with time-gated stuff. A lot of people enjoy it, and to some extent so do I. Gives me something to strive for. The problem I have is that it seems like it's all there is. All of the new content requires hours and hours of grinding to get enough Orrian Pearls to get that backpack. There's just nothing left for casual players, and they get cast out as a result.

I know the map is slowly getting expanded, but I want a world globe. We never got that in Guild Wars. You can find a few scattered around, but they're holograms and very difficult to see. I'd like to have a big one to look at!

Maybe that is why i really hate gw2 PVE... lack of MMO adventure and immersion sense.

@Westenev.5289 said:

@Kingkiller.9645 said:But this is less about what breaks immersion and more about what makes immersion. I want to feel like I live in the world outside of just being the pact commander. Remember those friends each race has at the very beginning of the living story? We never hear from them again. WHY? Everyone we knew from the original story is either dead or a Destiny's Edge person (and most of them aren't really in the story at this point). What about acquaintances?

ahah, i was kinda expecting, that people who selected sister has elonian would have an extra character sister questline thing :P since PoF is elonian.What it feels is something like:

-I have a sister-She is missing for years, days whatever...-That's debs-Hi-Plz never call me again

EDIT; on the south camp near bay there was a wooden door where we could troll players and close the door on their face when they were following us, they would have to open the fence gate or jump/dodge over it xD

....ANet removed it.Maybe some dev got trolled prety badly xD

@Aeolus.3615 said:Maybe that is why i really hate gw2 PVE... lack of MMO adventure and immersion sense.

I feel like a lack of reason to socialize in GW2 is the game's biggest downfall.

:3 :3 :3 :3 that's what they need to make your dreams come true :3 :3 :3

for some reason it looked like an older MO on the note when i looked it fast.

._. if u take out the long hair.

i think you are way to shy about the gossip part, there should be quests so we do have more things to do lore wise.better yet, with all the things you suggested, you should add questing.GW2 feels empty to me because everything depends on DE's and hearts and for me they are boring and doesn't add anything to the world beside a 5 minute thing to do, making them repeatable really doesn't help.

in every MMO i played quests add immersion, they give you something to do for you personally so you can go on an adventure.i want GW2 to have this too, be able to take a quest and do it, travel to places that you would otherwise skip and experience secret stories you can normally only read on wiki. (one of the immersive breaking thing i hate about quest-less games, lore trough wiki and nowhere else)

@Kingkiller.9645 said:

2. Chairs you can sit in. Kinda speaks for itself. If there's a chair or a bench, you should be able to sit there. And not just designated chairs across Tyria that are added with an update - you should be able to sit on any chair, bench, or sitting surface.

I would kill for that one.

But, ArenaNet said a long time ago that they would need to change all chairs, benches and other such surfaces to have the same height before they allowed our characters to sit. Which pretty much means it's not going to happen. This was a huge lack of foresight and long term planning from ArenaNet.

Now, I may be mistaken, but I think ArenaNet doesn't really do the kind of thing you are talking about. They move ahead - PoF has a lot of new stuff and the mounts are amazing, and they have been adapted to work on the older maps - but I honestly don't remember when they went back and changed something on the "old" world. By the nature of GW2, I doubt ArenaNet would even spend their resources on "old" content, as opposed to making things they could sell.

@YoukiNeko.6047 said:While we are it I would want removing of all soul-bound and account bound equipment. Everything single item in the game should be treated like the white/junk items.And maybe Open world PvP so we can have PK (bandit) guilds. And looting players you've killed players. No item should be safe unless it is in the bank.And limiting the guilds a player can be in to 1.And removing instanced contents. If you are doing a raid PKs should be able to come and kill you, so you better hire guards to keep you safe.

The problem with this is you have now excluded all casual players and would make gw2 a very different community feel. I know being able to attack each other is more realistic, looting items that the player purchased would count as actual theft. Even having this as a separate area that someone could accidentally walk into would be too hostile for gw2 promise of a game casual players can play.

I do like the idea of not having soulbound alstuff.

Characters should be part of one guild but I don't see how limiting the player would be more immersive. I play a range of characters with vastly different personalities (scholar vs warrior vs etc). Why would they all be part of the same guild?

I agree with the explorer based thoughts of the first post. A city centric but that sounds like your style. Me, I like getting lost. It would be great to have more areas (forests, oceans, etc) that are structurally complex. Give a reason to have that vine shooting mastery unlocked I more that one map. I loved climbing up into caverns, not seeing anyone for 15-20 minutes and then come across a random sound bit from the old asuran lab. Made my adventurous scholar feel really good about herself.

a couple of things.

1. If you've ever seen actual first person footage (not in games) you will notice that is a nausea inducing experience. The shaking is bad and the weapon is never perfectly still. If they ever introduced proper first person view they'd need to create a lot of new models and probably animations. It's not an easy to add an actual first person view and I doubt a version that is like a real life first person would be a good addition.
2. This has been already discussed in the past. They decided not to allow this because they have 3 different character models and dozens of chair models, this means a new animation for each chair+body combination = not something you will see any time soon.
3. Gossip gets really annoying after a while, those kids next to the bank playing investigators come to mind. Although in Path of Fire zones, and especially the Free City of Amnoon there is tons of ambient chatter between NPCs. The problem with gossip on old towns is simple: which part of the story will it apply? I mean there is an npc in the human starter instance that still says "I like Caudecu's the wise, he has a good head on his shoulders". I bet she never heard of his plan to overthrow the queen...
4. They don't give us a world map because that would make the current area really tiny and barely visible. Even in GW1 we got to Elona and Cantha but they all had separate world maps, they didn't put all continents on one map.
5. They won't do that as it's one of the design concepts of GW2, they even mentioned the idea of ships taking people from one place to another real time, as something they do not want in the game because it's boring and not fun to sit on a ship and wait to reach your destination.

Just a few technical things, the others are rather bigger additions

What you want is a completely new game.I doubt that an overhaul would work with the current game, let alone being enough to satisfy what you´re suggesting.

Well, in roughly 3-5 years we will see what Anet comes up with, then I ´ll remember your list and see what suggestions made it into GW3.

I didnt read anything of class balance ..... rlythen i guess, plz more mount skins , you can set them a bit more expensive, the last one were quite to cheap

I believe that a lot of those wants will be in Arenanets next game......We can see they are working towards the next iteration, and Mike's MMO manifesto never was realized and it is obviously their goal.

This game will never be truly immersive such as games like WoW for example, because this game is covered in waypoints and loading screens, and those things are here to stay. I gave up on hoping for immersion with this game a long time ago, and just think of it as the MMO version of C.O.D, in that you basically load up a map and go.

To me there are a few simple things that would make immersion better.

The skyboxes. PC Gamer had an article recently about the best skies in games. (http://www.pcgamer.com/pc-gamings-prettiest-skies/?utm_content=buffere4db7&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=buffer_pcgamerfb) and GW2 didn't make the cut because let's face it, GW2 skies are bland. Only the night skies in Rata Sum and, recently in PoF, are worth mentioning. The skies in GW2 could certainly benefit from an updated version. Which brings me to the removal of those ugly, flat rolling textures they often use in maps to simulate a cloudy sky. I mean, come on, that was a great trick back in the early days of 3D games in the 90's but not today. It's a fantasy world and it should, by all means, look the part.

We may say a lot of things about George Lucas but he was dead on right about one thing: "The sound and music are 50% of the entertainment in a movie." GW2 isn't a movie but it is a form of entertainment which is on par. Ambient sounds in GW2 aren't exactly the strongest aspects of the game. In my opinion GW2 falls very short in the ambient sounds dept as nowhere in the game can we get to hear the full ambient audio scope that should match the environments. Oh, and I would pay cold hard cash to be able to shoot those damn pigeons you keep hearing in Divinity's Reach.

Nights. When Anet first spoke of introducing a day/night cycle, back when the game was in development, I was thrilled but unfortunately it's a feature that sort of falls flat because nights never fell like nights, more like seven o'clock in summer. Perhaps a change in hue (blue) would make things more believable?

Weapons. Why can't our characters have weapons scabbards? Kinda of silly to see greatswords, longbows or staffs "magically" hanging on our backs with nothing to hold it. Or any other weapon for that matter.

@sorudo.9054 said:i think you are way to shy about the gossip part, there should be quests so we do have more things to do lore wise.better yet, with all the things you suggested, you should add questing.GW2 feels empty to me because everything depends on DE's and hearts and for me they are boring and doesn't add anything to the world beside a 5 minute thing to do, making them repeatable really doesn't help.

in every MMO i played quests add immersion, they give you something to do for you personally so you can go on an adventure.i want GW2 to have this too, be able to take a quest and do it, travel to places that you would otherwise skip and experience secret stories you can normally only read on wiki. (one of the immersive breaking thing i hate about quest-less games, lore trough wiki and nowhere else)

You know what would actually be a really fun quest?TRAVEL. Make people actually travel places, escourting someone from Lion's Arch to the Silverwastes or something. Long trips, where taking a waypoint somewhere and killing 5 bandits isn't enough.Even if the rewards aren't big, I would take quests like this in a heartbeat.They wouldn't have things to kill every 5 steps like events do, but have them travel a bit faster (maybe on mountback), have a caravan and some sort of vehicle that the player could sit in, and have long, immersive dialogue across it.

@Vavume.8065 said:This game will never be truly immersive such as games like WoW for example, because this game is covered in waypoints and loading screens, and those things are here to stay. I gave up on hoping for immersion with this game a long time ago, and just think of it as the MMO version of C.O.D, in that you basically load up a map and go.

I mean, I would play WoW in a heartbeat if I didn't have to pay 15$/month for it. I'm a student. I can't afford that. Even if I could, I have a hard time believing that it could be worth it. Especially since I don't play a game for 8 hours a day, every day.

@Erasculio.2914 said:

@Kingkiller.9645 said:

2. Chairs you can sit in. Kinda speaks for itself. If there's a chair or a bench, you should be able to sit there. And not just designated chairs across Tyria that are added with an update - you should be able to sit on any chair, bench, or sitting surface.

I mean, they can still sell this stuff. Have an expansion that has new maps, absolutely, has new content, absolutely.With Heart of Thorns, gliders and specializations came. With Path of Fire, mounts and more specializations came.With the next expansion, will they add another revolutionary thing? I feel like just adding more mounts would accomplish that.But they can add a bunch of smaller things like chairs for quality of life gaming.

Why would they need to make all chairs the same height? If one is taller, have an Asura jump up and a Norn just sit regularly. If one is shorter, have an Asura sit normally and a Norn curl their legs under the chair or extend them forwards.Program sitting spots and a variety of different animations per race or height. Maybe a really short human would have the same animation as a really tall asura for just the right height of chair.Like, everyone who falls into the range of between ## and ## uses X animation, while everyone who falls between # and # uses Y. Make like 10 of these animations, and which one is picked is based on the character height and the height of the chair.Better yet, let's make comedial chairs. Chairs that a Norn has to climb into, and chairs for baby Asura. Players too short or too tall wouldn't be able to sit in them. Maybe have another two animations, one for too tall and one for too short, of the character attempting to sit in the chairs and just failing.

@maddoctor.2738 said:a couple of things.

1. If you've ever seen actual first person footage (not in games) you will notice that is a nausea inducing experience. The shaking is bad and the weapon is never perfectly still. If they ever introduced proper first person view they'd need to create a lot of new models and probably animations. It's not an easy to add an actual first person view and I doubt a version that is like a real life first person would be a good addition.
2. This has been already discussed in the past. They decided not to allow this because they have 3 different character models and dozens of chair models, this means a new animation for each chair+body combination = not something you will see any time soon.
3. Gossip gets really annoying after a while, those kids next to the bank playing investigators come to mind. Although in Path of Fire zones, and especially the Free City of Amnoon there is tons of ambient chatter between NPCs. The problem with gossip on old towns is simple: which part of the story will it apply? I mean there is an npc in the human starter instance that still says "I like Caudecu's the wise, he has a good head on his shoulders". I bet she never heard of his plan to overthrow the queen...
4. They don't give us a world map because that would make the current area really tiny and barely visible. Even in GW1 we got to Elona and Cantha but they all had separate world maps, they didn't put all continents on one map.
5. They won't do that as it's one of the design concepts of GW2, they even mentioned the idea of ships taking people from one place to another real time, as something they do not want in the game because it's boring and not fun to sit on a ship and wait to reach your destination.

Just a few technical things, the others are rather bigger additions

-First person in the game as it is currently is fine. It works. Sure, I would like to see my character's arms and weapon, but mainly I would like to see my mount. I would like to go into first person with a mount in front of me. I have seen first person view in games and movies, and I don't find it nauseating at all. The weapon would be as still as it is outside of first person.I'm not asking for first person view to change, I'm asking for it to exist with mounts, and maybe for arms and weapon to appear in it. The fundamentals would remain the same.-As for chairs, it really shouldn't be that big of a deal to add 10-20 more animations. I replied to someone else in this context just above this reply, so maybe check that out for more detail.-By gossip, I do not mean those annoying children in LA that repeat the same line over and over again. I'm talking a couple hundred lines per city and more added with every expansion. It wouldn't be annoying unless you visited the "gossip spots". It wouldn't be a forced experience. I like the city of Amnoon, but while it has "city feel" aspects that the safe zone cities lack, it lacks everything else that makes the safe zone cities feel like cities, like size.-I'm not asking for a pull-up world map. Like I said, a large tapestry would be fantastic. I'm not asking for this to be accessible at a moment's notice, I'm asking for it to be included in the lore and not have to go to the wiki for it. In a game, nobody should be forced to go to the wiki for lore or story. You should be able to find out everything in the game. Even mystic forge recipes, you are forced to go to the wiki to find out what the recipe for Infinite Light is. Have lore books with these recipes in them, maybe blurrd out. Infinite Light is used by harpies a lot, so maybe in a harpy den you'd find a shriveled piece of paper with some instructions.-Forcing people to sit on a ship for 5-10 minutes WOULD be a bad idea, because a lot of people wouldn't want to do that. What about the people who do? What about the first trip to the crystal desert? Their cinematic was supposed to give you the feel of travelling far, but it was unimpressive and not immersive at all for me. "This isn't Amnoon" like okay, let's just arrive in the Crystal Desert. That's all I was expecting. If we'd had an actual trip and "all aboard to Amnoon" or something, and then I waited 5-10 minutes, maybe I'd agree more with my character - this is a delay. Wait, you're getting off to go deal with some stuff? No, I'm coming with you.

I'm not saying this should be forced. I just want the option available to me and to people who legitimately want this in the game. Because those people are out there.

@Kingkiller.9645 said:

@Vavume.8065 said:This game will never be truly immersive such as games like WoW for example, because this game is covered in waypoints and loading screens, and those things are here to stay. I gave up on hoping for immersion with this game a long time ago, and just think of it as the MMO version of C.O.D, in that you basically load up a map and go.

And yet I find dynamic events more immersive than the WoW quest hub system, by a long long long shot and could never play that type of game again. It feels like crap to me. Sure I can't sit in a chair. But so much more here is voiced and so much more here isn't reading a wall of text and so much more here actually changes as I'm changing it, even if that change is temporary. Static quest hubs are, to me, a thing I can do without. All the immersion on this list, if it were all fixed, but dynamic events were replaced by static quests, would be a deal breaker for me, even if WoW were free to play.