A post of support to Arenanet - Thank You for Season 4, Festivals and Bonus Events

Season 4 was by far the best living world season ever. It had some downsides (that some actually think are its strong points), but the way this season was handled, really gave me a hope that Season 5 can be great as well. I just cannot stop thinking about all those people that worked on "walk of shame" in All or Nothing that stopped our heartbeats, the Joko's incredible cutscene with this unbelievable caring for detail, and this astonishing cinematic in the end of War Eternal in which the devs finally managed to actually PUT a player character into an ART cinematic, not like in game.There were loads of new camera work, like during the battle in the Forge against Kralkatorrik, and as said before this "walk of shame" "in-game-matic".

The amount of new music pieces was the highest ever. The OST for Season 4 was so rich, full of new motifs, new styles. Kudos to the composers.

We should not forget about the incredible job that Eve Eschenbacher and her team with all the TOP voiceactors are doing. I will never forget the divine performance of Debi Derryberry in Daybreak, when Taimi was kidnapped. Rox's voice was hard to use to at the beginning, but it really fits her. Also Faren's VA is such a delight.

The designers, artists, composers have done a great job to make this season a good experience and fun.

I don't want to whine about GW2's future, I think it still has a massive potential, and those who ill-will it are just jealous of how amazing this game is.

Much support to Mike O and Mike Z that assure me GW2 is in the best hands. Just keep doing your job, in time you will reveal more information, because you are as excited about GW2 as we are.

I love GW2, it gives me so much joy to this day. After so many years, I am still enjoying it really much. Bonus Events are a really nice idea to bring people together, and it's so fun to interact with people from all over and just bash some evil bosses like in old, good times.

I absolutely loved Dragon Bash festival, it was so wonderful to feel this killing a dragon celebration once again! I am looking forward to the Festival of the 4 Winds with its unique atmosphere.

If you want, please share your post of appreciation for Arenanet.

I am sure all the devs want to share with everything they've been working on like right now, but they know when the time comes, they will just spread all the good informations.

Love You my Guild Wars 2 Family <3

Despite over nerfing Chronomancer again, I feel the last patch was extremely PvP oriented with toning down some of the power creep.

I don’t feel the PvP team gets much credit, and finally feel they are balancing the game in the right direction.

I just hope all elites are brought into line and not just HoT elite specializations. For example, Scourge/Necro in particular was toned down over the previous 3 patches in a similar fashion that Chronomancer was continuously nerfed.

Change can’t happen in one patch, otherwise players will riot and rage quit. Hopefully, more changes are coming to balance the game and PvP in general that will be good for the health of the game.

Just my opinion but anet has been great with the down time between seasons so far with the various events and now including festival of four winds the 2 festivals that we will have between seasons. No more are the content droughts of HoT to Season 3 which is great and I hope to see this trend continue on to the future. Also while im not really up to date on the pvp scene I do think anet is been doing some real good work in terms of balance as well recently. Im looking forward to that continuing as well.

Overall hyped for season 5 and the game seems to be doing "better than ever".

I thought I'd post some thanks in this thread too. There are a lot of fun things in GW2 now. I love the mounts, love the new skyscale, have fun flying all over the maps feeding it energy and volatile magic.

I am looking forward to new content and season 5.

@Arden.7480 said:I absolutely loved Dragon Bash festival, it was so wonderful to feel this killing a dragon celebration once again! I am looking forward to the Festival of the 4 Winds with its unique atmosphere.

It's great, but it's soured by ArenaNet's silence.

The recent addition of a few automated events (the WvW event, the world boss event and the meta event) feels like ArenaNet is preparing to leave Guild Wars 2 in maintenance mode. This is exactly the kind of thing they would do if they were to stop adding content to the game, and wanted to leave something for players to do once in a while.

Same for the festivals. With Dragon Bash being added and the Festival of the Four Winds being something to happen once a year, we have a solid schedule of recycled content that basically requires only someone to turn it on and off - which would be perfect for a game running just under a maintenance crew.

Sure, we know we will get season 5, but all we know about it is that it will be different from the previous ones. Different how? Will it still have 6 episodes? Will they still have 3 to 4 months between them?

Do we know if ArenaNet isn't just going to release a 3 episodes season 5, as mostly an epilogue for the entire storyline that ended in season 4, and setting up whatever it is they will work on next?

Now, I don't believe in that myself, but parts of the community are restless, and it's easy to understand why. We could use more communication.

So yeah, the week-long events and the festivals are somewhat nice. But they're soured by ArenaNet's lack of communication and our uncertainties about the future of GW2.

I'm not a huge fan of Living World but season 4 in particular felt weird:

1. Aurene dies in episode 5. Neat.
2. Anet to hosts a talk at EGX about how it wasn't just a plot device and showcased a few Anet Partner's reactions:
   Big feels, Anet's really going all out this season.
3. Requiem ~2 weeks pass in game? Big sad.
4. Aurene is revived and we stomp Kralkatorrik. Okay.

I shared Deroir's perspective of "hype" around Aurene dying as the game rarely makes me feel loss or failure and I love me some tragedy. Watching the EGX talk made me think "damn, there might be even more loss to finish off Kralkatorrik. This is going to be awesome! I really hope Taimi is next!" Then the very first thing we do in episode 5 is revive Aurene and the rest of the episode is just grinding Kralkatorrik into a fine mist. The biggest loss is the lack of dialogue from Rox and Canach.

But maybe I'm misremembering. LS5 seems free from the LS4 baggage and maybe even elder dragons altogether which may be neat. "Previously expansion exclusive content" (Raids and/or Elite Specs?) coming to LS sounds neat. Most of my community is metaphorically packing for The Long Vacation... I may still log in to claim the episodes but I likely won't play their story content until I can binge it around the next raid release. LS4 (and 5) may not be for me but I thank Anet for overcoming their challenges and delivering content to a playerbase that largely enjoys it.

I agree with the above posters. My confidence in the game and the direction (if any given the silence from the top) is low.

Hopefully S5 will wipe the bad memories of S4 away and bring something fresh and exciting

I liked the season except maybe how overdone the skyscale achievement was. Being a new player with no gold and trying to do that would have been hard. Thankfully i had a good amount accrued in my bank when I came back and earned a ton last pvp season.

Honestly, i don't mind if they don't release "expansions" as long as we're getting fed the content that would have been in an expansion: the issue they present is that they divide the player base. I know that's unpopular but I honestly feel that in MMOs charging for content is dangerous for that reason. I can also tell a good segment of the player base is in countries where buying another expansion is hard and/or expensive. I just hope their new monetization strategy works well enough to fund continued development. I personally have no qualms purchasing another expansion. But i totally understand if they don't release another B2P one.

Agreed with most everything of OP.

I'm a newer player here, joined early january of this year as a free-to-play for my first chara and instantly fell in love. (Also actually made me productive in college because I would finish everything early to play for the rest of the day??? I dunno but that was great XD)

Got both expansions, haven't finished playing through them but read some parts on the wikia to piece things together and got thrown into LS4 War Eternal and man did I fall in love even more. I knew barely anything about LS4 and Aurene yet the opening pierced my heart. I played War Eternal with a banging 102 F fever (which was not a good idea) but the exhilirating rush I got from fighting Kralk, the cutscenes, the voice acting, the MUSIC. My god the music I need to get my hands on somehow for my own phone.

Dragonfall is by far one of my favorite maps and yes, skyscale was a nightmare because I had a fever and was rushing it, but I pushed through without complaining because I wanted the Skyscale and I love her. I can't describe the emotion I felt seeing this awkward, sqwaking, baby dragon and the intense love and protection I felt I needed to give her (I've never had a pet nor younger sibling so parental feels are a first).

Just kudos to everyone who worked on this game, especially for War Eternal. Kralk's theme is by far my favorite score in the entire game and despite the several dozen times I've played the Dragonfall meta, it still manages to give me a rush of emotion and make me cheer at defeating kralk. (which is also my favorite meta. Love the air support option) This game has made me feel so much intense emotion in this final episode and I thank Anet for that. It's phenomenal.

Remember that a new player doesn't need to to able to do everything just at the beginning. (Otherwise you'd just complain that you finished too fast and need new contend already.) Just sayin cause someon mentioned that as new player it was hard without gold to get Skyscale.

So far I have only played main story line and back then in 2013 most (until end of 2013) of the living story part 1. I still have a lot of the story to do. Just watched a vid from LS4 eternal war beginning. Atmoswphere felt nice and sad. And I liked how the dialogues where directly on the map with the player char talking (instead of only during some cinematic like sequence where it switches out of the map showing the chars talking).

This is definitely a strong part - probably keeping new players getting attracted to the game and buying it + the story. Like now still players are buying GW1 not only for the achievements in GW2 but also for the lore and plot in GW1 which you might want to know about to better experience GW2 cause of some references to GW1 here.

Edit: This game definitely needs a TV series or movie(s). Unfortunately such stuff is even more expensive to create because of the enormous amount of money actors want as payment.

I'm going to give my thanks as well, because I have absolutely loved every part of season 4, I like that the devs are trying out new things with the bonus world events, it's an exciting time in gw2 and honestly I'm glad that the festivals are picking up the pace too, and with the announcement today of the return of the festival of the four wings, I'm glad that we know the devs are still rocking it. I really appreciate all that the devs are trying to do and I can't wait for what's to come.

@Erasculio.2914 said:

@Arden.7480 said:I absolutely loved Dragon Bash festival, it was so wonderful to feel this killing a dragon celebration once again! I am looking forward to the Festival of the 4 Winds with its unique atmosphere.

Except that they said they weren't doing that. They said season 5 is coming, so how can it be in maintenance mode. They said they're planning to bring cooking up to 500, add build templates. Why do people think that because something hasn't been said a few months that somehow we're in maintenance mode. Honestly we just got a festival that's brand new in that nothing in it was every in it before, one month ago. Why would a game going in to maintenance mode bother adding a new festival. Mind blown.

@"Aru.4156" said:My god the music I need to get my hands on somehow for my own phone.

as far as I remember, all living story soundtracks are available for free at Anet's soundcloud page.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Soundtrack

here you can get the link to every available music.

Also, despite balance concerns, I am convinced that Anet is fully dedicated to the development of GW2, they are finally addressing the power creep of elite specs, for instance. However, I understand that it's going to be a bumpy ride for competitive gamemode players as the meta shifts and some builds become unexpectedly oppressive.

@"Randulf.7614" said:I agree with the above posters. My confidence in the game and the direction (if any given the silence from the top) is low.

Hopefully S5 will wipe the bad memories of S4 away and bring something fresh and exciting

Nothing is ever perfect, I almost wanted to start whining about GW2 too, but... I have so much respect for all the amazing moments with GW2 that I'll never forget, like meeting a great bunch of amazing people in game, and some of them also irl.Writing my OP while reading the blog post of Mike Z made me realize that this game has its direction and I like it.

I think they want to share with all the stuff for GW2 they have been preparing for the Anniversary (August 28th). And I think they will give a recap of Season 4 with a small teaser for Season 5 somewhere in August too to set in mood for some big stuff they want to share during their Anniversary video/twitch livestream.

I mean this mysterious silence from Arenanet recently intrigues me, more than makes me anxious.

I think we should all calm down, there is no reason to be that concerned. Constructive critique is amazing, but what's happening on Forums and Reddit recently, this "Game is dying" "Beginning of the End" "People leaves for FF, whats now?"

I mean... if GW2 doesn't answer under that pressure, it means they just know it is not true.

When the time comes, they will reveal more details on the game's future, I'm very certain of that.

@"Kodokuna Akuma.9570" said:Just my opinion but anet has been great with the down time between seasons so far with the various events and now including festival of four winds the 2 festivals that we will have between seasons. No more are the content droughts of HoT to Season 3 which is great and I hope to see this trend continue on to the future. Also while im not really up to date on the pvp scene I do think anet is been doing some real good work in terms of balance as well recently. Im looking forward to that continuing as well.

Overall hyped for season 5 and the game seems to be doing "better than ever".

Not really sure many players would say pushing events that with the exception of Dragon Bash (which was cool though overly drawn out imo) are on a schedule of repeat rotations anyway, a genuine and long lasting way to avoid content drought. Yeah we got the hype around meta and boss rush but they are nothing more than circles round content that is already in game with some added trash loot and heavily one sided RNG.. Hardly a way to keep the playerbase engaged long term and kinda smacks at desperation and playing for time.Don't get me wrong when S5 finally hits our screens it will likely wow me some more as I am a fan of LS, but when those few hours of fun fade away please don't push more of the same old, same old boss rush, mind numbing egg timer stuff back in our faces as it's stuff that has been in game since Core day 1 or Expacs day 1.Content droughts that are now being filled with this kind of stuff kinda makes me think even more.. what else can we expect after S5 and I hope there is already something more substantial in the pipeline not just within S5 chapters but beyond cos when S5 does finally land its like the beginning of an18month window of uncertainty at this point.However, yeah moving into the summer slow down Dragon Bash made a welcome return and FotFW is always a welcome bit of content, then its on to more of my personal favourite events.. Halloween and Wintersday….. When of course will S5 finally commence I guess is still a finger in some of those festival winds, so I hope the wait will be worth it.

@Arden.7480 said:

@"Randulf.7614" said:I agree with the above posters. My confidence in the game and the direction (if any given the silence from the top) is low.

Hopefully S5 will wipe the bad memories of S4 away and bring something fresh and exciting

The dying threads have existed for years. They are to be ignored - the game is neither on its last legs or close to maintenance modes. Anyone who says it is has no idea what those phrases mean or even play the game to see how populated the game is and how much we still get over truly dying games or those maintaining a small population.

However I'm yet to be convinced of any direction or that those at the top of chain have much interest in the community. I could be wrong, but the game feels off course these days. I am the last standing of my Guilds. Friends, acquaintances have all gone from the game without exception. Sure that isn't indicative of the health of the game, but they were like minded players to me and they went to play other mmos specifically because GW2 isn't providing a cohesive story or gameplay experience. With them gone and the game at a pretty low point in consistent quality, it's hard to find reasons to login as often as I used to. And 9k+ hours since launch is significant (and a little sad, but hey-ho).

But, that is fine. Storytelling in fantasy and various rpgs in many mediums is improving by leaps and bounds (except books where decent fantasy stories have all but died a death), whilst GW2 continues to struggle to find a footing in that area. The positive for me is, the further GW2 feels like it falls, the more I discover better stories and rpgs.

But this is all my point of view and perhaps I am no longer the target audience for this franchise. The game isn't dying, but I am unconvinced the game will recover to the point of promise and optimism it once had. I would love to be proven spectacularly wrong.

@Vayne.8563 said:Except that they said they weren't doing that. They said season 5 is coming, so how can it be in maintenance mode.

I have already replied to that argument:

@Erasculio.2914 said:Sure, we know we will get season 5, but all we know about it is that it will be different from the previous ones. Different how? Will it still have 6 episodes? Will they still have 3 to 4 months between them?

And...

@Vayne.8563 said:Why would a game going in to maintenance mode bother adding a new festival. Mind blown.

Already replied to that one, too:

@Erasculio.2914 said:Same for the festivals. With Dragon Bash being added and the Festival of the Four Winds being something to happen once a year, we have a solid schedule of recycled content that basically requires only someone to turn it on and off - which would be perfect for a game running just under a maintenance crew.

And, to further reiterate that argument, one of the last things they ever added to the original Guild Wars was a festival. That kind of "make once and repeat forever" content is perfect for something about to go into maintenance mode.

@"Arden.7480" said:I mean... if GW2 doesn't answer under that pressure, it means they just know it is not true.

Or, maybe they don't know what to do.

We have known for a long time that ArenaNet isn't great at long term planning. Even ignoring everything in the original Guild Wars, we have the "GW2 won't get an expansion" line of thought (and then we got HoT and PoF), then the change of plans again after LW season 4, and, of course, the layoffs - and one of the explanations for those was that ArenaNet had two long term projects that completely fizzled out (so yeah, not the best example of long term planning).

Now, part of the playerbase is asking ArenaNet about the future, and they are silent. Is that because they are so sure of what they're doing that they feel like they don't need to tell us something? Or, maybe, they have no idea so they don't know what to say?

It's no surprise that something that could have been great - the week-long events and the festivals - are being seen by some players as a sign of the game going into maintenance mode. ArenaNet should reassure the players, not stay in silence.

@Luthan.5236 said:Remember that a new player doesn't need to to able to do everything just at the beginning. (Otherwise you'd just complain that you finished too fast and need new contend already.) Just sayin cause someon mentioned that as new player it was hard without gold to get Skyscale.

So far I have only played main story line and back then in 2013 most (until end of 2013) of the living story part 1. I still have a lot of the story to do. Just watched a vid from LS4 eternal war beginning. Atmoswphere felt nice and sad. And I liked how the dialogues where directly on the map with the player char talking (instead of only during some cinematic like sequence where it switches out of the map showing the chars talking).

This is definitely a strong part - probably keeping new players getting attracted to the game and buying it + the story. Like now still players are buying GW1 not only for the achievements in GW2 but also for the lore and plot in GW1 which you might want to know about to better experience GW2 cause of some references to GW1 here.

Edit: This game definitely needs a TV series or movie(s). Unfortunately such stuff is even more expensive to create because of the enormous amount of money actors want as payment.

Yes but the open world in GW2 is pretty much a zeitgeist: if you miss the window where objectives on the maps you care about are popular, then farming things you need on them is that much more difficult.

@Erasculio.2914 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:Except that they said they weren't doing that. They said season 5 is coming, so how can it be in maintenance mode.

@Erasculio.2914 said:Sure, we know we will get season 5, but all we know about it is that it will be different from the previous ones. Different how? Will it still have 6 episodes? Will they still have 3 to 4 months between them?

@Vayne.8563 said:Why would a game going in to maintenance mode bother adding a new festival. Mind blown.

@Erasculio.2914 said:Same for the festivals. With Dragon Bash being added and the Festival of the Four Winds being something to happen once a year, we have a solid schedule of recycled content that basically requires only someone to turn it on and off - which would be perfect for a game running just under a maintenance crew.

@"Arden.7480" said:

I mean... if GW2 doesn't answer under that pressure, it means they just know it is not true.

They've always been silent about the future though. This isn't really that new. Before HOT was announced, there were threads CONSTANTLY about expansions. I know it's never occured to most people, but FFXIV is on the verge of releasing an expac right now. Why in the world would Anet start talking about their expansion with a highly competitive expansion imminent. OR even their living world stuff. It's not going to get enough traction right now, no matter what they say. So they wait for a window when what they say will be heard. They've done this before they'll do this again.

To reiterate, I've played games in maintenance mode before....this is not it, period end of story. Maintenance mode means maintaining not getting new stuff by its very definition.

@Skotlex.7580 said:

@"Aru.4156" said:My god the music I need to get my hands on somehow for my own phone.

Thank you thank you!

War Eternal was the first episode where I was finally completely caught up with the story. It was exciting to join the crowd to experience it. I love the new map and the events, and I really love my skyscale. I look forward to season 5 and in the meantime I've been enjoying the special events and Dragon Bash. There's still so much for me to do, I have fun in the game every day, and I meet tons of great people. :)

[moderated content]

They have previously stated an outlined sketch of many further season arcs (at least 7 if I remember the dev quote rightly). They will also have an internal rough outline of other features in a timeline as well. That will be standard business behaviour

However, we also know that every single one of their plans change, many story bits are made up on the fly and planning or implementing their planning appears to be a great weakness of theirs, so I'd take the statement with a pinch of salt.

They also did not abandon or prep for maintenance mode. They tried to do too many things, possibly even at the insistence of ncsoft, or possibly because we know from the past Anet like to push too hard (as per dev comments during LS1). In the end, they over stretched, those projects took too long, GW2 was suffering and so they stuck with the core business. It was never being put into maintenance mode no matter how many times people misuse that phrase.

Edit ignore above, quoted posts were all deleted

On topic: Loved Season 4, really enjoyed it throughout, and the soundtrack plus visuals of War Eternal were perfect.

As per the above though, I agree the silence is worrying to say the least. Since the layoffs they've kept very quiet. Can only hope that they've just been focusing on whats next.

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@"Kodokuna Akuma.9570" said:Just my opinion but anet has been great with the down time between seasons so far with the various events and now including festival of four winds the 2 festivals that we will have between seasons. No more are the content droughts of HoT to Season 3 which is great and I hope to see this trend continue on to the future. Also while im not really up to date on the pvp scene I do think anet is been doing some real good work in terms of balance as well recently. Im looking forward to that continuing as well.

Overall hyped for season 5 and the game seems to be doing "better than ever".

Yeah while the rush events are anything overly special. At least its somthing. But also they did also do that wvw week event as well. So as long as they come with a fair roster of such events for the various game modes. They can fill the usual downtime between episodes with something at least.

Lol calm down ... no need to make a drama out of a crisis... I think you might be misinterpreting just how much players wants to see ANET lift the game up.As for ANET being scared ... seriously, this isn't their first rodeo, I credit them with a lot more of a backbone than that.