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New interview with mike Z (german)


zealex.9410

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@"Pirindolo.9427" said:The key question is: If we don't consider festivals and special events (like world boss or meta event rushes) as "EXCITING" content, what can we expect to get excited? 2 or 3 content updates per year?

There are 6 festivals per year, that would leave 6 month for them to put "exciting stuff" into.

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@"Pirindolo.9427" said:"Actually, we want to be faster now than in the last season. Our current priority is that we try to have something exciting in the game every month.

For this we have the living world, but also festivals (WHAT??? :s ) that take place regularly. In addition, there are those, as we call them internally, bonus events in which you should defeat, for example, World Boss. (IT CAN'T BE !!!!!) "


TIME TO PANIC

Maybe they could repeat each festival twice a year, so that alone would make 12 """exciting""" content updates per year

Last season u had 2 or 3 episodes per year. 1 episode in 2017, 3 episodes in 2018 and 2 in 2019.

We will get another epispde in 2019 with the prologue and if the schedule the interviewer gave is realistic we gonna see one more in 2 months.

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Hopefully they can apply the same aproach of expanding content with new updates to some of their collections.

Specifically armors and mounts, armors if we got a piece or 2 per episodes it would be much more affordable for the players who wouldnt be facing a big upfront cost for everything.

Similarly if they treat mounts like their own side story which gets expanded over time then they can get the similar effect of players playing not having it unlocked in a day while also having any potential gold cost be less daunting because it would be split between new aditions. You get the same vibe as raising your mount (a journey) without upfront massive costs or intense timegate.

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@zealex.9410 said:

@"Pirindolo.9427" said:The key question is: If we don't consider festivals and special events (like world boss or meta event rushes) as "EXCITING" content, what can we expect to get excited? 2 or 3 content updates per year?

There are 6 festivals per year, that would leave 6 month for them to put "exciting stuff" into.

You forgot the special events

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@Glider.5792 said:

@"Pirindolo.9427" said:The problem is that what Anet seems to be considering "exciting content", is not really that exciting for most players that have replayed festivals and special events too many times already.

Its exciting for all the new folk, which is their main focus! :)

Don't be so sure about that. Keeping old, loyal players is vital for the survivability of the game.

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@Pirindolo.9427 said:

@Pirindolo.9427 said:The problem is that what Anet seems to be considering "exciting content", is not really that exciting for most players that have replayed festivals and special events too many times already.

Its exciting for all the new folk, which is their main focus! :)

Don't be so sure about that. Keeping old, loyal players is vital for the survivability of the game.

Ofc it is, but they dont seem to care that much from what i see.

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@Pirindolo.9427 said:

@Pirindolo.9427 said:The problem is that what Anet seems to be considering "exciting content", is not really that exciting for most players that have replayed festivals and special events too many times already.

Its exciting for all the new folk, which is their main focus! :)

Don't be so sure about that. Keeping old, loyal players is vital for the survivability of the game.It is exciting for a lot of old players, too. Personally I don't care too much for halloween or the summer festivals, but whenever Wintersday and the SAB come around, then I'm just glad that I can fully concentrate on those and don't have to worry about additional releases pulling my attention away from the time-limited festivals. And in the case of festivals I don't enjoy that much a little breather room to casually roam the world is welcome, too.

That said, when veterans like us get to the point of "been there, done that" it's very hard for the developers to put out enough content to keep us busy. At some point it's just no longer good business sense to put that many resources into humoring the veterans, especially if it comes at the expense of attracting newer players.

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Okay, (lazy) German speaker here. I took the interview, put it through google translate (which did a surprisingly good job) and brushed up the results a bit.Additionally I highlighted all that parts that are actual quotes from Mike at the interview, the rest is comments/fluff added by the magazine (partially paraphrasing Mike and partially speculating on things.

Here's the Interview in English:

What will the Icebrood saga do differently? First, Mike and I talked about lessons learned from the previous four seasons of the Living World.

The Icebrood saga is supposed to do some things differently in terms of innovations and design. This was especially oriented to the first seasons:Do not expect a new map with every update. We will also work with and extend existing maps. It's much the same as in Season 2, just a little bigger and bigger than the two maps from that time.We start with a new big map and can then implement things that we have not done previously.According to Mike, the first season was also a great inspiration, because it was a lot of fun for the developers and kept the players active at the bar.

What's changing in storytelling? Also, in the way stories are told, Guild Wars 2 has been evolving over the years. Mike gave a very concrete example:In Season 2 we had Belinda, which we introduced and killed shortly thereafter. We had something similar with Blish in Season 4, but the character was much more advanced.The outcry: "You only created this character to kill it right again" was much smaller there than it was then.He also proudly says that the way the story is told has changed for the better. It is much more focused now than in the beginning.

What about our hero group in the story? If you are also fans of the characters Marjory and Kasmeer like me, you can look forward to their return. After the two have completely disappeared after Path of Fire, they will now return in the Icebrood saga.Mike describes the story of the new Icebrood saga as darker and more in a Cthulhu style. Therefore, it is fitting that especially Marjory as a necromancer has a performance again.Overall, there should be more frequent rotations in our hero group. So the players will not interact with too many characters at a time and yet the group should endure.

How regularly will episodes of the Living World 5 be released? Of course, I wanted to know from Mike how often we can expect new episodes.From the last seasons we were used to a rhythm of 2-3 months, but the developers would now like to undercut this:In principle we would like to be faster now than in the last season. Our current priority is that we try to have something exciting in the game every month.For this we have the living world, but also festivals that take place regularly. In addition, there are those, as we call them internally, bonus events in which you should defeat, for example, World Bosses.Based on Mike's description, the update calendar for 2019 might look something like this:September - PrologueOctober - HalloweenNovember - Episode 1December - ChristmasThe calendar is then supplemented by the bonus events, which have been held regularly lately. Currently one is running specifically for returnees and newcomers.

Where is the first thing in the Icebrood saga? On the 17th of September, the prologue "Bound by Blood" comes into play, which already brings some innovations.But really, it starts with the first episode of the Living World Season 5. It should appear in any case later this year. The first area will be the Northern Shiverpeaks.Mike describes this as a particularly beautiful place:You can look forward to some incredibly beautiful vistas. The Art team has been working hard and getting a lot of inspiration from the Guild Wars 1 maps.

Are there new world bosses? The new world boss Drakkar was already announced at the event and Mike could tell me a little about it. He should be more demanding than the last published world bosses:The Shatterer in Jahai was a good intermediate step, but he was not as demanding as Triple trouble. The new world boss is getting big and is supposed to bring the players together.However, it will not be on the new map from the beginning, but will be added later.From the announcement we already know that Drakkar is planned for the second episode.

How do the Strike missions work? In addition to the world bosses, we also talked about the new Strike missions. There are 10 players against a boss, who should be demanding.Mike describes this new challenge as follows:Strike missions are instanced content, but can be entered in two ways. If you just want to fight, you can enter the location and you will randomly get mixed up with other players, similar to the Riftstalker events.Path number 2 is a separate entrance for your group. There you can then collect and defeat the boss, even in smaller groups than intended.New fractals and raids continue to be worked on, as Mike confirmed on demand.We also talked about repeatable challenge modes in the raids. These would be discussed internally, but still there is no new info.

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@Pirindolo.9427 said:

@Pirindolo.9427 said:The key question is: If we don't consider festivals and special events (like world boss or meta event rushes) as "EXCITING" content, what can we expect to get excited? 2 or 3 content updates per year?

There are 6 festivals per year, that would leave 6 month for them to put "exciting stuff" into.

You forgot the special events

Ill be surprised if they thing boss rish a worthy thing to have run for a month, i thiught they alternated and took up the remainng weeks of a month during the months we had festivals.

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@zealex.9410 said:Theres a massive disconnect between anet and us if they think they retained the 2-3 month cadense during se4. Like, if they do that then that gives me less faith in the future of the game than anything epse negative that might have been said during the interview.The 2-3 months cycle mentioned in the article is simply a commentary by the author, not a quote of anything Mike Z. actually said in the interview.

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Alongside all these questions about content I have one about the new world boss. Jahai Shatterer is mentioned as an intermediate wb that's not as hard as TT. So is TT their intended outcome for a new, challenging wb?

Because there is a difference between a challenging wb and one that's played once in a blue moon by a guild, if you are lucky with your lfg timing.

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@AlexxxDelta.1806 said:Alongside all these questions about content I have one about the new world boss. Jahai Shatterer is mentioned as an intermediate wb that's not as hard as TT. So is TT their intended outcome for a new, challenging wb?

Because there is a difference between a challenging wb and one that's played once in a blue moon by a guild, if you are lucky with your lfg timing.

Dont forget that such guilds loved these bosses but lost interest due to said bosses never releasing.

There were multiple guilds that disbanded simply because they were tired of w8ing for more of that kind of content.

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@zealex.9410 said:

@"Pirindolo.9427" said:The key question is: If we don't consider festivals and special events (like world boss or meta event rushes) as "EXCITING" content, what can we expect to get excited? 2 or 3 content updates per year?

There are 6 festivals per year, that would leave 6 month for them to put "exciting stuff" into.

Not if they count a 2 week rush as content then we can have bettwen 1-6 release of living saga a year.

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@Rasimir.6239 said:

@"Ashantara.8731" said:That wasn't mentioned. It was only said that you could enter solo (in which case you'd be thrown together with random players) or enter as a full team of 10. Whether it will be possible to enter with less than 10 people remains to be seen.According to the interview it's a seperate entrance for
your party
, so definitely not only solo. They use the german word "Gruppe" which translates to party but may very well mean squad in this context. Expect to be able to enter strike missions with a raid squad of any size. No mention of scaling, which would really defeat the purpose, so I don't expect any scaling, just the chance to low-man if you don't want to pug.

German is my first language, so no need to explain anything to me. ;) My bad, though, as the following sentence says that those groups can sport smaller numbers, too - I must have overlooked that the first time.

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@"Ashantara.8731" said:Here's a full summary:

  • He says they have learnt important lessons from previous LW seasons, Season 1 was especially an inspiration, as well as Season 2 in regard of how they will expand existing maps (he refers to new maps only, as far as I can tell), only that those updates will be more significant/bigger than they were in the past.
  • The story will be more "focused" in the future (whatever that means).
  • Marjory and Kasmeer will be back. Especially Majory's return as a necromancer will be fitting for the Cthuluesque tone of the new story.
  • In general, there will be more rotation regarding your heroic companions.
  • Episodes will be delivered more frequently than the previous 2-3 months cycle (the next episode is listed for November)
  • The new world bosses will be more challenging than the ones we know (the Shatterer in Jahai was a good "intermediate stage" between previous and future world bosses).
  • Drakkar won't be in the map from the start but added later on.
  • Strike missions will be instanced content that you can either enter alone (where you will be thrown together with random players) or in a full group of 10 people.
  • New fractals and raids are still in the works (with the latter getting repeatable challenge modes).

That's it.

Still waiting for E-specs. "Expansion level content" Well masteries, fractals, raids and living world story is Not Expansion level content. We got mounts throughout living world and we got new environments which is cool. The tone and nature of the story and the areas we are going too sounds freaking amazing and I am SO PUMPED, as a norn/charr story along with eldritch shenanigans is all I've wanted. But I am to the point where I need a new way to play the content, and new theme to play it with as well because our current E-specs and class design just ain't doing it anymore. It was good from PoF through S4 but this won't be the case if they make us wait another potentially 2+ years for new specs. Plus I want them to be of the same kind of theme as the story, darker and more robust and Id love to see what they could come up with on that regard so here is hoping we get some specs to play with.

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After reading the Google translation above (which was surprisingly good for Google), I took it upon myself to provide a (hopefully ;) ) slightly better translation, since people were asking for one:


Guild Wars 2 says: We want to deliver something exciting each month

Our author Alexander Leitsch had the chance to interview Guild Wars 2’s game director Mike Zadorojny, who disclosed a few details about Living World Season 5 and its frequency of updates.

What is this interview about? On August 30, the MMORPG announced the new Icebrood Saga, a series of story updates that will expand the game and tell the tale of the Norn, an evil cult, and the ice dragon Jormag.

Game director Mike Zadorojny answered a few questions on that for me.

Lessons learnt from previous Seasons of Living World

What is the Icebrood Saga going to do differently? First off, Mike and I talked about the lessons the developers have learnt from the previous four seasons of Living World.

The Icebrood Saga is supposed to do things differently regarding changes and structure. As to that, the first season in particular served as a guideline:

“Don’t expect a new map with each update. We will also work with already existing maps and expend them. It will be similar to Season 2, only more important and a little bigger than either of those two maps.

We will hit it off with a new large map and will then be able to implement ideas into it that we hadn’t done before.”

According to Mike the first season was a great inspiration too, because it was a lot of fun for the developers and kept the playerbase busy.

How is story-telling going to change? Guild Wars 2 also evolved in terms of story-telling over the years. Mike provided a specific example:

“In Season 2, we met Belinda, who was killed shortly after. We had something similar with Blish in Season 4, but that character was more developed.

The outcry, ‘You only created the character to kill them off!’, was much quieter then than it was before.”

He also proudly talks about how the way the story is being told has changed for the better. It is a lot more focused now.

How are our hero companions faring? If you, like me, are fans of the characters of Marjory and Kasmeer, you can look forward to their return. Since both have vanished from the scene after Path of Fire, they will now be back in The Icebrood Saga.

Mike describes the new Icebrood Saga story as darker and more Cthulu-esque. So it is especially fitting for Marjory, a Necromancer, to return.

Overall, there will be a stronger rotation of our group of heroes. Players won’t interact with too many characters at once, nevertheless the group as such will persist.

Each month an exciting Event

How frequently will episodes of Living World Season 5 be released? Of course I had to ask Mike about the expected frequency of episode releases.

From previous seasons, we are used to a pace of 2 to 3 months, but the developers intend to top that:

“We actually want to be faster than during the previous season. Our current priority is to try and provide something exciting each month.

For that we have Living World, but also festivals that take place frequently. In addition, we have the so-called boss events, like defeating World Bosses, for instance.”

Based on Mike’s description, the update calendar for 2019 could look something like this:

  • September: Prologue
  • October: Halloween
  • November: Episode 1
  • Dezember: Christmas

The calendar will then be complemented by bonus events, which have been scheduled frequently as of late. Currently, an event for new and returning players is active.

The Northern Shiverpeaks and new Challenges

Where will The Icebrood Saga take us first? On September 17, the Prologue “Bound by Blood” is being released, which will already bring new stuff into the game.

The real start into Living World Season 5, however, will come with the first episode, which will be located in the Northern Shiverpeaks.

Mike refers to them as an especially beautiful location:

“You can look forward to some awesome sights. The art team has worked hard and took a lot of inspiration from maps in Guild Wars 1.”

Are there going to be new World Bosses? The latest addition to the world bosses, Drakkar, was already announced during the live event and Mike could tell me a bit about him. He is supposed to be more challenging than previously released world bosses:

“The Shatterer in Jahai was a good intermediate step but not as demanding as the three-headed Jungle Wurm. The new world boss will be huge and bring players together.

He won’t be present on the new map from the start, though, but will be added later.”

From the previous announcement we know that Drakkar is supposed to appear in Episode 2.

How do Strike Missions work? In addition to world bosses, we also spoke about Strike Missions, where 10 players unite to stand against a boss, who will be challenging.

Mike describes this new challenge as followed:

“Strike missions are instanced content, which can be entered in two different ways. If you just want to fight, you can enter the area and will be randomly thrown together with other players, similar to the Rift Stalker events.

Method number 2 is a separate entrance for groups. You can gather up there and defeat the boss, even in smaller groups than intended.”

New fractals and raids are still in development, as Mike confirmed when I asked.

We also briefly talked about repeatable challenge modes for raids. Those are being discussed internally, but there is no new information at this point.

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@Ashantara.8731 said:After reading the Google translation above (which was surprisingly good for Google), I took it upon myself to provide a (hopefully ;) ) slightly better translation, since people were asking for one:


Guild Wars 2 says: We want to deliver something exciting each month

Our author Alexander Leitsch had the chance to interview Guild Wars 2’s game director Mike Zadorojny, who disclosed a few details about Living World Season 5 and its frequency of updates.

What is this interview about? On August 30, the MMORPG announced the new Icebrood Saga, a series of story updates that will expand the game and tell the tale of the Norn, an evil cult, and the ice dragon Jormag.

Game director Mike Zadorojny answered a few questions on that for me.

Lessons learnt from previous Seasons of Living World

What is the Icebrood Saga going to do differently? First off, Mike and I talked about the lessons the developers have learnt from the previous four seasons of Living World.

The Icebrood Saga is supposed to do things differently regarding changes and structure. As to that, the first season in particular served as a guideline:

“Don’t expect a new map with each update. We will also work with already existing maps and expend them. It will be similar to Season 2, only more important and a little bigger than either of those two maps.

We will hit it off with a new large map and will then be able to implement ideas into it that we hadn’t done before.”

According to Mike the first season was a great inspiration too, because it was a lot of fun for the developers and kept the playerbase busy.

How is story-telling going to change? Guild Wars 2 also evolved in terms of story-telling over the years. Mike provided a specific example:

“In Season 2, we met Belinda, who was killed shortly after. We had something similar with Blish in Season 4, but that character was more developed.

The outcry, ‘You only created the character to kill them off!’, was much quieter then than it was before.”

He also proudly talks about how the way the story is being told has changed for the better. It is a lot more focused now.

How are our hero companions faring? If you, like me, are fans of the characters of Marjory and Kasmeer, you can look forward to their return. Since both have vanished from the scene after Path of Fire, they will now be back in The Icebrood Saga.

Mike describes the new Icebrood Saga story as darker and more Cthulu-esque. So it is especially fitting for Marjory, a Necromancer, to return.

Overall, there will be a stronger rotation of our group of heroes. Players won’t interact with too many characters at once, nevertheless the group as such will persist.

Each month an exciting Event

How frequently will episodes of Living World Season 5 be released? Of course I had to ask Mike about the expected frequency of episode releases.

From previous seasons, we are used to a pace of 2 to 3 months, but the developers intend to top that:

“We actually want to be faster than during the previous season. Our current priority is to try and provide something exciting each month.

For that we have Living World, but also festivals that take place frequently. In addition, we have the so-called boss events, like defeating World Bosses, for instance.”

Based on Mike’s description, the update calendar for 2019 could look something like this:

  • September: Prologue
  • October: Halloween
  • November: Episode 1
  • Dezember: Christmas

The calendar will then be complemented by bonus events, which have been scheduled frequently as of late. Currently, an event for new and returning players is active.

The Northern Shiverpeaks and new Challenges

Where will The Icebrood Saga take us first? On September 30, the Prologue “Bound by Blood” is being released, which will already bring new stuff into the game.

The real start into Living World Season 5, however, will come with the first episode, which will be located in the Northern Shiverpeaks.

Mike refers to them as an especially beautiful location:

“You can look forward to some awesome sights. The art team has worked hard and took a lot of inspiration from maps in Guild Wars 1.”

Are there going to be new World Bosses? The latest addition to the world bosses, Drakkar, was already announced during the live event and Mike could tell me a bit about him. He is supposed to be more challenging than previously released world bosses:

“The Shatterer in Jahai was a good intermediate step but not as demanding as the three-headed Jungle Wurm. The new world boss will be huge and bring players together.

He won’t be present on the new map from the start, though, but will be added later.”

From the previous announcement we know that Drakkar is supposed to appear in Episode 2.

How do Strike Missions work? In addition to world bosses, we also spoke about Strike Missions, where 10 players unite to stand against a boss, who will be challenging.

Mike describes this new challenge as followed:

“Strike missions are instanced content, which can be entered in two different ways. If you just want to fight, you can enter the area and will be randomly thrown together with other players, similar to the Rift Stalker events.

Method number 2 is a separate entrance for groups. You can gather up there and defeat the boss, even in smaller groups than intended.”

New fractals and raids are still in development, as Mike confirmed when I asked.

We also briefly talked about repeatable challenge modes for raids. Those are being discussed internally, but there is no new information at this point.

I think you meant September 17th, rather than September 30th.

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