My view on improving immersion and the RPG side

[sorudo.9054]

To start, i only want to focus on the immersion and role playing side of the game,not the gameplay or anything related to achievements or events.

What pretty much everyone has realize in GW2 is that immersion is all but present, nothing really allows you to truly immerse yourself in the game.It is even worse for role players, all the attention from Anet goes to fast paced areas and new places instead of improving old content.Now i can keep on complaining but that doesn’t get us anywhere, i want to come with a solution for this problem.The last few weeks i have bin pounding on why i can’t enjoy GW2 as much as i want to, i also looked around in GW2 from a role player perspective.Sunday i found out why, adjusting the games camera to that of skyrim and putting the PoV on a lower place.

Anything in GW2 is made so players need to fill the blanks, the problem with this is that the world now feels empty.I visited the shaemoor tavern and it was a mess, not a single chair is interactive nor can the barmaid sell anything a tavern would sell.So i looked around on what should happen with just this tavern (and can be applied to the others), this is what i found:The table and chair all the way in the back should not be there, in its place tavern musicians should be playing music to set the mood.There should be waiters walkingOn every place a table with chair could be placed (logically) should have them.Be able to sit down on a chair.Have emotes while sitting like /argue, /drinking or /eating.The tavern sign outside needs to be put on a better place, it is currently right above the door while it’s better placed at the side where the road is.Make the windows actual translucent windows so players can see something happening from outside.And as a final but really important step, have the barmaid sell beer and whine from the local brewery.

But like everything, that is just the very first step, another thing needs to be addressed, usefulness with logic.There is a local watermill without even a single reason of existing, it’s just there being pretty.I am also looking at the small details like how the water flows, it hits a rock but it clearly just goes right trough it, ignoring physics within it’s basic form.This is what i would do to improve immersion:Add a path to the mill with a small bride so villagers can actually reach the door.Add foam around the watermill so the contact to the water is shown, do the same with rocks.Some waterfalls have no impact so it needs foam to show that impact.When players/NPC’s stand/walk in steaming water, a small impact effect should show.

I know some things might look like a non-issue but within immersion and role playing, even the smallest detail matters.Some are done within a few days while others might take a while, of course i have not put down everything that i have seen but if just this is done then others might follow.

[Gehenna.3625]

GW2 seems to've been made for people with short attention spans that need to be constantly stimulated and yes a lot of it is about the superficial looks and shiny stuff.

I suppose the idea is that if you can distract people enough you don't have to build the world properly and in a logical way. So I get your point, but I don't expect this to change. That would require a level of depth in the world building that I don't think they are interested in doing.

[Blur.3465]

+1 from me. I'm all for improving immersion and actually making us revisit places.A lot of places from GW1 held more heart and soul compared to GW2. Funny thing is that GW1 even had more emotes than GW2.I do hope they improve on the RPG aspect big time...and we could definitely do with more casual clothes.

[Dawdler.8521]

@sorudo.9054 said:*Add a path to the mill with a small bride so villagers can actually reach the door.Would a big bride take up the entire width of the path so they cant get past or something?

[JTGuevara.9018]

As an MMORPG player, this is a big concern I've had for a while over the years. It really seems that the MMO is emphasized over the RPG, and that's a shame. In gw2, some of the areas, I feel lack....life...culture. There are limited ways to immerse and interact with the world outside of combat and dynamic events. For example, music, dance, art. There's just a lack of meaningful community interaction outside of combat and obtaining in-game loot, which again involves combat.

[coso.9173]

100% agree! i wish they would care to make the world a more immersive place. there are so many amazing places in the world, but we can hardly learn anything about it, its story, its name (only by looking at the map) and other things like that.NPCs commenting things around is nice, but there are too few, there should be many more around! also more emotes, and even maps sometimes feel like too artificial. things are not organic and many times buildings and cities are too empty and too big (like big empty roads or buildings for instance.i doubt we'll see any of this though. specially changes to old places. I hope new places take this in consideration.

[Danikat.8537]

I like most of the ideas (except the waiters, I'm British so a pub with waiters just seems weird to me) and I've been disappointed by many of the same things, especially the chairs which can't be used. Especially because it's surprisingly hard to position the novelty chair so it looks right in that tavern, there's a very fine line between too far back from the table where it looks weird and too close where it spawns on top of the table. (Yes I've tried, I usually go in there to put together a costume for my temp human characters.) I also enjoy the little details they do add to the world, everything from the plants which move as you run through them to the NPC dialogue which isn't relevant to anything but just adds some colour to the world. Oh, and this. I still don't trust that rabbit.

But I suspect doing more than they already do to add little details to the world falls into the category of too time consuming for the benefits. Most players don't seem to notice even the relatively big details they add (like extra dialogue for Order of Whispers members or NPC dialogue that links one event to another) and the ones who do probably just go "that's cool" and carry on, if they think about it at all (part of the idea of immersion is it's supposed to be the world behaving as you'd expect, which makes a lot of it literally unremarkable).

It reminds me of The Door Problem - which is actually an article about the different roles in game design, but the last one is what always sticks in my mind.

So I guess what I'm saying is I'd be happy if they could put this level of detail into the game, but if they don't I won't be surprised.

@JTGuevara.9018 said:As an MMORPG player, this is a big concern I've had for a while over the years. It really seems that the MMO is emphasized over the RPG, and that's a shame. In gw2, some of the areas, I feel lack....life...culture. There are limited ways to immerse and interact with the world outside of combat and dynamic events. For example, music, dance, art. There's just a lack of meaningful community interaction outside of combat and obtaining in-game loot, which again involves combat.

I once read a really interesting article about how different MMOs today might be if World of Warcraft had copied more from Ultima Online instead of Everquest and Runescape. Unfortunately I can't find it now but the premise was that WoW, and all the MMOs which followed it would be very different because they'd be more focused on player interactions and genuinely playing a role in the world than on levels, achievements and items.

I've always had mixed feelings about that because in theory I really like the idea and I think there's a lot more potential for variation, scope and story telling in those kinds of games. But on the other hand I gave up on Ultima Online partially because I just didn't have the time to get into any of that - I couldn't commit to being online at the same time every day/week for hours at a time to play with the same people on a regular basis. At the time I thought it meant MMOs weren't for me, and it was only when I discovered GW1 that I learned there were alternatives which would work for me. Almost 20 years after I quit UO my time isn't any more predictable so even though I sometimes think about finding a good sandbox MMORPG I end up deciding if I can't commit to RP in GW2, or even make it to guild missions consistently, it's not going to work. I love the idea, but it's not for me. So I guess in a way I'm glad that at least some games ended up going the 'theme park' route.

But I think it's possible to strike a balance and have a more detailed world whilst also having clearly structured activities and goals which players can work towards individually so they're not entirely reliant on community interaction to make the game interesting. I actually think GW2 does a better job of that than a lot of other games (I'm almost never confident I can skim over an area and know I've seen everything like I can in other games - even if it's empty ground now that probably means an event is going to start up there sooner or later), but it definitely could be better.

[Bloodwine.6450]

Agreed OP. Gw2 does a lot of things well but making you feel like you’re inside a living breathing world, not so much.

[joneirikb.7506]

Personally I don't really see the point, I mean GW2 is pretty much an (MMO)ActionRPG. When you look at the mechanics, it has about as many ways to interact with the environments around you as you had in Diablo1. This game has honestly never tried to even pretend to be an "RolePlayingGame" by any definition past "it got levels, classes, swords, and fireballs!".

ANet has just covered it better by making the world around you larger and with more independent things that doesn't directly interact with you as the player (npc chatter, npc behaviour, most of the actual interesting parts of events etc). But the simple fact is that you as a player interacts with the world in these terms:

• Press F to see what is scripted.
• Hit it with a sword (or fireball, or dagger, etc).

You as a player never really make any real choices about anything that happens in the world, which is the basic definition for RPG. That's what all those NPC's that follow you around in the stories are for, making choices for you, in a way so that you don't always realize they did.

---

The one thing they added that actually hinted toward an actual RPG experience, was the "personality system" that was entirely under-used, and got practically removed with the NPE in 2014. Because that was one mechanic that let you pick different answers in conversations, which actually interacted with stats in the background, and could change your characters overall "personality" thus giving you different conversation options in certain few conversations with npcs. Doubt many people even remember this feature any longer, and probably even less realize it's the only RPG feature to ever have been in the game.

---

• So well, the changes that the Original Poster suggests wouldn't make this game into any more RPG, it would just hide the lack of RPG better.
• I'm not going to argue "Immersion" because that is honestly different for everyone, and thus up to taste and opinion. (Personally I find other players and their fashion to be the single biggest break of immersion in the game. Nothing more wonderful that imaging a neon glowing clown walking around in your favorite LOTR movie)

Trying to make GW2 into an actual RPG would basically mean to change the entire game, and remake it from the bottom up into something completely different. They'd need to basically completely re-do the entire world from scratch. And focus hard on AI/NPC's and have them interact-able in ways closer to games like Divinity Original Sin 2, or Planescape Torment. And similar with all the story, to actually make it interact-able so players can actually make choices. And that would be way too much work, for way too little return. And please way too few players.

So over all, I'd say they're better off focusing on what they already do well:

• Great action combat
• Good exploration/maps
• Ok railroaded/hollywood story
• Reliable content drop
• Hiding the lack of Interaction with good map/event/dialogue design

[battledrone.8315]

@Bloodwine.6450 said:Agreed OP. Gw2 does a lot of things well but making you feel like you’re inside a living breathing world, not so much.

i would disagree, if players dont support the outposts, then they get overrun by mobsthis is actually one of the best on the market in that regard. i have tried many others, and most of them were FAR worse.specially the asian mmos, they can be both hilarious and outrageous at once..we are talking several grades below cartoon network there

[Tyncale.1629]

@battledrone.8315 said:

@Bloodwine.6450 said:Agreed OP. Gw2 does a lot of things well but making you feel like you’re inside a living breathing world, not so much.

i would disagree, if players dont support the outposts, then they get overrun by mobsthis is actually one of the best on the market in that regard. i have tried many others, and most of them were FAR worse.specially the asian mmos, they can be both hilarious and outrageous at once..we are talking several grades below cartoon network there

This. For me, GW2 has the most alive, vibrant and believable NPC world that I have experienced to date. And I have played them since UO. Take Black Desert online: this seems to be a MMO that takes at least graphical immersion to a high level, yet here's how they tackle XP: take a field, litter it with a few hundreds of the same mobs(give or take a commander or two) that seem to be doing.......absolutely nothing, except waiting to be slaughtered, and call it a day. GW2, with their DE's, thousands of lines of ambient NPC dialogue, hundreds of small scripts happening everywhere(including a lot of pathing NPC's btw), and every cave, hamlet, hide-out, nook and cranny being handcrafted with care, is like a million miles ahead of every MMO that I know.

Yet, people want water in a brook that they are standing in, to make it look that it curves around their ankles? A certain signpost is not quit in the place where a player would like it to be? Seriously? I thought this was a joke posting at first, and was ready to give it an A-rating for sarcasm, but I guess not. The amount of support for the OP is also staggering, but I guess you will have unhappy people everywhere. Seems you want a world that is custom built to your specs, and to an incredably high and very specific level of detail. And what to do with the player who thinks that signpost is actually exactly in the right place right now? Mmmm, tough one.

I am giving a Big Fat Kudos for Anet right now; if I was one of the World Building devs, I would be genuinely sad by this OP. :( GW2 has a GREAT world, and the immersion level is actually one of the reasons I am still playing.

[Urud.4925]

@Tyncale.1629 said:This. For me, GW2 has the most alive, vibrant and believable NPC world that I have experienced to date. And I have played them since UO. Take Black Desert online: this seems to be a MMO that takes at least graphical immersion to a high level, yet here's how they tackle XP: take a field, litter it with a few hundreds of the same mobs(give or take a commander or two) that seem to be doing.......absolutely nothing, except waiting to be slaughtered, and call it a day. GW2, with their DE's, thousands of lines of ambient NPC dialogue, hundreds of small scripts happening everywhere(including a lot of pathing NPC's btw), and every cave, hamlet, hide-out, nook and cranny being handcrafted with care, is like a million miles ahead of every MMO that I know.I completely agree with this whole post, but in particular with this. I played FFIV (among many others), an MMO that justifies the monthly fee as reason to keep a high quality standard, and what I did for the 70% were fetch quests, where the NPCs stood still day and night, sunny or rainy day, until you completed the quest and they vanished in front of your eyes.Then I take as comparison the metal event in Grothmar, when few minutes before the event, a lot of Charr leave their spot and walk, slowly, towards the stage, to come back later on to their job, still walking on foot. Or the instance with Demmi and Tybalt (if we want to take some very old example), where if you remain inside the instance, after that the barrels with the fake apples exploded and the enemies have been defeated, Tybalt slowly takes buckets of water and extinguish the fire. In many other MMOs all the NPCs would have instantly disappeared :)

ANet could increase the attention to details, I'm sure they are capable to do it. But the cost would be to delay the real content updates. And we also have many players who complain if a new episode is delivered with 2 weeks of delay. We are not talking about a company with 1k employees. I think they do more than enough. To improve your immersion... well, just use your fantasy!EDIT: maybe some of your suggestions are easy to do though, like some emote while seated. But I wouldn't ask for a complete rework of the environment.

[sorudo.9054]

@"joneirikb.7506" said:Personally I don't really see the point, I mean GW2 is pretty much an (MMO)ActionRPG. When you look at the mechanics, it has about as many ways to interact with the environments around you as you had in Diablo1. This game has honestly never tried to even pretend to be an "RolePlayingGame" by any definition past "it got levels, classes, swords, and fireballs!".even while i have read your entire post, this one single line shows you have not bin with GW2 since the start.the whole promotion about GW2 is exactly the RPG that goes beyond the regular things, interacting with the world and immersing yourself within the daily life of tyria.they did tried to make it a RPG, they just failed really hard.

[Trise.2865]

Immersion is something you do yourself. What you're asking for is realism and downtime (which is also something you do yourself).

[joneirikb.7506]

@sorudo.9054 said:

@"joneirikb.7506" said:Personally I don't really see the point, I mean GW2 is pretty much an (MMO)ActionRPG. When you look at the mechanics, it has about as many ways to interact with the environments around you as you had in Diablo1. This game has honestly never tried to even pretend to be an "RolePlayingGame" by any definition past "it got levels, classes, swords, and fireballs!".even while i have read your entire post, this one single line shows you have not bin with GW2 since the start.the whole promotion about GW2 is

exactly

the RPG that goes beyond the regular things, interacting with the world and immersing yourself within the daily life of tyria.they did tried to make it a RPG, they just failed really hard.

Actually I played GW1, and joined GW2 in pre-release 2 days before launch, and played since.

that means I read all the articles about how they promised this game to be a full rpg, and the promo videos saying the same. I've also read the articles later on where they admitted they where just told to say whatever they wanted from the game for the promos, with no real clue of what was supposed to go into the game or not.

So they said it was supposed to be an RPG, because they didn't know themselves exactly what would be in the game at launch when they said it. And when the game released it had practically nothing in the game that could be described as an RPG (save the Personality system).

I judge the game by what it is, not what it was supposed to be.

And they promoted everything during those days, not only RPG. I've seen plenty of other people that thought gw2 was marketed solely as a pvp game for example, people snatch up and focus on what interest them.

[Svarty.8019]

For me, immersive means being able to interact with things in the environment. Sadly, the nearest we come are those "improvised" weapons that are lying around.

[JTGuevara.9018]

@Tyncale.1629 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:

@Bloodwine.6450 said:Agreed OP. Gw2 does a lot of things well but making you feel like you’re inside a living breathing world, not so much.

i would disagree, if players dont support the outposts, then they get overrun by mobsthis is actually one of the best on the market in that regard. i have tried many others, and most of them were FAR worse.specially the asian mmos, they can be both hilarious and outrageous at once..we are talking several grades below cartoon network there

This. For me, GW2 has the most alive, vibrant and believable NPC world that I have experienced to date. And I have played them since UO. Take Black Desert online: this seems to be a MMO that takes at least graphical immersion to a high level, yet here's how they tackle XP: take a field, litter it with a few hundreds of the same mobs(give or take a commander or two) that seem to be doing.......absolutely nothing, except waiting to be slaughtered, and call it a day. GW2, with their DE's, thousands of lines of ambient NPC dialogue, hundreds of small scripts happening everywhere(including a lot of pathing NPC's btw), and every cave, hamlet, hide-out, nook and cranny being handcrafted with care, is like a million miles ahead of every MMO that I know.

Yet, people want water in a brook that they are standing in, to make it look that it curves around their ankles? A certain signpost is not quit in the place where a player would like it to be? Seriously? I thought this was a joke posting at first, and was ready to give it an A-rating for sarcasm, but I guess not. The amount of support for the OP is also staggering, but I guess you will have unhappy people everywhere. Seems you want a world that is custom built to your specs, and to an incredably high

and

very specific level of detail. And what to do with the player who thinks that signpost is actually exactly in the right place right now? Mmmm, tough one.

I am giving a Big Fat Kudos for Anet right now; if I was one of the World Building devs, I would be genuinely sad by this OP. :( GW2 has a GREAT world, and the immersion level is actually one of the reasons I am still playing.

Great points. gw2 isn't the worst by any means. However, there's always room to improve. As a matter of fact, I was immersed when I first bought the game. I had never seen anything like dynamic events before. The thing is they mostly revolve around fighting, which is fine, but it gets a bit old after a while. I suppose that comes with game time, seeing as I'm a veteran. A new player might not feel this way.

Yeah, to me, it's more than the freakin signpost! It's not even about the details even. As you say, gw2 did a fine job of that. It's what you DO with that signpost! It's about interacting more with the world in ways other than fighting and getting exp. To be fair to the devs, they improved on this overtime. See the Grothmar concert, for instance! THAT'S what I'm talking about! I think we'd all benefit if music was incorporated more into the game itself other than the in-game soundtrack.

[Thornwolf.9721]

Need to also make the races have more going for them, they really kinda just are there and as a player who is playing one of them you kinda are just expected to care. Some cool racial unique goodies outside of armor and weps would be cool; Maybe some better exclusive cosmetics? (Norn having the option to always be in beast form with armor on, and make them have that choice. Charr being able to be flame legion or what have you, with unique cosmetics or even just adding canthan cosmetics for humans to have. What about mecha Asuran limbs or like additions to their body for if they lost a hand or something? And sylvari being able to look creepy if they so desired)