We're Looking At the Latest Gyala Delve Journal Entry All Wrong...

[Tazer.2157]

On 5/13/2023 at 2:03 AM, mandala.8507 said:

The Commander's not just gonna go, "whoops, we failed to save Cantha...oh well," and then move on to the next arc. Players would hate that. Therefore, the story has to come to some form of stopping point/resolution that allows us to move on from it.

Not every story needs to have a happy ending. For instance, what if despite the commanders best efforts, the people of Cantha make a pact with the demon for its power? Perhaps they were scared to lose out to Tyria, or Joon and the empress would stop at nothing to make sure Cantha stays prosperous. Or what if they reject the demon and plunge Cantha into a period of depression? The story could end there and picked up later on. This high stakes storytelling is interesting as it adds nuance to the world, it shows the good, the bad, the desperation and the compromised decisions characters are faced with. It makes the world feel real.  On the other hand, "the power of friendship saves us all", and "everything is back to normal again" conclusions in GW2 has a very wide-eyed, immature feel to it to a point where I have lost interest in even playing the game. I don't understand why the story is centered around the commander and the team. The world of GW2 must take center stage and I think that the stories can be told from the perspective of different playable characters, each with their own place and role in the world, which should  not be a problem as GW2 has a horizontal progression where equipment is character swappable. 

[mandala.8507]

1 hour ago, Tazer.2157 said:

Not every story needs to have a happy ending. For instance, what if despite the commanders best efforts, the people of Cantha make a pact with the demon for its power? Perhaps they were scared to lose out to Tyria, or Joon and the empress would stop at nothing to make sure Cantha stays prosperous. Or what if they reject the demon and plunge Cantha into a period of depression? The story could end there and picked up later on. This high stakes storytelling is interesting as it adds nuance to the world, it shows the good, the bad, the desperation and the compromised decisions characters are faced with. It makes the world feel real. 

Because this would be a season 8 GoT-level massacre of the characters and world-building that went into Cantha just for the sake of drama. Undoing all these complex characters and plot resolutions from Cantha without warning is not more interesting.

There are lots of television shows that do this now, where every character ends up being fatally flawed and unlikable and they make totally unhinged decisions just to add spice to/redirect the plot, but it isn't compelling at all to me. It's just stressful and infuriating.

Hard pass.

1 hour ago, Tazer.2157 said:

I don't understand why the story is centered around the commander and the team. The world of GW2 must take center stage and I think that the stories can be told from the perspective of different playable characters, each with their own place and role in the world, which should  not be a problem as GW2 has a horizontal progression where equipment is character swappable. 

Well this is just beyond the scope of fair criticism. You're basically saying, "why can't we just be playing an entirely different game and story instead?"

And open world already does this to an extent. The Commander role is very diminished in that content and you get more of a voyeuristic experience of the world by assisting other characters in their endeavors who don't identify you as the Commander almost ever.

Same with fractals and raids. You aren't really the Commander in that content.

It just doesn't make sense to burn down all the development they've done of the Commander character. No one wants to play another hero origin story to ground some new character and all their friends in the world at this point in Gw2's life as a game.

Another hard pass on core game 2.0.

This is how Gw1 was, where you have to restart your character and world-building for each campaign. If they thought that model was going to work for them in Gw2, they would have kept doing it. A huge waste of resources if you ask me and a step backward for the genre and Arenanet's permanent horizontal progression model.

At that point, just make Gw3.

And honestly, I'd need to be more impressed than I am presently with Arenanet as a whole for me to get behind them thinking they could successfully launch an entirely new MMO in today's gaming market.

Edited May 14, 2023 by mandala.8507

[Poormany.4507]

On 5/13/2023 at 3:57 AM, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Luckily, Gyala doesn't have that "unite the factions" preface, but this is the actual first time ever, we get a solution out of nowhere, from off-screen, no-Commander-involvement... And from Taimi. With a literal calling out with "Taimi's everything knowledge" (game's words, not mine). People whined about that stuff before... But to me, this is the actual first time it's there.

Because of this and demons almost certainly being the next expac's focus based on the concept art they posted, I'm pretty sure this plan's going to epically fail and/or backfire anyways, with us possibly losing one of our teammates to the haze (my bet's on Chul-Moo). That way, the PC's metal state would probably be one of the key plot points of the next expac, where it can be more flushed out than in a single tunnel in the upcoming update. Also I just cannot see Kanaxai being revealed and defeated in a single half-update, and he's most likely going to be the next big villain or second-in-command for the mini-expac..

Edited May 15, 2023 by Poormany.4507

[Tazer.2157]

8 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

Because this would be a season 8 GoT-level massacre of the characters and world-building that went into Cantha just for the sake of drama. Undoing all these complex characters and plot resolutions from Cantha without warning is not more interesting.

There are lots of television shows that do this now, where every character ends up being fatally flawed and unlikable and they make totally unhinged decisions just to add spice to/redirect the plot, but it isn't compelling at all to me. It's just stressful and infuriating.

I strongly disagree with your take on this. I hate every character in the so called friends group or whatever that was set up in Cantha. There are no complex characters or plots in Cantha. Every character is one dimensional. We have genius Joon, genius Taimi, genius Gorrik. I have no idea what Rama or the other character (whose name I cannot even remember) is doing in our group. 

8 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

It just doesn't make sense to burn down all the development they've done of the Commander character.

The commander is not us, its the writer's vision for us and lately they way they have written the character has made me feel very disconnected with the character. I identify more with my new level 1 character than my main who has done the story, and I am sure I am not alone in feeling this way.  Besides, telling the story from another character's perspective opens up new plotlines. It frees us from the plot where Tyria is constantly in danger and needs saving. 

[MedievalThings.5417]

On 5/11/2023 at 9:04 AM, Tazer.2157 said:

The commander and the team always win and after dealing with the threat, the world is back to its regular old self again. There is no urgency and nothing of consequence happens. There have been no proper conclusions to the Charr civil war, the end of the dragon threat, the loss of the magical energy in the Jade, the bloodstone explosion. There are no attempts to introduce nuances into the story. Couple this with all the meta-commentary in Cantha, and for me, it was an eye rolling-painful experience to get through the story. I have zero expectations for the story anymore.  Playing GW2 is now like getting a dopamine fix of doing meta events with your brain turned off and music in the background.  

This.  I have spent the last week or so helping my 9 year old get some achievements done in Guild Wars for her Hall of Monuments.  Afterwards, noticed something interesting.

 

Playing Guild Wars 2, I need a movie, music, or twitch to entertain me while I played.  You don't ever lose track of time in the real world.  

 

Playing Guild Wars, I noticed I was just playing.  No music, movie, nothing.  The entertainment was the game.  Time just seems to vanish.  Sure, the game has a little popup telling you how many hours you've played, but it's amazing how you can actually just lose time immersed in the game.

 

I am sad they got away from that.

[mandala.8507]

12 minutes ago, Ubi.4136 said:

Playing Guild Wars, I noticed I was just playing.  No music, movie, nothing.  The entertainment was the game.  Time just seems to vanish.  Sure, the game has a little popup telling you how many hours you've played, but it's amazing how you can actually just lose time immersed in the game.

The "Gw1 was better" complaint is so tired and played out. You're about a decade too late for that debate. If you like Gw1 better, that's awesome, but Gw2 doesn't have to hold itself back to please the very small-but-vocal "Gw1 was better" crowd.

No one is forcing you to play Gw2. If it's a chore to you, then don't play it. It's that simple.

[mandala.8507]

1 hour ago, Tazer.2157 said:

There are no complex characters or plots in Cantha. Every character is one dimensional. We have genius Joon, genius Taimi, genius Gorrik. I have no idea what Rama or the other character (whose name I cannot even remember) is doing in our group. 

So explain why someone who doesn't understand any of the characters should be the person the writers (who know they didn't write one-dimensional or bad characters) listen to about the direction of the game's writing and narrative?

Why would they cater to the players who hate their work and can't back up why when there are so many other players who thought it was the best expansion story so far and that the characters were some of the best the studio has ever written?

You need to get specific or no one can help you. Saying the writing was bad doesn't matter if you can't substantiate your claim. You've not done that in my opinion. You've just said you hate it because you don't understand it, which wouldn't hold much weight to me if I were a writer hearing your complaint, tbh.

Edited May 15, 2023 by mandala.8507

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

8 hours ago, Poormany.4507 said:

Also I just cannot see Kanaxai being revealed and defeated in a single half-update, and he's most likely going to be the next big villain or second-in-command for the mini-expac..

Kanaxai is by no means a major player in the lore. He's always been just a footnote, an elite mission boss and nothing more.
He is little different from the Fraenir of Jormag, in fact I'd say he's less relevant to the lore, since the Fraenir was the head hancho of the Sons of Svanir. But he was introduced and killed in the same LW episode.
Similar to how Gaheron, Cadeyrn, and Kudu got minimal screentime in core, despite being major faction players. Even Zhaitan and Primordus had less screentime than the Ravenous Wanderer is.

And while demons may be the next mini-expansion focus, demons are not a united force. The only time we've seen them relatively united is under their alliance with Abaddon, and even then that was only the torment demons born from the Stygian Veil of the Domain of Anguish, and the dryders under Dhuum's command that were born from The Underworld's Spawning Pools. It would be, imo, more weird for Kanaxai - who's been isolated for 450 years by this point - to be tied to a big army force of the next storyline.

Kanaxai is, and always was, a mere footnote in the lore.

[MedievalThings.5417]

9 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

The "Gw1 was better" complaint is so tired and played out. You're about a decade too late for that debate. If you like Gw1 better, that's awesome, but Gw2 doesn't have to hold itself back to please the very small-but-vocal "Gw1 was better" crowd.

No one is forcing you to play Gw2. If it's a chore to you, then don't play it. It's that simple.

Except, nowhere did I say one was better or the other was a chore.  I just found it interesting that one was more immersive.  I am full legendary in GW2, have over 15k hours played, and still play every day.  I thoroughly enjoy the game.  The storytelling and arcs just seem to be declining in quality.

[mandala.8507]

41 minutes ago, Ubi.4136 said:

I thoroughly enjoy the game.  The storytelling and arcs just seem to be declining in quality.

Okay, let me give you an analogy.

You're an owner-chef of a restaurant.

And over the years, you've been slowing honing your craft and learning the ropes of not just being a chef, but an owner as well. As the years went by, you slowly expanded and improved your menu, dining space, and the day-to-day operations of your restaurant.

You also took the time to hire new cooks and train them up yourself, as well as brought in other veteran chefs every now and then so you could continue learning too.

And due to this hard work, you saw your restaurant become more popular. You were seating more tables that ordered more food and praised your restaurant more often. You knew the food was better, the service was better, and that you were doing a great job.

Unfortunately, all this change began to disgruntle some of your regulars. The same regulars have been coming to you more and more frequently, complaining about your changes and letting you know that they've been less and less satisfied by your restaurant.

But you also have other regulars who are incredibly impressed by the changes and shower you in praise every time they see you in the restaurant.

And you've even gotten positive reviews from local food critics and other restauranteurs because of your changes.

So, who do you as the owner-chef listen to or think is right?

All these new customers, kind regulars, and impressed critics and peers, or the disgruntled regulars who are starting to be pretty demeaning and standoffish in their complaining to you?

[MedievalThings.5417]

26 minutes ago, mandala.8507 said:

Okay, let me give you an analogy.

You're an owner-chef of a restaurant.

And over the years, you've been slowing honing your craft and learning the ropes of not just being a chef, but an owner as well. As the years went by, you slowly expanded and improved your menu, dining space, and the day-to-day operations of your restaurant.

You also took the time to hire new cooks and train them up yourself, as well as brought in other veteran chefs every now and then so you could continue learning too.

And due to this hard work, you saw your restaurant become more popular. You were seating more tables that ordered more food and praised your restaurant more often. You knew the food was better, the service was better, and that you were doing a great job.

Unfortunately, all this change began to disgruntle some of your regulars. The same regulars have been coming to you more and more frequently, complaining about your changes and letting you know that they've been less and less satisfied by your restaurant.

But you also have other regulars who are incredibly impressed by the changes and shower you in praise every time they see you in the restaurant.

And you've even gotten positive reviews from local food critics and other restauranteurs because of your changes.

So, who do you as the owner-chef listen to or think is right?

All these new customers, kind regulars, and impressed critics and peers, or the disgruntled regulars who are starting to be pretty demeaning and standoffish in their complaining to you?

And, once again, you are implying I am the disgruntled/demeaning person, when my only comment was how after going back to GW1 a decade later to help my child, that it was more immersive, without really saying anything negative to the "chef" or "wait staff".  I said "seem" to be declining, because that is my perception, due to the story feeling less immersive.

 

I wish the stories still felt as immersive as they did in GW1, not Taimi fixed everything off-screen with "everything knowledge" again...good job team.

 

I wish they still made applainces that lasted 20 years instead of being designed to break in under 5 so you need to buy a new one too.

 

It's an opinion.

[mandala.8507]

8 minutes ago, Ubi.4136 said:

It's an opinion.

And your opinion is based off of demonstrably false recollections of the plot and characters, evidenced by this statement above:

9 minutes ago, Ubi.4136 said:

not Taimi fixed everything off-screen with "everything knowledge" again...good job team.

Taimi hasn't been the primary contributor to our success in the plot since Omadd's machine in season 3.

You've lasered in on dialogue that has nothing to do with Taimi's credentials or expertise and everything to do with Gorrik's feelings toward her, refused to interpret it correctly, and are now using it as evidence for something that hasn't been true about the story for over half a decade that didn't even pan out that one time it happened.

Again, why would your opinion be considered over that of the players who don't agree with you who've demonstrated their ability to engage with the plot and characters at a respectable level, which in my opinion, you haven't.

[MedievalThings.5417]

11 minutes ago, mandala.8507 said:

And your opinion is based off of demonstrably false recollections of the plot and characters, evidenced by this statement above:

Taimi hasn't been the primary contributor to our success in the plot since Omadd's machine in season 3.

You've lasered in on dialogue that has nothing to do with Taimi's credentials or expertise and everything to do with Gorrik's feelings toward her, refused to interpret it correctly, and are now using it as evidence for something that hasn't been true about the story for over half a decade that didn't even pan out that one time it happened.

Again, why would your opinion be considered over that of the players who don't agree with you who've demonstrated their ability to engage with the plot and characters at a respectable level, which in my opinion, you haven't.

You seem to think you know what my view of the game and it's characters actually are.  To end this, from my side, I will go back to your restaurant.

 

I'm the customer who has been coming in since you opened your first restaurant.  Now you have a new location at which I am a fixture, not a regular.   I politely ask for "insert any food you want" and when you say you don't have it anymore, or cook it that way anymore, I say "aww, that's sad, I liked X", then politely ask for something else off the menu.  I'm still a fixture in the restaurant, still support the restaurant financially.  Tell everyone I know about it.  It's the only restaurant I eat at.

 

Finding it (personally) interesting, that it felt like GW1 was more immersive is an opinion.  Like people commenting how things seemed different in "some random 10 year period in history" than now.

[mandala.8507]

1 minute ago, Ubi.4136 said:

You seem to think you know what my view of the game and it's characters actually are. 

I apologize for making you think the analogy was entirely about you, but I was simply using your comment as the launching pad for the analogy I wanted to share concerning the responses from everyone.

3 minutes ago, Ubi.4136 said:

I'm the customer who has been coming in since you opened your first restaurant.  Now you have a new location at which I am a fixture, not a regular.   I politely ask for "insert any food you want" and when you say you don't have it anymore, or cook it that way anymore, I say "aww, that's sad, I liked X", then politely ask for something else off the menu.  I'm still a fixture in the restaurant, still support the restaurant financially.  Tell everyone I know about it.  It's the only restaurant I eat at.

And so you can see how, when so much good has come from the changes you don't like (which you concede won't make you stop eating at the restaurant), why a "chef" might have to ignore your criticism in favor of the contrasting majority consensus and their own opinion as the owner of the restaurant.

There are voices being disparaging and hostile in this thread and elsewhere, and those are the people I'm talking about. If that's not you, awesome. Great to hear.

[voltaicbore.8012]

On 5/14/2023 at 3:27 PM, mandala.8507 said:

Well this is just beyond the scope of fair criticism. You're basically saying, "why can't we just be playing an entirely different game and story instead?"

While I don't necessarily agree with your perspective on the quality of the GW2 narrative, I do very much agree with the above sentiment. After a certain point, I accepted that the narrative direction is what it is in GW2. That doesn't mean I really like the execution of that direction, but to be perfectly honest, I no longer profess to have a better suggestion anymore.

Back to your question about what stories I do enjoy, I was shocked by how much I enjoyed what I've seen (so far) of Genshin Impact's primary storyline. Without getting too specific and spoilery, I really like what they did with the typical goblin-esque common enemies. At first they're like bandits and goblins in any other RPG, common starter enemies that you remorselessly shred because you're an adventurer. Turns out, they have quite a backstory, which I haven't seen through to the end (I'm not sure the entire arc is released, but I'm fairly new to Genshin), and which further looks like it might intersect with your character's personal story down the line.

I think it has to do with pacing and scale. Frankly, GW2 arguably does similar things - we found out the Sylvari were meant to be dragon minions, the dragons themselves weren't the born-bad-must-kill villains of the story, etc. These things, like the goblins-aren't-just-trash-mobs thing in Genshin, peel back the curtains a bit and give Tyria a sense of narrative depth. It's just that Genshin is a single player game (with optional co-op stuff), the player character isn't even given the illusion of choice in stories, and each stage of the story is fairly restricted to different geographic areas and characters. There are no pan-species military alliances, which themselves are built on transnational military/reasearch/espionage organizations, or events that force your friends from across the continent to always show up for the big final showdown.

GW2's amibitious scale was matched, for 10 years, by the scale of the dragon storyline, which had the unenviable task of making everything The Next World Ending Cataclysm. Genshin's main story is just one person on a journey to find someone important to them, and they discover more about the world they are traveling through at a decent pace, like peeling back an onion.

I think the best example of "cool idea, rushed and nigh meaningless ending" in GW2 was the Rata Novus arc. The idea is quite compelling, even for someone with little interest in the asura to begin with. A lost city that might have been experienced in dealing with both chak and mordrem threats - that's cool. But in terms of the main HoT story, you end that arc with "well at least we know dragons have weaknesses" - as if we, you know, hadn't already killed a dragon. Reminds me of a scene from the first Harold & Kumar movie: "bullets! My only weakness! How did you know?" If I'm remembering correctly, Braham voiced a similar level of disappointment with the "discovery."

I think that arc could have been a lot cooler if we found out the Rata Novans came to a hard dead end just a bit closer to the finish line. Perhaps among other efforts one of their krewes figured out Mordy works through some mind connection with the jungle, and the krewe was trying (and failing) to make a device to tap into that. Note that I'm not taking issue with Trahearne dropping the magic solution on us at the end, that was plausible enough in its own right. I just think the "dragons do have [a completely unspecified] weakness" was an extraordinarily lazy place to end the Rata Novus arc. And I'm not calling Anet lazy per se, but I think that lazy choice was dictated by their need to ship an expac as ambitious as HoT and not enough time to refine everything.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

Personally found GW1's storytelling mostly poor until Nightfall. Didn't feel like we had actual characters around us until then, Togo and Rurik were very bland. 

[Poormany.4507]

3 hours ago, voltaicbore.8012 said:

And I'm not calling Anet lazy per se, but I think that lazy choice was dictated by their need to ship an expac as ambitious as HoT and not enough time to refine everything.

I agree - The main issue to me in GW2's (and a lot of other games') stories is that the story goes well in general, starts to get to the end, and then the devs realize they are out of time and crunch a ton of plot points and skip important steps to get to the ending while it being blatantly clear to players that is what they're doing. This has been a problem since core GW2 (the fail Zhaitan fight and cut Zhaitan map) so I don't really mind it as much, but it still spoils much of the story and expectations for me.

Same thing in this case - Anet has one half-episode (a single tunnel in fact) to get to Expac 4's plot, so they cut a ton of content. I would have LOVED to see the actual events described in Gorrik's journal happening in an actual instance (I speculate this may have even been planned or thought of initially), but it's clear there was no time/resources/staff for doing that. Unfortunately, the new release model makes this even worse, since Anet's constantly working on the next expac, so a lot of resources/staff/time will be cut from the quarterly updates in particular.

Edited May 16, 2023 by Poormany.4507

[mandala.8507]

34 minutes ago, Poormany.4507 said:

Same thing in this case - Anet has one half-episode (a single tunnel in fact) to get to Expac 4's plot

They have all of Cantha at their disposal if they so choose. With the new format, they're allowed to play with all the zones they made for the expansion at any point they want to in the story and can put instances anywhere they please.

We started the episode in New Kaineng. There's nothing that says they couldn't do several instances in other EoD zones to flesh out the finale. They likely won't, but it's not entirely off the table and we actually do know they will be adding events across all of Cantha in the upcoming patch.

The tunnel is just a meme, anyway. There's so much playable space underneath the Northern portions of Gyala Delve they could use, for one, and they already let the cat out of the bag that the map is likely almost double its current size with the name placement being so off-center on initial release.

Assuming they're willing to let us start to understand things about the demon problem and where it's originating from, there's lots they could do still in Cantha for next week's update.

My only fear is they'll be stingy with the details on where we go after this. This is their chance to go full PoF and surprise us with an immediate teaser trailer and a fast approaching expac instead of keeping us in suspense for multiple months like they've been doing for a couple of years now with new releases.

We'll just have to wait and see. That's kind of my entire point with the thread: that we should just wait and see instead of jumping to conclusions based off of very little definitive proof of anything. Especially if we're gonna be negative about it. It's too late to fix it anyway.

[mandala.8507]

4 hours ago, voltaicbore.8012 said:

Back to your question about what stories I do enjoy, I was shocked by how much I enjoyed what I've seen (so far) of Genshin Impact's primary storyline. Without getting too specific and spoilery, I really like what they did with the typical goblin-esque common enemies. At first they're like bandits and goblins in any other RPG, common starter enemies that you remorselessly shred because you're an adventurer. Turns out, they have quite a backstory, which I haven't seen through to the end (I'm not sure the entire arc is released, but I'm fairly new to Genshin), and which further looks like it might intersect with your character's personal story down the line.

Yeah, I've not touched Genshin, so I can't comment.

4 hours ago, voltaicbore.8012 said:

And I'm not calling Anet lazy per se, but I think that lazy choice was dictated by their need to ship an expac as ambitious as HoT and not enough time to refine everything.

I think that's just the reality of being a gaming studio that doesn't have infinite funds to mess around with. No studio truly has a limitless budget and or an infinite development timeline, but Arenanet always has felt like a studio "living paycheck to paycheck", for lack of a better description.

I also imagine it's simply an unfortunate fact of life when it comes to writing for video games, and especially MMOs, that your big ideas don't always get to play out how you envisioned them. I'm sure when the pens drop on initial drafting, there's a gorgeous adventure with amazing characters, settings, and sentiments, but when the game itself has to be made, you have to fit your gorgeous adventure into the box you're given and make cuts and changes to better complement the vision of the content as a whole, not only considering the narrative itself.

I've always seen Anet as a studio that excels at this, tbh. I'm always surprised by how put-together their story content is and how interwoven it is with the gameplay.

When I played FF14, I was disappointed by how separate their story and gameplay were from one another. There was the game I was playing, then there was the story I was watching. And they were related, but always so perfectly split apart. I know some people like that, but it too rarely felt like I was actually playing the story, if that makes sense.

Gw2 never makes me feel that way (okay, core does to some extent with the side-by-sides, but besides those). The story is the gameplay, and vice versa.

[voltaicbore.8012]

10 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

I also imagine it's simply an unfortunate fact of life when it comes to writing for video games, and especially MMOs, that your big ideas don't always get to play out how you envisioned them.

That's what I was getting at. As if the challenge of doing things on an MMO scale weren't enough, Anet raised their own bar in HoT and PoF by setting a standard for really offering new gameplay options and experiences with each expansion.

Non-MMOs  - especially those that rely on season passes, lootboxes, or outright gacha mechanics - don't actually have to do nearly as much as GW2 does to keep players hooked. And even many MMOs seem satisfied with much less ambitious additions than GW2 historically is.

10 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

make cuts and changes to better complement the vision of the content as a whole, not only considering the narrative itself.

Here is where our opinions diverge. I really don't think the cuts and rushes were made in service to the "vision of the content as a whole." I'd bet a lot of money that it was more like "we can't do everything we planned before release day. How can we at least cobble together what we managed to finish into an acceptably cohesive product?"

Edited May 16, 2023 by voltaicbore.8012

[mandala.8507]

On 5/16/2023 at 11:44 AM, voltaicbore.8012 said:

Here is where our opinions diverge. I really don't think the cuts and rushes were made in service to the "vision of the content as a whole." I'd bet a lot of money that it was more like "we can't do everything we planned before release day. How can we at least cobble together what we managed to finish into an acceptably cohesive product?"

This statement...

On 5/16/2023 at 11:44 AM, voltaicbore.8012 said:

"we can't do everything we planned before release day. How can we at least cobble together what we managed to finish into an acceptably cohesive product?"

...would be true for every modern game we've ever played.

On 5/16/2023 at 11:44 AM, voltaicbore.8012 said:

On 5/16/2023 at 12:47 AM, mandala.8507 said:

I also imagine it's simply an unfortunate fact of life when it comes to writing for video games, and especially MMOs, that your big ideas don't always get to play out how you envisioned them.

That's what I was getting at. As if the challenge of doing things on an MMO scale weren't enough, Anet raised their own bar in HoT and PoF by setting a standard for really offering new gameplay options and experiences with each expansion.

Non-MMOs  - especially those that rely on season passes, lootboxes, or outright gacha mechanics - don't actually have to do nearly as much as GW2 does to keep players hooked. And even many MMOs seem satisfied with much less ambitious additions than GW2 historically is.

And you've framed this point like it's a bad thing that they dream so big; like they should be admonished for not dreaming smaller. I'd much rather get an ambitious game with rough edges than a perfectly packaged "least we could do".

Because "the least they could do" is starting to become an apt summary of more and more games getting released these days (*cough* Pokémon *cough*).

Hopefully Arenanet isn't submitting to mediocrity for the sake of consistency quite yet.

[voltaicbore.8012]

2 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

..would be true for every modern game we've ever played.

Which is why I think it applies to Anet as well.

2 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

And you've framed this point like it's a bad thing that they dream so big; like they should be admonished for not dreaming smaller. 

I could see why you interpreted it that way, but I just meant that

1. the MMO genre is already difficult enough to develop in, and
2. it's even more difficult for Anet precisely because of those grander-than-average ambitions.

That doesn't mean having ambitions is bad; setting the bar high, and landing pretty high (even if you fall a bit short of the bar) is great. I was just stating my opinion that Anet set its bar higher than other studios, which just objectively makes the bar harder to reach.

2 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

I'd much rather get an ambitious game with rough edges than a perfectly packaged "least we could do".

As would I. And thus far, I think Anet has largely delivered on that model. Apparently Anet itself thinks that a new content release model is necessary for them to continue that delivery, and I'm willing to wait and see how that pans out. I'm just one of the many people who felt a bit sour about how Champions from IBS and EoD turned out (the rough edges really didn't stay entirely on the edges in many respects), and don't share your apparently high regard for Anet's fidelity to a grand vision of the game world. I think they're willing to make a lot of cuts and reductions that are understandable, but still highly disappointing.

Edited May 17, 2023 by voltaicbore.8012

[Eekasqueak.7850]

Coming from Warframe, Gw2's feature creep ambition seems a lot smaller in comparison. 

[The Greyhawk.9107]

6 hours ago, Eekasqueak.7850 said:

Coming from Warframe, Gw2's feature creep ambition seems a lot smaller in comparison. 

Warframe and the studio that made it have the misfortune of finding themselves now owned by Tencent. Warframe has begun to suffer for it for couple years now.

Edited May 18, 2023 by The Greyhawk.9107

[Jimbru.6014]

On 5/14/2023 at 8:13 PM, Poormany.4507 said:

. Also I just cannot see Kanaxai being revealed and defeated in a single half-update, and he's most likely going to be the next big villain or second-in-command for the mini-expac..

Why not? Never forget that ArenaNet took the best villain in the entire history of the GW franchise (Joko) and basically deleted him in a single LW episode. Or how they've summarily executed almost every genuinely likable and interesting female ally The Commander has ever had, while saddling us with "friends" like Anise, Caithe, Braham and Joon, none of whom I would tolerate in real life. Never put it past ArenaNet to just KILL OFF good characters for the sake of whatever "vision" they have.