What is content?

[Crab Fear.1624]

One can peruse the forums and find a variety of suggestions, perhaps some even repetitively posted.

The poster believes it is content, yet we have those that will rush in to say it is not worth the effort or resources.

So, what is content to you specifically?

For example:

Is it a new mount?Is it a new map?More masteries?Collections?New race?New clothing items?

What is "worth the resources"?

I am not here to argue about it, I just want to read what you think.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

Technically, "content" means "the things that are held or included in something." The OP is interested in what we considered "worthwhile" content.

For anyone who is interested, there is a similar discussion on Massively OP.

https://massivelyop.com/2018/04/08/the-daily-grind-what-do-you-consider-meaningful-mmo-content/

For me, worthwhile is something worth doing. I don't consider virtual gewgaws (MMO rewards) to be content. The content is the things I would be doing to get those rewards. So. New story, new events, new maps to explore -- all potentially worthwhile content. The motivation for the reward-inclined to do those things (mount, collections, skins) may be worth my time to get, but the content would be the places I would need to go, mobs to kill, etc.

[Xanadrine.4352]

To me content is stuff that adds to the game. In order of importance, content is new hubs maps story, spells classes which all tie in to one another. Then there is frivolous content like skins and shiny stuff, it dont really add anything to gameplay just makes your character look better standing around. I rather be doing instances and exploring and finding things in game, than buying skins off the store. But thats me. I will buy a few mount skins and gliders only because the basic ones are so boring looking. But thats about it unless its bag slots or bank slots. Thats not content to me its a side of utility and cosmetic its not gameplay.

[Ashen.2907]

@"IndigoSundown.5419" said:Technically, "content" means "the things that are held or included in something." The OP is interested in what we considered "worthwhile" content.

For anyone who is interested, there is a similar discussion on Massively OP.

https://massivelyop.com/2018/04/08/the-daily-grind-what-do-you-consider-meaningful-mmo-content/

For me, worthwhile is something worth doing. I don't consider virtual gewgaws (MMO rewards) to be content. The content is the things I would be doing to get those rewards. So. New story, new events, new maps to explore -- all potentially worthwhile content. The motivation for the reward-inclined to do those things (mount, collections, skins) may be worth my time to get, but the content would be the places I would need to go, mobs to kill, etc.

Pretty much this.

[Jski.6180]

That 10 mins of dialog in game after a fight that took them months to make i think is anets ideal of content or though set battles that must of taken forever to make that every one just dose once.

My person content is update to old skills and new skills over all class balancing.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

As long as you get at least one person to smile, it was totally worth the work.

That pretty much sums it up for me. Even if I do not enjoy a certain part of the content, I am fine with using resources and time on it, knowing that other people will enjoy it. That can be everything.

There are always people who complain, no matter what you focus on. The Skyscale was imho mostly a wink to all the people who wanted more engaging content that cannot be rushed in a single night. What did we get? People complained about too tedious and long collections, time-gates and too difficult tasks. Same goes for Vision. But when they add easy to achieve content, people claim that it is not worth to log in for it.

The big question is, what do YOU want? Both the players and the developers. Set yourself a goal and go for that. Notice the reactions on every side, act only if necessary but don't lose your main objective.

What I consider worthwhile content?

• Overworld PvE (= new maps, meta-events, worldbosses)
• Story Content
• Lore & Easter eggs
• Jumping Puzzles
• Festivals (Wintersday, Halloween, Bazaar, Crown Pavilion, Dragon Bash, SAB, ... etc.)
• New mounts/skins/collections
• balance patches, positive and negative ones
• overhauls of outdated features (btw it has been a while since the last feature-uptate ^^)

What I consider not worthwhile?

• Content that is locked for hardcore players. I have no Lumi armor for example. Each of the collections is just 1 missing, which is the ascended jewel you obtain for completing those hillariously difficult achievements. I also could make the legendary Trinket, but certain parts are locked behind difficult achievements ... nope. If they do not want me to craft it, so be it ^^. But on the other hand, there is a wide playerbase that lives for those challenges. Who am I to spoil their fun?
• Flax and the entire mining-section in guildhalls. Flax is an awesome way to make money, but if you own a guildhall it is a chore. The only purpose of the mine is to eat resources and delay progress.
• Raids & CM fractals. But again, there is a wide playerbase that truly enjoys this content. Some of them play GW2 only for this content.
• sPvP
• Visual fireworks. I believe that the company should optimize the game so that as many people as possible can play it. It is nice that the battles look quite epic nowadays, but a lot of computers break down by just processing the animations - which get more and more. While I understand that they want to show how good GW2 can look, it would be nice to have more options to disable those fireworks, for players with slower computers.

[Warlord.9082]

Content is the set of things that give you something to do in-game. So for example:

• Maps
• Story line
• Side quests
• Dungeons
• etc

Anything that makes for gameplay.

Things that are NOT content:

• Skins
• Outfits
• Dyes
• etc

Basically anything that is in-game but does not make for gameplay. Doesn't mean you can't play to get them, just that they are not part of gameplay itself.

[Derdzvero.7051]

For Anet content means an achievement. E.g an array of arrays of arrays, utilizing already existing code ;)

[Dreams.3128]

@HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:As long as you get at least one person to smile, it was totally worth the work.

That pretty much sums it up for me. Even if I do not enjoy a certain part of the content, I am fine with using resources and time on it, knowing that other people will enjoy it. That can be everything.

There are always people who complain, no matter what you focus on. The Skyscale was imho mostly a wink to all the people who wanted more engaging content that cannot be rushed in a single night. What did we get? People complained about too tedious and long collections, time-gates and too difficult tasks. Same goes for Vision. But when they add easy to achieve content, people claim that it is not worth to log in for it.

The big question is, what do YOU want? Both the players and the developers. Set yourself a goal and go for that. Notice the reactions on every side, act only if necessary but don't lose your main objective.

What I consider worthwhile content?

• Overworld PvE (= new maps, meta-events, worldbosses)
• Story Content
• Lore & Easter eggs
• Jumping Puzzles
• Festivals (Wintersday, Halloween, Bazaar, Crown Pavilion, Dragon Bash, SAB, ... etc.)
• New mounts/skins/collections
• balance patches, positive and negative ones
• overhauls of outdated features (btw it has been a while since the last feature-uptate ^^)

What I consider not worthwhile?

• Content that is locked for hardcore players. I have no Lumi armor for example. Each of the collections is just 1 missing, which is the ascended jewel you obtain for completing those hillariously difficult achievements. I also could make the legendary Trinket, but certain parts are locked behind difficult achievements ... nope. If they do not want me to craft it, so be it ^^. But on the other hand, there is a wide playerbase that lives for those challenges. Who am I to spoil their fun?
• Flax and the entire mining-section in guildhalls. Flax is an awesome way to make money, but if you own a guildhall it is a chore. The only purpose of the mine is to eat resources and delay progress.
• Raids & CM fractals. But again, there is a wide playerbase that truly enjoys this content. Some of them play GW2 only for this content.
• sPvP
• Visual fireworks. I believe that the company should optimize the game so that as many people as possible can play it. It is nice that the battles look quite epic nowadays, but a lot of computers break down by just processing the animations - which get more and more. While I understand that they want to show how good GW2 can look, it would be nice to have more options to disable those fireworks, for players with slower computers.

How is sPvP not content? Like, the reason why WvW and PvP are not considered 'content' is because Anet REFUSES to update that. How is that even fair to say it is not content?

Whole MMOs and games are based around PvP against other players which is considered content. I understand you probably did not mean this as a shot towards that crowd, but sheesh.

[Cerioth.7062]

Anything that brings new things to do in the game. Yes, Skyscale collection was also content, despite how many people feel about it.

[Danikat.8537]

My definition is that content is things you can do in the game. So for example a PvP map, a story instance and a collection are all content. Items which don't do anything on their own are not content - like armour and weapons, skins and dyes. However some items can also be content - toys and musical instruments for example - because you can do something with them which you could not do without it. (Armour and weapons can help you complete content, but are not themselves content.)

Worthwhile content is a whole other conversation. Firstly it's highly subjective because what one person enjoys another will have no interest in. New PvP maps are irrelevant to me personally because I don't play PvP, but I'd never say they don't count as content just because I don't play them, because I know other people do and they're just as entitled to content they enjoy. (And at the risk of ranting I find it extremely frustrating when someone complains that the game doesn't get enough content then proceeds to dismiss everything which has been released recently as 'not really content' because they personally didn't enjoy it 'enough' to include it, narrowing the definition until I'm wondering if they actually like the game at all.)

But it also depends on whether you're asking if it was worth Anet's time to make it - which IMO is usually an impossible question to answer because we don't know how many people made it or how much time they spent on it, or what else they might have done with that time - or if you're asking whether it's worth your time to play it, which is a very difficult question for anyone else to answer.

I think it's worth considering that everything Anet does requires them to spend time on doing it, and that's time they cannot spend on something else. For example if you say "Please make this skin" you are asking them to make that instead of another skin, because they can't do both at once. But the trade-offs are going to be fairly specific - it's extremely unlikely the artist who makes that skin is also a qualified programmer who would otherwise be spending their time fixing bugs, so a new gem store skin is not going to have taken time away from bug fixes, but might take time away from in-game rewards.

Of course the more complicated a suggestion gets the more people it affects - creating new weapon skills for existing weapons for example would require not just the people who design and balance skills but an artist (or more than one) to make icons, UI designers to create a way to select which set of weapon skills you want to use, animators to make new animations for the skills, someone to project manage all those people and probably a bunch of other people I've not thought of.

Which is not to say that any idea isn't worth suggesting, and I don't think we can ever say for sure what's too much work or not worth Anet's time to do (although if only 1 person likes an idea it's probably not worth it), it's just something to bear in mind - everything they do means spending time on it and therefore not getting something else done. A bit like how having spent all this time writing this post I now have less time to actually play GW2. ;)

[witcher.3197]

Playable things that can be completed in order to earn rewards.

New dungeons, PvE maps, story instances etc are content.

Achievements, mount skins, outfits etc are rewards.

A new race isn't content unless it comes with its own story, maps, and stuff like that.

Elite specs are just a new way to play content, it keeps content fresh but specs themselves aren't content.

There are 2 main problems with GW2:

• The game is that it's very, VERY light on content and barely any of it is worth repeating.
• The best rewards aren't earned by playing specific content, they are bought with credit cards.

GW2 is not a bad game.. rather, it's barely even a game at this point.

[Tarlonniel.6534]

"Stuff to do" is the obvious definition, but what that means varies widely from person to person. Cosmetics definitely count as "stuff to do" for me. So do daily login rewards, harvesting the nodes in my home instance, crafting stuff, listening to ambient NPC comments, searching out cool places to take screenshots, and similar random junk. I don't roleplay much in this game, but in other games I have and getting new emotes, housing items and the like were a big deal.

It all depends on how you play and the type of players ANet wants to attract.

[Fenom.9457]

IMO all of the things you listed OP are content

[Zaklex.6308]

@"Crab Fear.1624" said:One can peruse the forums and find a variety of suggestions, perhaps some even repetitively posted.

The poster believes it is content, yet we have those that will rush in to say it is not worth the effort or resources.

So, what is content to you specifically?

For example:

Is it a new mount?Is it a new map?More masteries?Collections?New race?New clothing items?

What is "worth the resources"?

I am not here to argue about it, I just want to read what you think.

The biggest problem with your question is that it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things what each individual person thinks is "content" because content has a definition, and not everyone is going to like that definition, but in essence everything produced for an art form is content(not everyone is going to like the same content so there fore you're actually asking an entirely different question).

[NanoEliteSixSixSix.8935]

What is content? A miserable little pile of code.

But enough talk... Have at you!!

[Crab Fear.1624]

@Zaklex.6308 said:

@"Crab Fear.1624" said:One can peruse the forums and find a variety of suggestions, perhaps some even repetitively posted.

The poster believes it is content, yet we have those that will rush in to say it is not worth the effort or resources.

So, what is content to you specifically?

For example:

Is it a new mount?Is it a new map?More masteries?Collections?New race?New clothing items?

What is "worth the resources"?

I am not here to argue about it, I just want to read what you think.

The biggest problem with your question is that it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things what each individual person thinks is "content" because content has a definition, and not everyone is going to like that definition, but in essence everything produced for an art form is content(not everyone is going to like the same content so there fore you're actually asking an entirely different question).

To me content is a state of happiness and I'm fine with that.

[Tumult.2578]

I suspect the actual question, is "What is worth the resources?"To that I would say a lot has changed since the start of the game and I'd like to see an effort made to verify if things like "account bound" is still as necessary and " we had to move you to another way point and you can't move or do anything until you check OK on this pop up text box" or if an opt out option might be more appropriate or doable now, for several things in the game, and why some things just don't work together or stack together...

I guess what I'm trying to say is I believe it would be "worth it" to take a look back and see what might be changed, altered, fixed, improved. I bet there is the potential to make balance updates easier and adjust the overlay to include novelties and mount skills, probably lots of stuff if the time and effort was devoted to it.I believe it took me about 9 months to do the first map completion on a character, about 2 due to map control in WvW, and parts have changed but now, mounts have brought huge changes to map completion and the whole game, in very many ways and now that time has past, a better evaluation can be made and some alterations might be helpful. Things that were not apparent at the start, might be sticking out like a sore thumb to some of the developers now.

Unlike a Skritt, I'd pass on the Shiny stuff for awhile, in favor of a look back to make the different parts of the game more solid. I think that would enhance a lot of content.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

My idea of content is expansions, mainly because of elite specialisations, I feel like they add the most to the game.

In other words, I consider content to be the additions to the game with the most long-term replayability; in this case, because elite specialisations can then propagate into all other game modes (including core), they effectively make all content retroactively replayable just by the nature of being available, and even change how PvP and WvW are presented every few years.

That's what I consider content, at least. Other stuff like new maps, fractals, etc. are limited in scope, and while enjoyable, its the content with the "big payoffs" for as many players as possible, and for as long as possible, that makes the difference.

The next big thing would be a new race, because then most existing players would be flocking to play it.

[Vayne.8563]

A new mount is not content. The acquisition for a new mount can be content, if you're not say just buying it from a heart vendor. The griffon and skyscale collections are content, insofar as they required you to play the game to get them. Farming something, lets say currency for a weapon isn't actually content in my opinion. But if you can get that currency while doing events, the events themselves are content.

I don't think anyone says events aren't content. They're simply saying they're not worth doing, because they're not rewarding enough. If you play on a gold per hour theory, you're going to only find a very limited amount of content, because obviously only certain activities will give you the required gold per hour to make them viable. In my opinion, most people don't play that way.

On the other hand, while scavenger hunts are content, they're not content for everyone. That is a lot of people are just going to find the easiest path to get through them via Dulfy or the wiki or taco and they'll just blow through it in a second. If you like scavenger hunts, and you try to find the stuff on your own, it becomes content. If following a line or a guide content? It's like asking if you have all the answers to a test and you're copying them down, are you taking a test? No, your'e not. You're just copying down answers.

It's all content. But not all people like the same kind of content. Raids are undeniably content. They will never be my content however.

[Ashantara.8731]

Story, exploration, adventure. Those are the three (worthwile) pillars of content. Everything else is either a nice byproduct (e.g., new mounts, new elite specs) or a mere grind due to a lack of actual content (like the current Stampede).

Doing dailies, for instance, isn't content. Killing mobs for achievements or for the hope of some rare reward isn't content, either. Neither is farming for gold.

[Linken.6345]

@"Hannelore.8153" said:My idea of content is expansions, mainly because of elite specialisations, I feel like they add the most to the game.

In other words, I consider content to be the additions to the game with the most long-term replayability; in this case, because elite specialisations can then propagate into all other game modes (including core), they effectively make all content retroactively replayable just by the nature of being available, and even change how PvP and WvW are presented every few years.

That's what I consider content, at least. Other stuff like new maps, fractals, etc. are limited in scope, and while enjoyable, its the content with the "big payoffs" for as many players as possible, and for as long as possible, that makes the difference.

The next big thing would be a new race, because then most existing players would be flocking to play it.

Without a new class to go with a race said new race is as much content as a combat tonic mate.

[Westenev.5289]

For me, anything the devs can fit into the live game is content, regardless of whether you or I think it was worth the time or not. Likewise, anything posted on the forums is simply a wishlist. Anyone who would take the time to debunk a wishlist is probably the sort of person who would get a kick out of opening up a kid's letter to santa before sending it back with the cookies uneaten all the grammatical errors underlined.

[AliamRationem.5172]

I'll respond in wish list format (no particular order):

• New expansion (including new elite specs, maps, story, masteries)
• New PvP game modes (i.e. something besides 5v5 capture points!)
• WvW development
• Faster release schedule for new fractals/raids
• Better class balance
• Add proper tanking and healing roles to instanced PvE content (Yeah, I know, it won't happen in this game but your raid/dungeon gameplay is seriously lacking as a result of this decision!)

[Amaranthe.3578]

New content is new activities you can do in the game:A new map, new events, new fractals/raids, a new pvp mode(yea right) etc