Originally posted by tordurbar

GW2 is not a dynamic world - it has dynamic events. I agree with others that shown that ANet got this from RIFT and Warhammer Online. Although I do enjoy DE after a while in the beta I realized that they are really no different from those in Rift - the DE start at the same place every time. The DE may spawn at different times but they make the world no more dynamic than any other mmo. Does the world change a bit? Yes. But create another toon and the same DE pops up.

I wish everyone who says that wandering around and finding quest givers rather than finding a question mark could have played EQ. They would have loved that game. You can wander around for hours finding npcs with quests and not have a fricking idea where to go and what to do. I notice that GW2 still has some question marks - they just use a star.

Yes I do enjoy GW2. I did a pre-purchase and I am glad that I did. But, as much as I like it, dynamic events are not the mmo world changer that some say.

 

Wait until you get to the zones where you're expected to ride without training wheels.

I see many arguments that the Dynamic Events are scripted/have been done before. I'll tell you one thing for sure. I will never, ever see traditional questing the same way again. I tried to play Tera and after 1 hour of questing I'm done with it, I just can't deal with it, it breaks the game immersion terribly. Sure soloing BAM's and doing dungeons might be a little fun for a while but how long can the combat keep you hooked?

I played the GW2 Beta and finished Queensdale to completion, many people are confusing heart quests with DE's, there was nothing more rewarding for me than exploring a zone and finding an event that led to an awesome boss fight that if I hadn't gone there, I would've missed it.

There's just no way someone can argue that this is not better than traditional questing, it's a fail attempt at downgrading the game.

Originally posted by tixylix

Originally posted by iller

Originally posted by tixylix
I hate this "dynamic world" term because it's not dynamic, it's just scripted events like Warhammer Online's public quests.

It's not scripted, *****.    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_data_type

(ugh, I hate when people try to argue semantics but don't even know basic computer syntaxes).

 

Scripted is:  1 happens, 2 happens a few minutes alter, and then 3 happens.  Scripted is what has always happend in every quest ever spawned since the first MMO's.   Dynamic conditions are what happens when cause and effect actually takes place over serveral large portions of the map in unexpected directions.

 

Example:  I was trying to get to this Skill Point challenge but nearby a Charr keep was being overrun even though there was like 30 people fighting in it.   They got stomped and all of a sudden a wave of Flame Legion assholes ran up with run buffs and ganked me and the guy next to me while we were still hunting for this damned entrance to the skill challenge.  When I came back later, the place was totally peaceful b/c a smaller group of BETTER PLAYERS eventually recaptured the entire area and I was able to finish my quest.

 

All I saw was the exact same events happen over and over in a scripted fashion, the same mobs, the same amount and the same objectives.... was never dynamic or any different. Infact it displayed stuff like defend for 10 waves or whatever every time......... That's scripted, not dynamic.

 

I wouldn't have a problem with them in the game but it's false advertising and saying it's something innovative and new when it isn't. It's been done before and it's always failed in thempark MMOs because they become top heavy.

I doubt you saw anything with your eyes closed, chief.

Originally posted by tordurbar
Fully expect to have to quit the game after 30 levels or so. It will be too difficult. Good game for those who make it to max level but for the noob like me - on to another mmo. [I know - good riddance. Ditto.]

Well put.

Agree with Op, about finding it hard to play other MMO's where there is no dynamic content - they feel lifeless.

But for me if was RIFT that was the cause, its nice to walk around a bend and have the chance of a different set of mobs coming towards you - not the same boring NPC that is always stood in those 5 metres. Untill I reformatted, I actually started a collection of pictures of the same area - looking in the same direction, showing different things at different times - was actually up to about 12ish iirc.

And by Dynamic I mean a event that is triggered by interaction with the game world (population of players in a area ect - and the event that happens can have several outcomes based on what interaction players have - it still goes ahead if people participate or not)

Originally posted by biggarfoot

Originally posted by Nightshade55

Originally posted by Pigozz

Originally posted by Nightshade55

Originally posted by vee41
Seems like most who had negative experience with DE's ran into those same, repeating DE's that happen around hearts. There seems to be that periodic centaur/harpie attack that triggers every 5 minutes or so around every heart. These were the worst events IMO. Around the zones you actually found lots of events that branched based on how people performed, did they fail or win and next 'stage' of the quest was decided by that outcome. And outcomes had some very direct effects to the worlds like locations becoming unavailable to players or new areas opening. It felt epic, and these were the events that did not have 5 minute repeat timers, seemed more like 1 hour or something.

     Anet commented on this a little bit. The DE's get more involved the higher up you go. Well it's not so much like a hill but rather a step if you are to view the progression curve. The beginning DE's are more simple because they found that having world/zone altering events in the beginning only frusterated people. You don't even understand how to play the game yet and here is a DE that threatens the entire zone's well being if you fail it. It was too much too soon I guess. You don't see the more permenent world alterations until just a little bit into the game. The first for the norn was in the frozenfell region. Multiple things there began to get pretty permanent. If you failed to stop the sons a whole keep would be overrun, taking away a way point to port to along with a convenient stop for rare merchandise and even  few DE's involving the keep become unavailable while it is occupied. A tower becomes destroyed if you fail while a farmer provides roadside protection for all travelers if you save his village. These last for a few hours.

     The more basic ones involve smaller benefits and consequences to ease you into the flow. Helping people allows you to purcahse special rewards from them (with the DE points you earned), gives some npc's special items to sell (give a hunter in the village a bunch of meat to smoke it and you can then purchase the smoked meat for about a half hour to an hour, good stuff too) or pushes back an enemy type into their caves for a little while. Failing to stop the gnolls for example will allow them to fortify the mines. Failing to stop the sons invade the bear shrine will kill all NPC's inside until someone clears them out (didn't witness many DE fails though because balance is wonky right now due to its beta status and the sheer amount of players was insane).

     Jesus though, later on stuff starts to make you sweat. When the shadow monster wakes up (forgot what zone that was) everybody knows its time for business. If you let that guy stomp around he will summon up minions and alter the whole zone in a matter of an hour or less into a black zone of rotting corpses, zero waypoints, and no other DE's besides stopping him. At that point he is very hard to stop too. After a certain point NPC's start spawning to wage war against him to make it easier on you if you are failing. More and more NPCs spawn until you get him. I hear though if there is no player intervention at all he branches out and effects other zones.

     He doesn't spawn often and he stays dead for quite a while. If players leave him alone though and he is allowed to raise an army its bad news. The zone can become a huge war struggle between the city and him with the players caught in the middle. If he is allowed to take the zone there is a whole new chain of DE's that open up that must be completed to make him semi-mortal again (he reaches a certain power wear he achieves his goals of immortality if you leave him alone) to kill him. You then must cut off various zones of the zone to retake them and its just a mess.

     That's not even one of the monthly resets. The endgame events work on a monthly timer and are supposed to be extremely impactful and designate the types of DE's that server will recieve in that area for the rest of the month. Defeat world crusher(?) and there is a different set of events dealing with his seperatists. Fail to defeat him and the rest of the month will be dedicated to driving him back and retaking lost towns.

    

Wha...whe...how..hbl.. :O :O :O

Source please

I didnt know about events with this impact and long resets :O :O but one word for that I have

sssssssssssssssssssssswwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeettt!!!!

     Were you in the beta? I can't source it right now the forum's are closed :(. It was a topic brought up during the beta when people asked about the status of DE's in later game (the game goes up to 80 (85?) I believe and the closest anyone got to that was like...40?). Impactuflness of DE's was brought up in a thread and Anet responded informing us that zone altering DE's were impossible in the beginning due to frusterating outcomes for people unaware of the games systems yet. The shadow monster one (his name and region are going to bug the hell out of me) was one I was a part of...and..sadly let happen.

     I heard the zone wide announcement that he was comming I just didn't make anything of it. Until I was minding my own business and saw these shadow creatures come and rampage me, while the ground slowly turned black in the horizon. From then on It was my mission to stop him. In my experience we quelled him before he became immortal so the extra event to make him mortal wasn't there yet. After we finished him and all cheered at what we had done we were informed by others in the group who had been some of the first ones to the zone and saw when he had fully taken the zone over.

     Anet then proceeded to explain the impactfulness of some of the later DE's. Which brought him to explaining that kind of scenario. Please note that the last scenario was nothing seen or proven but was given out as a speculative example of what we can expect later on.

30 was the level cap for the BWE so I was told, no official scource to clarify though.

80 will be the level cap on released game.

DE do get more intense at later levels, Anet didnt want to create intensive DE's at the start for fear of putting players off, there is a progressive learning curve with DE's.

I believe the shadow Behemoth is the correct name and is in the human starter zone within the swamps.

http://youtu.be/negeLd6w3KE

     Thank you! that was going to bug the hell out of me. Anywhome yeah. People who say DE's aren't dynamic didn't get high enough. I'm not sure, was the cap only 30 for the beta? I swear I knew some people who were 32, 33, etc. Never saw any 40s so I assumed that's where it stopped.

     I think everyone forgets that we have been to the first two zones in the game. there is still 30-80 to go through that get gradually more intense.

     The first zone warms you up with little buffs and little punishments if you fail DE's or succeed. The second zone gets a little more permanent with things lasting a few hours.

     By the third zone though entire geographies and areas start changing with certain events.

     People are making sweeping judgements about the DE's they see in the starting zone. The starting zone DE's are actually pretty dynamic  but they become much, much larger as you get in the swing of things.

     Just at level 20 I was experiencing DE's that changed entire landscapes and blocked access to some areas or granted access.

     I'm a little tired of people claiming "DE's aren't dynamic! I was level 2 and saved a bear shrine just for it to be attacked again a few minutes later!" Its not like the DE's don't make sense. Of course the sons are going to keep trying to raid the bear shrine. Of course the gnolls are going to keep pushing out of their caves. Then again, your level 2. Come talk to me when  you've dinged 25 and we will sit down and share stories about the sweeping DE's we've taken part in.

     Our server's landscape was entirely different than other servers. There is a zone where it matters what order the players are completing the DE's in. The whole zone is a storyline. They are doing some really, really, neat things with them and its a shame people think the whole game is at level 2. Even level 2 though I wouldn't mind. I mean, seriously. Within minutes of character creation I was fighting epic battles, saving villages from rampaging bears with 25+ people, Breaking down gnoll fortifications and hunting false gods with upwards of 40 people.

     They can't, and shouldn't, create DE's that have dire consequences in the starting zone. According to the dev they tested a few of them before on some of the starting zones in the closed beta and they just frusterated people. There you are trying to defend this zone from being a pile of ash and rubble from the awakened dragon over there and then noob1 and noob2 join in, thinking they are helping. Now the event is scaled up for 3 people closely cooperating. Unfortunately noob1 and noob2 don't know what the hell they are doing or even have a grasp of their skills yet. So they just run around attacking all of the infinitely spawning adds. HeroGuy shouts for them to attack the big monster but, unfortunately, the lack of a /saw function means he's talking to the whole zone and noob1 and noob2 just continue doing what they are doing and get everyone killed.

     They then go onto the forums and complain that its too hard while HeroGuy smashes his keyboard with his face. See where we are going with this? (A /say function is coming btw, WOO HOO!)

     For this reason the starting DE's have to start you off with basic benefits and consequences until you know how things work. By level 24 our server was a tightly knit family. I'd walk into the zone and ask what's the status and get instant feedback on everything going on in the zone and where I should be lending a hand. We'd work as a server to bring down mobs and it was basically working in a 100+ man raid with everybody doing exactly what they need to. Granted, generally if you follow the hearts you will be contributing in some way as long as you are completing events.

     Still though it was something of beauty when we were getting rampaged on a particular DE involving holding a town from oncomming fiend armies. We were getting smashed, defenses were down, arrow turrets were down, 3/4 of us were dead and trying to revive people. Our guardians and mesmers did what they could to shield us and disorient the hordes. It wasn't enough though. A group of the fiends smashed a building and as it crumbled we lost our last bit of cover. Spells and arrows rained down on us. The mesmers made as many clones as they could and portals to get the wounded to the back of the line to use their recoveries. Our last mesmer fell along with the best guardian I've ever met (NeverEyes you are AWESOME if you are ever around these boards for some reason). So there was me, the theif,, a handful of warriors, elementalists, rangers, and mesmers. Less than 10 of us now all together. We couldn't go revive the fallen because the hordes were advancing too fast. Some had revived and were on their way back but we failed to keep the middle waypoint town between where we were and the capital. So everyone had to respawn at the capital. Then we were told in /local that those who had been trying to run back were staying behind to help recapture the waypoint village.

     So we pretty much knew we were all going to die. Then. Out of left field a whole cavalry of warriors, mesmers, thieves, and nocromancers came in from behind the enemy hoard hooting and hollaring. The necromancers held them all in place through a series of AoE spells that caused undead hands to reach up through crumbling earth and grab the fiends feet.

     After the rest of this were stunned by what had just happened we were woken up by a /local "Revive them!". We rushed into the middle of the fray under guardian shields while the warriors blew their hornes to weaken the enemy. We revived almost everyone (those who didn't respawn and help the midpoint town) and captured the area. We then wen't back in a bolstered horde to help the middle waypoint folks. We swooped in with avengance. The small band holding the village were no match. We wen't on to do great things for the zone. When I left all waypoints were active and there was a vigilant party watching the movements of the zone boss. Even after saying farewells and moving on to other areas of the world I still came back at least 3 times to check on it.

     This adventure/story brought to you by GW2

Originally posted by jondifool

Originally posted by tixylix
I hate this "dynamic world" term because it's not dynamic, it's just scripted events like Warhammer Online's public quests.

 even if you are right from a technical point of view. (and that can be discussed , because there is more to DE than there was to WARs PQ) the real point is that GW2 DE's feels immersive wich WARs PQs never managed.

Get over it . It just so much better

He's not right from a technical standpoint.  He is completely wrong.  GW2's evetns are dynamic as the word is used in computer science and in addition are not even always the same script.

At any one point in time you cannot predict what events are going or will be going on in the next 10 minutes.  Nor can you even predict where events are.

This is the VERY DEFINTION of the term "dynamic".  This is stuff is determined and constantly being generated DURING RUNTIME. 

In Warhammer PQ were always in the same place and always either happening or about to restart.    It was completely predictable.  The only unpredicatble thing was what stage a particular PQ was on.

The Location and Existence of the PQs was STATICALLY created BEFORE RUNTIME.

This is simply an incorrect comment from someone who is either bitter or ignorant.  Or both.

This is not a matter of opinion or even arguable.  This guy is just completely wrong.

Originally posted by Nightshade55

 

 (give a hunter in the village a bunch of meat to smoke it and you can then purchase the smoked meat for about a half hour to an hour, good stuff too)    

Sheesh I need to slow down next BWE - I completely missed this.  I particularly wanted to look for 'collectors' like GW1 had (this sounds similar) and then like a kid in a candy store got distracted.  Thanx for reminding me I'll be sure to pay more attendtion next time.

I feel your pain, OP

Star Wars Galaxies spoiled me.

Originally posted by AvatarBlade

Originally posted by tixylix
I hate this "dynamic world" term because it's not dynamic, it's just scripted events like Warhammer Online's public quests.

Hehe, well short of having true AI or a GM for each and everyone of them, kind of impossible for them to be full random. It's an evolution of PQs and arguably of the rifts (some like GWs version more, others Rift's version).

Sadly even here the first poster is quite wring.  Rifts in Rift are also dynamic.  The main problem is that what is created at runtime is way to limited and predictable.  There were in fact dynamically create PQs.  The problem was it was essentially the same PQ each time.

People can and should be wowed by dynamic events.  But Rift should not be ignored they were very innovative, they did dynamic create of events and they did it well,  they just needed the "objects" they created to be more interesting.

I would also say that there is a subtle but incredibly powerful difference between GW2 and Rift.  This that GW2 Dyanmic events are actually part of the world and terrain.  But rifts were simply an overlay on top of the world.  They had less context and were therefore even less powerful.  You just ran from one to the other looking for the glowy.

The dynamic nature of Rift is there and its powerful.  Rifts were alot of fun because of it.  But they got old and they were divorced from the world.  GW2 did not need to fall into the trap on not being able to differentiate their dynamic "objects" becasue they did not have a huge list of 1000s of quest like Rift does.  And their design choice of how to do the events has the happy coincincidience of grounding in the world more not less.

Just the way the npc's run up to you and say "hey you over here" or the conversations you here in cities that lead to quests. I can't play any other mmo after experiencing guild wars 2 beautifully crafted and immersive world.

Originally posted by tordurbar

GW2 is not a dynamic world - it has dynamic events. I agree with others that shown that ANet got this from RIFT and Warhammer Online. Although I do enjoy DE after a while in the beta I realized that they are really no different from those in Rift - the DE start at the same place every time. The DE may spawn at different times but they make the world no more dynamic than any other mmo. Does the world change a bit? Yes. But create another toon and the same DE pops up.

I wish everyone who says that wandering around and finding quest givers rather than finding a question mark could have played EQ. They would have loved that game. You can wander around for hours finding npcs with quests and not have a fricking idea where to go and what to do. I notice that GW2 still has some question marks - they just use a star.

Yes I do enjoy GW2. I did a pre-purchase and I am glad that I did. But, as much as I like it, dynamic events are not the mmo world changer that some say.

 

Put GW1 into an open world and you'll realize where they got their DE's from, thanks for trying though.

Has anyone who played GW1 PVE actually paid attention to their quests and realize what would they be likein an open world? Anyone?

Other than the going back to the same guy but if you played a lot of quests you'll realize that in order for the gameplay style to be done in an open and persistent world they would need to be dynamic themselves and make sense.

Originally posted by tordurbar

GW2 is not a dynamic world - it has dynamic events. I agree with others that shown that ANet got this from RIFT and Warhammer Online. Although I do enjoy DE after a while in the beta I realized that they are really no different from those in Rift - the DE start at the same place every time. The DE may spawn at different times but they make the world no more dynamic than any other mmo. Does the world change a bit? Yes. But create another toon and the same DE pops up.

I wish everyone who says that wandering around and finding quest givers rather than finding a question mark could have played EQ. They would have loved that game. You can wander around for hours finding npcs with quests and not have a fricking idea where to go and what to do. I notice that GW2 still has some question marks - they just use a star.

Yes I do enjoy GW2. I did a pre-purchase and I am glad that I did. But, as much as I like it, dynamic events are not the mmo world changer that some say.

 

Also incorrect portions of the GW2 world are dynamic.  Waypoint can be taken over by ally or enemy NPCs.  A few other things can change as well.

But the world is not all that dynamic.  Or at least the first zone up to level 25 weren't.  There were some instances of dynamic elements in the world.  But they were not huge.

As for "taking" the idea of dynamic things from Rift.  This is silly.  Dynamically created stuff has been part of computer science since the 1950s.

What happens in a Dynamic events is not nearly as predicable as WAR PQ or a Rift.  Those always had basically 3 stages which were always in the same place and almost always were a kill x mobs with some minor varitions like need to kill stuff in order to pick stuff up.

Dynamic Events can be anything from simply defending a waypoint against 7 waves of centaur (who can take that waypoint and make it unusable) and no other stages to a scrpeted exploration quest that anyone can join into to a rather complex multi stage affair where each stage occurs in a different place one stag is kill a boss, one stage is kill waves of things and another stage has no killing at all.  And in some case what event gets spawned off next can vary.

In end all most people are arguing against is that somehow Anet should have used something other than scripting to have created the dynamic events.  Well let me know when you invent it.  Currently every single game in existence is limited by this.  They then make the logical falicy that since they can predict that script/stage the system as a whole is predictable or somehow lessened.  Or that because there is a scripted stage anything with a scripted stage is exactly the same thing.

This is silly.

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by tordurbar

GW2 is not a dynamic world - it has dynamic events. I agree with others that shown that ANet got this from RIFT and Warhammer Online. Although I do enjoy DE after a while in the beta I realized that they are really no different from those in Rift - the DE start at the same place every time. The DE may spawn at different times but they make the world no more dynamic than any other mmo. Does the world change a bit? Yes. But create another toon and the same DE pops up.

I wish everyone who says that wandering around and finding quest givers rather than finding a question mark could have played EQ. They would have loved that game. You can wander around for hours finding npcs with quests and not have a fricking idea where to go and what to do. I notice that GW2 still has some question marks - they just use a star.

Yes I do enjoy GW2. I did a pre-purchase and I am glad that I did. But, as much as I like it, dynamic events are not the mmo world changer that some say.

 

Also incorrect portions of the GW2 world are dynamic.  Waypoint can be taken over by ally or enemy NPCs.  A few other things can change as well.

But the world is not all that dynamic.  Or at least the first zone up to level 25 weren't.  There were some instances of dynamic elements in the world.  But they were not huge.

 

As for "taking" the idea of dynamic things from Rift.  This is silly.  Dynamically created stuff has been part of computer science since the 1950s.

 

What happens in a Dynamic events is not nearly as predicable as WAR PQ or a Rift.  Those always had basically 3 stages which were always in the same place and almost always were a kill x mobs with some minor varitions like need to kill stuff in order to pick stuff up.

Dynamic Events can be anything from simply defending a waypoint against 7 waves of centaur (who can take that waypoint and make it unusable) and no other stages to a scrpeted exploration quest that anyone can join into to a rather complex multi stage affair where each stage occurs in a different place one stag is kill a boss, one stage is kill waves of things and another stage has no killing at all.  And in some case what event gets spawned off next can vary.

 

In end all most people are arguing against is that somehow Anet should have used something other than scripting to have created the dynamic events.  Well let me know when you invent it.  Currently every single game in existence is limited by this.  They then make the logical falicy that since they can predict that script/stage the system as a whole is predictable or somehow lessened.  Or that because there is a scripted stage anything with a scripted stage is exactly the same thing.

This is silly.

     You know, I was about to pass over your post and then I realized its pure genius. This is true of any game. However, for a better understanding of the DE's in GW2 look at my above posts. Although lengthy, they outline what the majority of the DE's actually are. It gets annoying to hear someone complain about DE's to realize they were level 6 and hadn't left the starting area. DE's in the starting area must be relatively tame to not frusterate new players. Anet commented on this on the beta forums, how it isn't common knowledge by now is beyond me.

    For one the starting zones are actually pretty dynamic. With all the players there was really no chance to fail any of them. Wait until you start failing DE's and you will see the consequences. In just the norn starting area there are four areas that become completely taken over if there aren't people there pushing the forces back. There is a waypoint that becomes inactive and an area that becomes completely unaccessable. Its impossible to see these in beta's though. The event's, for one, need some balancing. The scaling was a bit off in that too few players made them too difficult and too many made them too easy. Anet has commented on this and is tweaking numbers for the next event.

     You'd have to be wearing blinders though to not be impressed by the DE's even past level 10. Forget about level 20+ which, don't forget, is still very early in the game (80 levels total).

     I was impressed by the starting zone. More impressed by the second zone I visited. By the time I hit zone three 20+ I was completely awe struck at how much these events effect.