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Guild Wars 2 Interviews: Dynamic Events Interview
After yesterday's reveal of the Guild Wars 2 Dynamic Events system, MMORPG.com's Jon Wood had a few questions for ArenaNet Lead Content Designer Colin Johanson.
By Jon Wood on May 13, 2010
After yesterday's reveal of the Guild Wars 2 Dynamic Events system, MMORPG.com's Jon Wood had a few questions for ArenaNet Lead Content Designer Colin Johanson.
| MMORPG.com: | For those who may not be familiar with it, can you summarize the dynamic event system? |
| Colin Johanson: | The dynamic event system in Guild Wars 2 replaces the old concept of the static quest you find in a traditional MMO. We want to get rid of the old MMO paradigm where players run around looking for NPCs with bangs or question marks over their heads. You run up, talk to this character, receive paragraphs of text that few people bother to read describing something you need to do, and then you run off and do it. When you’re done, you return and speak to the NPC who gave you the quest, the quest ends, you get a reward… and the world never changes. In the Guild Wars 2 dynamic event system, an event will kick off in the world and players will see things in their environment – like smoke from a burning caravan - and hear NPCs shouting about what is happening. You’ll never have to read a big chunk of quest text to find out what’s going on; you’ll actively see and hear about it. Based on what happens in that event, the world will change and the event will chain out into other events that cascade across the map, creating a truly dynamic and ever-changing world. Players can choose to participate in events that occur all over the map, which have a cascading cause-and-effect in the game world based on player participation and the outcome of the event chain. Events exist in a persistent world; they are content shared between all the players who choose to participate in them. They can even be triggered by actions the players take as they explore and play in the game. Let me give you an example of the Guild Wars 2 dynamic event system in action. Players can gain access to the home city of the skritt -a bunch of rat people- but first, they need to progress an event chain in order to win over their trust. The event chain begins with skritt outside the closed city being kidnapped by members of the Nightmare Court - evil sylvari. Players can join in the event chain and attempt to stop the skritt from being kidnapped. If the Nightmare Court succeeds in kidnapping the skritt, they take their captives back to a prison, where they prepare to torture and brainwash them. A new event will kick off to rescue the skritt from their captors before they become brainwashed. If the players don’t save the skritt prisoners, the Nightmare Court will drive them insane, and these brainwashed skritt will launch an attack on their brethren back at the home city - which will kick off a new event to help defend the skritt city from the insane ones! On the other hand, should the players save the skritt from their kidnappers, the event chain will alter dramatically. The skritt will become more trusting towards the players and open the front gate of their home city, allowing players inside. From there, events will cascade out into further chains that kick off as a result of the skritt city being opened. Eventually the chains will reach a point where the players can complete events that open up an audience with the king of the skritt, which will in turn launch an entire new set of events. Should the skritt king ever be slain in the ensuing chains of events that follow, the event chain cycles back around as the skritt throw the players out of the city and turn their backs on the “untrustworthy” outsiders. Players will then need to complete different event chains in order to win back the trust of the skritt and get invited into their city once again, where they will access different event chains. The particular events in this area involve dozens of different events, all contained within various chains involving the skritt city. Event chains like the ones I’ve described with the skritt make exploring our game world a new and exciting experience every time. The world won’t feel like a static place where what you do doesn’t make a difference; your actions will directly affect the game world. |
| MMORPG.com: | Will dynamic events completely replace traditional MMO quests, or will there be a mix of the two? |
| Colin Johanson: | Our dynamic event system is just one of the major content systems we’ve developed to replace traditional static MMO style quests. The second system we’ve developed is your player’s personal storyline. The idea behind this new form of content is that in MMORPGs your character never actually really establishes a personality or an identity in the world. MMOs seem to have forgotten to put the “RPG” in their MMORPGs. In Guild Wars 2, the game is the story of YOUR character. You make decisions and choices that will directly affect the content you experience. You’ll make friends, enemies, and hard emotional choices. You will face the consequences and reap the rewards from all your decisions. We’re using our personal storyline to take the best aspects of an RPG and add them to an MMO. You can play your personal story on your own, or bring your friends along to help you and experience your story, just like you can help them with their own story. We’ll be discussing our personal story system and other engaging content like dungeons and mini-games in greater detail soon. |
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| MMORPG.com: | Won’t the full time operation of dynamic events, which appear from your dev journal to not be re-used, take up a great deal of time, energy and cost on the part of the developers and / or publishers? |
| Colin Johanson: | It’s important to clarify that the event system is cyclical in nature. Events will occur again in the game world; they go in cycles where chains of events cascade out based on decisions and actions taken by the players. These events change the world when they occur, but it isn’t a change that lasts forever in the persistent world, it’s a change that lasts as long as the event chains in the area continue along that path until they cycle around into other events, all driven by player actions. For instance, let’s say you want to take over a fort that the centaurs used to own and keep it under player control? Players need only fight to hold the area; should they lose control of the area, the event chain will cycle and the centaurs will begin launching assaults from their re-captured fort. That being said, the dynamic event system is one of the great gambles we’re taking in developing Guild Wars 2. In a traditional MMO, you can make a handful of quests that each last 10 minutes, and because every player can do that content, you’ve just done enough work to keep players busy for an hour of gameplay. Because the dynamic event system goes in cycles and branches out across the map, and because a specific event won’t always be running but instead will be going through various chains, we need to develop far more content to ensure that the player always has something fun and exciting to do in the world. If a traditional MMO quest takes, say, 10 minutes, we have to build an event chain made up of 3 events that all last 10 minutes, since only one of those events in that specific chain can be occurring at a time. At that point, we’ve done at least three times the amount of content creation to fill up the same amount of gameplay. Going into the project we recognized this as one of the great obstacles, and to overcome it, we’re developing a staggering amount of content to make the game world always feel alive and exciting. We believe the MMO genre has been too risk-averse for too long. We are challenging the normal conventions of the MMO genre and have found ways to really innovate and change the way people view these games. The event system is at the forefront of the content we’re developing to challenge this convention, and we’ve seen tremendous results from our internal testing so far. The costs and challenges associated with developing a system like Guild Wars 2 is worth it because of the long-term gain for the players in the content they are going to experience. From playing the game together constantly as a studio, we’ve seen that the risk is really paying off. Other developers have talked a big game about innovative new features and have under-delivered. We’re committed to delivering on our promises with our innovations. We’re playing through event chains in the fully functioning dynamic event system on a daily basis, and we’re having a freaking blast playing it together! |
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| MMORPG.com: | If these events simply happen, and the consequences of player actions are felt across the game world, how do you make enough of this content for every player? Won’t a great number of players miss the content? |
| Colin Johanson: | As I mentioned before, the amount of work it takes to fill a game like this using a dynamic event system is massive. We recognize this and are embracing that workload to ensure that there is enough content so that every player always has something new and fun to do in the game world. While a player might miss one particular event, the idea is that they haven’t missed out on the fun of the game world; they’ve simply missed one specific thing that occurred. If one player in one part of the map is off experiencing an event where centaur shaman create a massive tornado which spews forth earth elementals, another player in a different part of the map will be experiencing an equally awesome event chain where a centaur army is assaulting the village of Beetletun, destroying homes, smashing down the city gates, and chopping down the citizens. The goal is that players should never feel like they missed out on the cool thing, but rather that everyone is constantly experiencing different cool and amazing moments, so they all have unique and interesting stories to tell one another. |
| MMORPG.com: | How do Guild Wars 2’s dynamic events differ from similar sounding, already existing game mechanics like, say, public quests in Warhammer Online? |
| Colin Johanson: | The difference between these two systems lies in the word “dynamic.” When a public quest ends the game world does not change; the actions the players took really made no difference. A timer starts counting down and then the public quest runs again. In Guild Wars 2, when a dynamic event ends, the game will be changed as a result of the event occurring. The event will then chain and cascade out into other events that occur as a direct result of the outcome of the previous event, creating a world where the content is dynamic and changes based on player participation and activity. You’ll never encounter a point in Guild Wars 2 where you complete a task and a timer pops up and says, “4 minutes until the thing you just did happens again.” It breaks your sense of immersion and gives you a sense that things you do in the game world don’t really matter. Another major difference is because the events dynamically scale in difficulty, anyone can participate in and complete them, regardless of how many people are in the zone. Their public quest system required a lot of people to be in the area to complete most of the quests, because they were too difficult for the single player. So when server population went down, or you were off playing solo, or the population in the game moved on to higher level maps, people couldn’t play the public quests. People will always be able to participate in the dynamic event system- anytime, anywhere, at any point in the game’s life cycle. The final core difference between our dynamic event system and public quests is that everyone who actively participates in the event will receive the full reward for the event. There will be no instance where someone shows up for the last 30 seconds of the event, kills a couple minotaurs, and then receives the best reward from the loot system. If you participate fully in the event, you get the reward, period. There is also the added bonus you can experience our dynamic event system without having to pay a monthly fee! |
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| MMORPG.com: | Players reading this dev journal are going to have high hopes for a dynamic sandbox style game. Is this where their expectations should be for this game, or will there be more traditional theme park elements as well? |
| Colin Johanson: | When we sat down to decide what Guild Wars 2 should be as a game, we focused on taking every element of traditional MMOs and finding ways to improve, innovate, and evolve them. We’re using the dynamic event system to give the persistent world a sense of that sandbox element because we felt it was the best way to reinvent the way people view persistent worlds. We’ve developed our personal story system to really give players a sense of personal story and progression in an MMO. We’re developing other forms of content like dungeons and mini-games that we’ll discuss in the future that fall a bit more into the theme park elements you’re asking about. The goal is to make a game that improves on the things that MMOs do well and to evolve the genre in new innovative ways that solve the things that MMOs don’t do well. |
| MMORPG.com: | What does this new system mean for solo players? Will those who like to play alone in MMOs be squeezed out of the game entirely, or forced to work cooperatively with others to achieve? |
| Colin Johanson: | We want all player types to be able to enjoy and experience Guild Wars 2 as much as the next; it’s one of our key design philosophies behind the game. People should be able to play in the world the way they want, have fun, and be rewarded for doing so. You can do your personal story line entirely by yourself, or you can bring friends along to experience it with you. If you’re the only person in the area, you can participate in events all by yourself. They scale dynamically in difficulty, so even if a single player is doing the event, it will scale so that player can complete it. We’ll never force you to work with others, but we will make it a rewarding and fun experience to do so. No one will ever steal your kills, or steal your event participation. Anyone who actively participates in killing a creature or participating in an event will be rewarded for doing so. If other players arrive at the dynamic event you’re participating in, the event will scale so you both have enough to do and you don’t ever feel like another player is stealing your content or encroaching on your territory. Instead, they’re simply there to help accomplish the shared goals of the world. At any given time, you can wander off into the world and explore and do your own thing - the choice is yours! |
My god, this sounds amazing. I really have a hard tie getting excited about a new game now-a-days after all the letdowns, especially RPG's and MMO's specifically. Despite my fighting it, this just makes me drool in anticipation.
When I first heard about these 'Dynamic Events' I had quite a few questions, like about them being cyclical, etc, But the interviewer did a great job of answering most all of them. The one remaining thought I had was:
Will there be 'Rare' events? Like events that require 4 different Event Lines to all reach a certain point in the line of quests for a so called 'rare' event to happen? If these were to have a rare reward. Like if everything in a large region all went perfect (or perfectly wrong!) would it accidentally release a dragon from its imprisonment. Something like this would really motivate people to work together to get the chance to unleash a dragon.
that certanly create rage fury kind of hype =p
That´s all just TOO amazing to be true, a game that started as a "good and cheap game to play while your waited p2p is in the baking" its reaching the ranks very fast with these all innovations, "ScreenShot or it didnt happend" will be my motto, too many scars re-opening =x
GO GO GO GOOD TEAM
I'm very much looking forward to the Beta. God, I hope it happens soon.
After AoC and WAR launches I try not to get too hyped about up and coming games.. But after reading all the stuff about GW2, if they can pull off all this sunshine they are blasting up my rear, you can slap an ArenaNet sticker on my forehead and call me a fanboi.. lol
I'm trying to love it but it really just sounds like another form of questing.
Just that you don't have to talk to NPC's first and then return to them for reward, and often you'll have other players participating in the same quests at the same time.
It's just that we'll each have some-what "unique" quest lines.
I dunno.. I hate to be a skeptic but it sounds too good to be true, I'll have to wait and see how it actually plays.
Depending on the level of repetition in the cycles of the event chains, I do expect to see a "ok we're on this part of the chain now if we lose we'll get this stage next and it's more fun / has better rewards then if we win this stage and move on to this event.."
This.
Yet, it all lines up. A.Net has proven their B2P business model works. They have delivered solid gaming and have shown they care about the gamer, not lining their own pockets. I think we're all just a little tired of being ran around with promises and nothing but credit card payments to show for it.
It's obvious through the animations released, the manifesto, and interviews that A.Net are not afraid to put quality into their work. It's also obvious through their previous launch that they deliver the expectations they set.
There is no question that A.Net is breaking grounds that have been stagnant since 2004. There is no question about wether or not I'll be buying a box. While I'm at it, better make it two...
In one of the interviews over at eurogamer or IGN (can't remember which) they do actually mention rare events. They mention that certain locations can be affected by multiple dynamic events simultaneously so those can probably produce some unique combinations. Also they mentioned that there are some events connected to extremely rare world drops and these items usually trigger a large scale event that everyone in the region will have to deal with such as a major boss encounter like you describe.
What I really hope is that people don't decide that a certain event in the sequence is somehow the 'best' one. I can just imagine them screaming in /ooc telling people to deliberately fail an event just to fix it on a certain path...
First off, this game sounds amazing but I can't quite wrap my head around some things:
1. As a casual player, if I log out for a few days while inside a town, and while I was away those centaurs overrun the town, what happens when I log back in?
2. Again, as a casual player, if I put an hour of time into a Dynamic Event but one of the event steps is not completed when I log, do I still get those rewards? Do I get them when I log back in?
3. What about gear/weapons? If 100 ppl complete a chain that takes out the Dredge King will he drop "epic" gear? Does everybody get said "epic" gear? What about normal drops from trash mobs, will there be a loot bag for the entire 100 ppl?
4. How do we know the steps in an event chain? Quest tracker? Journal? How do we know when we have completed a certain event? Do we get gear rewards from completeing events? What about exp or gold from saving a town?
5. I wonder how the Dynamic Scaling occurs. If a party of 4 is doing an event and suddenly 20 other players camp right outside our battle (close enough to do something, but purposly not entering the battle), will my event scale to match those extra players when they want to take no part in our battle, thus making it impossible for my party of 4?
I am cautiously optomistic. So far this game sounds very impressive, but it is still a long way aways from release and a lot can change.
Yeah, I followed what ArenaNet did in GW1 closely, though never actually played the game. The way it was instanced and such just never appealed to me. Always found myself saying "If only it was in a persistent world"....
I also like how complete the game looks already. We just got word of it a week or so ago, and it already looks like it is more complete than some other titles that have been getting hype for much longer (FFXIV and SW:TOR respectively). Which again I like; seems to be a bit of a strategy to avoid other companies who might try to patch similar features into their already mature product before GW2 has a chance to hit the shelves.
I love how he pretty much completely ignored the second question and used that question to talk about a different game system. Grant it, the question didn't deal with Guild Wars 2 so much as it delt with the whole MMO-genre, but I still think it's funny.
He also seems to contridict himself. He says that it will change the world, but then he goes on to say it will be cyclical and start over eventually. So I guess it changes the world, but only for some period of time. Then he goes on to contrast Guild Wars 2's "Dynamic" Events system with War's Public Quest system, but they really aren't so different on a macroscale, because eventually they both repeat.
I'm still stoked for this game, espicially since I've been a fan of Guild Wars since Beta, but I don't appreciate the double-speak and ignoring of questions.
Sounds very interesting, especially his answer to the "sandbox" question...
This Dynamic Events system seems to be very close to some of my thoughts a while back on is the future of mmos "sandbox" or "themepark". IMO the future is both - sandbox in the sense that players actively influence the state of their shared world and themepark in that the nature of the changes is that they are scripted in a themepark fashion. Example: A proper "sandbox" would have you build your house wherever you want and leave you at that.. a hybrid sandbox-themepark (which GW2 seems to be striving for) would let you buy a pre-existing house, or a plot and trigger events (or quests) around it.
I really hope they make this work, the idea is very sound but I fear the possibility of different event chains interfering with each other. Additionally another question that no one asked so far, (maybe) is how long do those event chains last? If they are fairly short then we have not really moved too far away from WAR's PQs - the world would cycle through its possible states too fast for players to get a sense of difference between servers, and the "state of the game world" would actually stay pretty much the same given enough time. WAR is a good example of what happens when the world-state can change too fast with capital sieges happening daily.. it all becomes one blur where no one really cares what's the score, just wait long enough (which is quite short) and things will turn around for you. I hope that there are some really long event chains, lasting days at least, or maybe even weeks, so you could really get the feel that the game's world is evolving but still solid. Basically, when I log in after a 12 hr break I don't want the world-state to be completely different from what I left (and actually participated in creating) - I'd like to see some things changed while I'm away but imo the feeling of persistence would suffer greatly if more than a portion (say 1/4) of the world state changed in a 24 hr period.
I actually found this interview dissapointing - not in the questions or the thoroughness of the answers, just in that as someone said that these quests don't actually change the game world.
They're just more elaborate public quests. If it is all going to cycle back to the same starting point thing it's entirely possible that I have two different characters that wind up doing the same quest twice at different times, with the same result. I know he said that there would be different cycles, and I think they're hoping that the branches will all be fully explored, but as mentioned earlier, some people are going to figure out what the easiest/best way to do each quest is and they're going to tell evryone else "Don't kill that centaur, let him escape that will triggerXXX".
What I was hoping for was different factions controlled by RTS styled AI that sometimes tells players "Go kill 20 centaurs" and once they do, they come back and the guy says "OK, let's take their town". Meanwhile you have the centaur leader telling people "We are about to be under seige, defend us", because his own AI at that point says "Recruit players to help with defense."
But imagine 50 factions, one being a mad alchemist searching for the best ingredient, one being a dragon looking for a stolen treasure, one being the Skirtt king etc etc, that alll just get sort of let loose upon the world and convince the players to help with their pre-programmed goals (accumulate treasure, expand their empire, develop a new spell etc).
Then when a player logs into one server, it may be that the Centaurs have taken over half the continent, and on another server (or the same at a much later date) they Centaurs are struggling to survive, etc.
If everything works out like they say it will, this'll be the MMO of the new decade.
I think when they said it won't be the same is there would be multiple simulateous events occuring at the same time meaning that you would very rarely see the exact same scenario twice. For example the Dredge, a dragon and some centaurs could attack a village at the same time as less as a host of other events occuring simulataneous but it would be very unlikely to see such an scenario again. The more events they add the more variables they add the less likely any scenario at any one time will occur. It's basically like the lotter,y the more balls you add the more variables the number of combinations shoot up.
Hopefully they do add some factions with specific goal with rts style AI which can for example try to take control of all small outposts attacking the ones with least defences first and optimum strategic points as they wage a campain. However not all factions need to be like this as it would even further complicate things. only a few like the centaurs dragons and dredge etc.
Your never going to get all of the information, specifically you want, from a single interview.
I don't think he said how long the cycles are so yeah a short cycle would certainly give more of an appearance of a WAR Public Quest. But what if it cycles on say a weekly or monthly scale? Also it did say that players influence that cycle so it at least seems possible that there is more then one branch to go down. With many of these going on at the same time it would be very easy to give the appearance of constant change. It also seems like it would be possible for the cycles to influence each other creating more variablity. With only a little information to go on it is hard to tell but given their track record I would expect something very different from WAR.
I played and respect the creativity of GW1 which by some is passed off as a PvP game. The PvE content was fun. What it lacks for me was an epic feeling, instancing being part of the issue. However, instancing also offerred something in return which is the that you could play with the people that fit your style. In an open world with open objectives the group dynamic will change but the benefit will be that epic feeling. I'm optimistic.
The contradictory nature of the interview was quite clear and its fluff piece shame the interviewer didnt pick up on it.
The first half he was saying "cycle" every other word but then when asked about Warhammer Online's Public Quests he says they are "dynamic" and dont have a timer.
Just because you cant see a timer doesnt mean one isnt there.
Lets say a dragon destroys a town, the town is now ruined. Is the town ruined forever or does it get rebuilt? When it is rebuilt does a dragon attack it again?
In the preview yesterday he talked about finding an orb in a cave will start an event. Is that orb a one time event or does it have a respawn timer? Like it spawns every 5 days.
Im not saying it isnt a very interesting idea but just being a realist. It seems like it will all be "OH MY GOD This is soooooo awesome!!!!!" at the beginning but turn into an event calendar kind of thing after a while. Like "ok, the dragon will attack the town on Wednesday and on Thursday we spawn the Ancient Evil".
Your example is incorrect there is no timer in that 5 hours after the dragon has destroyed it the town is rebuilt. There will however between a timer before the towns people restart rebuilding but enemies will be attacking them meaning that if the enemy never loses the town will stay like that indefinately. The players have to do things in order to revert them back. It isn't just magically reset you must retake the town, you must protect those trying to rebuild the village etc.
That's what I was thinking too. Reading the info it doesn't seem there'll be a event calendar the AI is working it's way through, but more an interactive system based upon the actions players have taken. With a large number of those event chains happening and different results of players' actions leading to different branches, it means that the chances that a region will be the same the last time you visited will be slim. That town could be friendly territory again, but in one situation that NPC king is still alive while in another he is dead and you have to win favor back, while that centaur shaman may be rampaging around with his elementals where he wasn't the last time.
I do think that there are 'end' states a region can be in per dynamic event chain, one where players have fought back or accomplished their tasks successfully leading to a - or one of a few? - end results (ie having conquered a dredge basis that stays conquered as long as the hordes of dredges are being kept fought of), and one where entropy settles in, the other side where no players have intervened successfully. Since there are several dynamic events happening in the same region this could also be that maybe the dredge camp could stay conquered while the centaur army has run unchecked up to the end.
Anyway, we'll see, interested in the beta though.
This is actually old school rather than something new. Asheron's Call had these type of dynamic events with the Shadows Wars and the Crystal Shard. It worked great in that game, I have very fond memories of these events so hopefully they'll be able to recapture some of that magic I had when playing AC almost a decade ago.
Some of you don't seem to understand that the events should have to be recycled eventually. Otherwise thousands of people would miss out on a ton of stuff. From the interview it sounds like it wont just restart, but it'll make sense. Like a fort will be recaptured if a certain event is failed. Or maybe a new king is crowned after a certain event if the old one is killed (kings and queens die all the time).
We also have to remember this is a game and we can't sacrifice fun for realism all the time.
Like most people I've been let down by too many MMOs lately so hopefully this one will be good, but I wont "wait" for it like I did with the other ones.
I've been waiting for something like this for 15 years. I really hope they pull it off.
This sounds awesome. Hope they can pull it off well...if they can you can call me fanboi!
Basicaly what he is describing sounds more like "state" then "cycle". In essence a particular game object (say a village) can be in one of multiple states (freindly, captured, destroyed, under attack, etc). The actions that the players take can change the objects current state... once the new state is opened up it allows a new set of state choices (based upon play actions) to become eligible. Obviously it's a closed system, in that certain results can lead back to previously encountered states. However the key point is that what the players DO determines the state of the objects in the world.
That's a big step up from todays largely static MMO's.
I actually found this interview dissapointing - not in the questions or the thoroughness of the answers, just in that as someone said that these quests don't actually change the game world.
They're just more elaborate public quests. If it is all going to cycle back to the same starting point thing it's entirely possible that I have two different characters that wind up doing the same quest twice at different times, with the same result. I know he said that there would be different cycles, and I think they're hoping that the branches will all be fully explored, but as mentioned earlier, some people are going to figure out what the easiest/best way to do each quest is and they're going to tell evryone else "Don't kill that centaur, let him escape that will triggerXXX".
What I was hoping for was different factions controlled by RTS styled AI that sometimes tells players "Go kill 20 centaurs" and once they do, they come back and the guy says "OK, let's take their town". Meanwhile you have the centaur leader telling people "We are about to be under seige, defend us", because his own AI at that point says "Recruit players to help with defense."
But imagine 50 factions, one being a mad alchemist searching for the best ingredient, one being a dragon looking for a stolen treasure, one being the Skirtt king etc etc, that alll just get sort of let loose upon the world and convince the players to help with their pre-programmed goals (accumulate treasure, expand their empire, develop a new spell etc).
Then when a player logs into one server, it may be that the Centaurs have taken over half the continent, and on another server (or the same at a much later date) they Centaurs are struggling to survive, etc.
I mean it is eventually going to have to repeat the same event even though im sure it branches out far more than public quests in WH which each PQ did not change any event after that. Unfortunately I am pretty sure God isn't on their dev roster, so sorry they cant create the content for an actual infinite number of possibilities you are just gonna have to have a bit more of a realistic expectation of a computer game lol.
I agree and think states just sound more appropriate. I think the skeptics are just generalizing the feature a bit much. Yes, its like public questing without all the halfass-ness but more importantly it sets the motion of simulating an actual evolving world. This could very well lay the groundwork for much more complex things.
Who cares if the actual task you do is going to be "recycled", that's really not the point. If you cannot think beyond just tasks, then stick to the quest system please, I would like to further encourage more of this future-minded design and less of the current.
This is big enough and compelx enough in itself, imagine the feature being taken many steps further. It'll be what many are looking for in an MMO, more of an adventure and less like following linear paths. Rather reading walkthroughs knowing where to go and what to expect, you have to work within the states that the world exists at every given moment, just like in an actual world.
This is huge and I look forward to see this in action myself along with the environmental combat, interactions and hopefully whatever non-combat implementations taht ArenaNet are looking to do. Have to appreciate a forward-thinking company and these people sound like one of the few in the industry currently.
Although I am very excited about this dynamic event system, I agree that it will certainly have its limitations, and I worry that it will be more of a novelty rather than a benchmark in game design. Unless they come up with some sort of engine that generates content randomly (which would be awesome) then eventually you will be recycled through the same content. Hopefully, they manage to create enough content with a great enough variety that it takes a considerable amount of time for players to start to notice patterns in the content. Either way, it is likely that this system will be more entertaining than the usual quest systems in MMOs, and I think its great that they are taking a shot at it, especially since this is not a subscription based game.
My only real question at the moment is "how much voice acting is going to be in the game?" They have made a big deal a few times about how reading paragraphs of text is bad design, and they describe the dynamic quest system as something we just "see and go along with." The question is, isn't that sort of system going to require a pretty sizable amount of voice acting? Sure, no words are needed for an event such as a dragon attacking a village due to its visually self-explanatory nature, but what about events having to do with speaking species and intricate plotlines? Are we just going to see big streams of chat bubbles above the NPC's heads?
They really need to make a video of one of these event chains in action rather than just giving us a bunch of hypothetical written examples.
I think the main focus they are getting at is that you're not going to be reading paragraphs upon paragraphs of quest lore that ends up often getting ignored and following the basic quest system.
I can still see them using written words for dialogue, I don't think that will take away anything when you're in the heat of the moment. It'll definitely add to it, but I imagine that wuold take considerable amounts of voice acting for every single scenario. Maybe in the personal stories but not the dynamic events.
well duh ... of course its going to by cyclical. they aren't going to put all this work in the world if its a one time thing.
I imagine it will be like this, dynamic event will happen where centaurs will attack a town and establish that as a fort. if players fail to save the town it becomes the centaur fort. centaurs then launch attacks on other towns for a few days but then eventually they will be kicked out of that town by an NPC army (if no players help) and the town will be rebuilt. only to have the centaurs attack another day.
but thats pretty cool you could even have those as player events.
players battle for town - one event
if players lose - players now have to stop the centuars from building a fort - another event
if players dont do that - centaurs send warband to other towns - more fights for players
main kingdom sends help to take down fort with players help
once recaptured the town must be rebuilt - players must gather items to help rebuild, and maybe crafters must help.
love the sound of this system.
as for the casual player that asked "what happens if you log in a town that is overtaken after you log out" ... You die most games don't have a harsh death penalty so who cares.
There's a fansite called http://www.guildwars2guru.com/
They have links to other articles regarding this dynamic event system, as well as their own interview.
I hope MMORPG doesn't mind me linking the fansite. I apologize if I've violated any linking rules.
I have high hopes, I think they can pull it off, my only concern is players attempting to exploit the cyclical nature of these events.
Dynamic events that actually effect the world sounds awesome, and I am very glad to see that they are learning from WAR's deeply flawed PQ system.
It can go back to the events original state..depending on what choice you make. But it doesnt mean it will certainly do. I think you misudnerstood what he said.
Depending upon how sophisticated thier system is, it really opens up some interesting possibilities...
Imagine the following:
There is a simple mine somewhere. There is a random chance that it can be attacked by critters (maybe say giant spiders) on any given day. If the critters capture the mine (no players intervene or the players fail in the attempt), it becomes the spiders lair (state 1), if the critters are driven off it remains a working mine (state 2). If it's in the state of the spiders lair, if players kill x number of spiders it can go back to a working mine again (state 1).
In itself this doesn't sound too exciting....until you realize that the state the mine is in can have consequences elsewhere...
Say if the mine is working then the militia of a nearby village are well armed, if not then they are poorly armed. On a random timer (completely unrelated to the one in the mine) the village has the possibility of being attacked by orcs. The militia, regardless of armament, will fight against the orcs. If they are better armed, they'll fight better....regardless it'll be upto players to determine the outcome of the fight. The results can lead to one of 3 states for the village. If the players beat off the orc attack with ease then the village remains in it's normal operational state (state 1), if the players beat off the orc attack but with great difficulty then the village is sacked (state 2) it remains freindly but most of it's services are non-functional. If the players fail to beat off the orc attack entirely then the village is captured by the orcs(state 3). It remains captured by the orcs until players come along to kill off enough of them...then it flips to sacked (state 2) .....and will stay that way until player crafters help rebuild it (reverting it to state 1).
Now, if the village is freindly or sacked (states 1 or 2) it will trigger a caravan of food to be generated and travel along a road to a nearby city. A sacked village will put 10 food crates in the caravan, a normal one 20.
The caravan (if it's running) can be attacked by bandits along the road and (again depending upon the players again) either get through (in which case the food gets delivered) or not (no food delivery).
You could then have a timer that runs every week to see how many crates of food got delivered to the city... and if it's less the 100 (lets say) then that can trigger a Famine event to occur in the city...which sets off it's own whole series of events/states.
Depending upon how sophisticated the engine the developers create is and how much content thier willing to put into this system...it could be very cool.
Of course, just having the base system in place allows them to add content and make things more sophisticated as they update the game.
LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
wowwww i really did laugh out loud on that one
hahahaha me too man.. me too
well beside the fact that this game is going to own this mmorpg unvierse, i found this a bit of stange so to speak,
"There is also the added bonus you can experience our dynamic event system without having to pay a monthly fee!"
hmm we all know that g2 will have no monthly fees since day 1, and yet he chose to say that, what more strange that hes saying its a bonus without charge, so other staff are?
am i just being too sleepy?
He's just telling it people who still assume it it will have a monthly fee. I mean look at how many people still think it will be completely instanced when it's been stated otherwise multiple times since day one..... Some people just aren't quick on the up take or spout crap about games they know nothing about.
You'll always find those that won't believe anything no matter how many times the developers say or show it. SWTOR is still an instanced single player game to many on this forum. I don't think those people will believe anything about the game being open world until they get slapped in the face with on hands experience. (by them or another player maybe)
I understand that everyone is speculating as to how the game may or may not work. I'm going to do everyone a favor and say that you should throw out those speculations because there are no specifics yet. I see alot of headaches arising and it is kind of silly to speculate something about a game that the developers have not specifically said how it is going to work. I strongly believe that ANet will think about all of these things that many of you have posted about and take appropriate actions following. I am not trying to be hostile in any way towards anyone. In fact, I am trying to do none of that whatsoever. I am just saying that all of these speculations mean nothing until specifics are stated closer to game release. Once ANet knows how these things are going to work and have it down to a science, they will let everyone know when the time comes. This is practically just the core of how the Dynamic Events system will work. All of the issues that most of you speak of will most likely be dealt with so no worries. ANet will release more in-depth information about this at some point in the near future, and when this happens we will all know how its going to work without any speculating at all... knowing is half the battle!
Only time will tell(and a released game) will show how this all plays out. It does sound exciting though if it can be pulled off.
i think i'll buy GW 2 and give it a go just for breaking the fucking monotony and trying to give something innovative for a change, and feeding the MMO community the same recycled and repolished everybody else does
I find their dynamic questing a god sent! I've been aching for something like this!!
Not overly thrilled about the scaling down but im willing to give it a shot
At first after watching some of the preview movies they released, I thought, omg they are using aftereffects as a cheap means to make a movie. I had to do that for my graphic design degree.
But now, I'm happy.
My introduction to MMOs was Guild Wars. I then played WoW after getting bored. Then I got bored of WoW and then... well... I have never found a game that can keep me interested for more then a month. Normally games last 3-5 days with me. I truely look forward to this. Guild Wars wasn't the perfect MMO, but it was for me when I started playing MMOs for the first time. It was the only game I actually had max level characters in all the classes. Yes, I know the cap was 20.
In WoW I have a druid and a warlock at max and that is it. Well except when the last expansion came out. So I guess I don't have max level characters in any game but Guild Wars. Guild Wars was so different from all other MMOs and I really expect Guild Wars 2 to be just as different. Even if the game only last me 6 months. It will be well worth it, but I think they will do a great job. I allways thought they would be the ones to make the new standards for an MMORPG and beat WoW. I just hope my guess is right.
And even if the game somehow is bad; I'll get every expansion because I loved the original so much.
And please take your time with the game. All these games being released unfinished is not worth it. I may want the game now, but I rather have a late game with quality then an early game without quality.
[quote]
Depending upon how sophisticated thier system is, it really opens up some interesting possibilities...
Imagine the following:
There is a simple mine somewhere. There is a random chance that it can be attacked by critters (maybe say giant spiders) on any given day. If the critters capture the mine (no players intervene or the players fail in the attempt), it becomes the spiders lair (state 1), if the critters are driven off it remains a working mine (state 2). If it's in the state of the spiders lair, if players kill x number of spiders it can go back to a working mine again (state 1).
In itself this doesn't sound too exciting....until you realize that the state the mine is in can have consequences elsewhere...
Say if the mine is working then the militia of a nearby village are well armed, if not then they are poorly armed. On a random timer (completely unrelated to the one in the mine) the village has the possibility of being attacked by orcs. The militia, regardless of armament, will fight against the orcs. If they are better armed, they'll fight better....regardless it'll be upto players to determine the outcome of the fight. The results can lead to one of 3 states for the village. If the players beat off the orc attack with ease then the village remains in it's normal operational state (state 1), if the players beat off the orc attack but with great difficulty then the village is sacked (state 2) it remains freindly but most of it's services are non-functional. If the players fail to beat off the orc attack entirely then the village is captured by the orcs(state 3). It remains captured by the orcs until players come along to kill off enough of them...then it flips to sacked (state 2) .....and will stay that way until player crafters help rebuild it (reverting it to state 1).
Now, if the village is freindly or sacked (states 1 or 2) it will trigger a caravan of food to be generated and travel along a road to a nearby city. A sacked village will put 10 food crates in the caravan, a normal one 20.
The caravan (if it's running) can be attacked by bandits along the road and (again depending upon the players again) either get through (in which case the food gets delivered) or not (no food delivery).
You could then have a timer that runs every week to see how many crates of food got delivered to the city... and if it's less the 100 (lets say) then that can trigger a Famine event to occur in the city...which sets off it's own whole series of events/states.
Depending upon how sophisticated the engine the developers create is and how much content thier willing to put into this system...it could be very cool.
Of course, just having the base system in place allows them to add content and make things more sophisticated as they update the game.[/quote]
Exactly. It actually makes it a living world becuase one small thing like the mine can potentially change the whole world. Now what they mean by cycling would be that like if it was taken by spiders and the soldiers had bad weapons and if they lost the village would be controlled by orcs. Then if players took back the fort then the people would come back. Also if the players took back the mine as well then everything is the same again, it doesn't restart like a timer, it only "seems" the same, but it really isn't because events that were caused by the fort being taken by orcs could still be in effect.
Actually, it seems that things are always in an event, the way it sounds is that no matter if the place seems normal or not, it is pretty much an event. Like if a village is controlled by friendly npc's then it effects how the unfriendly npc's (monsters) act and if it's controlled by the monsters, then it effects how the npc's act. So really, everything is always in an event I guess.?
But back to the point, its constantly different all the time and just because a city is destroyed while dredge are killing people in a nearby village doesn't mean the city is destroyed everytime the dredge attack that same village.
Well, scaling down events is a must. Just look on WARs public quests, no one is doing them anymore because there never is enough people.
Scaling down dungeons is a different thing, I am not overly found of such things myself.
You can pretty much assume that there will be end game dungeons that do not scale, but instead require groups to complete (which would be the best scenario imo.)
Sounds cool, in theory.
We've all learned, at one point or another, to take the words of Flava Flav to heart: Dont, don't, don't... don't believe the hype.
Getting excited about promises made by an MMO developer is a mistake we've all made at one point or another, and we're now wise enough not to fall for it again.
I'll believe their promises when I see it, and not a moment sooner.
This gets more and more interesting. The science of complexity has come a long way in recent years, and the basic "discovery" is that emergent behaviour is often irreducible.
This means that complexity can emerge from simple interactions between many, small units, producing a whole that can not be predicted from the study of units in isolation. Examples are the nests built by colonies of ants - none of the individual ants ever have a picture of nest architecture in mind somehow, they are simply reacting to one another based on a few, simple rules.
If places on the world map can be allocated a "state", and there is communcation between places following simple rules, then the emergent complexity is remarkable, assuming there are a decent number of places. Add in the players, and not even the creators can possibly know what will happen.
It wont be scripted and it wont be random. Very nice.
Very well put sir.
What've you got to lose? You don't have to pay a monthly sub to play this, nor does it have an item shop.
Pay once and that's it.
Or ma'dam. Just assuming since most of the gaming community is male heh.
Let's face it, time and time again we've been let down by companies that just couldn't deliver. I think the biggest reason why they may be the ones to get it right is that ArenaNet actually wants to make a game, not something that will let them open their own banks. Don't get me wrong I'm all for making money, but it just seems to me that the good games, the really good games are made by people who are in it to make games, not disgusting amounts of money. And if the first guild wars is any indication, ArenaNet is in it to make games.
Just thought i would throw in the fact that we did not just get word of GW2 a week ago lol. They announced they were working on it way back in like 2007. The game is expected to release probably some time in early 2011. I know im picking it up for sure, already got it reserved :) Loved gw1 and gw2 is my most anticipated game!
I entered the mmo market through AC way back in the day so I never got to like the typical text and pointer quest system nearly all mmo's took since. This new system sounds amazing (an adaptation of a mechanic from old school rpg games).
Lets hope they pull it off. If game immersion is enhanced by it (I agree that Warhammers's pubs are very distracting and grindy) while pvp is still the central feature, this game could be amazing.
That said I wasn't a big fan of the original game.
This all sounds great. I'm uber excited.... I'm pretty sure I will love it. I mean Guild Wars surpassed my expections in virtually every aspect. A game I played for a years without hardly doing any quests is pretty impressive. And this seems to be on a much bigger scale with much more content... so they deserve the benifit of the doubt in my mind.
While the system sounds great and will be a big improvement over current questing systems, my only advice is take the hype minus 10 to just think a bit more realistic. They are in my opinion moving down the right path(for me) in trying to make such a system work. They recognize the biggest drawback to such a system. The good news is with the right time cranking out new scenarios to plug into the dynamics you as an individual will not likely "repeat" any of the scenarios as you advance your character so long as the cycles are long enough.
There are so many things that can be done with such a system to keep a gameworld fresh though. Example as a dev you want to shake up newbie town? let a local village get destroyed move the inhabitants to a nearby forest - let them take over the forest destroying the spider lair in the process rebuild a new town there and have the old town became a "haunt" with undead and or other ghastly monsters and thus without changing the underlying terrain just the cosmetic features and keeping everything within a sensible in game storyling you can completely change and revamp the newbie zone or any zone for a fresh experience for someone rolling up an alt. By simply using these events to constantly change the world in small ways everything can remain fairly fresh. No need for too many major expansions.
While I dont expect a lot for this system in the begining I have really high hopes that if done right will make a truly kick ass game. The good news is there are several new games coming out with systems like this in some form or fashion. Devs move from project to project all the time so perhaps this type of thing will be a true and lasting upgrade to the MMO world.
Excellent questions MMORPG.COM! Really well-thought out and cutting right to the practical problems of this intriguing game mechanic. It answered many of the things I wanted to know. Thanks for the interview!
I'm very impressed that ArenaNet seems to admit right out that they realize how much work and how much risk this Dynamic Event system will entail. That shows a level of common sense that is not seen often in developers interested in just hyping their game and not giving much solid details.
My interest in GW2 continues to increase with every article I read. Looking forward to more.
I played GW, still do occasionally, had fun.
Heard of GW2, was intrigued, but had other games in my mind.
Heard some info, seen the images about the elementalist, read about skill combos, thought this was getting quite interesting (considering I use Ele alot in GW)
Now this...GW2 has just become my most expected MMO for 2010-2011, right there with FFXIV, SWTOR third.
Man, this sounds just...awesome. Can only hope ANet will deliver. But I gotta say I loved the line in the interview about MMO devs being too risk-averse, and I definitely agree. If anything, I'm happy ANet is trying to branch out with new things.
P.S. (and a bit OOT) Seems like 2010-2011 is bringing some fresh air in the MMORPG industry, about time.
i used to play GW for about 6 months i think before i switch to WoW, but damn, if this is true, im definitely going for this
but it's kinda a dillema, as im also waiting for Earthrise =(
i cant be possibly playing 2 at a time, 1 needs to be my main game
This game just sounds better and better all the time, I really hope it is as good as they say. I just can't wait for launch.
Dynamic events sounds really good and it will be something different for ones.
I don't quite get the "dynamic event" thing. It sounds to me basically like quest chains, that, in case you fail, give you another quest. And with less text. oO I mean that's not bad, but it doesn't sound to me as the holy grail the way it is presented here.
Reminds me a bit on the Blizzard employes, the way they comment SC2 games as if it would be the most exciting thing.
The point is their not quest chains they happen with or without you and multiple can occur simulataneously in one place meaning you'll be unlikely to see the same scenario twice. It provides far far more variety than your average quest and linked with the huge amount of interactivity the player has over them and with the environment (picking up logs, firing catapults, throwing boulders etc). It's provides a pretty dam different experience.
I guess people like to over generalise things to make it simpler for them to understand. Even the over generalised version sounds more interesting than your average quest.
Here's a problem I see with scalable events: what if some d-bag comes up when you're soloing an event just to increase its difficulty, then he doesn't help because he already did it or somethin? Not like I'm expecting this game to completely eliminate the human d-bag factor, just a thought...
Or even if just some big fat tard comes up and he sucks, and drags you down so you fail the event. And you can't make them leave just because they suck. But with regular quests, outside sources don't exactly affect you as much, you just get a quest to go harvest 10 rat butts and you do it. I wanna be able to do this crap without morons coming up and ruining it, or hell, I might even suck at a specific event! And I don't wanna ruin it for others.
They could make it scale up to number of people attacking activating skills to heal allies etc instead of amount of people simply there.
Whats with generalizing retards are big and fat? :(
I think the answer is simple for your above question, if you would prefer todo normal questing, then this isn't the game for you? However it would be good to hear about some sort of protection against dbags ruining this dynamic event experience for people.
This system makes me think Fallout 3, where you could be out exploring, come across some Brother of Steel initiates out of their depth, deep in the city, under attack from Super mutants. etc.
I really hope it is developed well.
In regards to the d-bag doing nothing, technically, why would that person be playing the game anyway just to sit there and do nothing? This scenario is highly unlikely and more likely than not, the MAJORITY of people will be participating because thats why they blew $50-60 on the game for in teh first place. The chances of you being alone with this type of systemw ill be slim to none as I expct territory to constantly switch hands and change forcing people into one hole and then into another.
With the retard sucking, that's kind of like how actual stories have always worked. Not everything works out perfectly and if life gives you lemons, you just try your best to make lemonade. That's probably the fun part about it is having to work together towards a more or less "forced" common goal. Playing with 1 retard is better than playing with no retard at all or else why play MMO's in the first place or at least if you're not there to play with anyone just hide in your personal story ;x
First off there's a greater incentivie for a player to help because the loot is 100% to all players involved. As long as you do enough to help out. The parameters that define 'helping out' haven't been fully revealed. but I think it was mentioned there would be potentially low minimun damage required to receive 100% loot. So really there's no incentitive to be a 'd-bag'.
Secondly, the failure of these events have repurcussions for everyone playing. If the 'd-bag' doesn't help stop the enemy, they could set up a staging area (temporary fort) and start bombing the nearest town. If that town goes under, it will have an effect on players who are using that town for whatever reason. There might be an important resource that effects 'd-bag'. So he'll be more inclined to help when he see's fellow involved in an event where the baddies are attacking nearby.
Lastly the dynamic scaling goes both ways, it will scale down accordingly if 'd-bag' decides to bail for whatever reason. How it down scales, remains to be seen. I can only speculate that the upscaling will be slow, so that it can top off quickly if there's a change in scaling. Then it will down scale accordingly.
'Big fat tard' is more likely to help than hinder as your skills will synergize his, in doing so 'big fat tard' is no longer the loser ally you fear. A prime example would be your Elementalist casting a firewall to assist "big fat tard's" Ranger shooting arrows, thereby becoming flaming arrows which would do more damage. There will be lots of ways to synergize each others skills, which is another incentitive to join in these events. All the skills are going to be visceral and self-explanatory in terms of how to compliment each other's actions.
As for soloing, you will have plenty of oppurtunities to do so, the events are going to be local as well as global, so there will be places where it's just you that has to deal with an event. Also your 'personal storyline' is very much soloable if you chose.
As for the dynamic events I remember reading in an interview somewhere that the event will scale based on the number of "actively participating" people. Plus I don't think anyone just standing around will last very long anyway.
Although I understand why they are being so vague with their answers because of competition and all. I can see how it is hurting them a bit. I think the word cycle puts a person's own predetermined ideas on the meaning in place. The events have to be cyclical in nature or the area would be at a stand still when they do hit the "end" coding wise. But it doesn't mean each event will have just 3 stages. Or that you will even notice that it is the "end". Or that each stage is the same amount of time. Each event's parameters could be wildly different not only from event to event but from stage to stage.
I picture each event being more like a tree. for lack of a better image. Where it could start at the trunk and one path could take you down a route of 20 stages all with possible deviations. Maybe a Net or Ivy would be a better image. Because I also believe that each event could backtrack or change it's path completely. I think this is why they say it's a lot of work. Though I don't think the majority of the events will have many stages. But I definitely believe the ones outside of the major cities will. But I also think smaller events will happen in other areas of the world. Where a player can see the whole cycle or at least one of the several cycles while they are playing in one session.
Then if you take into the account that one event can effect another it may be a month before you see the same scenery again. Although I bet that wont happen much. I'm going to assume that only the events out side of a main city will affect the surrounding event areas.
But it doesn't mean they wont add more later. They could easily add more event branches once an area gets stale. They could even change old events based on new expansions. So lets say the equivalent of Factions comes out for GW 2. Outside of Lions Arch they could add a branch of events where those disfigured blobs of flesh started to take over.
I'm trying with all my might to not get hyped. I know personally I expect to much being spoiled by WoW, and GW1 etc. Even if a person hates WoW... you have to admit they have a ton of content and polish...which would be insane for a new game to be able to compete with at launch. Hopefully, the basics are fun enough to keep us distracted while they keep adding.
I can't wait for this game, it keeps looking better and better everytime I hear something new
The difference in GW2 as explained(note none of us here have actually played it yet so...) is that in normal games when a quest fails you wait a certian amount of time then try again. You do the exact same quest over and over and over again untill you win. In GW2 if you fail the game moves forward and you face a completely new obstacle/quest/scenario. If you keep failing eventually you are left with a situation in which the mobs will force you out of the area by the simply fact you are unable to beat them. You do not get to keep repeating the same thing over and over untill you win. Its a small and sublte difference and I do not expect grand things out of this immeadiately, however, this type of system lends itself to much grander things in the future in which you do not need a "quest" per se. You simply live in a living breathing world that interacts with you.
Success takes you down path A
Failure takes you down path B
Both might be interesting paths to take so you never really lose. It will be really cool when taking a particular path becomes a permenant thing and the other path dissappears forever. This would require the ability to create paths on the fly fairly quickly and a ton of actual content...so I dont expect that to happen for a while.
People are misinterpretiting cyclical. The end point won't necessaily become the start point look at the dredge example. Should the dredge succeed they won't just automatically dissapear after a certain amount of time. Either the NPC's or the players will have to drive them back. We do not however know if the NPC's are eventually capable of driving back all threats so some may remain permanent without player interaction or perhaps other enemies will change the status quo e.g a dragon destroys the village the Dredge have command of or new enemies eventually defeat the Dredge and begina new occupation etc. A pendulum would probably be a better example.
I can't believe the amount of skepticism that is floating around, why even question them for trying to be "dynamic" and different. I mean the robust amount of information hasn't even really come out yet. just wait... just wait!
I agree that there is alot of skepticism going around and I laugh quite a bit at many different skeptic answers. Not that I am laughing at the person, but I am laughing at the idea that nobody knows how the game actually is going to work except for ANet. I posted earlier about how everyone's speculations should just be tossed aside for right now because the game is no where near release. It is no sense to try and speculate something you don't know for sure yet. Lol. Ah well.. I will continue to enjoy reading what people have to speculate about this. =]
Sounds absolutely amazing. I am playing Dragon Age right now. And I forgot how satisfying it is when you make a choice and the whole game line is affected by it. It was be totally awesome to be able to do that in an mmo with your friends. I am very very stoked about this games release!
A big part of the skepticism has to do with those have not looked/played outside the MMO genre to see what gaming mechanics exist. They only are aware of the "holy trinitity", "kill ten rats", and lastly "endgame content". If a MMO doesn't have these mechanics, it's immediately looked with great skepticism and labeled "epic fail". Skeptics just can't see how mechanics outside the MMO genre can be implemented because that would require a change in one the traditional MMO mechanics that they have grown attached to like pacifier. Basically it's just plain fear of the unknown.
I'd say for me personally it's not at all fear of the unknown that gives me skepticism, it is however a healthy dose of disbelief that things will ever turn out as good and wonderful and innovative as they are sold too us via hype filled press releases and carefully controlled interview settings.
And mechanics that do deviate from the proven MMO standard need to themselves be proven to actually work and play differently on a day to day "this is what I do when I log in" basis, not some high-end theory crafted philosophy sort of mechanics.
Well it sounds interesting for sure. I didn't 100 % get into the old Guild War games, but nevertheless i hope i will with this.
Personally, GW1 was an okay game, very stunning at its early days. GW1 did deliver in a sense that Anet did not make empty promises. Anyone that disagrees with that, just list the things that never was fullfilled.
If another development team was in charge of GW2 and made these same claims in this interview and the past and had very little or limited experience, then that's a totally different story. Given their experience, I expect nothing less from this team.
I have nothing but respect for Arena Net. They set out to bring players the best games and not take advantage of them. Their approach of honesty, quality, and unwavering standards have more than earned them respect. They are truly talented, and I am very much looking forward to seeing their next jaw dropping surprise .
I remember when Guild wars1 came out, and people kept telling me the actual gameplay shots were cinematics.. They couldn;t believe how good they were in comparison to EVERYTHING else. But what really got me was the PVP and gameplay, no lag, balanced classes, strategy builds. I usually hate class based games, but this one made me like it. I loved the interrupts on my mesmer.. Finally someone gave me a class that actually took real skill to play. LOVED it!
This sounds almost too good to be true.
If they really pull this off. Not only that it will be lightyears better than WOW and most likely be embarassing better than SWTOR.
But it will also be better than most of single player RPGs
Is this even possible ?
I really hope so!
So basically you are saying you don't believe it until you actually see it in action. No leap of faith or willingness to see that on paper it sounds like it could work. Most just read these and dismiss it as ideas that could fail, because people make assumptions that these programmers don't think the potential problems through. I tell you that's gotta be quite insulting to hear a gamer tell a programmer than they don't know what they are doing.
I'll give them a benefit of doubt, and I'm not going to be upset if doesn't work as well as advertised, because no product no matter how good it is...never works as good as advertised.
Although its something never tried before, this "dynamic event system" is hardly massively ground breaking as some GW2 fans are making it sound.
Now whilst I can appreciate the need for it to be cyclical in order to give people the chance to get involved in it, this means that the changes aren't permanent (which is what some are touting is to be).
But as the devs point out, this cyclic style of events means greater pressure on them to churn out more content. Do they have enough on their plate getting the MMO ready for launch without further adding to the workload? Time will tell.
Some of you don't understand what they're trying to do. It's only cylical if the events pan out that way. It all depends on character involvement. It doesn't just reset. There isn't an end to an event chain. The chances of seeing similar events are very slim. Try playing the beta, or check some gameplay out when it's available and base your assumption on those.
As for logging in and logging back out. Say if you log out of a session you've been playing for 4 hours, and log back in 6 hours later, the world will be different. Whatever last event you did might have triggered a chain reaction that resulted in the world you see when you login later.
This Dynamic World they're doing is interesting. I understand pretty much every aspect they explained. If they pull this off, this could very well be one of the best MMOs ever made.