As the design of a game, this timetable makes perfect sense. As the design of a world, it makes me sad. “Go forth, hero, and make your legend by following the attached schedule of events.” Someone already made that legend? No problem, the enemy will spawn, disappear within fifteen minutes, and respawn again on schedule no matter what you do.
We may have overshot “theme park” and started approaching TV re-runs.
While the content has always been completely mutable and timer-based, something about making an explicit schedule of villainy weakens the illusion.
: Zubon
Choo choo! Karma trains leave the station every half hour. Themepark rides begin every 15 minutes. Remember to budget at least an hour to get in line for the most popular ones!
And when all else fails, the champion trains run 24/7.
GW2 is just a computer game now. That’s not such a bad thing, especially since it’s a pretty good computer game. Even this latest example of the increasing emphasis on establishing game systems above all other factors wouldn’t raise an eyebrow if it wasn’t for one embarrassing fact of history: the huge and prolonged fuss ANet made about how they were making a truly dynamic virtual world that would become a paradigm shift for the genre.
Well they didn’t and it wasn’t and it isn’t. The caravan moves on, to ESO, WildStar. Landmark, Star Citizen, EQNext, leaving GW2 to scrabble for scraps and re-tool for new territories. It’s ugly and I’d say it’s nothing new but you’re right, it is, rather. The published schedule might just be the paradigm shift for the genre they promised. God forbid.
The players (at least the vocal ones) got what they wanted. The half dozen web pages that already track temple openings and world event window is proof of that already.
I’m going with the comment tehbare left. This is what people asked for, and they asked for it loud enough and long enough that they were given what they wanted. ANet does listen to its players and is willing to break their own rules for them at times. It reminds me of Ascended Gear.
My own opinions of the game have become similar to bhagpuss, “it is what it is.” I never cared much about the World Bosses so that stuff snuck up on me. But from an sPvP perspective people have been complaining about effects and animations since launch, and yet many players have still found it fun and were able to get better. Why? Because GW2 ended up being surprisingly a lot like a fighting game, where it’s as much if not more about prediction than reaction, especially at the highest level of play. There are a number of players who have started a crusade over every single little thing in the game that you can call a “passive” effect. And there are players like me that still play or, when not playing, watch tournament streams here and there.
I forgot about what I had actually wanted to complain about before I read the comments. If ANet wanted to continue down improving the world experience, then each major patch should have added more dynamic event variety and complexity into existing zones. Instead they did that once, felt like it wasn’t enjoyed, and mostly abandoned that path. Especially when you look at things like players absolutely hating anything that gets in the way to what they feel entitled to (contested waypoints, event block dungeons) this is what the world was going to come to if you accept player behavior. Much of the PvP revamp is completely focused on accepting player behavior for what it is and designing around it.
Great, now I’m going to be strangely compelled to try to use the phrase “explicit schedule of villiany” in a project management meeting sometime this week.
For a game built on non-procedural gameplay, there is either finiteness (“I beat the game”) or re-runs.
The core of Guild Wars 2 has been like that for a quite some time so I don’t really see much of a change.
I feel that’s the biggest flaw, or thing to be overcome, in an expansion-less game. Conventionally the core gets replaced every X months so the player base relies less on re-runs. I think that it is a band-aid for theme-park, which ArenaNet is trying to overcome. It is a hard thing to overcome.
“when you look at things like players absolutely hating anything that gets in the way to what they feel entitled to”
Yes. Exactly. ArenaNet’s approach to keeping as many people happy as possible has been to facilitate as many different play styles and preferences as possible. A lot of people want content at their fingertips when they want to play it, and things that prevent that will piss a lot of people off.
Even as someone who personally is a big advocate for more conditional, less convenient gameplay, I use world event timers. I like being able to hop around the map to whichever major events are up right now when I’m in need of rares. I like the idea of them being spontaneous and unpredictable in principle, but in practice, it’s different.
Ten thumbs up. :-) As much as I like the idea that guilds will be able to spawn Tequatl or the Djungle Worm, how lousy is that gameplay-wise? Me not wanting to fight against a pussy enemy who arrives on demand. :-) To the contrary, would be great if some of the bosses (other than world bosses) would just pop up randomly.