Blog about Guild Wars 2 PvE Content

[Zosimus]

I came across this a couple days ago and just getting to it to post it. I apologize to our readers for taking so long to get this information out.

Skittleg has a very interesting blog on his take of PvE content. A good read and very insightful from a players point of view. Please take time to read this.


A snippet....

You see, this is where many MMO hardened veterans begin shifting uncomfortably. Why? Well, because this design philosophy goes against every single thing that they were ever taught in MMOs.


In traditional MMOs, the rewards of questing become the focal point, and the process is completely ignored.

I love this part. I myself have played many games branching from Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Guild Wars, Warhammer Online, and Rift. What do I do? I quest and quest for the end game content. I do PvP but in truth you are focused to grind to get higher levels of PvP. Basically I'm so focused on how to achieve my goals that I am not paying attention what I achieved to get to my goal.

I never went back to any old game content because I was already to high for those game areas and wasn't gaining XP so this new concept Guild Wars 2 sidekicking will be a major factor in the game for the Guild Wars 2 Player Nation. PvE will be huge in GW2.

Please check out the blog and I hope all you gw2 fans enjoy it like I did.Thank you Skittleg for posting this information and we at Guild Wars 2 Stratics appreciate it.


http://my.mmosite.com/37312a3ee01f6...g/ritem/f29e8893845a56f8321875df293f32cb.html



For the click link impaired I posted it below.

Guild Wars 2: PvE and Replayability

By: skittlegposted at Jan 21, 2012 7:38 pm

Hey guys. It's me, skittleg, and I'm back from the dead. I cannot wait to once again drown in a sea of MMOs.


As you all may have observed from my past blog posts, I almost exclusively write about Guild Wars 2. Now, I could spend hours on end rambling about the many reasons of why Guild Wars 2 has especially caught my attention, but I will save you all the pain and simply redirect you to older blog entries.

Today, I would like to address a particular question that seems to hover around Guild Wars 2 PvE content:


"If there is no specific "end-game" in Guild Wars 2, how do players achieve a sense of accomplishment from PvE?
What if I've played through all the dynamic events and their chains, before the developers have time to create new ones?"

This is a map in Guild Wars 2 filled with dynamic events. Notice how each event is part of a larger chain that spreads out across the map. Players can simply just travel the world and encounter these events randomly. Choosing whether to do them or not, is up to the player.


First, we need to familiarize ourselves with a couple terms:


End Game: This is the term used by many players to describe the game play of a MMO after a character has reached max level. In most MMOs, all of the dungeon raids and acquisition of shiny purple items begin after reaching max level. Therefore, the process of reaching from level 1 to max is only considered the "initiation", and not the "real" game.


Arenanet: The creator and developer of Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. Despite what many think, NCSoft is merely the publisher, and has nothing to do with the actual creation of Guild Wars 2.


Grind: This is a very loose term, and one that has different meanings for different types of people. The most common definition for grind however, is the act of continuously repeating content in a strenuous manner with the hopes of attaining or achieving some level of royalty.


Dynamic Events: This is a term coined by Arenanet, describing the nature of PvE systems found in Guild Wars 2. These events follow event chains which can be pushed towards or away from a positive outcome, depending on player action. For example, if players choose to leave a village undefended from centaur attacks, then that village will be razed and turned into an outpost for later centaur activities. These activities will created new event chains which branch out and affect the entire region, interacting with other event chains along the way.


Having these terms in mind, we now have to consider Arenanet's MMO design philosophy:


MMOs should be social games first. They should create a user friendly setting where all players can cooperate and work together as one. They should foster a sense of community, with players willing to help each other in the face of difficult situations.

The Edge of Destiny. One of the important points of interest during your character's personal story in Guild Wars 2.



You see, this is where many MMO hardened veterans begin shifting uncomfortably. Why? Well, because this design philosophy goes against every single thing that they were ever taught in MMOs.


In traditional MMOs, the rewards of questing become the focal point, and the process is completely ignored.


Here is an obvious example: You are playing X mmo, and you are given a quest to kill X amount of Sniggleborgs, retrieve X amount of Sniggleborg eyeballs, and return to the quest giver for an exquisite reward. How would any good ol' MMO players go about doing this? Let's see what happens:


Player: Who cares about any of the lore or walls of text explaining the reasons behind the quests, I just really want the golden +5 greatsword as a reward!


*Arrives at the campsite of the Sniggleborgs and feels a sinking feeling in his heart when he sees that there are five other players trying to kill the Sniggleborgs.
*Begins killing the borgs, rolling his face across the keyboard in hopes of finishing the monster faster, so that he can move on and grab other monsters before the other players do.
*After a couple awkward moments and potential kill steals, he gets all the required Sniggleborg eyes, and runs back to the quest giver. He smiles as he equips the newly acquired +5 golden greatsword.

The question we must ask ourselves from this particular scenario is: Will this player ever return to this one specific area, without any sort of questing intentions?


As you would probably predict, there is not a whole lot chance that this player will return. There is simply no reason to return, there is no more enticing weapon rewards, none at all. The Sniggleborgs will still be there of course, ever so stubborn and static. Other questing players trying to get their own greatswords will be there as well, working on getting lots of eyeballs to please the quest giver.

Is there any incentive to help these players? No, because the quest is designed for individual gains. Other players have no time to talk and interact with older returning players. They don't want these stronger players to help, because that would potentially mean less eyeball drops. Other players are seen as a threat to your own questing journey. They are seen as obstacles that need to be dealt with in order to speed up your own questing experience. With this MMO formula, there is no encouragement for grouping up, meeting new people, and having a social online experience. Seriously, why do we even bother playing MMOs?


Let's see the exact same quest from above, transformed into a dynamic event, that occurs in the world of Guild Wars 2:


The player is running through the forest when an NPC suddenly runs over to him.
"These centaur thieves have stolen my blacksmithing supplies and now I cannot offer my excellent smith services! If you could help me teach those half horse demons a lesson or two, and retrieve some of the stolen materials, I will offer up my smithing services to you!"


The player sees in the near distance several centaur thieves running about causing chaos around the workshop. He also sees a couple players attacking these centaurs. On the upper right corner of the screen, he notices a dynamic event progress bar, shown as an "area event". He notices that as long as any centaurs are slain in the area from any player, this bar will rise towards completion. Seeing this, the player immediately head towards the centaurs, charging in and slaying the centaurs with his fellow players - not having to worry about mob markings or kill stealing. In the end, the centaurs are defeated and lying in a heap. The event automatically rewards the player, without having to go back to report to the blacksmith. These group of players, who have not formed a party, stand around and chat for a while, recalling on the various enjoyable killings of centaurs.


After a while, these players unconsciously begin to follow each other, creating a "group", but without ever formally creating a party. They continue on to fight in other areas experiencing other dynamic events, and meeting and helping new players that come by.

Guild Wars 2 will have a vast amount of underwater content. Yes, expect to be randomly gobbled up by unsuspecting predators.


Do you see now, how this is a fundamental change in basic game play? One rewards individual actions and punishes any mingling, while the other rewards group efforts, and does not punish those who like to play solo.


Who cares if you've pushed the centaurs back for the nth time? Today you might be doing it with a couple close guildies, tomorrow you might be struggling to regain villages from centaur invasions with some family members. In my honest opinion, this sort of interaction is so much better than speeding solo quest after quest and finally arriving at max level before realizing that you have become burnt out.


So, what does this have to do with replayability? Part of the reason why Dynamic Events will have so much more replayability than their counterparts is precisely the social and community building aspect: People who have fond memories of such areas will return to said areas. It's human psychology. PvE content will always be finite, but the people you meet and the human interactions during these dynamic events will foster an almost endless flow of replayability. After all, this is why we play MMOs is it not? No matter what kind of player you are, you play MMOs because you know for a fact that there will be a world filled with millions of other people. Otherwise, why not just play a single player game?

Guild Wars 2 understands this concept, and has cleverly brought many of the game's most vital mechanics towards a social and cooperative game play. Some of these include multiple guild memberships, a sense of pride for your server during WvWvW, and of course the shared dynamic events.

I know, I know....we still have to wait for the game to come out before making any solid judgments. But from what we have seen, from all the demos and dev panels, we have gained a very clear understanding of the intentions behind Guild Wars 2.


All I can say is, as somebody who has constantly been used to solo questing, I cannot wait to have my human necromancer run through every corner of the world, helping and reviving everything I see