R.I.P. Super Adventure Box

[zito]

http://www.guildmag.com/guild-wars-2...-living-world/

Super Adventure Box

GuildMag: Some folks are really bummed that their parents took away their Super Adventure Box. Is there anything that you can tell them that will cheer them up for going back to school?

Devon Carver: You want to… you want to deliver the news?

Matt Wuerffel: Sure. Yeah, I mean, when we are talking about the Living World and the Living Story, you can see that we are moving towards a much more focused narrative, and that is focused on your relationship with Braham and Rox and some of the other characters that we have introduced. And that means that there is less, one, there is less space to do something where you kind of take a break and say: ‘And now for something completely different’ – which is what Super Adventure Box was. I think the other part of it is that we look very carefully at how much people played and how much people enjoyed certain portions of content that we put out, and so that also weighs into the factor of ‘Well, okay, what are we going to do, and when are we going to bring back things? What do we do, how much time do we put into different festivals, Halloween and Wintersday.’ And so, Super Adventure Box has a ton of people that were really excited about it, and it also has that difficulty of, it is something that’s really different from Guild Wars 2 in a lot of ways, and it doesn’t easily fit into the narrative structure of Living World. And so, I think it would be very unlikely that you would see it as part of a Living World season release, as to whether or not we come back to it, whether or not in some other form, you know, I can’t really say, I don’t know how likely that is and that is really all I can say about it. We know that there are a ton of people that really enjoyed it, and we had a lot of fun playing portions of it, but it’s difficult to fit in within the narrative structure that we have now and I think that makes it very much less likely that it will appear in a Living World season going forward.

GuildMag: But will it come back after the current season?

Matt Wuerffel: We can’t really comment about what our long term plans are for the game, and so, you know, it is a similar answer if you ask me what was gonna happen in the upcoming episodes of season 2. Like, I really can’t say. But it is a very much different game in a lot of ways than Guild Wars 2 – a game within a game – and we’re trying to focus already in World v. World and PvP and PvE and Fractals. There are lots of systems that we have and we want to focus first on getting those to a state where we’re really happy with them and we’re fully supporting them and then we could look into… ‘All right, now that we have those up to a quality that we’re really happy with and fans are really happy with, what other projects can we take on, and what things can we look at doing?

We loved you and now you are gone.

I will always miss you



JOIN THE MOVEMENT TODAY!



Get your ass to SAB and protest!

[Edge-]

lllllllllllllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Seriously, I never got around to digging too deep into it and now it looks like I never will get a chance to do so : (

[zito]

My thing is this

But it is a very much different game in a lot of ways than Guild Wars 2 – a game within a game – and we’re trying to focus already in World v. World and PvP and PvE and Fractals. There are lots of systems that we have and we want to focus first on getting those to a state where we’re really happy with them and we’re fully supporting them and then we could look into…

It makes no sense. First of all why is fractals separated from PvE? It's just a dungeon consisting of 3 random mini dungeons.

Secondly they want to get the rest of the game to a state that they are happy with. THIS WILL NEVER FUCKING HAPPEN. Ever IN ANY MMO. It's bull shit.

So SAB is never going to happen because they are never going to be satisfied with PvE/PvP (LOL FRACTALS). An endless cycle, the perfect excuse.

[nevermore]

I'm not sure why they made SAB a temporary thing anyway.

I mean, they could've just left it there permanently as an interesting 'quirk' of some sort. Idk.

[zito]

I'm not sure why they made SAB a temporary thing anyway.

I mean, they could've just left it there permanently as an interesting 'quirk' of some sort. Idk.

Yea, they basically made the previous temporary content come back. (The dungeons went into fractals, tower of nightmare bosses went into Kessix hills, rewards are in the laruel vendor, etc) except for SAB which is just sitting on a shelf for no apparent reason.

[Arlee]

Aww... I was really wanting to see the other levels... and I got an Infinite Continue coin too!

[zito]

300+ employees and the original team of 7 can't work on it while everyone else works on other aspects of the game like PvE/PvP... you know... HOW SEASON 1 WAS, how the First 2 worlds got made?

[Karizee]

I am just crushed

Went and looked up some posts from last year, seems World 2 was way too hard for the majority of players and didn't get the playtime that World 1 got. Josh Foreman talks about how they would rework World 2 for a future release.


https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...19#post2785093

That’s not how things work here. I don’t tell the commerce team how to do their job and they don’t tell me how to do my job. My goal is to make a really fun and compelling experience for players. Insofar as W2 is not fun right now because of the crazy difficulty, that’s on me because I made some poor judgement calls. I lost the forest for the mechanic-trees. I liked this tree and this tree and this tree and this tree… and jammed them all in without taking the big picture in often enough, especially near the end when everything comes together and starts interacting in unpredictable ways. Last time we were just excited to get 8-bit UI, a bounce mushroom and turtles you could knock over for platforms. Now we have projectile enemies, ice, moving platforms, water spout platforms, spin flowers, push blocks, several cooperative puzzles, etc. Now I know next time to give the elements time to breathe, and go hands-off earlier, and if a last minute fix is required to make a new mechanic work (what happened to the water spouts that ended up making them terribad) it should be cut and saved for next time. These are the reasons World 2 is too hard. If the reason was to sell coins I would not be here and you would not see a huge suite of fixes we put together over the last couple of days come out tomorrow.

As to the Infinite Continue Coin I’ll repeat what I said several pages back. I think it’s a great item because it expands the number of people who can experience SAB. There’s probably a good-sized portion of players who don’t want to play it like a real stand-alone old-school game where you have to really learn the levels, find the secrets, earn the resources to get the power-ups etc. In that way it’s like a Game Genie. It also gives people who are really into SAB a chance to vote with their money and support future development.

We decided to do Tribulation Mode in the platform hell style back before we launched the first SAB. Before the idea of an ICC was ever thought up. It matches our personality and humor. We knew there would be people who were really really good at SAB and would wrack up huge numbers of extra lives, and thought Trib Mode would be a great way to spend them.

As to a ‘real’ World 2, that will have to wait for next release when we have time to make the major renovations necessary to put it in the proper context between Worlds 1 and 3. In the mean time, check out the changes we made and see if it’s more fun for you.

Today's interview makes it sound like it's off the table for the foreseeable future, that other projects/content have taken priority. All my sads

[zito]

World 2 normal mode wasn't hard, just long. Hard mode was hard and brutal on top of it being very long but that was the point of hard mode though.

[worprz]

You would think if they weren't bringing it back they would at least make it open all year round. I hope they don't just drop it completely, I bought an infinite continue coin and I wanted to get more green weapons

[zito]

I want purple Super adventure sword

/crys

[Svifnymr]

As much as I enjoy saying "I told you so" Zito, I really did hope they'd bring it back. Just polish up the flaws in the content and plop it into the game without worrying about a story or updating it later.

I'm mostly enjoying the LW Season 2 stuff, but focusing too much on one thing will just lead to player burnout I think.

Either way though, I did tell you so!

[lawow74]

I don't see where it would hurt to just turn it back on and let players who like it play it, myself.

[zito]

Either way though, I did tell you so!

You told me so but your reasoning as to why was wrong

[zed zebes]

There's a mentality to that whole interview where their focus is becoming very narrow. That's not healthy for the game or the game's population.

[Svifnymr]

You told me so but your reasoning as to why was wrong

Well, the important thing was that I was right and you should be flipping tables with expletives.

Though really, it's not like they would say "nyah, fuck SAB, we didn't make enough money from it", they'd give the "it doesnt' fit the narrative" line either way.

I assume Wintersday and Halloween are sticking around at least, but still assume Dragonbash is just gone. I wonder if they're giving up on trying different things like the dragonball thing or whatever.

[3DTyrant]

I have no idea what's going on here... Not played much GW2

[Svifnymr]

I have no idea what's going on here... Not played much GW2

Super Adventure Box was an early addition, your hi-res characters entered a simulation room that looked like an old 8bit video game and battled the puzzles thereof. It lasted a month, had a cool commercial, then disappeared to return later that year. The first version was widely loved, the second version had more glitches but was still well liked. It has not been heard from in a while, and is not confirmed mostly dead.

[Arlee]

You would think if they weren't bringing it back they would at least make it open all year round. I hope they don't just drop it completely, I bought an infinite continue coin and I wanted to get more green weapons

I don't see where it would hurt to just turn it back on and let players who like it play it, myself.

Right? I get the "it doesn't really fit" thing, but the first two worlds are made just open them for people who want to do them. Having random things which are quite different in the game makes it more interesting imo.

[3DTyrant]

Super Adventure Box was an early addition, your hi-res characters entered a simulation room that looked like an old 8bit video game and battled the puzzles thereof. It lasted a month, had a cool commercial, then disappeared to return later that year. The first version was widely loved, the second version had more glitches but was still well liked. It has not been heard from in a while, and is not confirmed mostly dead.

Ahh okay. Guess that's a shame for those of who liked it then.