It isn't about the Items

It isn't about the Items

in Blood and Madness

Posted by: StarbornStriker.6493

StarbornStriker.6493

I’m starting to feel like a broken record. The Devs insist this is the place to post feedback, so I’ll make one last attempt.

I’m disappointed in this update. Since I bought this game, I’ve looked forward to Halloween. Halloween was my all time favourite event in the first game and in seven years, I don’t think I missed a single one. I heard so many great things about last year’s event, I couldn’t wait to experience it all for myself.

Yet it seems that some of the features of last year’s event won’t be returning. In particular, and the one that upsets me the most, is the scavenger hunt which apparently reveals the history and backstory of the Mad King and what happened between his visits to the mortal world.

There has been a lot of banter on the forum since the patch went live. People seem to be of divided opinion as to whether or not the items and titles should be ‘exclusive’ to those who were present last year or not.

If I can’t get the title; fine.
If I can’t get the book; fine.
I don’t understand it. I’m never going to understand it, but fine. I can accept that.

Could I PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do the lore quest anyway? What I don’t understand, what I will never understand, is the constant stream of releases after which there is no way to access the lore or backstory IN THE GAME.

I cannot stress this enough. I’ve run out of ways to try to express it. I play games to experience the story. Maybe other people play for other reasons. I think that’s great. I hope they have fun doing the things they enjoy. I want story. I would not have purchased this game if I hadn’t been interested in the story and seeing it evolve.

Due to real life circumstances beyond my control, I’ve missed several living story updates. I have no idea what’s going on with the current story. With each concurrent update, I care less and less about the story. In fact, I care less and less about logging in. I don’t think this is what Arena Net wants.

I love the idea of a living world that breathes and changes. I really do. But the world isn’t living for me right now. I feel quite the opposite. The living story has become, in my eyes, and endless march of ‘do X number of tasks for Y limited item’ , rinse, repeat.

The story cannot build for new players, or players who are forced or choose to miss updates, if it has no foundation to stand on. Yes; I could read a wiki. Or a walk through. I shouldn’t have to. It shouldn’t be the only way to access the information about the story.

I play games to experience stories. I don’t play them to read books, or watch movies, or read pages and pages on wikis. I want to live this story. You want to make it so I can’t access the actual events afterward? Fine. But please build some way into the game that I can figure out what’s going on after having missed an update. Please put in a refresher instance or something, some method by which people can catch up on the story even if they can’t get the items and titles.

Saying that previous events, that the lore and history of the game aren’t important, is like saying that the Hobbit or Silmarillion are irrelevant to The Lord of the Rings (and yes, I read every word of the Silmarillion). Sure The Lord of the Rings stands on it’s own, but the other books give it more depth and flavor. I would argue the living story of Guild Wars cannot stand on one update.

Yes, a living world changes.

But the thing that really makes a world live is it’s potential. Going out into the world, exploring it and discovering the history, the things we’ve missed, as well as the things happening at the moment, that’s the lure of a living, breathing world. It can’t be in a constant state of flux without some way of documenting or tracking that history. Some way that allows new players to experience the story or its history rather than paging through months and months of updates.

Please re-consider bringing back the Mad King lore quest. The lore would be reward enough for me. During the Lunatic Court plot at the end of the first game, you could play the first year’s quests during the second year – in fact you had to do so in order to unlock the second tier of quests. I was fine with that. I’d be fine with unlocking older quests. During one of the festivals in Cantha there were even NPCs dressed up as chaos creatures to reenact the events of the original festival. I’d even be okay with that.

What I’m not okay with is the wiki being my primary source of story ‘experience.’ I would go so far as to call it poor game design.

It isn't about the Items

in Blood and Madness

Posted by: Ayrilana.1396

Ayrilana.1396

They’re working on an in-game summary of the living story like they did for the personal story.