Guild Wars 2

There’s alot more we can take from this that first thought. For those who did it once and stated complaining anyway.

Jorys Sister mentioned having to go to Brisban Wildlands to track smugglers.
THIS I feel is a big sign saying look here. A hint to season 2

basically they tacked on the dragon in a rush because four months ago we all complained we wanted dragons and now the four month cycle is up and “oh hey, we added a dragon – please buy our new minis” But they didn’t expect to add a dragon so theres no signs or important dragon themed npc dialogue.

DarcShriek.5829:

ViralVarda.2739:

Two sentences of a dragon and that’s it. No one saying, “shouldn’t we go try to find the dragon?” Instead it’s, “my leg hurts,” “I don’t wanna talk about things, I wanna make things,” “I just asked for a chicken,” and “here’s my sister, and I’m a lesbian.” They vaguely alluded to Scarlet interrupting the leyline because she wanted to mess with the dragon. So… Mord didn’t ask her to do it? Why isn’t anyone worried about a new dragon? Why isn’t anyone researching the new dragon?

Why isn’t anyone worried about a new dragon?

Did you miss the part where Marjory’s sister says she going to Brisban Wildlands for a while?

Has anyone been to Brisban to see if there are any changes yet?

This.

The next living story will be in Brisbane Wildlands (and maybe a parallel story about rebuilding Lion’s Arch.) Brisbane Wildlands. You know, in the jungle. Where a dragon lives?

Brow.9425:

DarcShriek.5829:

ViralVarda.2739:

Two sentences of a dragon and that’s it. No one saying, “shouldn’t we go try to find the dragon?” Instead it’s, “my leg hurts,” “I don’t wanna talk about things, I wanna make things,” “I just asked for a chicken,” and “here’s my sister, and I’m a lesbian.” They vaguely alluded to Scarlet interrupting the leyline because she wanted to mess with the dragon. So… Mord didn’t ask her to do it? Why isn’t anyone worried about a new dragon? Why isn’t anyone researching the new dragon?

Why isn’t anyone worried about a new dragon?

Did you miss the part where Marjory’s sister says she going to Brisban Wildlands for a while?

Has anyone been to Brisban to see if there are any changes yet?

This.

The next living story will be in Brisbane Wildlands (and maybe a parallel story about rebuilding Lion’s Arch.) Brisbane Wildlands. You know, in the jungle. Where a dragon lives?

It’s also the home to some weird bandit fort with level 80 guards. And a zone portal which was otherwise unreachable.

yah, but THREE GREENS and about 75s of MATERIALS!

i wanted them to tie up loose ends. i got my sister is going to brisband. it felt like a really, really, bad TV show… written by kids in middle school. you kissed a girl (wink wink, nudge nudge). it was only informative if you had not followed the living world and needed the a shallow superficial answer to why LA was destroyed. so dissapointing. when Anet said the 18th patch would explain what scarlet was up to, i mistakingly thought, it would explain what scarlet was up to. it was like they wrote the elilogue to explain things to a child. "the blue lights were magic. and the drill touched the magic, and that thing at the end of the scarlet death scene was a dragon, and that girl kissed the other girl, and that is all you need to know. " i like you because you are big and dumb, ha ha ha ha, pull camera through window angle up to the sky and add to be continued….

we did get at least one pact member who knows im a commander and said that treahearn spared the one air ship to look at this dragon business.

but we need a lot of things left unresolved for the next living story. do players have to figure out more stuff about scarlets past in the next living world? all the stuff in scarlets lair, the notebook, find out next time…. sure you killed her but now well add more story for you to do solve her back story…

its like the ending of a bad movie with a cliffhanger, do you really care if the sparkly 109 year old vampire marries a 17 year old girl?

Little Old Lady.3742:

its like the ending of a bad movie with a cliffhanger, do you really care if the sparkly 109 year old vampire marries a 17 year old girl?

Yes. It means the resultant heckspawn child isn’t born out of wedlock. This makes all the difference in the world, obviously.

By the way, what I got from this epilogue scene was different. It was confirmation these people are a group going to be sticking together and covering each other, since Rox said she’s trying to find the courage to turn down Rytlock over the warband. (Said courage may be at the bottom of the next mug . . . maybe.)

We also may have reason to pack Taimi into her golem and a catapult can launch them over enemy lines with that aetherphaser weapon. We need to totally try this, like tonight.

Blockhead Magee.3092:

We’ve reached the end. Judgement can now be passed.

LS writing was horrific. The only thing found in abundance was not wonder and excitement, it was the rotten characters and second grade dialog.

Stop the living story experiment and build an expansion with permanent content.

I agree with your summation of the living story but I don’t agree with your plan going forward.

Living Story can work. We’ve seen it work in some places, most notably Bazaar of the Four Winds.

Even if they did dump the LS and make an expansion, it would still be plagued with the same problems that the Living Story has. Their inability to write is not magically solved by changing their pipeline; it might have an effect, but it won’t be that big.

It might sound boring because it’s not really that big of a change, but the best solution is to Stop Being Bad. The problems with the story are not inherent to the format but just the fault of bad writing.

We should be also able to kill looters in LA……. Achievement for killing 100 looters! Would be nice.

Yes the ls did work in zephyr sanctum. But it worked because it added A WHOLE NEW AREA TO EXPLORE. It was like a mini expansion.

Wow, people went into this expecting way too much exposition and seriousness for a party that’s probably like the next day in the timeline.

I found the scene in Dead End worked well enough, if a little bit long on some of the pauses (which were NOT 2 minutes like some have posted and bolded). The best parts of the game are the character stories and this just provides little epilogues for the characters in Season 1, much like Dragon Age: Origins did, except here it’s taken care of in a scene rather than just arbitrarily put on screen. I was perfectly happy with how the conversation flowed. Spoken dialog may not have been the best written, but it was better than most of the fantasy shows on TV, and non spoken dialog gave enough glimpses for me to be happy with this resolution to the character story lines.

Also, they never actually name the dragon, just that it was a dragon, they handled why they thought it was a dragon well enough, and the whole Brisban Wildlands thing is not even related to a Dragon as far as the characters and storyline are concerned at this point… People need to calm down and remember player knowledge is different from character knowledge. It’s like nobody ever played a real RPG here.

Bring on Season 2 (which I hope will have new races to play, new locations to explore, and most importantly, a ton of new jumping puzzles! Releasing them free through LS is the best way, keeps it free, keeps people engadged, and stops the player base from fracturing as much as an expansion. Let’s just have a lot more permanence this time so it seems like we actually did something to grow the game rather than simply entertain the player base already in game.)

P.S. I’ve been writing this while my character is standing in Dead End… the ambient dialog is so kitten annoying… “So then he says to me…” WHAT? What does he say to you?!

I like the tidbit about Taimi hinting on retrofitting her golem with Scarlet’s gun designs. During the marionette event, some complained that Taimi messes up warden 1 battle because of her invincibility (ie. unable to attack the back of the warden in some cases). One suggested giving Taimi a ranged weapon and a kiting AI instead. I don’t know if this was a direct change because of that or if they planned this all along, or if they would really change Scruffy’s weapon system.

Um, someone bothers to actually read all that text the NPCs say? Click the guys, get the rewards, buy gems, go back to PvP.

Seriously, when will people learn to not expect devs to give you stories? This is not TV. If you want to experience good roleplay, roleplay yourself with each other. Shocking.

That “party” was everything but. Boring, bland, full okittenward pauses and out-of-place conversations…
After a few minutes i just left without getting the “reward” (obviously haven’t missed anything important).

LA is now Kessex Hills 2.0

Konrad Knox.5162:

Um, someone bothers to actually read all that text the NPCs say? Click the guys, get the rewards, buy gems, go back to PvP.

Seriously, when will people learn to not expect devs to give you stories? This is not TV. If you want to experience good roleplay, roleplay yourself with each other. Shocking.

That’s one way to play the game… a frankly very shallow way. You just miss out on so much lore and world building that way. I for one don’t play for the rewards, I play for story and exploration.

Also, game stories are usually better than the stuff on TV. Not always, but usually.

Cotheer.2806:

LA is now Kessex Hills 2.0

I wouldn’t go that far yet, Kessex Hills was like the high point of the story so far, maybe tied with Zephyr Sanctum. LA changes still need to be implemented to rank it.

Uh-huh

15characters

Ravion Hawk.4736:

As to the in-game time frame, take each update that happened roughly every two weeks and count that as a day that is repeated constantly for two weeks then you’d might be able to handle the story a tiny bit better knowing that from the end of the Personal Story to the end of the Living Story (including the Karka) only 26 days have passed in-game.

This would actually explain away most, if not all of the plot holes seeing as how the Living Story was less than a month from start to finish and therefore the plot holes “technically” are not there. Example, the probes were only there for about a day or two before they ’sploded and a full investigation could not be done in time.

Concept of time could help make this palatable for many.

Quoting because many people seem to not be aware of this, and it makes complete sense.

Mystical Digital.1603:

Quoting because many people seem to not be aware of this, and it makes complete sense.

Complete sense? It makes even less sense! How on earth did Scarlet pull off operations on this scale in that timeframe? Constructed huge armies of killer robots, organized her alliances? Are you telling me that the Tower of Nightmares was built overnight?
This is like the Chewbacca defense.

This is what I get for reading theories when half asleep. Though I still think this may be true from some Living Story chapters. Certainly the battle for LA didn’t take 2 weeks, nor did the chapter before it. And there’s no way Flame and Frost took 4 months. I think maybe we have to accept there is some flexible timeline here in general that is stretched or compacted to comform to the release schedule.

Let’s see if we can forsee next chapter…
Delaqua’s sister moving to Brisban, she disapa/get kidnapped in the jungle, we proceed to the jungle.

I’m quite dissapointed with that “epiloque”. It gives us information that everybody knows, mentions some dragon once (and nobody seems really interested besides “We’ll kill it anyway”), brings up boring dialogue between Taimi and Uh-huh(tbh, nice name it would be), brings out lesbian plot again and shows a link to next chapter (sister).

Yet:
-What happened to all these mighty Scarlet alliances?
-What’s up with Southsun?
-Where are all this things belonging to Scarlet? Krait Obelisk?
-What’s up with Consortium
-Orr?
-Pact?
-Where will the refugees from LA live? Outside of the city forever?
And many more…

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

It was also stated later on this epilogue would take place in the Death End bar (forgot where) What did you expect?

I expected a decent wrap up to a year long story. Perhaps some answers to the thousands of loose ends…

I guess since they dragged us along blindly through a years worth of content, I was foolish to think they were capable of wrapping things up.

this game gets my vote for the best artwork, design and sound in an MMO, while also getting my vote for the worst writing.

I will say one thing:

Still a better love story than Twilight.

Beyond that, I knew this end would wind up disappointing me. But I underestimated just how much.
Worst part is, got nothing to distract me from this until the next patch as nothing else is going on.

VincentDW.9376:

Sigh. I wanted to believe all the times we were told, “just wait until the end to judge, it will get better, we promise!” Well, now it is the end, and now I am judging. Please find a different writer for season 2.

Amen to this. I was in the same “wait till the end to judge” boat as you and I came to the same critique: the writing for this season was bad! Two out of five stars at most.

Living Story: Season One feels like one of those movies where you wish you had two hours of your life back, only its a year and a half you wish you got back. The pace was extremely slow, the plot was convoluted, the characters were passable at best, the delivery and introductions were tragic, and the finale left me feeling apathetic.

I thought that conversation scene is more suited for a website write up sort, but people didn’t like that direction so I guess they make do with what they can.

My only issue about the ending is the abnormally long breaks in between conversation, and the general awkwardness of it when waiting for a speech to kick in. I too didn’t like how it doesn’t reveal much yet, but it only means there would be more to come. The time an author would wrap up a story, is when they don’t plan to write about it anymore.

I’m keeping a positive feel about this, I do wish we have more story parts to view in the next season.

Yea, the epilogue was quite the disappointment, but after so many disappointing Living Stories what do we all expect?

It felt weak.
Like an arkward ending to a medicore tv-show.
It was around the same level as an 90s cartoon show.
It was not abd, there was some funny dialog, but there were no questions answered.
It was “just” some character building and some hinting where it will go next, which just felt arkwardly out of place.
Majory`s sister came in like some guest star in a comedy bringing some plot point and then goes away.
The only thing missing was an laugh track.
And then the ending transition with the “to be continued”…

I am sorry, but whilen it had some funny moment the whole presentation and unanswered questions and overall feeling of this szene just so bland and boring that i just wanted it to stop.

I want to like it. There were some nice details, like Brahams crippled sign, but overall it was just hurting me…

LA was making me sad in a good way… this was just making me sad…

Whether it be a bug or just not there, I was so hoping for a cutscene showing the ships leaving, the drill blowing up, and the people cheering. All I got was a note in my mailbox saying I was invited to the Dead End party.

the release notes say:

“Lion’s Arch
Upon entering the game, players who are level 30 and above will view a short cinematic based in the city. …”

release notes here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-March-18-2014/first#post3772979

In any case, if it was there, and it’s just a bug, anyone got a link to the vid?

OT: I wasn’t really let down by the bar scene, but I wasn’t impressed either.

The only things I took away from it was that Taimi knows more than she should, and isn’t telling anyone, and that Jory’s sister is heading to Brisbane, where we’ll probably see the next Season start. (Jory’s sister was so engrossing that I can’t remember her name… what does that tell you?)

Please, oh, please don’t turn Taimi into Scarlet 2.0…

Well, it seems this is one thing the community is generally in agreement about. LS season 1 could have been much better. I believe the mystery and ambiguity were a result of Anet not really knowing where they wanted this story to go. It’s clear from Braham’s, “It doesn’t matter now” that they didn’t have any solutions to tie it all together.

What’s done is done though. Looking at some of the features coming up it does look like Anet is listening to the community. I recognize a lot of the QoL changes as things that I’ve read many times on the forums.

Regarding the mediocre LS season 1, I think that they just wrapped it up and shelved it. That’s not necessarily too bad a thing right now. Perhaps they were just as ready to put it behind them as we are.

Rym.1469:

Let’s see if we can forsee next chapter…
Delaqua’s sister moving to Brisban, she disapa/get kidnapped in the jungle, we proceed to the jungle.

Even better : Jory will get word that her sister’s team disappeared. We’ll have to help her investigate and we’ll see bodies and probably a scared survivor. That survivor (or a hint) will tell us that some of the guards fled deep in the forest.
Of course, being curious, we’re going to head into unexplored territory (well not really because we already been there in GW1, but this being GW2 it’ll be more than beyond recognition). Finally we’ll catch up with Belinda and we’ll all be happy.

But oh no ! Something is wrong with her ! She’s corrupted ! (maybe they are going to take 4 weeks so we can really see that some things don’t sit right with her to finally “surprise” us with her corruption).

So in a tear-filled fight with tear-filled dialogues (and hiccups, because hey, that’s totally relevant and adds a “nice” touch) we’ll help Jory kill her own sister (like we helped Jora kill Svanir after he had been corrupted).

And so, Jory will swear to get revenge on the dragon and the whole DE 2.0 will follow her. And, because people complained about the lack of the Pact help, we’ll have to assist the Pact in investigating the dragon and finding a way to kill it.

RedStar.4218:

Rym.1469:

Let’s see if we can forsee next chapter…
Delaqua’s sister moving to Brisban, she disapa/get kidnapped in the jungle, we proceed to the jungle.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Even better : Jory will get word that her sister’s team disappeared. We’ll have to help her investigate and we’ll see bodies and probably a scared survivor. That survivor (or a hint) will tell us that some of the guards fled deep in the forest.
Of course, being curious, we’re going to head into unexplored territory (well not really because we already been there in GW1, but this being GW2 it’ll be more than beyond recognition). Finally we’ll catch up with Belinda and we’ll all be happy.

But oh no ! Something is wrong with her ! She’s corrupted ! (maybe they are going to take 4 weeks so we can really see that some things don’t sit right with her to finally “surprise” us with her corruption).

So in a tear-filled fight with tear-filled dialogues (and hiccups, because hey, that’s totally relevant and adds a “nice” touch) we’ll help Jory kill her own sister (like we helped Jora kill Svanir after he had been corrupted).

And so, Jory will swear to get revenge on the dragon and the whole DE 2.0 will follow her. And, because people complained about the lack of the Pact help, we’ll have to assist the Pact in investigating the dragon and finding a way to kill it.

Jeez man! Put spoiler tags on that puppy! You’re giving away 15 months worth of story.

Thobek.1730:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

It was also stated later on this epilogue would take place in the Death End bar (forgot where) What did you expect?

I expected a decent wrap up to a year long story. Perhaps some answers to the thousands of loose ends…

As I said before, LS has no such thing as decent story telling.

Sarrs.4831:

The city full of dead bodies and nothing needs people protecting it.

If you talk to NPCs in LA you will find out that there are looters.

Rym.1469:

-What happened to all these mighty Scarlet alliances?

Ask Magnus. Scarlet died and the Lionguard had a field day with what was left. That said, has anyone seen Mai Trin recently?

Rym.1469:

-What’s up with Southsun?

The wildlife overran the island and the settlers left. That story ended a while back.

Rym.1469:

-Where are all this things belonging to Scarlet? Krait Obelisk?

Ask Steward Gixx. “Top. Men.”

Rym.1469:

-What’s up with Consortium

Likely assembling the troops now that Lion’s Arch is in ruins. The battle came as a surprise to them as well, though, so its going to take them time to properly set themselves up.

Rym.1469:

-Orr?

Still has an undead problem.

Rym.1469:

-Pact?

Still handling that undead problem. And the Icebrood problem. And the Branded problem.

Rym.1469:

-Where will the refugees from LA live? Outside of the city forever?

Rome wasn’t built in a day, Lion’s Arch isn’t going to be rebuilt in a day, and a refugee’s life certainly isn’t going to be rebuilt in a day.

To quote claymation Burgess Meredith, ‘save some of that for the sequel!’ And so Anet did.

Lostwingman.5034:

Sarrs.4831:

The city full of dead bodies and nothing needs people protecting it.

If you talk to NPCs in LA you will find out that there are looters.

The funny thing is, you can even see looters but you can’t stop them…

Mystical Digital.1603:

Konrad Knox.5162:

Um, someone bothers to actually read all that text the NPCs say? Click the guys, get the rewards, buy gems, go back to PvP.

Seriously, when will people learn to not expect devs to give you stories? This is not TV. If you want to experience good roleplay, roleplay yourself with each other. Shocking.

That’s one way to play the game… a frankly very shallow way. You just miss out on so much lore and world building that way. I for one don’t play for the rewards, I play for story and exploration.

Also, game stories are usually better than the stuff on TV. Not always, but usually.

I have read the lore of GW and GW2 off the Wiki enough to coherently roleplay in the universe. The Living Story content is not up to my quality standard for serious roleplay.

Marjory: “So tell us, Konrad, how did it feel to finally kill Scarlet? Just don’t make me laugh, my ribs still hurt.”

What my reply would be, were I able to speak for Konrad?

Konrad: "Laugh, Marjory? Laugh, really? You were there, you should know how it felt. Or maybe tongue exchange with the hiccup girl here wiped your memory? Let me refresh it for you. How did it feel to do the dirty work for you, in a mission you dragged me into? You ask for my help, and I agree to kill someone for you, because you cannot do it yourselves, and then you ask me how it felt? People are suffering in Lion’s Arch right now, dying of hunger and wounds, trying to rebuild their homes. Children are crying for their lost parents. Siblings are separated. Thousands of people are now refugees needing new homes. That makes you laugh? Well then, glad your life works out for you, you spiteful little harlot. How did it feel? Like I’ve got the easy job. The hard work begins now. I’m out of here. Anyone of you who has any decency left, get up on your feet and let’s go. People need help. There’s a lot of work left. There are huts to rebuild, and roofs to thatch, wounds to bandage, and children to feed.

Lostwingman.5034:

Sarrs.4831:

The city full of dead bodies and nothing needs people protecting it.

If you talk to NPCs in LA you will find out that there are looters.

Yep. We need to send elite Whispers operatives, masters of espionage, deception and sabotage, to stop looters.

Good on ya, Doern. Always thinking of the little guy.

Konrad Knox.5162:

I have read the lore of GW and GW2 off the Wiki enough to coherently roleplay in the universe. The Living Story content is not up to my quality standard for serious roleplay.

---

Marjory: “So tell us, Konrad, how did it feel to finally kill Scarlet? Just don’t make me laugh, my ribs still hurt.”

What my reply would be, were I able to speak for Konrad?

Konrad: "Laugh, Marjory? Laugh, really? You were there, you should know how it felt. Or maybe tongue exchange with the hiccup girl here wiped your memory? Let me refresh it for you. How did it feel to do the dirty work for you, in a mission you dragged me into? You ask for my help, and I agree to kill someone for you, because you cannot do it yourselves, and then you ask me how it felt? People are suffering in Lion’s Arch right now, dying of hunger and wounds, trying to rebuild their homes. Children are crying for their lost parents. Siblings are separated. Thousands of people are now refugees needing new homes. That makes you laugh? Well then, glad your life works out for you, you spiteful little harlot. How did it feel? Like I’ve got the easy job. The hard work begins now. I’m out of here. Anyone of you who has any decency left, get up on your feet and let’s go. People need help. There’s a lot of work left. There are huts to rebuild, and roofs to thatch, wounds to bandage, and children to feed.

Hey, wonderful, she almost dies trying to fight all this and your character feel the need to scold her. And not just scold but eviscerate so thoroughly there’s nothing to have even an admittedly somber gathering over.

Everyone there is trying to have some time to unwind and convalesce from assorted injuries and problems. They’re doing a real bad job of having fun, because even with the attempts at joking there’s no fun there.

Less is more.

Tobias Trueflight: “How did it feel? Well now I know how my ancestor felt helping to put down the mad prophet Varesh Ossa. Dirty business, and still too much left to get done. Plenty of things left to fix and wounds which need healing. So drink and be merry now . . . there’s tough times coming.”

And then I might have gone off to target-practice on Inquest.

I just hope we get a more permanent Personal story now if we are going to fight the next Elder Dragon soon.

Living story are nice but they don’t last forever and currently serve to tell a temporary story about how the world changes and why.

Things that could have made the ending more interesting:

1.) Braham ends up crippled, potentially requiring Taimi’s Asuran tech to move around, which in turn provides Taimi with an outlet to shift focus from Synergystics to Statics.

2.) Marjory remains scarred, physically and mentally, from the explosion caused by Scarlet. This switches the role of Kasmeer from pretty blonde pet to actual caretaker in the relationship, while Majory tries to actually start getting over almost dying.

3.) An actual confrontation between Rytlock and Rox over the matter of the warband. Either rejection, setting Rox on the path to form a guild proper with our heroes, or acceptance despite Scarlet being slain by another, adding continued complications to friendship between Braham and Rox.

Any of those three possibilities link right into the events on the Breechmaker, so they make sense, and they add more spice to the story that was not there.

No one won. Everyone still lost. Lion’s Arch is gone. We killed one psychopath, that’s a good thing. We failed to stop her ultimate plan, and that’s very, very bad. No one should be holding a party. Laughing, cheering, celebrating? Wrong chord to strike.

The heroes are bruised, and broken, and should thus feel unsure of where they stand.

Gameplay additions that would have helped:

1.) Quests/tasks to help rebuild Lion’s Arch/help Refugees. I honestly EXPECTED something like this to be added, so we’d have something to do between LS chapters.

2.) Quests to flesh out how each of the heroes reacted, and internalized, the events at the Breechmaker.

I understand some of what goes into game making. I do. It’s always a fight between budget, resources, and deadlines. I have been a die hard fan of Anet and GW2 from the beginning. But these last 3-4 LS releases have broken my blind faith, especially the wrap up.

You set the bar high in the past guys. You can’t undo what you did, but here’s a few suggestions proceeding forward.

1.) Stop releasing Gem Store goodies till the next LS chapter starts.

2.) Talk to your roleplaying servers, roleplayers tend to, in my experience, be relatively good writers. Your writers need some fresh ideas, from people who know the lore. So go talk to the roleplayers.

3.) Anyone from GW 1 remembers the Mhenlo Incident, otherwise known as Factions. The Party, is a carbon copy of that same problem. We are the players, the story revolves around us. The Story can focus on an NPC, have to do with an NPC, require and NPC’s “choices” but making us stand around and do nothing is bad.

I liked a lot of the LS, contrary to most. I think blowing up LA, the center of player traffic, was actually a good story telling move. Scarlet was the perfect psychopath, with an ingenious scheme, who took several seemingly unrelated plans and forged them into something we couldn’t stop no matter how hard we tried.

But the properties of a good villain are thus.
1. They have a conceivable logic, if insane.
2. They are mercilessly brutal.
3. They escape regularly, and cause serious harm to the hero(s)
4. You have an inescapable need to stop them, and possibly kill them at all costs.
5. Even if you win, you never win, and you feel it.

So where is the LS go wrong? It became about Gem Store Goodies, and making social cues. You relied too heavily on the ham fist romance between Kasmeer and Marjory, and the equally ham fisted “big brother/little sister” family virtue of Braham and Taimi. Finally, you all but erased the value of your perfect villain by making it seem like we all accomplished some great victory that we all know we didn’t.

Lion’s Arch is still gone, the dragon’s are going to come more than ever, many thousands dead, many more displaced.

You just fought your way through a burning city, caught in an explosion, killed your main enemy, and nearly lost one of your members, wouldn’t you want to go for shawarma…. I mean a meal to celebrate you just defeated a great evil, and try and not think about the hundreds of people that died or wen’t missing.
It was the end of an adventure before they begin a new one, i mean wouldn’t want to send one legged broham at aother dragon would we.

I think this sums up the entire waste that has been Living Story very nicely. Probably one of the few things they’ve done right, highlight how flawed and inane the entire effort has been with a perfectly inane ending.

I think this is proof that some people working on LS who would rather have spent the last 18 months designing meaningful content get how bad this all is. It’s an in joke between those enlightened devs and the players who see Living Story for what it really is.

It has to be like living in Bizzaro land. Pre-launch development was brilliant and the game at launch was an amazing accomplishment. Before you even get a chance to pat yourself on the back, you are assigned to work on…this…

The bar scene is an obvious end-of-season cliffhanger kind of thing, with writing quality no worse than what I expect from LS. This isn’t something worth throwing up arms about.. I just hope the next installment will have its writing improved.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Hey, wonderful, she almost dies trying to fight all this and your character feel the need to scold her. And not just scold but eviscerate so thoroughly there’s nothing to have even an admittedly somber gathering over.

There isn’t. To me that makes perfect sense. The entire thing was a massive tragic failure, and nobody should be celebrating anything. And it’s Marjory’s own fault getting in harm’s way. For the entire campaign she did absolutely nothing worthy in combat, save for some investigation, which was also a failure, because we didn’t see it coming. And we lost a city. We couldn’t warn enough people, couldn’t reach the key people in time.
I’m not celebrating. I’m mourning.

Talonblaze.3175:

I will say one thing:

Still a better love story than Twilight.

No, no it’s not. It makes Twilight look like the greatest love story ever told.

Lane.3410:

Talonblaze.3175:

I will say one thing:

Still a better love story than Twilight.

No, no it’s not. It makes Twilight look like the greatest love story ever told.

. . . someone must be thinking of a different Twilight.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . someone must be thinking of a different Twilight.

Someone must be thinking the writing in the LS was leagues better than it actually was.

Lane.3410:

It makes Twilight look like the greatest love story ever told.

Yea, it was almost that bad!

CharrGirl.7896:

Well, are you really that surprised? They did announce a “small feature patch”, – nothing major. If you were expecting a big update, blame yourself for not informing yourself. :P

And yet a few days back we had a few posters defending the horrendous LS narration by quoting the patch with the epilogue:

Ayrilana.1396:

Wait until the epilogue in two weeks.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

It’s like reading a book, and complaining before you finish the last couple of chapters. Have patience my friend. If the final part of the LS doesn’t satisfy you in two weeks, then complain.

Vol.7601:

Are you guys impatient or what? You really want a patch that tells the whole story and makes the next few years of GW2 irrelevant?

It’s like asking a patch for Season 2 to reveal all the spoilers.

Have patience, geez.

Wait for the epilogue, then complain.

I find it funny how criticism against the terrible, terrible delivery of the LS has always been defended by a dialogue of postponement (i.e. a “payoff” in a later patch will deliver more and better narrative).

Scarlet’s nonsensical character was defended by a dev during Aetherpath through this manner. The lack of plot development in the last LS arc was also defended using the same tactic. Now with the release of the Epilogue, we have some individuals defending the lack of answers by saying “don’t worry, we’ll get `some` of those answers in season 2.”

I was so annoyed during this instance, and I’m doubly so now that I’ve listened to the first ending that they had and scrapped. I mean it wasn’t great that Jory died in that ending, but the epilogue conversation felt so much more natural? Like, it was everyone sitting in the tavern and reflecting on everything that had happened over the past year and then talking briefly about plans for the future. (I also liked how Logan made an appearance, because it was a nice reminder to the fact that Logan and Jory were bros.) This ending, all it was was just… uh-huh.

So much of these characters’ development up until this point was in utterly missable side conversations and content that was optional even to the people who chose to do the LS, so the conversation in the epilogue seemed like way too little too late. It was just HEY, YOU. CARE ABOUT THESE CHARACTERS. LET ME SHOVE THEIR PERSONALITIES DOWN YOUR THROAT FOR FIVE MINUTES SO THAT YOU ARE 100% AWARE OF HOW MUCH YOU SHOULD BE CARING ABOUT THEM RIGHT NOW. THEY’RE SO QUIRKY AND FUN DON’T YOU CARE ABOUT THEM? No, ArenaNet. I don’t. You had months to get me to look at them and get invested. You botched it. It’s too late now. I have never wanted to leave a party so badly, not even in college, and I think that that is saying a lot.

I really can’t emphasize enough how little I care about DE 2.0. We have not been given a single reason to care about ANY of these characters. Bringing in Jory’s sister was kind of interesting, but again, it was too little too late. By now I couldn’t really be paid to care.

It really feels like everything we’ve done over the past year was for absolutely kittening nothing. There was absolutely ZERO catharsis to this ending. No closure. Nothing. It was just LOL YAY EVERYONE’S OKAY (except for those poor kittens who were in Lion’s Arch but ehhh w/e) AND EVERYTHING IS SUNSHINE AND RAINBOWS SHOOTING OUT OF OUR kitten… OH WAIT THERE’S A DRAGON? LOL OH WELL HEY JORY ARE YOU SURE SCREWING KASMEER IS A GOOD IDEA? UH-HUH.

I’m so fatigued with this game’s empty promises. I’m tired of being told “just wait.” The season is over, guys. How much longer do I have to wait? So, you woke a dragon. Okay, but why? Kralkatorrik and Jormag are already up. No, seriously, I need to know why. Why even BOTHER forming all of these enemy alliances? Is it going to actually matter or change anything now? Will there be any fallout? Does anyone care? What was the point of ANY of it?? It just feels so kitten pointless, I can’t stand it.

Like many here, I felt the bar scene completely pointless. The conversation was stinted, to the point I was waiting for someone to say ‘you guys in post traumatic stress or what?’. The best part that was ‘uhh hu—uhh hu’. Also, no one in bar even mentions the poor unfortunates who met a grisly end in LA. Unfortunately for me, I feel like a schizophrenic in a love hate relationship with the game at the moment. The story line just feels—-directionless for me, as if they are making up the story line up over coffee in the morning, and have employed the writer(s) of cereal commercials. And yet I come back for more every day, in the hope that things will change.