Guild Wars 2

So now that the 4 chapters of Flame and Frost have hit Guild Wars 2 – I wanted to provide some feedback. (WARNING: Long Post)

Although the idea of a Living Story is great, it was not executed as well as in the past. I think taking what happened in Halloween, Lost Shores, and Wintersday would be prime examples of Living Story – just have to create it on a bigger scale. For the record, I enjoy the game and I enjoy the new content – just finding better ways to implement. People will always complain no matter what the changes are, but I hope this is more helpful.

Flame and Frost could easily be wrapped up in 1 month. Each chapter being introduced per week instead of per month. Not only does it add content, but it keeps the people checking in to see what has changed (again like Halloween, Lost Shores, and Wintersday). Example of this:

Week 1: Prelude

• Players collect the mementos, fix signs, and light campfires for refugees fleeing
• The refugee camps in Hoelbrak and Black Citadel are created – more people show up as the week progresses (same camp changes as in the January patch)
• Steam vents appear in mountain – more appearing as week goes on.

Week 2: The Gathering Storm

• Storms worsen and more refugees appear – including the Consortium push in Lion’s Arch / starting to build in Southsun
• Collect the items the refugees have lost (2 items for now)
• Enemies appear at homesteads via portals and dredge transports (more portals and enemies appearing as the week goes on)

Week 3: The Razing

• New world events kick off for Rox and Braham
• Braham Event leading to Cragstead Mission – From Hoelbrak, escort Braham to Cragstead. Molten Alliance attacks along the way. Repeatable Event
• Rox Event leading to Hatchery Mission – From Black Citadel, escort Rox to Hatchery. Molten Alliance attacks along the way. Repeatable Event
• Cragstead and Hatchery missions unlocked after escort quest (first time only, won’t be contested. Like Lost Shores when we cleared trees and areas through the island the first time).
• 2 new lost items introduced
• Dead Drop Locations and Sonic Periscopes
• Southsun is developing

Week 4: Retribution

• New Molten Weapons Facility that changes location as the timer goes down
• Ending Cinematics for Rox and Braham
• Final 2 lost items introduced
• Epilogue after Dungeon towards the end of the month
• More refugees in Southsun
• People catch up before patch the next week

Week 5: Next Patch

• Flame and Frost added to Living Story book for replay value / past rewards.

Now realistically, this probably wouldn’t have happened because dev time is limited and other things like WvW and sPvP needs to be addressed as well as bug fixing / new Black Lion items, etc. If it did though, Super Adventure Box may have been a month of it’s own with all the weapon skins, all the worlds, etc.

I know this content is not easy to make and it takes a long time to develop / test, but if you want to push Living Story as a selling point for this game, you need to keep the audience focused on the shiny object. Some people will crank through this in an hour or two. What Living Story elements are left for the rest of the month? Mad King and Wintersday had the same setup with new stuff unlocking as days went by – Living Story can be done the same way. In terms of bugs, they can happen too which you could probably extend my 4 week idea into a 6 week for any problems that may occur.

TLDR: Like past events, Flame and Frost probably could of been condensed into a month. Future events should be like this to keep players involved in a constantly living and evolving world. What went right – new content, dungeon is great with the new mechanics, new missions and cinematics a plus. What went wrong – time duration. Too long of a wait for not too much living story content monthly.

Constructive feedback to improve Living Story for this thread is welcome!

Wait, there’s stuff going on in southsun?

How anyone has the patience to read and retain the information from all these boring NPCs is beyond me.

Outlaw.3421:

So now that the 4 chapters of Flame and Frost have hit Guild Wars 2 – I wanted to provide some feedback. (WARNING: Long Post)

Although the idea of a Living Story is great, it was not executed as well as in the past. I think taking what happened in Halloween, Lost Shores, and Wintersday would be prime examples of Living Story – just have to create it on a bigger scale. For the record, I enjoy the game and I enjoy the new content – just finding better ways to implement. People will always complain no matter what the changes are, but I hope this is more helpful. i have been really enjoying each week of the flame & frost content but i think that most of the weekes have been missing some events in between the months of waiting for the of frost & flame

Flame and Frost could easily be wrapped up in 1 month. Each chapter being introduced per week instead of per month. Not only does it add content, but it keeps the people checking in to see what has changed (again like Halloween, Lost Shores, and Wintersday). Example of this:

Week 1: Prelude

• Players collect the mementos, fix signs, and light campfires for refugees fleeing
• The refugee camps in Hoelbrak and Black Citadel are created – more people show up as the week progresses (same camp changes as in the January patch)
• Steam vents appear in mountain – more appearing as week goes on.

Week 2: The Gathering Storm

• Storms worsen and more refugees appear – including the Consortium push in Lion’s Arch / starting to build in Southsun
• Collect the items the refugees have lost (2 items for now)
• Enemies appear at homesteads via portals and dredge transports (more portals and enemies appearing as the week goes on)

Week 3: The Razing

• New world events kick off for Rox and Braham
• Braham Event leading to Cragstead Mission – From Hoelbrak, escort Braham to Cragstead. Molten Alliance attacks along the way. Repeatable Event
• Rox Event leading to Hatchery Mission – From Black Citadel, escort Rox to Hatchery. Molten Alliance attacks along the way. Repeatable Event
• Cragstead and Hatchery missions unlocked after escort quest (first time only, won’t be contested. Like Lost Shores when we cleared trees and areas through the island the first time).
• 2 new lost items introduced
• Dead Drop Locations and Sonic Periscopes
• Southsun is developing

Week 4: Retribution

• New Molten Weapons Facility that changes location as the timer goes down
• Ending Cinematics for Rox and Braham
• Final 2 lost items introduced
• Epilogue after Dungeon towards the end of the month
• More refugees in Southsun
• People catch up before patch the next week

Week 5: Next Patch

• Flame and Frost added to Living Story book for replay value / past rewards.

Now realistically, this probably wouldn’t have happened because dev time is limited and other things like WvW and sPvP needs to be addressed as well as bug fixing / new Black Lion items, etc. If it did though, Super Adventure Box may have been a month of it’s own with all the weapon skins, all the worlds, etc.

I know this content is not easy to make and it takes a long time to develop / test, but if you want to push Living Story as a selling point for this game, you need to keep the audience focused on the shiny object. Some people will crank through this in an hour or two. What Living Story elements are left for the rest of the month? Mad King and Wintersday had the same setup with new stuff unlocking as days went by – Living Story can be done the same way. In terms of bugs, they can happen too which you could probably extend my 4 week idea into a 6 week for any problems that may occur.

TLDR: Like past events, Flame and Frost probably could of been condensed into a month. Future events should be like this to keep players involved in a constantly living and evolving world. What went right – new content, dungeon is great with the new mechanics, new missions and cinematics a plus. What went wrong – time duration. Too long of a wait for not too much living story content monthly.

Constructive feedback to improve Living Story for this thread is welcome!

ok i know i am blowing off dust from this but i am curious about lost parts of these mission or events? what happens to rox after the hatchery mission? because after i went back to town i saw rox but went straight to the recap?! and rox could of had a another mission for me (sighs) on recaps ! what does braham do to find the missing norn from cragstead? same i think there is whole lot missing from the start of the prelude fpr me? there should be some missing events from these weeks that would be interest fpr me. an how the molten alliance came togather? i like to keep my content clean so no negative content would be nice

First off, I’ve loved the Living Story so far…but there’s always room for improvement, right?

My biggest criticism:
My character doesn’t truly feel like they’re part of the living story. It feels like my character is watching the living story, not a part of it, like my character is a voiceless spectator of Rox’s and Braham’s stories.

Yes, Braham, Rox, and other instanced characters tell my character thank you and send letters and goodies for the help, all of which contribute to the feeling that my character made a difference, but it still doesn’t feel like my character is truly connected to what’s happening.

Suggested ways to improve on this:

• Add branching dialogue or quests where Rox/Braham’s actions or some other outcomes change based on my input.
• Have Living Story NPC’s in the open world react based on my character’s involvement in the Living Story. I’ve already finished the the Molten Facility dungeon—why don’t the heralds shout about my progress, or recognize me or at least talk about me when I go up and talk to them? Some of the NPC’s do this already, like Agent Brandubh, the dead drop collector, but I’d like to see more of the impact of my progress out in the world.
• Add voiceovers for my character during Living Story cinematics or cut scenes. This may be unfeasible given your develop budgets or timelines—I understand that you’d have to record dialogue for each race/gender combination—but hearing my character speak during cutscenes would make my character seem much less like a voiceless spectator.

My only issue with the latest release of the Living Story is doing the dungeon requires 5 people (most of which need to be at lvl 80 to begin with) and for a person like me who has taken their time to slowly build up characters rather than rush to get to lvl 80 (I have 14 characters ranging from lvl 26 to 44) I do not have adequate armor and weaponry to fight the bosses in the final scene of Rage Against the War Machine. Thus the problem I have encountered on 2 failed runs of the dungeon where I died so many times the groups that I was with one ‘voted’ me out of the group and the other the players just abandoned me. So I am stuck with not being able to complete the Living Story because I am not a lvl 80 character. I really wish that ANET would bring back Hero’s so people like me don’t have to worry about upsetting other ‘team’ members and getting voted out of a group.

I loved the F&F arc. I little slow for me, but in any case far better than the 3 days event of karkaland, plenty of bugs, lag and with no room to fix it.
I prefer to have a lot of time to do it, and then I´ll decide if I will finish it on the first day or on the last one.
About the “solo” debate, I prefer to take the story in solo mode, because if I want to stop here and there, I can. But said that, I´m not the only one with this mentality, so it was really easy for me to find another 4 friends who wanted to do their first atemp of the molten dungeon in a slow and discovery way. The result was that we all 5 had a lot of fun. More fun that if I had made the dungeon solo with 4 npcs.

So thumbs up for F&F. My only issue is, as always, about the rewards. Few and mostly depends on luck. I don´t like that.

i am one of those frustrated by what seem to have become obligatory 5 person dungeons.Even with a level 80 character you ,or at any rate I, can’t do them on my own. You appear to have the ability to scale dynamic events is there no way to scale dungeons according to how many people enter so that solo players can continue to participate.
In some ways I wonder if its even worth starting southsun cove when i anticipate it will end with a 5 person dungeon .unlike a previous poster I haven’t readily found groups