Guild Wars 2

Agreed. It was well done and I enjoyed this.

I enjoyed it up to the point where the NPCs start patting each other on the back and promptly ignoring that you exist.

Typical ArenaNet.

Yeah was good. Looking forward to the remaining stuff 2014 and then want to see if we really can capture or kill Scarlet(probably capture – I don’t think they want us to kill her because we are “good guys” and younger people are playing the game – we already captured Mai Trin).

Then I’m alraedy looking forward to the stuff after that. To new “season” of living story and new enemies.

Luthan.5236:

Yeah was good. Looking forward to the remaining stuff 2014 and then want to see if we really can capture or kill Scarlet(probably capture – I don’t think they want us to kill her because we are “good guys” and younger people are playing the game – we already captured Mai Trin).

Then I’m alraedy looking forward to the stuff after that. To new “season” of living story and new enemies.

no, no, she definitely needs to die! if we just “capture” her, three releases later she escapes, comes up with another alliance of some X and Y classes from the bestiary and we’re stuck with her for another year.

so, just three words for you: death to scarlet!

Maverick.6053:

so, just three words for you: death to scarlet!

Why not four words? Lol. I want Steve Ballmer as next enemy. Lol:

Maybe the toxic Microsoft and ArenaNet alliance. Lol. But only for windows users.

This was my reaction when i watched the tower of doom fall.

I agree. Well done.

I also liked how it incorporated all of the previous stuff Scarlet has been involved in. The next question is.. What is Scarlet up to with all these pieces she’s gathered up and what is she planning on building.

I agree with the OP! I tend to be very, very skeptical about endings, but this one was very well balanced, and the view from the hill of the tower debris is glorious. There are a lot of ruins in Tyria, but THIS one was made by us! Ha!

I really liked it as well the whole instance was nicely done and the cutscene was very good. Also liked the optional puzzles even though I hesitate to call them that, since they were pretty simple and all but 1 can be brute forced. But the way achievements are tided for doing it both ways is pretty nice touch.

However, on the 3rd run through you start to quietly wish the cutscene could be skipped. Sadly even for nice things like this the novelty of it wears off.

The ending really gave me the feeling I get after completing a good book, or beating a single player game. Never had that feeling in an MMO before. Bravo Anet!

Yes it was awesome, I spent two weeks in that tower. Two weeks I loved and two weeks I hated. It was good to see it explode but I will miss it.

Yes, I really enjoyed the end to the story. The little mini-puzzle was great too

Great ending.

The puzzle instance was a lot of fun and I got to play all the different permutations, so considering it’s just 2 rooms that was a lot of gameplay. Nice puzzles!

The changes to the zone are really cool. Updated heart quests are a lovely touch, I have to do these hearts on a couple of characters so I noticed the change right away. Great! Plus all the wreckage lying around and everything else… memories of what has passed.

Just adding my voice to those saying “job well done”. Watching the tower go boom was all kinds of awesome and there’s still fallout to deal with throughout kessex hills.

Still not sure why a plant could explode, but eh, the story instance was fun and the cinematic was cool to watch. The NPC dialogues back at the camp are probably the best part though! Bloomanoo+Peneloopee flirting, Kasmeer’s armor “revelation”, and Braham’s flirting with Marjory were all hilariously awesome. Kudos to whoever’s writing their dialogue!

Incredible job with the cutscene. Still not a fan of the script during the quest, but to be honest, they nailed a lot more than they lacked. It was fun and made a nice finish.

Of course Scarlet is gatering materials to build and develop a huge weapon to kill an elder dragon, which has enslaved Tengus. So next year they will introduce a new campaign along with a new race (Tengus), where we will help Scarlet free them from the evil dragon. That way we won’t have to kill her!

It makes sense!

Too bad it was the tree and not Scarlet that exploded.

Needs more of that cinematic style in the Personal Story! (And living Story)

Even if it is retroactively replacing older cutscenes with the new style…i would replay a story if it was better presented (backdrop + floating people…not so much)

I also want to chime in and say that I really liked a lot of what you guys did with this release. The puzzle was an awesome change of pace and it was actually fun figuring out the solutions, even if they were pretty simple. And a small touch, I liked that you guys did that panning cinematic around Marjory, Kasmeer, AND our characters when you first talk to Marjory. It was a small thing, but it was inclusive to us, which is something I’ve felt the living story (and even the personal story) hasn’t been. Usually I feel like I’m just along for the ride, and the story hardly acknowledges our contributions. This release, steps were definitely taken in the right direction to rectify that (although there’s still a ways to go). The cutscene at the end of the tower exploding was also, as everyone has already noted, completely awesome. Easily the best cutscene you guys have produced.

And finally, I wanted to mention that you guys did a great job with the dialogue, both ambient and direct interaction, at the camp in Kessex. I spent a good 30 minutes just hanging around there listening to the ambient dialogue and exploring all the conversations. I particularly liked how some conversations you could have would affect others. For example, when I first talked to one of the characters, she asked me if I had heard anything about the fate of a particular skritt inside the tower. The exit dialogue option was “I’ll ask around,” and I specifically thought to myself “Yeah, not like it’ll affect anything.” But I was wrong. Another character did know the fate of that skritt, and I was able to go back to relay that information to the original character. It might not have affected anything (although in the future it would be amazing if this kind of dialogue interaction carried over between releases) but it made everything feel more substantial and fleshed out.

This release has given me a bit more hope for the living story model. Good work guys, I hope we continue to see improvements like those I mentioned.

I thought that this mini-arc was probably the best implementation of a living world yet. There was a nice teaser giving us hints of what was to come, an opening which showed us the a vast change in landscape (though there was a lack of events), a climax made it feel like we were really invading a stronghold, and finally a conclusion which went out with a bang and changed the landscape yet again. The open world dialogue was also very well done and was a step up from previous releases.

Although my favorite part of the content is gone (the tower itself) I very much enjoyed how these patches were implemented and I hope they follow this model for future releases. Though I still have no idea why throwing a bunch of scarlet’s minion data can create something that can break a magic seal.

Want I have seen since the start of the LS is this. Mass improvements to everything from what we are doing and the story that is being told. I think i know what scarlet is doing but still not sure why and that make this story even better. I love the fact we are not being told everything at the start and kinda pick up bits here and there.

Best cut scene in gw ever and i hope to see way more like this since you(ANet) has some of the best artiest i seen in any game to date. Great job and I cant wait till Jan 21 to find out more and to see if i am right about scarlet.

This cinematic, (and LS) I like it ! ANOTHER !

Whirlpool.9410:

I enjoyed it up to the point where the NPCs start patting each other on the back and promptly ignoring that you exist.

Typical ArenaNet.

“Commander! May I have a word?”

OT: I really like the general direction the LS is heading. Although I enjoyed it from day 1, there were times I was a bit lost and confused about where all this was heading. Finally, with Scarlet appearing, all of it started to make sense and by now I am totally stoked to see what my favourite MMO-supervillain is up to next!

Also, the cinematics! Kee ’em coming lads! I know that time was limited before release, but i was quite dissappointed about all the dungeon-cinematics. I really love the action-cutscenes.

unrelated: I lol’d, when I found out that Marjory and Kasmee got their own ‘shipname and there’s a lot of fanart out there, from totally adorable to NSFW! Clearly a great choice in characters!

TLDR: Great Job on the LS so far, keep it up!

I agree, the cinematic was very nice.
And I love to stand next to npcs listening to their conversations. And Braham/Rox and Majory/Kasmeer conversations are among the funnier conversations.
I even had a little “she dind’t just say that”-moment when Majory and Kasmeer discussed the lack of wear and tear of Kasmeer’s clothes.

I have to be honest in that I wasnt really expecting much out of this. I mean Scarlet escapes (again) so theres nothing to expect out of this. Glad to be wrong. The cinematics is really well done.

Personally, i feel it helps as well that Marjory and Kasmeer are two npcs i quite like so far

The ending cut-scene was awesome. I loved the way they mixed art with in-game graphics. The combat on the other hand, with all the stacks of condition damage, sucked.

The nightmare isn’t truly over until Scarlet bites the dust (hear my pleas ancient gods of old!!), cut-scene was great though. M0ar Marjory, one of the few actually memorable characters in the game so far.

Must say, as cynical as I was, the cinematic was just fantastic.

I must admit it was quite good.

No scarlet around, instead we get good likable allies, some really decent cinematics, a neat choice between Adventure and Action in the puzzle part, and a live animation mixed with the map itself, showing players while the camera pans to the remains of the tower, it kind of reminded me of the first cinematic in Prophecies, when the camera moves behind you from the battle scene, and there’s other players there, and the battle still goes on down there.

I don’t really like when cinematics in shared maps show show the area clean of other players, and then they pop out of nowhere.

And best of all, there was reasons to stick around in the camp and talk to the players. And even actual changes in their dialogs based on your actions. For example, you could learn about what happened to a daring skritt in the tower.

A really nice break from all those Scarlet shenanigans.

The only thing that could make it better is getting to see the wedding (or whatever the quaggan equivalent is) of those two quaggan in Lion’s Arch, and be able to visit them in the quaggan village.

Really liked the NPC dialogues.

Also REALLY like the added NPC dialogues in the rest of the zone. Made it feel like something had actually happened.

Keep up these dialogues and lore bits, because THAT’S what makes a story!

Wanted to chime in and agree, great LS chain here! You guys really seem to have polished your delivery. Thanks!

tanztante.6532:

unrelated: I lol’d, when I found out that Marjory and Kasmee got their own ‘shipname and there’s a lot of fanart out there, from totally adorable to NSFW! Clearly a great choice in characters!

TLDR: Great Job on the LS so far, keep it up!

Zaxares.5419:

Still not sure why a plant could explode, but eh, the story instance was fun and the cinematic was cool to watch. The NPC dialogues back at the camp are probably the best part though! Bloomanoo+Peneloopee flirting, Kasmeer’s armor “revelation”, and Braham’s flirting with Marjory were all hilariously awesome. Kudos to whoever’s writing their dialogue!

Easy for a plant to explode, especially as in this case it was a pod. It just has to make the right gases internally that got neutralized due to the heat (maybe the plant made a counter-agent or something – after all it’s a designed plant) but otherwise goes BOOM! when exposed to oxygen.

MatthewMedina.5419:

I was very pleased with how the puzzles eventually turned out. They started off being quite complicated and even esoteric, but as I was implementing them I really began to see the flaw in that design. Namely, that someone coming into the game during this release, who hadn’t played the previous releases would have NO idea or context for some of the solutions. So although you can still see the skeleton of the plans I laid out for those puzzles, in the end I erred on the side of making them as accessible as possible, so they’re simple, but hopefully capture the flavor of those prior releases.

The camera pan including the player character was most certainly a deliberate decision, and will be something that, at the very least, I will continue to advocate for. But I had a lot of fun creating some of the in-game camera sequences during this release, so I hope to be able to do more cinematics in a hands-on fashion.

All of those conversations and scenes in the post-release camp were done entirely by our writing team this time around. A couple of us on the content design side were able to sit down with them and actually teach them how to do basic spawning and scripting, and with that base of knowledge they were able to populate the camp with all those interesting characters, which I think of as a huge win for the studio. It’s not that we’ve not had the capability in the past, it’s just that those kind of things usually end up low on the list of priorities for those of us who do the bulk of the content authoring, because although it’s really not hard to do, it’s also usually not that intense in terms of setup and scripting. When you are faced with the decision to fix a half dozen Pri.1 and Pri2 bugs or implement an NPC with conversation, the former will always take priority. So I would like to think that this is just the tip of the iceberg and that the bar will continue to be raised on content like this.

I think you made the right call as far as making the puzzles as accessible as possible, at least this time around. I started leveling an alt this weekend, and I zoned into Kessex to do my personal story and suddenly being thrown in the instance again was incredibly jarring. It made me realize what it might be like for a new player, who would probably think it was a bug. “What happened? Why am I here? Who are these characters?” kind of thing. So making the puzzles easy enough to minimize this is probably good, although you did have the combat option as well. I would love to see some more complicated, indepth puzzles. It seems like there’s some untapped potential as far as real puzzles go, and I’d love to see what you guys do with it in the future.

I’m glad to hear that camera pan was a deliberate decision, and I hope to see more sophisticated cinematics over time. I’ve noticed that up until now, the actors in the in-game cinematics are largely static; what are the chances of getting a lot more character action in the in-engine cutscenes? Like, having our characters moving around, fighting, dodging, etc.? The most impressive cutscene I can think of in this regard at the moment is the end of the Aetherblade path of Twilight Arbor, with the Lionguard ziplining down into the dungeon. I would love to see more of that, and with more of a focus on our characters to show that we’re the ones driving the story.

I think the new approach with getting the writing team directly involved in setting up dialogue really had a noticeable effect, and I hope that becomes a more regular thing in the future. If you guys can find a way to really increase the scope of character interactions in this game, and have them carry over into future releases in such a way that it allows our characters to foster meaningful (and varied from player to player) relationships with the NPCs, I think this whole living story you guys have been pushing for could really turn out to be something special.

I also +1 a quaggan wedding. I like seeing the effects the LS has on the NPCs around it. I hope Scarlett show’s up and Peneloopee takes the cake knife and goes all stabbity stab.

Can we also see Katterwik memorialized somehow? Perhaps a statue and memorial plaque by her skritt colony?

Does the technology support having a statue of the PC? A memorial to the fighters who went in the tower in the nearby town would be awesome, even if it just was stone version of the current character.

I enjoyed this particular LS segment…from the initial discovery of the tower to its conclusion…but the ending cut scene really did it for me. Thanks…definitely enjoyed it.

I also want to say that I really enjoyed the conclusion of this story arc! The overall presentation was really excellent. The instance mission was accessible and not trying to faceplant characters so people could just enjoy the story being told. It’s very heartening to hear that the puzzles were also deliberately kept accessible rather than being overly difficult or esoteric. I also liked how each puzzle had a default combat option for anyone who just wanted to bash things. And the ending cinematic, as others have pointed out, was absolutely terrific. I hope this will be a model for future presentations of storylines in GW2. Very well done!

It was great to see the changes to Kessex in the aftermath. I liked how some of the zone hearts had been changed to reflect the event (even if the centaurs don’t seem to care and are back to their annoying selves lol) I imagine you folks must have more plans for these kind of zone altering events and I can’t wait to see what you do in the future!

I have to also mention that I really liked the NPC conversations in the camp after the mission. Just like others have said, I stuck around there for 20-30 minutes just to make sure I heard everyone’s dialog It was a really wonderful way to get to see more of the characters and their interactions

All the dialog was great but I have to say the quaggen romance was both hilarious and weirdly creepy. And Braham on the rebound and going after Marjory? Now -that- should be a great storyline to see continued. (Esp. since Rox seems less than friendly toward her.) And Kasmeer’s choice of clothing – well, enough said lol. Seeing that kind of interaction of the NPCs and that kind of development really adds to overall feel of the setting IMO. Now I want to see those two quaggen end up happy in LA somewhere and how Marjory will react to Braham showing a continued interest in her.

All of those conversations and scenes in the post-release camp were done entirely by our writing team this time around. A couple of us on the content design side were able to sit down with them and actually teach them how to do basic spawning and scripting, and with that base of knowledge they were able to populate the camp with all those interesting characters, which I think of as a huge win for the studio. It’s not that we’ve not had the capability in the past, it’s just that those kind of things usually end up low on the list of priorities for those of us who do the bulk of the content authoring, because although it’s really not hard to do, it’s also usually not that intense in terms of setup and scripting. When you are faced with the decision to fix a half dozen Pri.1 and Pri2 bugs or implement an NPC with conversation, the former will always take priority. So I would like to think that this is just the tip of the iceberg and that the bar will continue to be raised on content like this.

That is really cool. I’ve always felt that the NPCs in the open world are really vital to giving the setting a living feeling and now that you’ve given the tools to the writers to populate the world with more active NPC conversations and actions, I really think this could add a wonderful depth to Tyria that we haven’t seen before.

I guess it says something about the environment of ArenaNet where content designers would sit down to teach writers how to do this kind of thing. I can just imagine the ideas that having these tools must be inspiring in the writing team’s heads

Once again, great job folks!

Here, here, good work on that cutscene and the humour between Marjory and Kasemeer.

The whole “nightmare cycle” had good pacing, good characters and it brought most of the cast together. It felt like an enhanced version of the foundation you set with Flame and Frost but with a years worth of experience behind it. If this is a sign of things to come, I think you guys have it sorted out execution/content wise. If the story improves at the pace it has, you will need a cookie.

The only thing i think is missing are a few outliner achievements for those who want a little more challenge. It’s just a little something that a few of my guildies would like to keep the content more challenging.

Also Braham getting shutdown by Marjory was great. Edge 2.0 is coming along nicely…

Does that mean we will be getting a lot more ambient chatter and more characters to talk to, now that the story team can play around with the dialog tools?

MatthewMedina.5419:

All of those conversations and scenes in the post-release camp were done entirely by our writing team this time around. A couple of us on the content design side were able to sit down with them and actually teach them how to do basic spawning and scripting, and with that base of knowledge they were able to populate the camp with all those interesting characters, which I think of as a huge win for the studio. It’s not that we’ve not had the capability in the past, it’s just that those kind of things usually end up low on the list of priorities for those of us who do the bulk of the content authoring, because although it’s really not hard to do, it’s also usually not that intense in terms of setup and scripting. When you are faced with the decision to fix a half dozen Pri.1 and Pri2 bugs or implement an NPC with conversation, the former will always take priority. So I would like to think that this is just the tip of the iceberg and that the bar will continue to be raised on content like this.

Kudos to the Writing Team, the conversations in the camp were so fun and i really feel like i was in a “Living World”, the cinematics, all were so much great for this update, now im able to enjoy this game again, thx Anet, keep going in this path, is the right one.

The cinematic and the NPC conversations were amazing. I understand it may end up low on ArenaNet priority sometimes, but really, they should definitely keep this kind of approach in next releases. It adds immensely to the overall quality and engagement. In the long run is this kind of polish and attention to detail that keeps people coming back to this game…

My sons watched me play through the whole scenario, and when the tower came crashing down on top of all the krait we cheered, “OOOhhh!! TAKE THAT KRAIT!!!”

I look forward to more cinematics like that.

Keep it up guys.
I really, really felt the sensation I felt the 1st time I heard the term “Living Story”.
You have me, not because you are perfect, but because you have proven to being able to evolve.