Guild Wars 2

I want to express my thoughts about the storytelling & background info

I like… because:

• it’s very realistic to spread the story/infobits amongst a lot of npcs & 2 unmovable books. You have to find those npcs & objects which adds an exploration aspect to the game, which is great
• most dialogues are voiced & I love the voice-actors – it’s relaxing not having to read everything
• Interesting villain. I love how it’s not black/white, Canach just tried to help the settlers, so I can’t see him as evil creature. I like this character.

I don’t like… because

• “who the heck is Canach” – It’s so easy to miss the infos on him and I feel there is something big missing…
• Anet blogposts are great, I really love them. Why are those not in the game in some form? I feel like all these great stories are lost outside of the game and when playing you should have a context at hand. Who was this Canach again? There was a link in the launcher last week but now it’s gone.
• very few scriped dialogues like in Flame & Frost. There were first cutscenes and I thought to see improvements on those… instead no cutscene. Canach isn’t appearing before the finale which seems odd… I don’t feel like I’m hunting him down. Why isn’t Kiel the one who challenges him to the final battle. I’m really confused.

I really wonder (on the dislikes): was time the issue? Perhaps it takes much longer to create cutscenes and implementing a new system which mediates written stories/lore.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I really wonder (on the dislikes): was time the issue?

That’s the impression I got. I feel this chapter of the Living Story, while still nice, was lacking in areas. The final instance wasn’t anywhere near as fun as the Molten Facility, and the lack of exposition gives me the impression there just wasn’t enough time or money to do the voice acting required to tell the back-story in-game. I’d rather the LS updates come a month apart and get everything fleshed out. I’m still grateful for all the free content, and it wasn’t bad content. I just feel it could have been better with a bit more development time.

to be fair: I wouldn’t compare the story mission with a dungeon, but instead with a story mission in F&F like the Braham-Mission in Cragstead. We got a few new events and get a Meta-Event chain, don’t forget that. Plus a Minigame.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

to be fair: I wouldn’t compare the story mission with a dungeon, but instead with a story mission in F&F like the Braham-Mission in Cragstead. We got a few new events and get a Meta-Event chain, don’t forget that. Plus a Minigame.

It’s Anet who’s advertising what’s actually a solo instance as a dungeon.. if they hadn’t called it a “brand new story dungeon,” we wouldn’t be comparing it with dungeons.

ok back to topic, what do you guys think about the storytelling?

For Cannach, people will not know him unless they do karka invasion meta event (opening southson cove).

For dungeon story telling: is the worst I have ever seen.
1. When you go inside the dungeon in story mode, both NPC just silently standing there. No scripted dialog or no cut-scene. Anet expect player to talk to Kiel to know what to do or what is going on in the dungeon.
2. Exit dungeon door always been there. To make it worst, is delayed scripted dialog. What you expect ? Icon glowing before scripted dialog kicks in, people clicks this icon, and gets out from this gloomy dungeon.
3. The guard outside the dungeon do silent parade. No shout like “shhh, I need to speak with you.”

I agree completely to you posts here, and i will add another problem that i detected, the location work (at least the spanish version) is terrible. With dialogues that makes no sense, girls called boys. When you finish a conversation you stay looking the window and you just can wonder: WTF?!
Then you read the text in the chat and you see that is very very porrle done.
It is like if the translation was done with google.

I agree with marcus, all the defects, problems and dissapointments comes because of a time issue.
Although we all like new content, what we want really is content that we can enjoy. This update was not.

i have to agree. While the handholding on “what to do” was great, it really lacked in the story developement part.

Which is a shame, because the start was great.
We came out to Southsun Cove, to help the people there after the things in F&F.

We realized that there is something going on, so we helped finding samples of weird vegetation, which seemed to be the reason for the unusual activities.

That was awesome. However after that we got no transition, just: “go get Canach, go fight Subdirector NULL”

It felt like there was a step missing. Like
- Who is Canach
- Who is Subdirector NULL
- What is going on?

And it is easy to fix. Just let us go back to the Asura in charge before showing us the instance on the map.

He would tell us what he discovered and that he traced it back to that cavern where Canach is.

Simple and effective. At that point we would learn about him and why we would have to stop him.

However this simple step is missing and we are just thrown at him, which leaves us to find clues about him outside the game in blogposts. these are nice, but i prefer my info in game.

Simple rule in interactive Storytelling: Show, dont tell.

While i liked the beginning, this step definetly failed.
I cant really get invested. I know the consortiums are “evil”, capitalism, etc, and Canach just wants to help the settlers. But this point gets never really pointed out.

Fact is. Just from the Info i get in game, i dont care about him. I dont know who he is or what he really wants?
From his appearance i thougt him beeing the instigator beind the F&F, since he has the gloves.
However then an official Storywriter from Anet told us his backstory and why has them.
So its another piece of information thats missing.

Short version: “While i enjoy hunting for lore in the game, i dont like it if it is needed to understand the main narrative. I like it for addition information. Put the stuff in the game.” -_-

Ravious has written a correlating post:
http://www.killtenrats.com/2013/05/29/gw2-last-stand-and-delivery/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+KillTenRats+%28Kill+Ten+Rats%29

Use the wiki if you weren’t around for Lost Shores. Don’t blast through everything and skip all of the dialogue with the NPC’s.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I want to express my thoughts about the storytelling & background info

I like… because:

• it’s very realistic to spread the story/infobits amongst a lot of npcs & 2 unmovable books. You have to find those npcs & objects which adds an exploration aspect to the game, which is great
• most dialogues are voiced & I love the voice-actors – it’s relaxing not having to read everything
• Interesting villain. I love how it’s not black/white, Canach just tried to help the settlers, so I can’t see him as evil creature. I like this character.

I don’t like… because

• “who the heck is Canach” – It’s so easy to miss the infos on him and I feel there is something big missing…
• Anet blogposts are great, I really love them. Why are those not in the game in some form? I feel like all these great stories are lost outside of the game and when playing you should have a context at hand. Who was this Canach again? There was a link in the launcher last week but now it’s gone.
• very few scriped dialogues like in Flame & Frost. There were first cutscenes and I thought to see improvements on those… instead no cutscene. Canach isn’t appearing before the finale which seems odd… I don’t feel like I’m hunting him down. Why isn’t Kiel the one who challenges him to the final battle. I’m really confused.

I really wonder (on the dislikes): was time the issue? Perhaps it takes much longer to create cutscenes and implementing a new system which mediates written stories/lore.

I agree with everything said here ^^

I liked parts of it and disliked others. Some details could have used ore polish. For example, when talking to the NPC outside of the boss fight instance, the player replay is “We will take care of it.” I assumed that that meant that I could bring my friends.

But overall, it wasn’t nearly as bad (in my opinion) as some people seem to think.

I certainly enjoyed it.

Ayrilana.1396:

Use the wiki if you weren’t around for Lost Shores. Don’t blast through everything and skip all of the dialogue with the NPC’s.

Easy source all in one place for Lost Shores (I’ll get around to moving it to main pages someday, I swear): http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Vahkris/The_Lost_Shores_Story

After that, read this dialogue (specifically the section labeled "Dialogue between Lost Shores and Secret of Southsun): http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Inspector_Ellen_Kiel#Dialogue_between_Lost_Shores_and_Secret_of_Southsun

That’ll give you the frame of reference for heading into Secret of Southsun content. Read the rest of this post for other plot points: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/southsun/Why-is-the-Story-So-Disjointed/first#post2116162

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

to be fair: I wouldn’t compare the story mission with a dungeon, but instead with a story mission in F&F like the Braham-Mission in Cragstead. We got a few new events and get a Meta-Event chain, don’t forget that. Plus a Minigame.

Yes, since this was an instance and not a dungeon, as they so claimed it would be, we should compare it to Braham/Rox mission. Okay, so lets start with good points about Braham/Rox instances:
-Braham and Rox spoke; chat boxes at the least, and even some voiced dialogue if I remember correctly. Not to mention; Cut Scenes! If not during the actual battle itself, at least at Holebrook and the Black Citadel.
-Braham and Rox’s input actually furthered the story, there was detail and content in what they spoke.
-There was a journey with assaulting enemies, not just one room with a boss
-Braham and Rox actually took part in the battle… fathom that!

On the other hand, even the good points about the SSC Instance can be taken in a bad light:
-Quick and Easy boss that less skilled players love… but on the other hand so quick and easy it becomes boring.
-Interesting use of mine mechanics… but so reliant on mine mechanics that it takes away any real skill from the player.

In comparison, all the good points in Braham/Rox’s instance helped to further the story, and yet these points were not implemented in the SSC instance. I can’t see this as anything other than a drop in quality.

Jaken.6801:

And it is easy to fix. Just let us go back to the Asura in charge before showing us the instance on the map.

He would tell us what he discovered and that he traced it back to that cavern where Canach is.

Simple and effective. At that point we would learn about him and why we would have to stop him.

However this simple step is missing and we are just thrown at him, which leaves us to find clues about him outside the game in blogposts. these are nice, but i prefer my info in game.

Simple rule in interactive Storytelling: Show, dont tell.

Exactly! A simple cut scene there would have remedied everything: the perfect transition from ‘somethings wrong’ to ‘lets go get him’; the very core of the story and the piece that they left out, the ‘this is who did it, how, and why.’

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

-Braham and Rox spoke; chat boxes at the least, and even some voiced dialogue if I remember correctly. Not to mention; Cut Scenes! If not during the actual battle itself, at least at Holebrook and the Black Citadel.
-Braham and Rox’s input actually furthered the story, there was detail and content in what they spoke.
-There was a journey with assaulting enemies, not just one room with a boss
-Braham and Rox actually took part in the battle… fathom that!

I fully agree, but don’t forget: there are a lot of enemies on Southsun Cove, the fact that the battles with those happen outside the story-instance doesn’t really matter. Anet put the time they could have spent in a dungeon into open world content with a new meta-event which we will see next week. I’d loved to see Kiel participating in the boss battle though since it was her “prey” which she hunted down, not ours. I have no idea why we as players had to deal with Canach. I also enjoyed the npc-heroes dialogues between Braham and Rox quite a lot. Kiel and Canach had no character-development I was aware of… if might have happened in some event I missed / or in the blogposts.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

On the other hand, even the good points about the SSC Instance can be taken in a bad light:
-Quick and Easy boss that less skilled players love… but on the other hand so quick and easy it becomes boring.
-Interesting use of mine mechanics… but so reliant on mine mechanics that it takes away any real skill from the player.

In comparison, all the good points in Braham/Rox’s instance helped to further the story, and yet these points were not implemented in the SSC instance. I can’t see this as anything other than a drop in quality.

And this is where I disagree. To me this battle wasn’t easy, actually it was harder than the group-battle against Null imho. I did bad in that battle but it seems that the other 4 randoms were good players and so we destroyed Null in a few minutes.

The battle vs. Canach was, when not spoiled by some youtube-clip, quite interesting. I had to figure out how to hurt him while he was charching me and hunting me in that cave. The fact that I played as a guardian saved me since Aegis and Skill 3 on down mode worked quite well. Cragstead in comparison was a bland “kill all waves of enemies”-mission, I was really disappointed.

I have no idea how someone can see this as boring. Are you playing the instance more than once? I do not, it’s a story-mission. I don’t care for the monotonic rewards.

I’d like to see them implement the blog posts they write to add the story. People don’t look outside of the game for answers to lore or story very often. Usually it is only the die hards that do this. Even if you just put it in as a book or on some kind of billboard that players can click on and read in game. But of course what I’d love to see is these stories make it into cutscenes.

But I understand they cannot because of the time frames the teams work with. Personally I’d take seeing new content less often to just see them be able to complete the premise they want to get across.

I think the Southsun story struggles because if you were not around for the Lost Shore event you don’t fully understand the entire story behind this story. And that leads to people coming here going “wtf is going on, who is this guy” or people just not even caring.

I will agree that F+F had better general story explanation thrown at you. You inititally had the mail to get it started (you get that here as well). Then the event dialogue that persists throughout the in-game time that explains it very loosely. Then you have to wait for npcs to queue up their conversations in game. While I personally have nothing against it as I am used to looking up backstories for lore and things and I enjoy it.

But I’d love to see them able to put more time into these stories. They obviously want to make a decent story, but it feels like they don’t have the ability to add it all when they want it.

Sorry if that ramble made no sense. TLDR; I agree with the OP.

Katreyn.4218:

But I understand they cannot because of the time frames the teams work with. Personally I’d take seeing new content less often to just see them be able to complete the premise they want to get across.

Absolutely. I respect the devs for the content we got and I’m sure you are right. Releasing stuff in this short intervalls hurts the game imho because the devs have to hurry + there isn’t enough time to include polishing (e.g. cutscenes, storytelling, etc.).

A new release each month is totally ok, a lot of people need more time to complete the new content anyway. The ones who complete it in a day burn through each of the new stuff in hours anyway. There’s no way to please those.

The people responsible for those timeframes should really ask themselves: is this worth it, since it might seem like a step back (we had good cutscenes in F&F e.g.).

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I fully agree, but don’t forget: there are a lot of enemies on Southsun Cove, the fact that the battles with those happen outside the story-instance doesn’t really matter. Anet put the time they could have spent in a dungeon into open world content with a new meta-event which we will see next week.

A meta-event is all well and good, but I wonder if it will live up to expectations; these story instances certainly didn’t, as there was no story to speak of.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I’d loved to see Kiel participating in the boss battle though since it was her “prey” which she hunted down, not ours. I have no idea why we as players had to deal with Canach. I also enjoyed the npc-heroes dialogues between Braham and Rox quite a lot. Kiel and Canach had no character-development I was aware of… if might have happened in some event I missed / or in the blogposts.

Now that would have made it a story instance. If Kiel would have joined us in the battle, if there was a cut scene when we entered, or at least before we fought Canach. Instead its no more than a boss battle on a sub-map, which as much story as one would obtain fighting a champion karka on the main map; location is all that has changed.

You keep suggesting we wait for the Queen Karka, but if we don’t see as much as a single cut scene from her battle -which I believe to be the end of this entire chapter- they might as well change the name from ‘living story’ to ‘temporary event chain achievements,’ because that’s all we’re getting. Doesn’t sound very pleasant to say? Well its just as pleasant to receive.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

In comparison, all the good points in Braham/Rox’s instance helped to further the story, and yet these points were not implemented in the SSC instance. I can’t see this as anything other than a drop in quality.

That was my main point about SSC instance, as to whether it was easy or hard, is inconsequential; my beef is with the story, or lack thereof.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Katreyn.4218:

But I understand they cannot because of the time frames the teams work with. Personally I’d take seeing new content less often to just see them be able to complete the premise they want to get across.

Absolutely. I respect the devs for the content we got and I’m sure you are right. Releasing stuff in this short intervalls hurts the game imho because the devs have to hurry + there isn’t enough time to include polishing (e.g. cutscenes, storytelling, etc.).

A new release each month is totally ok, a lot of people need more time to complete the new content anyway. The ones who complete it in a day burn through each of the new stuff in hours anyway. There’s no way to please those.

The people responsible for those timeframes should really ask themselves: is this worth it, since it might seem like a step back (we had good cutscenes in F&F e.g.).

Exactly, if they cannot produce quality material in this time frame, then expand the release date. Id much rather wait a month for an amazing detailed -albeit short story- than receive these half-kitten releases every other week or so. But honestly, its not as if funding manpower or even deadlines are an issue, as the developers have claimed to be devoted to living story, so much more than they are to the main plot.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

You keep suggesting we wait for the Queen Karka, but if we don’t see as much as a single cut scene from her battle -which I believe to be the end of this entire chapter- they might as well change the name from ‘living story’ to ‘temporary event chain achievements,’ because that’s all we’re getting. Doesn’t sound very pleasant to say? Well its just as pleasant to receive.

I guess we won’t see a story-related cutscene in a permanent (yes it is permanent) metaevent.

What I’m getting from this release so far:
(just speculation on what I’ve heard)

1.) there is 1 team (1 man) who designed the boss-battle. I love this challenge because it’s something completely new gameplaywise and you have to use your brain. That’s something really valuable in a game where more than the half of the content is killing waves of enemies.

2.) there is 1 team which works on cutscenes. It obviously wasn’t present during the creation of this content which is a shame. Imho this hurts the game. I guess this team is currently working on the next living story content. No cutscenes during the boss battle, no cutscene to give context to anything on the island.

3.) there is 1 team (Robert Hrouda + team I guess) which created the open world content for the Secret of Southsun + Last Stand. It seems that there went a lot of work in the meta-event since the other events are relatively similar. I love the scavenger hunt though, it’s something I will always love since it takes a bit more time to complete + you are rewarded for exploring – the whole game should be about rewards for exploring since events happen in different locations at different times – so you should come across those areas more than once. They could create expeditions from the main city to bigger chain-event-starts so that people get to know these wonderfully designed events.

4.) is there a seperate team/man who created crabtoss? Listen to me, creator: I love you! It’s something where you clearly get better by playing. Crabtacular – the achievement – even if it wasn’t intended that way – created a kind of cooperation minigame. Help the others to get the achievement. I had a wonderful evening last week when doing this with some decent people. At first it feels a bit clunky but once you have the timing mastered it’s so much fun.

5.) I wished there was a team who creates new UI-Elements to imlement those stories/blogposts into a decent compendium similar to Warhammers Tome of Knowledge like this: http://zam.zamimg.com/images/4/c/4ce0f264e8f4455b5881ff3fd2347fea.png

@Marcus. To address your points in their given order:
1. Some people found this boss easy while others hard, but whether or not it forced you to use your brain is an entirely different story. You can easily exploit this boss by using weapons/attacks that deal conditional damage, and come out victorious with little to no trouble. The only class that was set up to fail against this boss was the ranger… believe me, I know, I had to do the bloody battle two dozen times just to get the achievement. And in what part of the mines programming do you have to use intellect, it tells you exactly what to do and when to do it. The only skill required is luck and a dab hand with a keyboard to avoid explosions.

2. I may have been wrong about this point. There is supposed to be one more instance released on the fourth that may have cut scenes (here’s hoping)… however that still doesn’t excuse their lack of story content in this current release. I agree it is unlikely that a permanent event chain boss will be given a cut scene.

3. The team that did the open world content was amazing, I have seen no complaints nor have any of my own. They provided great farming and adequately presented the living story’s affect on the open world.

4. Crab-toss… eh, if you love PVP you love crab-toss, if not, its just a pain. Don’t get me wrong there were some groups willing to cooperate towards achievements, which made a really unique player friendly experience… and then there were the others. I’m uncertain whether they were obsessed with playing the game how it was intended, enjoyed making it hard for those who wished to obtain achievements, or simply loved its brutal keep away mechanics, but crab-toss with the wrong group was no fun at all.

5. That would certainly be much more interesting then what they have released thus far.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

@Marcus. To address your points in their given order:
1. Some people found this boss easy while others hard, but whether or not it forced you to use your brain is an entirely different story. You can easily exploit this boss by using weapons/attacks that deal conditional damage, and come out victorious with little to no trouble. The only class that was set up to fail against this boss was the ranger… believe me, I know, I had to do the bloody battle two dozen times just to get the achievement. And in what part of the mines programming do you have to use intellect, it tells you exactly what to do and when to do it. The only skill required is luck and a dab hand with a keyboard to avoid explosions.

I think they patched the condi-damage thing, it certainly wasn’t intended. Well, I must be a very stupid being then if everyone thinks this was an easy encounter the first time, haha. This is roughly how I experienced the battle:
1.) Testing the mine-detector on the mines in the entrance. Using the same symbol turns the mines green and using the wrong symbol makes them explode. Aha.
2.) Tried to turn the mines green, ran by and then when Canach was near them tried to manually explode them by using a different symbol. Fail.
3.) Tried to kite him over the red mines. A while. Fail.
4.) Tried to punch him with skill 5 into the mines. Fail.
5.) Tried to get him by manually exploding the red mines again. Fail.
6.) I think I’ve tried every single thing you could do. fail.
7.) Turned the mines green and kited him over the mines. Success. → WTF, didn’t I try this before (probably not).
Now I feel stupid how everyone says this was an easy encounter. It was a challenge for me.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

2. I may have been wrong about this point. There is supposed to be one more instance released on the fourth that may have cut scenes (here’s hoping)… however that still doesn’t excuse their lack of story content in this current release. I agree it is unlikely that a permanent event chain boss will be given a cut scene.

I wouldn’t expect too much, this reminds me of the bonfires we got in F&F. Why would the cutscene-team do something in one instance on the island instead of the whole island? I could be wrong though.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

4. Crab-toss… eh, if you love PVP you love crab-toss, if not, its just a pain. Don’t get me wrong there were some groups willing to cooperate towards achievements, which made a really unique player friendly experience… and then there were the others. I’m uncertain whether they were obsessed with playing the game how it was intended, enjoyed making it hard for those who wished to obtain achievements, or simply loved its brutal keep away mechanics, but crab-toss with the wrong group was no fun at all.

Well the achievements weren’t necessary to get all the backbag-items. I really think that they should grey out the missing achievements when you have the requisite complete. Some people still feel forced to get every single achievement, even though they don’t like the activity. They feel that they have no choice.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I think they patched the condi-damage thing, it certainly wasn’t intended. Well, I must be a very stupid being then if everyone thinks this was an easy encounter the first time, haha. This is roughly how I experienced the battle:
1.) Testing the mine-detector on the mines in the entrance. Using the same symbol turns the mines green and using the wrong symbol makes them explode. Aha.
2.) Tried to turn the mines green, ran by and then when Canach was near them tried to manually explode them by using a different symbol. Fail.
3.) Tried to kite him over the red mines. A while. Fail.
4.) Tried to punch him with skill 5 into the mines. Fail.
5.) Tried to get him by manually exploding the red mines again. Fail.
6.) I think I’ve tried every single thing you could do. fail.
7.) Turned the mines green and kited him over the mines. Success. -> WTF, didn’t I try this before (probably not).
Now I feel stupid how everyone says this was an easy encounter. It was a challenge for me.

Its funny how the simplistic things can be the hardest to find. Like certain vistas, you spend an hour searching for them with no luck, then look online to find it was one of the easiest ones in the game. That you thought it would be complicated and thus looked in all the wrong places. Ah~ good times, lol

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I wouldn’t expect too much, this reminds me of the bonfires we got in F&F. Why would the cutscene-team do something in one instance on the island instead of the whole island? I could be wrong though.

Ah, I don’t know. From what I was reading in the patch notices and advertisement, in the instance you destroy contracts while the karka queen is rampaging outside. That really seems like something that they would show. But then again, this is GW2 propaganda team we’re talking about, they’re as bad as the consortium.

They hit a story telling high with the missions from Flame and Frost (despite them being some of the dullest PvE content in the game). Specific characters that give focus to the story (Rox and Braham) and create a greater sense of attachment. Instead of fighting some generic enemy to take back the captured villagers we had a guy we had allied ourselves with avenging his fallen villagers and saving the captured ones including his crush. I don’t think the Rox side of things was as relevant to F&F, it felt like a generic “this is your new charr companion, she’s a ranger and has a pet” rather than tying into the story, but when working with her during the dungeon, she mattered.

Flame and Frost still had a lot of story problems, but the Living Story instances were probably the height of GW2 story telling in game. The Secret of Southsun has almost nothing like that. Page after page of text from NPCs sitting around the area, and most of it is pointless waffle (I realise it’s ironic for me to criticise waffling). It was either irrelevant or repetitive exposition in the form of walls of text. Most of the story content was spoiled by the achievements – instead of using the hidden achievement technique they used to hide the Halloween and Wintersday specific monthly achievements, we were able to read the full achievement list from launch spoiling the Karka Queen and Canach’s involvement right from the beginning. The flavour text on the Fervid Censer didn’t help (why would we obtain that item prior to encountering Canach – it also looks nothing like anything in his instance unless I missed it, so the flavour text doesn’t make much sense). This item feels like a generic “I logged on at the right time so I got it” reward rather than something which represents the story and was earned via relevant content (like defeating Canach and Null thus acquiring the Fervid Censer).

It really seems like all of the new content is assembled by different people and forced together in the end. The cohesion feels off, the rewards seem inappropriately allocated, the boss instances have very weak story telling and the open world story is primarily delivered through walls of text instead of the gameplay showing us story developments. You can see villagers run away from the crazed animals but there is very little context given for this during the events themselves. Keil should have been a much more active part of this element, preferably roaming from outpost to outpost (maybe as a chain event) with voice acting to deliver the story of each outpost and create context for what exactly is happening on the island. A lot of this is available from talking to NPCs standing around but not enough of the story is delivered through gameplay. There is a disconnect between people saying stuff and content we play (both are in the game, most of the the time it’s not delivered as a package). It feels like Keil did next to nothing but stationary exposition this entire chapter and that seems like a mistake. It seems like a giant leap from “Canach is involved” to “we found his secret base, go capture him”. If nothing else, that could have been a personal story instance (working with Keil to track down Canach’s layer).

I don’t like the retcon on Canach, the consistency with Farran was off, Kasmeer appears to be a cameo, which was confusing because the content was light on story and characters, her involvement seemed to distract and dilute what little weight the relevant characters had. Even as a cameo she could have been used to greater effect (like acting as a unique addition to the-resort-is-under-attack type events). Keil was a weak character. Noll wasn’t involved enough. At the end of the day this feels like an excuse to add stuff to a previously underdeveloped area of the game. It doesn’t feel like heroic deeds or challenges worthy of the heroes that fight elder dragons.

Wonderful review and deduction. It was sad that not only the tidbits of story that saw fit to reveal failed to show up in game, but were irrelevant at best.

I agree Shiren, about Kiel: the NPC has also a very generic character model – which helps to build a character too.

Why didn’t they just implement events where Kiel is escorted to certain story-relevant happenings. (e.g. you try to catch Canach who drops crippling-mines behind him and you have to dodge those and use swiftness to come close to him to hurt him enough so that the event succeeds.)

Thanks for the post, BobbyStein.

I feel that cutscenes and/ or gameplay instances are the best means to tell a story, because they can have a linear structure that goes in line with the narrative. “Optional” text-driven NPC dialog can be decent too, but I think it’s a bit boring and out-of-place in a seamless MMORPG.

Meanwhile, I think that anything related to gameplay, including events, NPC talking, exploring, acchievements and the like, are excellent to make us feel the story, feel its presence, and feel its consequences on the world.

I think that F&F was able to tell its story better because it used cutscenes, instances and dungeons. But its world-driven content was underwhelming and repetitive. Meanwhile, Southsun had a really great attention to gameplay detail, that made its area very immersive, from the large-scale settlement events down to the tiny details like Lord Farren’s dialogue or swimming-in-the-beach acchievements. Southsun made me feel inside the world, and part of the world, more so than F&F; and had a nice diversity of content that was all tied to flavor, from mini-games to exploration (tied to acchievements) to “traditional RPG npc searching”, not excluding the typical gw2 event-driven play. But southsun’s narrative felt minimal, with a beginning, an end, and nothing inbetween.

I’m hoping that, for future living world content, we get the best of both experiences. The tight, focused and linearly-structured storytelling, and a detailed, diversified and fun world experience inbetween.

EDIT: And, of course, having the story for future content to be replayable, or at the very least for different characters, even after the living world experience moves to another place. Sometimes, replaying content is half the fun, especially a year or two later, to bring back the sweet old memories or show them to a new friend.

BobbyStein.2315:

(which, due to a bug, did not obscure later events and revealed some spoilers ahead of time).

It was a bug? That makes me happy.

BobbyStein.2315:

Having a few story cinematics at key moments would have certainly helped players piece together the plot, so in the future we will likely use them in ways similar to the F&F releases.

And that also makes me very happy.

That’s the two issues I had with this chapter addressed Thank you! Really looking forward to future chapters.

@Bobby

I really like the instanced storytelling because it feels like I have time to absorb the story more. When in a dynamic event you often get swept up in a Zerg and can barely see what you are attacking let alone take in the nuances of any storytelling.

That being said I know you don’t want a dead open world by pushing everything to instances so I think the most important part is keeping the character development and main storytelling in the instances then have some obvious beat you over the head one liners mixed into the open world stuff.

Keep up the good work.

BobbyStein.2315:

Ideally,* the in-game story should tell you everything you need to know about the current Living World plot, context, and character motivation through a combination of scenes, clues, and gameplay. Blog posts, interviews, novels, etc. are supplementary.*

One of the challenges of weaving a story into open world content is ensuring that players see the right details in the proper order. By nature, dynamic events are designed to be played as you encounter them, which makes story delivery especially challenging in that content type due to its non-linear placement. We’ve been experimenting on different ways to weave the story into the action with each Living World release, sometimes with mixed results.

We used a combination of letters, instanced cinematics, and achievements to tell the Flame & Frost story. While spreading details out among all those different UI elements was not ideal, it was the most effective means of directing people through content with our current tech. We are exploring some options that would streamline this experience, but we’re not ready to discuss the details right now.

There are various bits of story spread throughout the Southsun Cove content. Some are in idle scenes, whereas others are nestled in journals, conversations, or achievement lists (which, due to a bug, did not obscure later events and revealed some spoilers ahead of time). Having a few story cinematics at key moments would have certainly helped players piece together the plot, so in the future we will likely use them in ways similar to the F&F releases.

As always, thanks for the honest feedback. The Living World of GW2 is a new thing for us, so we appreciate your patience, understanding, and suggestions.

I don’t think telling part of the story outside the game is a good idea. All the clues should be in the game.

I’ve seen cutscenes, books, npc dialogue but without a record of that information in the hero panel. It’s hard to remember the details of the story.

From what I remember, the NULL golem encounter makes zero sense without having read the blog post about Canach and Blingg?

Onshidesigns.1069:

I don’t think telling part of the story outside the game is a good idea. All the clues should be in the game.

I’ve seen cutscenes, books, npc dialogue but without a record of that information in the hero panel. It’s hard to remember the details of the story.

That actually brings up a really cool idea (that I’m sure you’ve thought of). To use the players story panel and maybe make sub panels for the living story events we participate(d) in. To look back on in the future. The achievement system loosely serves as this purpose but it’d be nice to have a bit more in-depth history remembered in game.

I know the personal story panels aren’t up entirely to par in their current state. Some are still unfinished even. Well its only one and I can’t recall what one it is but it just ends mid-sentence. But I look at it quite often when bored. xD I like the whole mementos idea that are like pasted into it as well. It would be nice to see more of it in the future.

Either that or add a quest/journal log. :x Which would function as the same thing pretty much.

I appreciate hearing Mr. Stein’s feedback and that they are truly trying out how to best go about their storytelling. I totally understand the process and your idea of finding the most efficient way to go about it in this game. So good luck in that endeavor as always.

BobbyStein.2315:

DiogoSilva.7089:

I’m hoping that, for future living world content, we get the best of both experiences. The tight, focused storytelling and a detailed and fun world experience.

That’s our goal.

Oh I’ve been wanting to talk to one of you for so long, but you neither reply to my forum post nor personal letters. Okay, so I understand if you cant or have no desire to implement my suggestions, but I would appreciate a response if possible.

Simply, the major draw back to your living story was in how the story was presented. 1/3 of the content was from a previous event that we could only uncover by scourging the wikia, 1/3 from blog post, and 1/3 from open world content that players ‘might’ stumble upon… if you did the math, that means 2/3s of the content wasnt even in the game, and none was present where it should have been; in the core driven path of the story, such as instances. In personal story everything is told through instances, and thus everything is presented in an orderly progression with nothing missed. You even preformed an amazing job doing so with F&F instances, so why are we experiencing such a draw back with this latest release?

As an example, I will detail a simplistic yet more compact and linear way you could have told the story, rather than throwing bits and pieces out there with no fabric to connect and structure them by.

Part one with Levi after we collect samples:
Levi- Thanks, after your hard work I’ve been able to trace the crazed behavior pattern to a drug induced in these wildflowers.
Player- Can we neutralize it?
Levi- Not yet, but we may be able to trace it. This poison leaves a residue and if we just follow its trail…
Player- We’ll teach that warmonger to mess with the peace! (tough response) I believe in you levi, inform me when you find more (love response) We can put an end to this madness (noble response)

Part two after update. A mail will inform you that they traced the residue back to this cavern. Enter instance and talk to Keil:
Keil- I’m glad you’re here, that blasted Sylvari retreated deep inside this recess, only I cant risk to send my men past these mines. Why cant prisoners stay behind bars?
Character- Who?
Keil- Canach, the instigator of the Karka aggression on Lionsarch. Only this time it seems it was intended.

This would effectively connect the game-play(collecting samples) to the problem (karka attacks), the problem to the location(the cave), the location to the villain(Canach), and the villain to his background(lost shores). Those two simple dialogues I suggested, would fill all the plot holes.

I posted this elsewhere, but… whatever.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

ok back to topic, what do you guys think about the storytelling?

I haven’t seen any storytelling aside from the small footnotes on the two back pieces. Who is Canach? Who is Kiel? Who is NULL? Why are we in Southsun? I haven’t a clue and it really destroys any sense of immersion I may have had in Southsun.

Southsun feels more like a generic WvW zone than a ‘living story’ chapter.

Are we supposed to go out and buy books to get the story? I don’t understand the lack of meaningful, in-game storytelling.

Elbegast.6970:

Are we supposed to go out and buy books to get the story? I don’t understand the lack of meaningful, in-game storytelling.

No, you don’t need to buy any books. It would help to talk to NPCs, read your letters or do the story mission, which you obviously didn’t. If all you do on Southsun is farming Champion chests, it’s small surprise you don’t notice any story.
You are obviously not interested in any story. That’s ok, but it entirely destroys your argument.

I like the storytelling so far, but I also think there could be more. Not everything collected at one place, but more tidpits around Southsun. Faren and Kasmeer for example, apart from their arrival, they have played no role on Southsun.

ASaturnus.4980:

Elbegast.6970:

Are we supposed to go out and buy books to get the story? I don’t understand the lack of meaningful, in-game storytelling.

No, you don’t need to buy any books. It would help to talk to NPCs, read your letters or do the story mission, which you obviously didn’t. If all you do on Southsun is farming Champion chests, it’s small surprise you don’t notice any story.
You are obviously not interested in any story. That’s ok, but it entirely destroys your argument.

I like the storytelling so far, but I also think there could be more. Not everything collected at one place, but more tidpits around Southsun. Faren and Kasmeer for example, apart from their arrival, they have played no role on Southsun.

Which NPCs should I talk to? I’ve talked to Kiel, Noll and that other little Asura. They told me nothing of relevance. Kiel just barks orders at everyone (I would kill her if I could). I’ve read the two journals in Southsun and they made no sense to me. I still don’t understand what is going on and I know that I am not alone in this.

Who is Null? Who is Noll? Who is Canach? Who is Kiel? What relevance do they have to MY story? They aren’t involving me in any of their storyline affairs. They are just yelling at me to do their grunt work…“Go kill karka!” and what-not.

I want a story, told exclusively in-game, that is relevant to me and my story. I don’t want to hear “Go kill Karka!”. I want to hear Kiel beg and plead for my assistance. I want Kiel to tell me everything she knows about the story IN A CUTSCENE and not in some random dialogue that is aimed at another NPC in the area. I want Canach to talk to me IN A CUTSCENE before he proceeds to attack me for no reason.

You can sugar-coat it all you want but the storytelling is severely lacking in Southsun.

If you cared for the story, you would know who Noll, Canach and Kiel are, because everyone who follows the story knows that. They are part of the story of Southsun Cove from the very beginning. Which isn’t YOUR story, obviously. You can go to Ebonhawke and breed pigs, for all Tyria cares.
A story is still a story if you’re not the central person in it, but it is obvious that you care only about YOUR story. What you find lacking in Southsun isn’t storytelling, it’s you standing on a pedestal.

ASaturnus.4980:

If you cared for the story, you would know who Noll, Canach and Kiel are, because everyone who follows the story knows that. They are part of the story of Southsun Cove from the very beginning. Which isn’t YOUR story, obviously. You can go to Ebonhawke and breed pigs, for all Tyria cares.
A story is still a story if you’re not the central person in it, but it is obvious that you care only about YOUR story. What you find lacking in Southsun isn’t storytelling, it’s you standing on a pedestal.

No, it’s the storyline I find lacking. I have read everything I have come across, witnessed dialogue, ran the solo instance, etc. I still have no clue as to what is going on and why.

Elbegast.6970:

No, it’s the storyline I find lacking. I have read everything I have come across, witnessed dialogue, ran the solo instance, etc. I still have no clue as to what is going on and why.

How can you have read everything of the story and still not know who Canach is? Sorry, but if you read Lord of the Rings and still don’t know who Frodo is, that is not the storytelling’s fault.

Bobby, please, pretty pretty please, make a codex, it would be PERFECT, we would discover things as we do content and it’d appear in our codex, we lorelovers would absolutely adore it and it would be immensily helpfull and interesting to everyone who cares about the story and the world. Please, pretty please… Just tell us you’re reading this, many people want this for so long.

ASaturnus.4980:

Elbegast.6970:

No, it’s the storyline I find lacking. I have read everything I have come across, witnessed dialogue, ran the solo instance, etc. I still have no clue as to what is going on and why.

How can you have read everything of the story and still not know who Canach is? Sorry, but if you read Lord of the Rings and still don’t know who Frodo is, that is not the storytelling’s fault.

The story doesn’t talk about Canach. The only mention of him is on a tooltip on a back slot item.

I’ve read real stories….LotR, Ender’s Game, 1984, Atlas Shrugged, Mark Twain, etc. Southsun’s ‘story’ (what little there is of it) is so disjointed as to be incoherent, without parusing through extra-game articles and websites.

BobbyStein.2315:

Ideally, the in-game story should tell you everything you need to know about the current Living World plot, context, and character motivation through a combination of scenes, clues, and gameplay. Blog posts, interviews, novels, etc. are supplementary.

One of the challenges of weaving a story into open world content is ensuring that players see the right details in the proper order. By nature, dynamic events are designed to be played as you encounter them, which makes story delivery especially challenging in that content type due to its non-linear placement. We’ve been experimenting on different ways to weave the story into the action with each Living World release, sometimes with mixed results.

We used a combination of letters, instanced cinematics, and achievements to tell the Flame & Frost story. While spreading details out among all those different UI elements was not ideal, it was the most effective means of directing people through content with our current tech. We are exploring some options that would streamline this experience, but we’re not ready to discuss the details right now.

There are various bits of story spread throughout the Southsun Cove content. Some are in idle scenes, whereas others are nestled in journals, conversations, or achievement lists (which, due to a bug, did not obscure later events and revealed some spoilers ahead of time). Having a few story cinematics at key moments would have certainly helped players piece together the plot, so in the future we will likely use them in ways similar to the F&F releases.

As always, thanks for the honest feedback. The Living World of GW2 is a new thing for us, so we appreciate your patience, understanding, and suggestions.

I think that your main problem is that you refuse to implement quest in a bit more standard way. Some form of quests would resolve all your problems with story telling. And what is so wrong with that approach?

And if anyone has not yet realized we already have quests in the game. They are called achievements. The only difference is that quests have some story description – this is the thing that the current achievement system is lacking.

BobbyStein.2315:

Ideally, the in-game story should tell you everything you need to know about the current Living World plot, context, and character motivation through a combination of scenes, clues, and gameplay. Blog posts, interviews, novels, etc. are supplementary.

I appreciate your feedback. I give up though, it seems to me that you are ok with the fact that most people miss those wonderfull pieces of lore and have no intention on implementing those in the game and enhancing the experience for us lore-lovers. I’m really sad now, seeing what is possible in other games.

Anet should really take the time to work the Living Story chapters into an UI section just like the personal story was. I like being able to look back on my characters journey from time to time.

Also, such an UI element would allow to consolidate all the scattered info that we currently get on the main UI, the mail box and the achievement lists.

That aside, I hope future installments have a bit more polish in the form of secondary npcs that relate the lore and story to you if players bother to talk to them. In a way, a boon for those that care about immersion and the lore while those that do not care about such things arent forced to “endure” it.

Elbegast.6970:

The story doesn’t talk about Canach. The only mention of him is on a tooltip on a back slot item.

I get it now, you’re just trolling.
I now that you’re late to the show, but that doesn’t mean the story of Lost Shores didn’t happen. It happened in the open world, so it can’t be conserved just for you. Except that it’s all on GuildWiki for you to read. But you don’t read it because you don’t care about the story. You just come here for trolling those who do.

BobbyStein.2315:

Ideally, the in-game story should tell you everything you need to know about the current Living World plot, context, and character motivation through a combination of scenes, clues, and gameplay. Blog posts, interviews, novels, etc. are supplementary.

You know what I think?

I think some of these blog posts should be duplicated in-game as books. Like “The Founding” in Ebonhawke, but not split into way too many volumes. Or if they had to be split for technical reasons, they could all be in the same room in some character’s makeshift library or something. A journal format might work best.

As for novels, perhaps they could be discussed more directly. Maybe someone like Dougal or Gullik could casually mention a scribe who documented their tale… (“But if you want that account, you’ll have to look elsewhere. I don’t have a copy, though I think he was going to call it Ghosts of Ascalon. If you want to look for it, that might be a good place to start.”) At the very least, it could be enough to make the player wonder about it and, possibly expecting an in-game item, look it up on the Internet for hints. Then they’d see that it was actually a real-life novel (with paper and everything!) and they’d probably want to find out more.

Edge of Destiny could be mentioned by any of the Destiny’s Edge NPCs (especially Caithe), it might be better to have another NPC in Lion’s Arch mention it. Those kids who hang out in the cave in Shaemoor should explicitly state that they read all about their favorite characters in Edge of Destiny. They even saved up their coins and bought a copy of the book, but they’re way too smart to let an adventurer like you borrow it— it could very well get stabbed while you’re fighting bandits or something. Plus, you’re a grown-up, so you just wouldn’t “get it.”

As for the interviews… I don’t really think there should be any interesting lore that’s found exclusively in interviews. If it’s canon, someone in-game should at least allude to it as described above. More blog posts would be cool— though I understand that it takes weeks to translate it into all 4 of the languages supported by Guild Wars 2— but those should also be found somewhere in the game as interactive objects. Maybe a bard or something. This could even be a chance for the Heralds to make themselves useful…

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

…

• Interesting villain. I love how it’s not black/white, Canach just tried to help the settlers, so I can’t see him as evil creature. I like this character.
  …

I’m not so sure he is just trying to help the settlers. I think that’s just how he justifies it.

Remember, Canach has a beef with the Consortium. He wants his revenge for the way they used him as a scapegoat. He wants to ruin their little fixer-upper island paradise, and that means getting rid of the workers who keep it going. If he can “free” them from their contracts, he can get them off of the island and blacken the Consortium’s eye.

You might say, “That’s not evil, just self-serving.” And you’d be right… Except for his utter disregard for the settlers and others killed by the creatures he’s stirred up. It’s not just carelessness, though it’s true that he doesn’t care. It’s complete lack of any respect for life. He feels no remorse for their deaths, and it seems clear that he’s cooking up another round of it.
To Canach, those settlers’ lives are a small price to pay for his petty revenge. He’s changed much since the Lost Shores… He’s not the sample-collecting naturalist we saw in November. Now he’s more like a bioterrorist. Actually, that’s exactly what he is, I guess.