Guild Wars 2

I insist that you read this post to its full length before responding, but nonetheless:
TL;DR: Living story is important, war is fun, Scarlet sucks, and nothing’ll come of this other than aesthetics, so listen to us about how we can make it better.

Living story is, essentially, a big part of our PvE endgame. Once you hit level 80, are in full exotics(soon to be ascended), get your legendary, get every aesthetic you care about, beat every dungeon path in the game, living story is what you’re left with to do as far as PvE goes. And a lot of those things I’ve listed are things that you don’t even have to do, and that includes living story as well. Honestly, in the end, it all really comes down to aesthetics, because that’s all living story seems to give us(back items, weapon skins, etc) since there’s no gear grind for this game, and I’m perfectly okay with that. But living story is what gives us new content, is supposed to change the world, and keeps us tied to the game. Therefore, it is imperative that you guys at A-Net strive to make living story blow us away with awesome, especially since it’s apparent that more resources will be used on it. Value our critiques for the next arcs, and devalue unintelligible QQing always.

I believe that there are two major aspects to living story: gameplay, lore, and the permanent impact on Tyria, or how the game has evolved. You nailed one, and it’s gameplay. The attacks on Tyria laid out by Scarlet are absolutely amazing, is rewarding and rich in loot, and replayable as hell. It isn’t just a mindless zerg of events and enemies in a cramped space like the arc before. The enemies flood a zone, your commanders and people in the zone have to be made well aware of how to approach certain events, and which events should be focused on and when. The time limit is sometimes the hypest (stuff) about the attacks sometimes, as I was left planting my face against my monitor to kill Scarlet with five seconds left of the clock. The people who farm this event farm it FOR the event and not the profit, as the map chat of the zone is flooded with praise and “holy crap that was nuts.” The only two downside in gameplay is that Scarlet, like a lot of other “legendary bosses,” are complete pushovers when a zerg bumrushes them down, and it’d be awesome if you’d make these final bosses as difficult as guild bounties, with extra time to operate of course. The other one is the lack of a culling slider. Some of us benefited from it, A-Net, so think about both parties when you make a gameplay changing move like that.

But then, there’s the matter of lore. Me and the clique I chill with on GW2 like to refer to these as “filler arcs,” because they’re just gaps until we find out about what we actually want to find out about.(Cantha and Elona, but that’s a tale for another time…) That, and the fact that there are so many other matters of lore that fans of GW have been BEGGING for, and aren’t too revealing about major things that you guys have planned for the future. Will the largos ever get any further lore or depth, and thus be used to allude towards Bubbles’ unveiling? Will Ascalon ever get any lore other than flame legion, ogres, Foefire ghosts, separatists, and renegades, and then have the charr extend their support of their treaty by allowing Ascalonian humans to rebuild Piken Square? Will we ever receive ANY throwback to the original guild wars, as far a lore goes?

I’m sure that there are many ideas that myself and many others could dish out for A-Net to use, but that isn’t the point. The point and reality is that there are many subjects for living story arcs to choose from that fans will GLADLY buy things from the gem store for, opposed to the stereotypical “party gone wrong” scenario. Scarlet is such a poorly introduced Mary Sue, and only the most naive of Naruto fans can find this edgelord McAbyssdye as a good villain. The only thing that she’s got going for her is that she’s voiced by God’s Gift to Voice Acting Tara Strong herself.

And finally, there’s the permanent impact on Tyria of living story, if there ever is any. Many people complained about living story not feeling living at all, because of this. If it truly was living, there would be a much larger mark left on Tyria. People are not content with a stupid model in Lion’s Arch, or a new minigame that people only play for achievement points and not for fun, or a freakin’ bare and barren zone that people only care about during its respective living story arc. Everything fun and appealing is taken away to prepare for the next arc, so that “we don’t get bored of it?” We get bored of waiting for something actually interesting to happen! What about all of the itches that players want scratched, so that we can keep busy on this game? A new zone to explore that you can add more aesthetics to, as well as a couple of JPs, to keep us in it? A new DUNGEON, and not a fractal? A feelsy battle for GW1 players where they fight their hero as a ghost with a NEW soundtrack in the background?

This living story arc was definitely a step in the right direction, but PLEASE read this, the feedback of your players, and blow us away. Living story is all we have.

/endrant