This suggestion is one that strives for new content that enhances the background stories of all races, all area’s where applicable, and is supposed to increase the ‘living world’ feeling…
The Historian NPC
In order to achieve this i want to suggest adding ‘Historian NPCs’, for which i see a variety of angles…
1. The ‘tribal’ historian, these live in the cities and villages, they let the player experience (a) piece(s) of history by actively playing through it.
2. The ‘area’ historian, these live in a village or city ON a particular map, the historian(s) let the player experience (a) piece(s) of history that happened on the particular map. There could be more of these on a particular map, if that map has significance to the history of multiple races.
3. Traveling Historian(s), these would be traveling through Tyria and offer a general piece of history, these could be racial history, area history, or just ‘a’ piece of history.
The quest Mechanic
The historians would use the personal story mechanics to offer an ‘old style’ quest experience(s). Seeing the quests are about a certain story that happened in the past, it is more than fitting to let these take place in a ‘personal space’ rather than in the ‘real world’.
A historian could tell a short story playing in one ‘piece of the map’ or it could send the player on a ‘quest trail’ taking place on various ‘maps’.
Added value
There are numerous locations in the world that have changed during the 250y since GW1, but even stories from GW1 may well be worth telling ‘again’. The story could take people past structures that lie in runes in the ‘living world’ and take them in and around these structures while they were still active, the player may well play a part in the destruction. Or see a structure destroyed …
These are all background bits of information that make people connect to the current state of the map. Through the historians the players is not just part of the world ‘now’ but can also play a part in it’s history.
More then just the playable races
And not just about the main races either:
- stories of the tribal hylek historian
- stories of the historic councel of skritt (a group of skritt that keep reiterating the history of the skritt to each other to make sure history is not forgotten
- etc…
Seeing a lot of these races have a ‘when friendly’ condition. A ‘historian’ could become available under these conditions to give these races some added historic background. A player could well ‘crawl into the skin’ of the race and play out an historic event as being a part of (through the eyes of) the race that is concerned.
Certain area’s (maps) may well be of historic significance to a certain race, either how they got there, or why they are no longer there. So even the minor races are not just limited to some general history as written down just above here, but they could be a part of the historic view of a map as a whole, or just a piece of the map specifically.
Permanent content
All these historic stories would be permanent content, and offer a active ‘view’ in to the past, giving Tyria in GW2 it’s rich history. The stories could be replayable, would not have to offer any significant rewards, though they could. And by using the ‘personal story’ mechanic, these quests do not ‘tax’ the living breathing world or take from it. They may have a ‘quest mechanic’ of old, but it’s used in a way that is suitable for the kind of content that is offered.
Expandable
This content uses a simple ‘start quest’ NPC, uses existing ‘personal story’ mechanics, which draws on existing maps. Some of the maps may have to be altered in some shape, way or form, but seeing the large amount of existing assets some ‘copy/paste’ may well be possible…
Once a bunch of these ‘quest (lines)’ are ‘in the game’, the system can ‘in effect’ go live. After this it is merely an effort of adding more historic quests to more maps, races, area’s etc.
Innovation
Personally i am mostly looking forward to experiencing the rise of Zhaitan, most significantly in any of the flooded area’s. To me it would be more than exciting to start in ‘old style’ Lion’s Arch, running some errands, to then experience the upheaval as a smallish earthquake hits. to then nothing happening, to then be struck by the flood (quite possibly by a cinematic). To then wake up on shore of the new map (with just rubble) and then to start some rebuilding efforts. And that is how LA came to be…
By using the historic view, one can start in a map at condition past, change the map by some event, which is displayed by a cinematic, to then have the player contribute to in that map at ‘condition more recent past’, to then change the map again, until the player is back in the present.
tnx for your time reading this suggestion.
25 okt 2014 – PinkDay in LA