Guild Wars 2

Hello,
I’ve felt it’s about time I did my share in improving the game, so here it is.

1) Living Story. I have to say I’m not quite happy about the recent development. With Dragon Bash and Bazaar of the Four Winds there seems to be a common trend : they are completely random and unrelated to the rest of the GW2 world and story. You already have a great world, amazing terrains, interesting story and background, why not build on it when introducing new content? With the Labyrinthine Cliffs it’s obvious you are becoming good at the execution, but the ideas are lacking. New zones are great, but there is no reason for them to be so disconnected as Southsun Cove or Labyrinthine Cliffs. Living Story happening in the already existing world should, in my opinion, take a different approach too. The Flame and Frost story had great ideas, but poor execution. Like I said, you already have a great world at your disposal, so make something happen in it. Make the dredge or centaurs or icebrood take over some cities, build some new fortifications to conquer. Having a few zones modified a bit more to accommodate the Living Story will hardly impair any leveling, with more than one zone available at each level, and will give players reason to return to familiar locations.

2) How to make the Living Story more interesting without introducing random stuff like the Bazaar or Dragon Bash? Simple : conflict. It’s well known that leaving 20 people in a closed room, with 10 of them having a different shirt color than the rest results in bloody murder. Make factions, have people pick sides and compete as part of Living Story. Dragon Ball and Sanctum Sprint are great examples that there is high demand for competition other than standard PvP. Maybe make a set of world bosses for each faction and see which one kills them first? Then have the Living Story conclude differently based on which faction won.

3) Races of Tyria. If you are not comfortable with creating new factions, make the Living Story revolve around the races. For example : with the playable races already taking up a lot of Tyria, there isn’t much space for the minor races. History teaches us that simple greed and territorial expansion are reason enough for genocide. Or maybe try development between the playable races, have two-race cities in the new zones and see what combinations are liked, then burn the ones that players dislike in the next update.

4) Give players more control of the direction in which the Living Story is heading. Before you commit to certain scenarios, prepare just rough concepts, let’s say three options, and have people vote on them in-game like picking a dungeon path the next time they log on, and after several days of voting get to work on the one with most votes.

5) Captain Ellen Kiel is a keeper.

These are good suggestions and I see where you are coming from. I would definitely like to see more story integration into this “living story”. 3 thoughts I have on this (they don’t correspond with the original list):

1.) as you’ve already seen, much of the Living Story content is temporary, which creates a problem for new players especially if it’s integrated with the main plot
2.) the main plot is horribly childish. There is no blood, no gore, no men forcing women into…, minimal coarse language (which is unrealistic, especially for soldiers in, say, the Vigil), and there is generally a bright atmosphere. Hell, look at the game’s sky colours when it’s nighttime. I’m starting to doubt whether or not night actually exists in GW2 because it’s just blue.
3.) player-driven stories is an excellent idea. I would really like to see players deciding on where the game should go. And as the forums only represents a minority of players, in-game polls are great.

Of course, much of this post represented my own negative opinion towards the story, so it’s naturally biased against Living Story integration. Again, great ideas – always easier said than done of course. ^^