Ok, so, much of gw1 lore has never come alive in tyria. Most of old secrets stay as old secrets and we never get to see anything about them. I never played gw1 but sometimes whenever I hear or see something related to gw1 in gw2 I always go on wiki and read it, I think it is much more interesting than what we are currently doing. First of all, you introduced whole new villain that is a fruit of a tree which only flowered 25 years ago for the first time. We do not progress in dragons, even thought they have no relation to gw1 really much. Now, why I mentioned GW1 lore, the upcoming update takes place in kessex hills where the mysterious WIZARD’S TOWER stands, and also some part of Dominion of Winds. Instead of giving a word about it you, construct whole new thing, that is still gw1 lore, but call it tower of NIGHTMARES and by the name and you poem on facebook, more certainly “Your foes and enemies are becoming fast friends” kinda makes me think that you neglected yet another detail from lore and allied up Krait, most xenophobic race, with either Nightmare court or scarelt, or maybe court and scarlet are already friends. When are we going to get some information about things that people really want to know?? There are 4 or 5 more Dragons remaining, a huge secret of wizard’s tower and dominion of winds, huge mystery of alternative sylvari source and maybe tons of other stuff. Focusing living story on opening world secrets would be really nice, it would happen slowly, like 1 event around 2 months, but it would then open more possibilities.
No one cares about actual lore.....
The problem is that I think the devs actually don’t really know what they;re going to do with the LS. I’m sure they can see that lore-wise, the LS isn’t working.
If they place major lore into it, like the dragons, then that’s that pice of major lore used up. They’re still experimenting,and thus seems reluctant to put any ‘serious’ lore into these updates.
Personally, I think they should just take what Jagex does with RuneScape and just apply it here. They’ve been basically doing this living world thing for a decade, and their approach works.
Well the first bit of LS was I think the most successful one, it took 4 months to end and brought dungeon which everyone loved. Why not make same thing with just UNLOCKING Dominion of Winds. For example first update would be “Secret of Tengu” that will tell us that Tengu have some giant problem in their dominion, a war maybe with some dragon minions, bubble minions, and some of them are evacuating outside of dominion. then would come “Treasure of Tengu” here you would go to search for ancient weapon somwhere at the edge of the world, maybe near Orr, that was used by Tengu to kill these minions but somehow over centuries it got lost and recently a seeker reported it, here’s the dungeon, this weapon is being kept locked by NORMAL pirates. Third would be “Dominion of Winds” Here we would be allowed in dominion of winds, but restricted to parts were dragons minions usually attack as Tengu are still trying to figure out how the weapons work. In this chapter we help Tengu around Dominion of Winds and guard them against dragon minions. In the final update of this chapter “Monster of The Depts” We kill one of the champions of bubbles in an epic dungeon. Here 2 months of LS, no scarlet, no crap, all the content that people would LOVE. After this update we continue working with Tengu in their Dominion plotting further plans of getting closer to bubbles.
At the moment, I have absolutely no clue what the heck is happeinign inside Anet’s development team. They seem to have writers but…what are those writers actually doing.
I do not wish to offend anyone but I can’t see the current story being the work of a professional writer. Its disjointed, it lacks character progression, and the worst part of it: it gives the ‘reader’ zero-interest to find out more. I know that the best storytellers masterfully always gives the reader just enough information to intrigue them but never let you know everything even at the very end, but the story in this case seems to be going nowhere at all. You don’t have a clue why anything is happening.
At the moment, I have absolutely no clue what the heck is happeinign inside Anet’s development team. They seem to have writers but…what are those writers actually doing.
I do not wish to offend anyone but I can’t see the current story being the work of a professional writer. Its disjointed, it lacks character progression, and the worst part of it: it gives the ‘reader’ zero-interest to find out more. I know that the best storytellers masterfully always gives the reader just enough information to intrigue them but never let you know everything even at the very end, but the story in this case seems to be going nowhere at all. You don’t have a clue why anything is happening.
That sums it up for me too.
Don’t support the Gem Shop, it’s that easy.
Lore? sacrilege, moar farming!!!!
That about sums it up.
I wish they would just accept that Scarlet is a failure of a concept and move in. There’s plenty of important villains in the personal story that just got unceremonially killed off (like Almora’s son).
I think it’s pretty obvious they’re just making stuff up as they go along, despite giving promises about “connecting plotlines”.
Was talking with guildies about this just a couple of days ago. They are failing horribly at doing anything people care about with the LS. I mean, even the Zephirite update which hinted at them being the protectors of Glint’s baby… What happened to that? I was so excited. “Yes, finally something we care about!” and then nope, moving on to more “pirates” and that vilain that is just horrible. Anet seems to break their own lore to make Scarlet work. They have such good lore to expand on and they just throw these farm runs at us with plot lines that make no sense whatsoever and their explanation for everything that happens is “Scarlet!”. She’s Anet’s escape goat at this point lol.
I don’t remember them ever hinting that the Zephyrites were the protectors of Glint’s baby in the BotFW LS. That was probably all fan speculation off the forums. They were set up as the spiritual successors of the dwarven Brotherhood of the Dragon. The only thing they were protectors of, as it was set up in the short story, was Glint’s corpse, since they didn’t want it to be used for nefarious purposes.
I don’t remember them ever hinting that the Zephyrites were the protectors of Glint’s baby in the BotFW LS. That was probably all fan speculation off the forums. They were set up as the spiritual successors of the dwarven Brotherhood of the Dragon. The only thing they were protectors of, as it was set up in the short story, was Glint’s corpse, since they didn’t want it to be used for nefarious purposes.
This came from in game stuff and fan speculation. In game in GW1 you had to defend Glints baby, so we know it exists.
Out of game there were stories posted on the official website about the Zephrites and their relationship to Glint (they defended her dead body from being used by bad guys and used her powers to create the crystals we were using for jump boost and speed buffs).
Check out Wooden Potatoes video on youtube about it.
I do not wish to offend anyone but I can’t see the current story being the work of a professional writer. Its disjointed, it lacks character progression, and the worst part of it: it gives the ‘reader’ zero-interest to find out more.
To me it’s a issue due to LS structures.
Most used: Guard/Mes/War/Nec/Ele.
Yes, i use 5 chars at time. Because REASONS.
A lot of people care about the story and the lore. The current pot is a great example how new lore buds and grow around us. We see characters progressing step by step including us as part of the story. We should always remember that we are not the readers of the story but heroes within the story. What would Bilbo say to Tolkien or Miss Marple to Christie about the plot? Letting them in the dark providing the loose ends and not telling clearly where the journey will go and end.
As parts of the story we will know everything at the end and not in the first third of the book.
A lot of people care about the story and the lore. The current pot is a great example how new lore buds and grow around us. We see characters progressing step by step including us as part of the story. We should always remember that we are not the readers of the story but heroes within the story. What would Bilbo say to Tolkien or Miss Marple to Christie about the plot? Letting them in the dark providing the loose ends and not telling clearly where the journey will go and end.
As parts of the story we will know everything at the end and not in the first third of the book.
Nice try Anet…..but you cannot trick us with a disguise
I care about the Lore, sure I got a little puzzled after reading about Kraits working together with others but still that is from a website where I can’t find any proof that this has been said from Anet teams. However I will not complain before I have seen what this story brings to us, I may be a fool but I won’t call Anet’s story writers imba before I have seen it for myself.
Also, how many care about the actuall lore when you go surfing the web to find the lore before the material has even been released?
Imo I like the LS lore so far, Scarlet is a perfect villian coming from me who likes anime like One Piece.
We are all from different parts of the world, we like different things.
Saying stuff like ’Quote from Xae Isareth.1364 “I wish they would just accept that Scarlet is a failure of a concept and move in.” is rude.
I hope Scarlet will show up more… But not with Kraits without a good reason though.
I like the LS since there alot of stuff to speculate on, there is so much loose threads at the moment and you stop to think what will* happen next.
*Edit: Made a big error, but it is corrected ^^
Guild Leader of Alpha Sgc [ASGC]
(edited by EdgarMTanaka.7291)
I care about the Lore, sure I got a little puzzled after reading about Kraits working together with others but still that is from a website where I can’t find any proof that this has been said from Anet teams. However I will not complain before I have seen what this story brings to us, I may be a fool but I won’t call Anet’s story writers imba before I have seen it for myself.
Also, how many care about the actuall lore when you go surfing the web to find the lore before the material has even been released?
Imo I like the LS lore so far, Scarlet is a perfect villian coming from me who likes anime like One Piece.
We are all from different parts of the world, we like different things.
Saying stuff like ’Quote from Xae Isareth.1364 “I wish they would just accept that Scarlet is a failure of a concept and move in.” is rude.
I hope Scarlet will show up more… But not with Kraits without a good reason though.I like the LS since there alot of stuff to speculate on, there is so much loose threads at the moment and you stop to think what will* happen next.
*Edit: Made a big error, but it is corrected ^^
That’s exactly the problem, we like different things. She would be an OK villain for a shounen anime or manga but this is a high-fantasy MMO. You would never find Luffy in the Lord of the Rings.
The loose threads are a problem. Like I was saying before, its good to keep people guessing but there’s a difference between that and making sure no one has a bloody clue at all. There was enough ‘loose ends’ from GW1 to fill years of content, and now they just start a whole new plot (or at least I can’t tell how this is going to to connect back to the gods or the dragons), and makes more loose ends with every patch.
I care about the Lore, sure I got a little puzzled after reading about Kraits working together with others but still that is from a website where I can’t find any proof that this has been said from Anet teams. However I will not complain before I have seen what this story brings to us, I may be a fool but I won’t call Anet’s story writers imba before I have seen it for myself.
Also, how many care about the actuall lore when you go surfing the web to find the lore before the material has even been released?
Imo I like the LS lore so far, Scarlet is a perfect villian coming from me who likes anime like One Piece.
We are all from different parts of the world, we like different things.
Saying stuff like ’Quote from Xae Isareth.1364 “I wish they would just accept that Scarlet is a failure of a concept and move in.” is rude.
I hope Scarlet will show up more… But not with Kraits without a good reason though.I like the LS since there alot of stuff to speculate on, there is so much loose threads at the moment and you stop to think what will* happen next.
*Edit: Made a big error, but it is corrected ^^
That’s exactly the problem, we like different things. She would be an OK villain for a shounen anime or manga but this is a high-fantasy MMO. You would never find Luffy in the Lord of the Rings.
The loose threads are a problem. Like I was saying before, its good to keep people guessing but there’s a difference between that and making sure no one has a bloody clue at all. There was enough ‘loose ends’ from GW1 to fill years of content, and now they just start a whole new plot (or at least I can’t tell how this is going to to connect back to the gods or the dragons), and makes more loose ends with every patch.
I understand what you are saying, but this is niether Lord of the Rings (wich is regular Fantasy) and there has been lots of weird/funny/humor characters in GuildWars history, though very few of them has had any big part of the actual story.
But am I wrong to say that GuildWars is originally quite anime-style inspirated? When I played GW1, atleast some of my friends disliked GuildWars 1 becouse they thought it was so Anime influenced.
The Living Story is supposed to go on for a really really long time, and by building up the story leaving out parts for the “reader” to not know is one way of telling a story.
It gives the writer more options to create more stories based on the same thread and also leaves much for the “reader” to figure out. This story is just building up, we have just marely got to know who has been pulling the strings behind all these incident’s and just that almost took a whole year, maby it will take another year to know who Scarlet realy is and in an aditional year to figure out her intentions.
This may be a book we are reading very very slowly.
I missed to say that this may just be the upscaling to tieing the threads of the story from GW1 together, it may not be. But this is a living world, a living story so soon maby that day will come. Atleast if we keep on giving feedback on it as some do. But saying this story is bad won’t give the writers any clue on what people wan’t.
I also wan’t more stories connecting the dragons but I am not in a hurry to compleate the story of this game just yet.
Guild Leader of Alpha Sgc [ASGC]
At the moment, I have absolutely no clue what the heck is happeinign inside Anet’s development team. They seem to have writers but…what are those writers actually doing.
I do not wish to offend anyone but I can’t see the current story being the work of a professional writer. Its disjointed, it lacks character progression, and the worst part of it: it gives the ‘reader’ zero-interest to find out more. I know that the best storytellers masterfully always gives the reader just enough information to intrigue them but never let you know everything even at the very end, but the story in this case seems to be going nowhere at all. You don’t have a clue why anything is happening.
I don’t think the LS was intended to be a single story. Rather it’s a platform from which to launch multiple stories and events that may closely or remotely connect with one another. Judging it as a single story is judging it for something it’s not even trying or intended to be.
I understand what you are saying, but this is niether Lord of the Rings (wich is regular Fantasy) and there has been lots of weird/funny/humor characters in GuildWars history, though very few of them has had any big part of the actual story.
But am I wrong to say that GuildWars is originally quite anime-style inspirated? When I played GW1, atleast some of my friends disliked GuildWars 1 becouse they thought it was so Anime influenced.
This is a good point. The two main problems with the “GW1 was like this” complaints are: one, GW2 is not GW1; two, people seem to have a selective memory regarding GW1.
Regarding the first, Anet made it clear from the beginning that GW2 was going to be a departure from GW1 in many core aspects. There was a shift away from medieval fantasy to technology. There was a shift away from human focused stories to multi-racial stories. There was a shift away from the lore of the past to the lore of the new present.
And yet, many things have stayed the same. The overall tone remains just as light as GW1. GW1 villains were just as over-the-top as Scarlet. Khilbron was a mustache twirling schemer. Shiro was an unrelenting, also obtuse, unstoppable force. Varesh was a wild-eyed megalomaniac. There are multiple kinds of villains. Scarlet is different from the others, but just as an extreme caricature of her archetype as the GW1 villains were.
Here’s the three big problems with lore:
-It’s not involved. From the personal story, to the living story, you don’t really determine the outcome. The most we’ve done is vote for elen kiel, or evon knashblade, and that didn’t really effect the story much.
-It’s not all that interesting. It’s a pretty boring story if you look at it from a writer’s perspective. There’s no much betrayal, no real characters you love to hate, just… kind of dry LotRs type story(I love LotR, but I wouldn’t want to read a years worth of stories about it).
-None of them have been finished. I don’t think we’ve really finished a story in guild wars as of yet. Plenty of starts, but no finishes. Hell, there’s still stories from GW1 that we haven’t finished. We need some resolution!
There ya go, this is what I think is the problem with the lore.
Release in China > Lore. Go grind and leave us alone.
I think the biggest problem is that they are attempting to rush too many things in because of the outcry about not knowing anything about Scarlet, her origins, her story. No one knows what she’s up to, and this could have been fixed very simply by just including a story where the players join up with Marjory or someone else and attempt to find people who have worked with her in the past and find out more about her past and perhaps what she’s planning next. Then they could have kept the nice pace that they had with the Molten Alliance (IMO) and continued the story at a believable pace instead of rushing it to get to the point. They have a lot of potential, but it’s just getting too rushed, too messy, and the players are noticing. Part of the problem is the two week rotation. I think we should go back to a well known ArenaNet statement “When it’s Ready!”
I care about the Lore, sure I got a little puzzled after reading about Kraits working together with others but still that is from a website where I can’t find any proof that this has been said from Anet teams. However I will not complain before I have seen what this story brings to us, I may be a fool but I won’t call Anet’s story writers imba before I have seen it for myself.
Also, how many care about the actuall lore when you go surfing the web to find the lore before the material has even been released?
Imo I like the LS lore so far, Scarlet is a perfect villian coming from me who likes anime like One Piece.
We are all from different parts of the world, we like different things.
Saying stuff like ’Quote from Xae Isareth.1364 “I wish they would just accept that Scarlet is a failure of a concept and move in.” is rude.
I hope Scarlet will show up more… But not with Kraits without a good reason though.I like the LS since there alot of stuff to speculate on, there is so much loose threads at the moment and you stop to think what will* happen next.
*Edit: Made a big error, but it is corrected ^^
That’s exactly the problem, we like different things. She would be an OK villain for a shounen anime or manga but this is a high-fantasy MMO. You would never find Luffy in the Lord of the Rings.
The loose threads are a problem. Like I was saying before, its good to keep people guessing but there’s a difference between that and making sure no one has a bloody clue at all. There was enough ‘loose ends’ from GW1 to fill years of content, and now they just start a whole new plot (or at least I can’t tell how this is going to to connect back to the gods or the dragons), and makes more loose ends with every patch.
The Living Story is supposed to go on for a really really long time, and by building up the story leaving out parts for the “reader” to not know is one way of telling a story.
It gives the writer more options to create more stories based on the same thread and also leaves much for the “reader” to figure out. This story is just building up, we have just marely got to know who has been pulling the strings behind all these incident’s and just that almost took a whole year, maby it will take another year to know who Scarlet realy is and in an aditional year to figure out her intentions.
This may be a book we are reading very very slowly.
I missed to say that this may just be the upscaling to tieing the threads of the story from GW1 together, it may not be. But this is a living world, a living story so soon maby that day will come. Atleast if we keep on giving feedback on it as some do. But saying this story is bad won’t give the writers any clue on what people wan’t.
I also wan’t more stories connecting the dragons but I am not in a hurry to compleate the story of this game just yet.
A long story needs things for people to be interested in throughout the tale, you need to captivate the reader, not ask them to bare with you until something interesting happens. A story which fails to engage its reader is a failure.
I care about the Lore, sure I got a little puzzled after reading about Kraits working together with others but still that is from a website where I can’t find any proof that this has been said from Anet teams. However I will not complain before I have seen what this story brings to us, I may be a fool but I won’t call Anet’s story writers imba before I have seen it for myself.
Also, how many care about the actuall lore when you go surfing the web to find the lore before the material has even been released?
Imo I like the LS lore so far, Scarlet is a perfect villian coming from me who likes anime like One Piece.
We are all from different parts of the world, we like different things.
Saying stuff like ’Quote from Xae Isareth.1364 “I wish they would just accept that Scarlet is a failure of a concept and move in.” is rude.
I hope Scarlet will show up more… But not with Kraits without a good reason though.I like the LS since there alot of stuff to speculate on, there is so much loose threads at the moment and you stop to think what will* happen next.
*Edit: Made a big error, but it is corrected ^^
That’s exactly the problem, we like different things. She would be an OK villain for a shounen anime or manga but this is a high-fantasy MMO. You would never find Luffy in the Lord of the Rings.
The loose threads are a problem. Like I was saying before, its good to keep people guessing but there’s a difference between that and making sure no one has a bloody clue at all. There was enough ‘loose ends’ from GW1 to fill years of content, and now they just start a whole new plot (or at least I can’t tell how this is going to to connect back to the gods or the dragons), and makes more loose ends with every patch.
The Living Story is supposed to go on for a really really long time, and by building up the story leaving out parts for the “reader” to not know is one way of telling a story.
It gives the writer more options to create more stories based on the same thread and also leaves much for the “reader” to figure out. This story is just building up, we have just marely got to know who has been pulling the strings behind all these incident’s and just that almost took a whole year, maby it will take another year to know who Scarlet realy is and in an aditional year to figure out her intentions.
This may be a book we are reading very very slowly.
I missed to say that this may just be the upscaling to tieing the threads of the story from GW1 together, it may not be. But this is a living world, a living story so soon maby that day will come. Atleast if we keep on giving feedback on it as some do. But saying this story is bad won’t give the writers any clue on what people wan’t.
I also wan’t more stories connecting the dragons but I am not in a hurry to compleate the story of this game just yet.A long story needs things for people to be interested in throughout the tale, you need to captivate the reader, not ask them to bare with you until something interesting happens. A story which fails to engage its reader is a failure.
Well there we are once again in our differences, I like how the story is interesting in it’s self not just by the last big plot, but by the happenings at the moment. It’s like for example “The Mentalist” where Patrick are looking for Red John but never ever gets to him/her, there is always a murder or something that happens in between that catches your interest for every episode.
Guild Leader of Alpha Sgc [ASGC]
There is a metric kitten of guild wars 1 lore to sort through and they’ve been doing a half decent job… Just look at the zepherites and glint ((If you don’t catch that go look it up))
Problem is the game has been out for a year and they can’t pump out every little bit of GW1 and GW2 tie in lore at one time, just wait through.
Eleshod|80 Thief|Tarnished Coast
Malsavias|80 Necromancer| Tarnished Coast
And yet, many things have stayed the same. The overall tone remains just as light as GW1. GW1 villains were just as over-the-top as Scarlet. Khilbron was a mustache twirling schemer. Shiro was an unrelenting, also obtuse, unstoppable force. Varesh was a wild-eyed megalomaniac. There are multiple kinds of villains. Scarlet is different from the others, but just as an extreme caricature of her archetype as the GW1 villains were.
I’m not going to say that the GW1 villains were masterful pieces of writing but they were a hell of a lot more engaging than Scarlet currently is. I mean just to go down the list:
Khilbron: Is a master manipulator, but thanks to his mustache-twirling air most players saw his eventual betrayal coming a mile off. However that doesn’t change the fact that he was a very big help to the players for most of the story. You can’t deny we would have been SOL at Sanctum Cay without him.
Shiro: Is a character built on madness and revenge. The second part is important because it made his motives easy to guess relatively early on. What’s more is that as early as Vizunah Square we are getting some flashback info about Shiro himself that lets us understand the character more.
Varesh: Is a megalomaniac warlord and the head of a religion of evil, sets her up as pretty bad news right? Well there’s also a fair bit of depth to her character that comes out in her interactions with Gen. Morgahn. We get to see that she wasn’t always this axe-crazy kitten bent on hell-raising (in the most literal sense), and that her ongoing corruption is really straining her relationships with those who actually care about her.
What do all these villains have that Scarlet doesn’t?
Well for one her being a master manipulator able to bring together incredibly disparate groups, it is something we are told not shown. With Khilbron we witness first hand how he is able to play people for his own goals. What we see of Scarlet makes us question how she could convince xenophobic and misogynistic groups like the Dredge and Flame legion work together, she’s not coherent and certainly not persuasive.
Her backstory, apart from not being in game whatsoever, is rather hard to believe. I hate to once again use the term as it’s almost becoming cliche around here, but her backstory really does read like a checklist for a mary sue character. Everyone likes her for no apparent reason; she is very arrogant and vain yet people still fawn over her instead of finding her attitude off putting. Similarly she is able to convince everyone to do what she wants despite having very little in the way of apparent persuasive skill. She excels in everything she tries, mastering in weeks or months what usually takes people lifetimes to accomplish.
Compare this to Shiro, who we are shown a lot of backstory for. He is an incredibly skilled warrior but is still rather humble, he scoffs at the notion that the emperor would make him his personal bodyguard. He’s not overly likeable, he’s gruff and stoic (and sounds like he’s constipated most of the time), and the only manipulation in his story is his being manipulated by the fortune teller, slowly driving him to insanity.
Then there’s the possibility of character depth via interpersonal relations. And despite Scarlet’s amazingly likeable personality, massive history of past contacts with renowned and influential people, almost no one even mentions her. Her cronies hardly even interact with her in a visible way. She’s got no second in command there’s not even an opposite adversary for her to riff off of, maybe they’re intending the player character to be this but so far I don’t think we’ve said two words directly to her.
Finally there’s the issue of motive. Scarlet apparently went all “Krikkit” upon seeing the eternal alchemy an said, “It’ll have to go”. Except that’s apparently been revised to mean that she merely thought she saw the eternal alchemy as a hallucination while she went insane. Another motive hinted at in her backstory is her rebelling against the Dream vs. Nightmare dichotomy. Except she apparently never considers the option of becoming soundless, and now she’s also working directly with the Nightmare Court. Well so much for that. So far she’s organized armies and attacked peasants in Ascalon and the Shiverpeaks. Killed an LA Captain’s Council member. Attacked the Queen of Kryta. Started invading random patches of countryside for half-hour periods. And to top it off she has stolen Caithe’s dairy apparently. If there’s a pattern here I’m not seeing it. I mean even Shiro who was well off the deep end at least had a pretty clear goal of “take bloody vengeance on all of Cantha and get my mortality back”.
TLDR: GW1 villains may not have been examples of literary masterworks, but they were all compelling and interesting on some level. So far Scarlet has failed to deliver on any aspect of being a compelling villain.
Well the first bit of LS was I think the most successful one, it took 4 months to end and brought dungeon which everyone loved. Why not make same thing with just UNLOCKING Dominion of Winds. For example first update would be “Secret of Tengu” that will tell us that Tengu have some giant problem in their dominion, a war maybe with some dragon minions, bubble minions, and some of them are evacuating outside of dominion. then would come “Treasure of Tengu” here you would go to search for ancient weapon somwhere at the edge of the world, maybe near Orr, that was used by Tengu to kill these minions but somehow over centuries it got lost and recently a seeker reported it, here’s the dungeon, this weapon is being kept locked by NORMAL pirates. Third would be “Dominion of Winds” Here we would be allowed in dominion of winds, but restricted to parts were dragons minions usually attack as Tengu are still trying to figure out how the weapons work. In this chapter we help Tengu around Dominion of Winds and guard them against dragon minions. In the final update of this chapter “Monster of The Depts” We kill one of the champions of bubbles in an epic dungeon. Here 2 months of LS, no scarlet, no crap, all the content that people would LOVE. After this update we continue working with Tengu in their Dominion plotting further plans of getting closer to bubbles.
this is what ive been describing and trying to get out how they should do the ls. great idea and i love how you had it run over several two week periods with it ending with an area exspansion. well done and i think this is how all updates in the future should be along these lines.
Ok, so, much of gw1 lore has never come alive in tyria. Most of old secrets stay as old secrets and we never get to see anything about them. I never played gw1 but sometimes whenever I hear or see something related to gw1 in gw2 I always go on wiki and read it, I think it is much more interesting than what we are currently doing. First of all, you introduced whole new villain that is a fruit of a tree which only flowered 25 years ago for the first time. We do not progress in dragons, even thought they have no relation to gw1 really much. Now, why I mentioned GW1 lore, the upcoming update takes place in kessex hills where the mysterious WIZARD’S TOWER stands, and also some part of Dominion of Winds. Instead of giving a word about it you, construct whole new thing, that is still gw1 lore, but call it tower of NIGHTMARES and by the name and you poem on facebook, more certainly “Your foes and enemies are becoming fast friends” kinda makes me think that you neglected yet another detail from lore and allied up Krait, most xenophobic race, with either Nightmare court or scarelt, or maybe court and scarlet are already friends. When are we going to get some information about things that people really want to know?? There are 4 or 5 more Dragons remaining, a huge secret of wizard’s tower and dominion of winds, huge mystery of alternative sylvari source and maybe tons of other stuff. Focusing living story on opening world secrets would be really nice, it would happen slowly, like 1 event around 2 months, but it would then open more possibilities.
I care about actual GW2 lore, so that renders your argument invalid.
Well the first bit of LS was I think the most successful one, it took 4 months to end and brought dungeon which everyone loved. Why not make same thing with just UNLOCKING Dominion of Winds. For example first update would be “Secret of Tengu” that will tell us that Tengu have some giant problem in their dominion, a war maybe with some dragon minions, bubble minions, and some of them are evacuating outside of dominion. then would come “Treasure of Tengu” here you would go to search for ancient weapon somwhere at the edge of the world, maybe near Orr, that was used by Tengu to kill these minions but somehow over centuries it got lost and recently a seeker reported it, here’s the dungeon, this weapon is being kept locked by NORMAL pirates. Third would be “Dominion of Winds” Here we would be allowed in dominion of winds, but restricted to parts were dragons minions usually attack as Tengu are still trying to figure out how the weapons work. In this chapter we help Tengu around Dominion of Winds and guard them against dragon minions. In the final update of this chapter “Monster of The Depts” We kill one of the champions of bubbles in an epic dungeon. Here 2 months of LS, no scarlet, no crap, all the content that people would LOVE. After this update we continue working with Tengu in their Dominion plotting further plans of getting closer to bubbles.
Kinda made my idea more detailed thing
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/Living-Story-Arc-suggestion/first#post3096505
Imo I like the LS lore so far, Scarlet is a perfect villian coming from me who likes anime like One Piece.
I don’t think that’s a fair comparison.
One Piece’s major villains aren’t even characters at all. From the beginning before the first episode starts, you are immediately told what the hero’s goals are. It’s the quest for the pirate king’s treasure. Straight from the beginning, before you even know who or what the heroes are, you already have the end point planted in the back of your mind (even if it isn’t what you think it is). Most of the hardships the heroes face are the situations they find themselves in while pursuing that very specific goal, and the nature of the journey necessitates them keep running into new characters that may or may not be villains or allies. However, at any point, there’s a very clear direction the group is heading towards.
The audience are never left feeling lost or not sure what they’re supposed to be doing (Duh, the goal is repeated before every episode). This is the baseline requirement for an engaging story. If the pirate king’s treasure turned out to not be what one traditionally think a “treasure” is supposed to mean, well that’s another layer that makes the story deep. Not this we-aren’t-gonna-tell-nothing-because-SECRET bullkitten.
The biggest mistakes Anet writers made IMO is they erroneously assumed people are naturally inquisitive and will want to find out what is being hidden from them. The reality is that for a story to be heard by the majority, you have to compel people to listen to it, by FORCE. It’s an art to make people go from not care to care, an art Anet has so far demonstrated themselves to be impotent at. I’m not saying there can’t be hidden easter eggs and what not for lore enthusiasts to find out about, those can happen in the background. However, for major LS releases, they are not doing a good job at all at marketing their story.
I want it to make sense right away, then another sense later. Murkiness =/= quality "
- CCP Abraxis
(edited by Heinel.6548)
I am going to be honest I have no idea about any of the stories.
At the moment, I have absolutely no clue what the heck is happeinign inside Anet’s development team. They seem to have writers but…what are those writers actually doing.
I do not wish to offend anyone but I can’t see the current story being the work of a professional writer. Its disjointed, it lacks character progression, and the worst part of it: it gives the ‘reader’ zero-interest to find out more. I know that the best storytellers masterfully always gives the reader just enough information to intrigue them but never let you know everything even at the very end, but the story in this case seems to be going nowhere at all. You don’t have a clue why anything is happening.
I don’t think professional writers have ever really been involved with guild wars in general, nothing has really been above fan fic quality.
At the moment, I have absolutely no clue what the heck is happeinign inside Anet’s development team. They seem to have writers but…what are those writers actually doing.
I do not wish to offend anyone but I can’t see the current story being the work of a professional writer. Its disjointed, it lacks character progression, and the worst part of it: it gives the ‘reader’ zero-interest to find out more. I know that the best storytellers masterfully always gives the reader just enough information to intrigue them but never let you know everything even at the very end, but the story in this case seems to be going nowhere at all. You don’t have a clue why anything is happening.
I don’t think professional writers have ever really been involved with guild wars in general, nothing has really been above fan fic quality.
I can’t find the source but I think they’ve said that they got writers on each LS team.
I do have to agree that GW in general has pretty terrible writing and lore, I could barely hold a straight face during a lot of the ‘serious’ cutscenes in GW1.
I have a pretty good idea on whats going on here.
The developers, some of them atleast, have played Gw1. They know the lore is there and I’m sure they’d LOVE to put it in the game. I think one major thing has stopped them, and we are partly to blame.
When the first LS was released it wasn’t amazing, but wasn’t bad. It didn’t feel as grindy (except maybe the first part of it with the refugees) and was fun. They hinted that it is a villian we’d all recognize. Someone we would know. Then forums happened. I remembered seeing tons of post of people complaining about the LS being temporary and how they would just want expansions. People constantly bothered them about expansions. My money is on a certain parent company of Anet noticed this and saw that there may be a future chance to make money. So they’re kind of forcing Anet to make the LS not as serious lore wise because if they do that, the possibility for lore important expansions being released goes down.
I mean it is clearly evident that Anet had some big plans. We have all those hints at zones being opened up. Dominion of Winds, areas north west of the grove, crystal desert. From the way people talked pre release, that was the plan. The LS were to open those up. Then something happened and we’re getting the every 2 weeks here are some achievements to grind and a bad story to hold you over.
Right now I think when a certain 2 over hyped MMOs are released and the population will adjust to that in Gw2, then Anet will finally decide what to do. If population stays strong, gem shop stays strong, and everything seems alright the LS will become important. If things go badly, expect an expansion.
I know the Anet developers know what the problem is. I know they’ve played Guild wars 1 and are well aware of the lore. The question is why is it turning out the way that it is. The text above is the only thing i can think of.
You have to remember that they rigged the vote in the LS when we had the option of Abaddon and the Reactor, they chose the reactor, and they want to use Scarlet to be the reason the reactor blew up.
This entire LS is a pigeon holed mess that holds no ground, no lore, and no interest to the players. And they will defend it to the end…
Release in China > Lore. Go grind and leave us alone.
Asians enjoy good stories too.
The problem with Scarlet is that this is “her personal story”, not ours. Yup that’s right. This whole section of story is about her.
Think about it. From Molten Alliance to Teq, when has the story ever been about us? What is our objectives? We got none. What did we achieve? Nothing. Scarlet is the main character, and the whole world revolves around her, and that’s what kitten everyone off.
The Order of Dii[Dii]-SBI→Kaineng→TC→JQ
Necro Encyclopedia-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrAjJ1N6hxs
(edited by CHIPS.6018)
Release in China > Lore. Go grind and leave us alone.
Asians enjoy good stories too.
The problem with Scarlet is that this is “her personal story”, not ours. Yup that’s right. This whole section of story is about her.
Think about it. From Molten Alliance to Teq, when has the story ever been about us? What is our objectives? We got none. What did we achieve? Nothing. Scarlet is the main character, and the whole world revolves around her, and that’s what kitten everyone off.
My point was Arena net only cares about releasing in China, so I wouldn’t expect effort on Lore / bugs / fun holidays / <anything> aside grind and 0-plot Scarlet rehash.
Release in China > Lore. Go grind and leave us alone.
Asians enjoy good stories too.
China has no problem with nice stories.
So long as you word them just right…
I’ve stated this many times in other posts on lore and the Living Story updates.
ANet CANNOT write the LS on the assumption that the player has completed the main game (Dragon encounter in Orr) because many, many players have characters that have NEVER even been in Orr much less finished the main story quest. (EX: I have 9 characters and NONE of them have completed the final story quest and I have played since launch (with the exception of about 2-3 months I took a break).
This fact greatly limits what forward moving story lines can be presented to ALL players. The content has to be side-story without contradiction or spoilers dealing with the main plot line. If you look at all the LS content you will realize what I am stating is 100% true.
I have no idea what the solution may be (or if there is one), but the story arcs that most hardcore players (and some casual players) want will not happen as long as this story “limitation” is being held onto by the Devs. I’m neither saying it is a good thing (to maintain new player / slow player main quest line intact) or bad (short sticking those that HAVE finished the story), but that this explains most of the LS shortfall.
Fate is just the weight of circumstances
That’s the way that lady luck dances
I support them keeping the Dominion of Winds sealed off because I don’t want it opened unless they are ready to make tengu a playable race. Given how charr have considerable issues with armour design and the decision not to dedicate resources to designing/redesigning armour for different body types, I can see why the tengu might take longer to add.