Tommyknocker.6089:

First and foremost it NEEDS REAL consequences for failure.

As a reaction to this: I would have an incentive to play Living story (at the moment I skip it) if this would apply:

• Challenge: make it challenging for the players. No this does not mean you get a 1-hit death, it does mean the “enemy faction” uses better strategy than the general AI. Make it hard for players to kill those monsters, but don’t make it so hard that everyone will ragequit. Make defeat a possible scenario (right now it’s just mindless farming of clueless mobs that never even manage to place a hit cause you’re part of a 60 people zerg throwing around aoe).

• Impact: Make the actions of players and/or the living story enemy faction real.
  An example: you don’t manage to defend ’Lion’s Arch’ against an invasion: friendly npcs in LA get killed or forced to run. Make it real. Make it permanent.

• Story: seriously don’t make it so stereotype. It’s good for a 12-year old, which I doubt a lot of people are in this game, it’s not good for your 18+ community. We expect something intellectually interesting and intriguing.

1. Living Story and Lore. While it has already been stated, I would like to support the idea of having a stronger connection between Living Story content and existing GW lore. You have built a vast world with a long and complex history and hundreds of good points. They deserve to be put into the spotlight for a while to be better fleshed out and to better introduce and connect your player base to your overall world lore.
Instead, we mostly have poorly connected living story updates which add temporary content without really building upon what’s already there – or what might be yet to come. I agree that Scarlet seems like a cardboard-cutout villain (although I do enjoy the jester type – but she feels just so mary-suyey…), and something that connects to the threats, alliances etc. we have in the personal story (and the overarching threat of not one but six elder dragons) might be much more appreciated.
As someone already mentioned on page 1, why not use the living story to prepare for more permanent updates and long-term world building?

2. Rewards. I don’t really need great rewards as long as the content is fun to play, but I do miss nice things that do not require a merciless grind or huge investments into the TP to get – like the Halloween weapon skins. The wintersday ones were really much better implemented, with a chance at goofy skins through normal play.

3. Time. I am a casual player and still usually able to complete the 2-week-meta achievements without too much effort (except for the new TA path thingy, because I just couldn’t make the time to spend 3! hours in one dungeon path, just because we all still had to learn the mechanics.). However, the pace does feel rushed. I noticed we are getting more overlapping events, and I appreciate that. I think that each living story update should be available (and completable for) for one month, possibly overlapping with new content after 2 or 3 weeks. Thereby, we would have new content every 2 or 3 weeks, satisfying those who have a lot of time on their hands, but allowing those with more rl responsibilities to complete the new content at a more leasurly pace.

Elbegast.6970:

Halvorn.9831:

There is a very general problem.

You cannot have content that creates an evolving world on the one hand and make it stay forever on the other hand. It’s a contradiction. If you defeat the dredge and flame legion, that invasion is no longer there and it makes no sense to still have its dungeons around. Either evolution or persistence. You cannot have both.

I choose evolution. It means, I cannot repeat old content and it will be forever lost and only in my memory or in the history books. That’s the price to pay for an evolving world.

Except that the world hasn’t ‘evolved’ through the LS. You take away the current LS patch and you have essentially the same exact game that was around a year ago. What has evolved?

You are right (except aetherblade jp or so). Which means LS is not a story with persistent consequences anyways, so in that sense its “chapters” may as well stay in game, with the effect that like e.g. for all the dungeons from a story point of view it is completeley useless to rerun them. How often can you finally kill an enemy?

But that is the major problem with all “worlds” aka MMORPG’s which can never really evolve, since evolution would remove content. On the other hand you cannot simply only add content all the time, since you are only either spreading out your playerbase or creating ghost towns.

It remains the same: if you want change, it cannot only mean additions, it also must mean removal.

I can appreciate the concept of what you are trying to achieve, but I don’t see it working. I think there needs to be more variety and excitement within the build up…how is it impacting the entire story line for the character? Afterall, it is living world so should make an impact of the story line. I think that you have some very good points and ideas, but struggle to bring them to the forefront. To be honest, the Living World events, aside from one, just don’t leave me excited to continue with it the following time I log on. I think you could be so much more versatile with it. I agree with some of the others and bring more of GW1 into it. I think you have some great ideas with the events, but most of us find them lacking in some way. Perhaps create a panel of players who will show you the pros and cons before something goes live, not ones who smile and tell you everything is perfect but ones who can be objective.

The Living Story so far was interesting and I did enjoy playing parts of it. Here are my 2cents:

• “It’s your story”: This is how the game is advertised it is not how the living world story content feels. The “heroes” are the NPCs (some of them recurring) but not the PCs. To change that make player actions matter. NPCs whom you have helped/met in the past who don’t remember you when you interact with them again later on in the living world feel lifeless. At least the dialog-options should therefore be different in regards to previous actions of the player.

• Player actions in events feel meaningless if they are not integrated into the story. This doesn’t involve just dialogs though. The main villain of the main storyline so far was/is Zhaitan. The living story doesn’t even include that and it therefore feels detached from the rest of the game / game world.

• “Enter an Ever-Changing World”: When event’s are over the world doesn’t change much. Even e.g. seeing the Lion’s Arch Fountain destroyed after the first Halloween event (and later rebuild) was nice even if it was just a small thing. Please do expand on that! It has been over a year now and permanent changes introduced via the living story so far don’t number many.

The main villain in the game seems to be Zhaitan the main villain in the living story so far seems to be Scarlet. And Scarlet seems to be more difficult to kill than an Elder Dragon, which doesn’t feel right. So to show this is an ever-changing world what about:

Showing Orr after Zhaitan; Showing Pact research endeavours into other Elder Dragons; Letting players actually kill Scarlet; Bring more “Guild” into Guildwars with living story for guilds (like guild missions to build those guild “housing” – which could be guild airships incorporating Pact technology).

I am quite a fan of your starting to incorporate the home instance of the players more into the living storyline!

Bottom Line:

Living Story while a most excellent idea and full of potential is poorly implemented and forgettable.

I will never forget seeing Prince Rurik defeated or his return. I will never forget the Vizer showing his true nature. I will never forget Shiro’s betrayal. I will never forget Kormir’s sacrifice. I will never forget Salma’s rise to power.

However most of the living story – I don’t remember and I don’t see how it is all connected. I should not need to be told outside of game that somehow it is all connected – just bear with us. That is poor storytelling. The living story like the main game story is just not interesting and doesn’t afford any experiences to me that I will remember for years to come (except the Tybalt part)

You don’t know how sorry I am to say that. I have been an avid GW2 fan since the official announcement of it coming out. I have played almost every day since BWEs. I have defended GW2 on numerous occasion across other forums, and I am sorry to say that I am losing interest.

Major Stinking Points for Me:

1. Everything released is cute, goofy, and just not serious.
   Sure there is a place and time for it, but everything? Scarlett had so much potential to the next big bad guy and it is just plain hard to take her seriously.

1. Content is temporary.
   I had newborn twins recently and I missed content. I still have no idea who the aetherblades are. From a design perspective is that something you would want? To release new content only for it to be missed and not understood how it all fits together? What about new players? We have new players in our guild they go on Scarlett invasions when the happen, but they have no idea what’s going on because they just bought the game. That alienates them and I am sure that is not something you want.

What worked for me was how War in Kryta stuff for GW1 was handled. I could play all the chapters of that story at one time if I waited for the final release. Now that was a successful Living Story IMO.

1. Dragons!
   There are what 6 dragons? Now we have Scarlett??? I hope somehow she is tied to them. The dragons that were hyped up before launch had me interested, but now after 1 year we have only dealt with one. How long do I need to keep hanging on before I see more dragon content? I honestly can’t keep doing this for another year.

1. GW1 Lore.
   I am a fan of GW1 and all it’s rich lore and places. I am still waiting for Maguuma, Ring of Fire, Far Shiverpeaks, Crystal Desert, what’s left of Deldirmor to open up. Even after 1 year, there is still no hint of it coming. That for me is my biggest disappointment. Especially with no real focus on expansions coming out, I think that Living Story should reintroduce those areas and that is a huge opportunity lost on your part. GW2 feels handicapped to me without the return of the full world.

1. Chapters.
   Ever read a good book you just couldn’t put down? We all have. With the current LS, I don’t have that feel, but why not? shouldn’t this be an epic story that has a chapter by chapter release feel? Something that has me looking forward for the next page and can’t wait for it’s release. I think LS is a huge opportunity to do something great. It should be written as a novel and then each chapter released with each new patch. That would have me waiting impatiently for the next release. If that is the intent with the latest LS it sure doesn’t feel that way.

1. Use LS to bring back GW1 mechanics like GvG, Battle Isles, Guild Halls

The game is called Guild Wars. We are still waiting for this content to return. I would much rather see this than some new villian.

1. Surveys

Remember the BWE surveys? They were a great opportunity to hear from us what we thought. There should be a survey after every patch so you can take a quick temperature check to see if you are on fire or as cold as ice.

I have heaps more to say, but everyone here echos my thoughts. Great game, hope you don’t miss this opporutunity to do something unique and memorable!!!

Well, we’ve now achieved the echo chamber status of almost any thread where the topic is subject to broad and general discontent and the posters are mostly managing to direct their message at the Devs rather than each other (as intended).

There is no “evolution” to be had here… yet.

When do we start to see some actual dialogue?

My thoughts on living content:

1. It needs to be permanent.
   The reason I feel this is because every time there’s content it gets removed, and it leaves a feeling of emptiness. It’s understandable that one cannot keep the chain events, etc. But there should be a way to at least replay the story. The story can for example be quest based. That would allow people to replay them on each their character. Dungeons that you make should be left in the world too, you can always expand on these dungeons, and there’s so much you can do to keep people playing. The fused weapons for example, could have been a great reward for tokens in the F&F dungeon, it could be introduced another 2 paths. The dungeon was truly epic, and it is a shame it is not here today.

1. In my personal opinion I feel since the F&F the personal story has been lacing.
   It feels generic. It does not feel epic or interesting. You have a bunch of lore than you can use from the epic world of Guild Wars, and so much to play on. An example is the wizards tower and what happened to Vereta, what’s going on there now?

1. I feel that the content is very underwhelming.
   I feel so because nothing really makes you very interested, and if it does it’s so short. So far everything feels so short, and because it’s all temporary it’s not like an “expansion worth of content” because it cannot be replayed and each week you do about 30 minutes max and the story is over.

Just some of my thoughts.

My other main issue with living story. It feels like the focus now is on quantity vs quality. The two week window is too short for the dev team and it is certainly too short for anyone less than a hardcore player. Let me give an example of the problem….

For halloween, a new villain was introduced, the bloody prince. That could be exciting. Instead, there was a small opening story, then as a cut screen in the labyrinth, then a small closing story. That’s it? Very disappointing. So much more could have been done.

and it is halloween. Where is the mad king? (yes, I know he is coming for a couple of days to do mad king says). It was a huge wasted opportunity to build on one of the most unique characters in the game.

Also, last year there was a really fun mini dungeon. It didn’t even appear this year. Why? It just feels like a rushed event. The quality was sadly lacking.

The problem I see with the Living story is this:

1. Not everyone is interested in each & every update. So this leaves an avenue for players to step away from the game, and they may not return when the next update comes out. Living story is really all PvE players have to look forward to. Once a player reaches max level, gets their gear, what do they do if it isn’t some sort of PvP? Living story..

2. It’s not enough content to keep everyone interested. We really do need some large patches with permanent content that can keep us interested for months instead of a week or less.

So to sum it up. Don’t put all your PvE eggs in the Living Story basket and give us more permanent challenging PvE content.

I am very disappointed that the hot button topics of grind and the proportionality of rewards were avoided. By my count, grind had nearly as many mentions as living story concerns.

Nevertheless, as ‘living world’ relates at least somewhat to my concern, I’ll throw in my two cents.

You’re making your game for the 6/7-hour-a-nighters. 15,000 candy corn? And it ain’t just the living world that excludes 1-2-hour-a-nighters.

I like the concept of ongoing story. I’ll stay away from criticism of the plot, though..

But giving me a boatload of new temporary achievements to do every two weeks is straining my will. The rewards are frustratingly bland – I don’t need another backpack skin. If I could count on the living story to grant me a precursor at the end of a plot line I’d be sold, but I need more of a reason to zone into my home instance than a few free candy corn daily – what is it, 2 silver? Not to mention the fact that some of these achievements are grindy and some are extremely hard. So why bother?

So the living story has evolved into watching the cutscene, doing the instance once or twice, and then getting back to dailies as usual .. punctuated by gigantic scarlet-style farming spats. I’m sure that isn’t your intent, but you’re overwhelming me with boxes to check off to the point where I’m demotivated. At this point I get the achievements I come across naturally, by accident, without paying attention to them.

It’s the same way I feel about ascended. I’m at 450-ish huntsman and I’m out of mats and I can’t care any longer. I’m waiting on what I feel is a necessary and inevitable reduction in costs.. and in all honesty, if suddenly six piece of armor come in with the same type of grind to achieve? Well, I’m done. I’m just done. I’m not dedicating all my limited play time to farming off and on for two-three months a piece .. a year or more, to outfit ONE character with one set of gear. And I’m not going to deliberately farm the money hot spots for days on end, either.

Make it fun, for kitten’s sake. We’ll do the content for fun. Don’t put any ‘thou must!’ on it. Holy cow.

Complete list of mats for my ascended rifle:

Crystalline Dust 20
Iron Ingot 120
Steel Ingot 60
Platinum Ore 240
Lump of Primordium 120
Mithril Ingot 300
Globe of Ectoplasm 14
Thermocatalytic 360
Soft Wood Plank 120
Hard Wood Plank 120
Elder Wood Plank 300
Orichalcum Ingot 15
Ancient Wood Plank 10
Globe of Dark Matter 10
Obsidan Shard 30
Bloodstone Dust 500
Dragonite Ore 500
Empyreal Fragments 500
Skill Points 20

.. and this does NOT Include the mats to grind to 500 skill. This is outrageous. But I guess I can’t expect more from a company that asks me to pay 15,000 candy corn for a 20 slot bag, huh?

Since november of last year things have changed, and this has taken on more and more of the character of a true free to play game – grind, grind, grind. I’m sorry. I’ll be leaving shortly if this goes on.

From my perspective, the game design – living story, dungeon design, world boss encounters, etc, etc, is literally schizophrenic.

So there seems to be an overlying trend going on here and its :
Living story problems:

• Too fast of a pacing
• Have no substantial long lasting effects
• Temporary content,
• No information on lore or past LS
• No serious undertones
• Story feels flat/not epic/ 2 dimensional/rushed

People will keep repeating this till your mind goes numb and you stop reading everyone’s post. You need to suggest people to up vote which post resounds most with them vs them posting another version of the same thing. This way we can get the “I know” problems out of the way and people can talk about resolutions or at the very lest narrow what exactly you want from us? what your plans are? tell us what works and what doesn’t cuz as of right now post like these have been made 1000X over.

Q: Why do we keep getting backpieces and minis as rewards?
A: Given multiple races, genders, and character sizes, it takes quite a long time to build any armor that isn’t a backpiece because it must be designed multiple times for different models. Backpieces are (likely, but hey, I don’t really know for sure) WAAAAAY faster to create. Ditto minis.

If the Living Story happened at a slower pace, we might be able to get better rewards from it as well, as the designers working on the game would have more time to build real gear.

Another thing… Much of the released comntent seems very modern. I mean VERY modern. Holograms, stereos, the whole SAB thing (for god’s sake – it’a video game!! It doesn’t fi in anywhere!!!), the whole steam punk theme…. Well – some would be fine but most of the things in this game should NOT be modern/high Tech…

Where did the magic go? Those things that u make Dragon tales of… Think of it. I feel that, that is missing a lot in the content… Is it the asuras that bring all modern technology to this World? I play games just to escape our real, modern World for a short while once in a while, plz dont bring every modern thing u can Think of here. I guess next thing would be in-game cell phones (oh, no, terrible thought).

The closest comparison to any Movie that I can compare Tyra to would be Narnia I Think… There is this woah-feeling there… It would be Amazing if some of that feeling could be brought into this game. Some more magic, Amazing creatures and so on…

I hope u get what I mean… Maybe it’s all strange…

Mesket.5728:

I’m sick of birthday crashers putting the world at stake.

It would be nice to see something more “serious” for a change. I left the “evilness” of Skeletor in my childhood. Evil characters needs to have more depth.-

and please… no more items… no more currencies, tokens, collectibles, etc… I’m this close to hire someone to manage my bags and banks (also, already failed at bringing 6 friends back to the game because they got overwhelmed by the amounts of items, marks and stuff around the screen they didn’t understand, also the many things and skins they missed and never get back)

I agree. token currencies and the likes are something we have enough.
Also, like you mentioned, past content is inaccessible. in the first guild wars we could do pretty much all again, except most holiday events. i’d reccomend some place hall of monuments-like where you could return and look at the “Divining Pool” and re-do the things you missed.

Let’s discuss the idea versus the execution of Living Story. First off I LOVE the idea of it. This reminds me of other content releases some other titles I play do.
However the execution of it is too brief. Two weeks for each new chapter? When I first heard of that all I could do was get the metaphorical popcorn and watch this show begin.

Initially I was cautiously optimistic, let’s see how it goes and then judge. Well we are nearly one year into it and I’m throwing my support with those who think the two week release is too quick and too brief.

That doesn’t mean I hate the LS, once again the idea of an ever changing world is exciting and one reason why I love this game over Guild Wars 1. My problem is with how little we get each two weeks. Take Clockwork Chaos for example, I felt like this was ANet’s attempt at bringing in a new player to the scene.

It just didn’t really feel that way to me because after the two weeks most of it was gone. Yes we have the occasional “invasion” that really doesn’t do much when the enemy wins.

At that time ANet could have released some more information on what Scarlet’s goal is instead of simply showing her, giving us a story on her origins outside the game, and then we don’t see much of her until Twilight Assault. Even then we get a little teased about her knowing something dark about Caithe. Okay that’s cool and a good direction, but why didn’t we get something like that at the Jubilee? Why couldn’t she have taunted Rytlock and Logan about some secret she knew about a member within their former guild?

Yes if you look back from the year we’ve done quite a bit and it looks like some things will be permanent in the next series of releases. Good job there from a hindsight, but as we experience each little release that’s all they feel like: little.

Next post I make will be about the good things LS has going for it.

Atlas.9704:

Next post I make will be about the good things LS has going for it.

The good about Living Story is you are building heroes and villains.
Rox and Braham were seen as nobodies for a while until you brought them into more of these releases, even Keil was just a Lionguard nobody until we voted her into the political spotlight. Even Scarlet, who had a rough time being introduced and still needs to be fleshed (or vined) out, has potential to be something worthwhile.

Another good thing is you (ANet) can change up Dynamic Events previously made or eliminate them and the same goes with dungeons. We’ve seen this with Twilight Assault and we might just see something with the new Tower update.

These are good things, good steps in the direction of a decent Living Story. We just need to work on release dates. Stretch them out, give the teams more time to test and add stuff. If a couple of releases need to be clumped together for a big one month chapter, so be it! Anet is making the rules, making the story, and I think the players won’t mind that occasionally.

The LS rewards might need some tweaks here and there: less backpacks/minis a few months and more home instanced stuff or vice versa another string of months.

For small time releases I can totally understand a two week turnaround, but for the bigger storyline based releases two weeks can’t cut it. So for example: Teq’s revamp patch was worth the two weeks because really Teq will stay long after those two weeks. However Clockworks Chaos or SouthSun could have been longer because we really needed more storyline in those releases to justify Anet’s enthusiasm that those were going to be big moments in the game’s overall story.

Next post I make will be ideas on how to catch someone up to speed.

I’ll just be blunt here. I think the LW was an interesting idea, but it has a number of very egregious conceptual flaws that don’t seem to be under as much consideration as they should be. I would almost argue that it has done more harm than good to the game for a variety of reasons, which I will now elaborate on:

1. It is inconsistent with release content and creates cognitive dissonance with the PS and launch dungeons. Why would all of that be ‘static’ but character-driven when everything since is ‘living’ and development-driven? It keeps the setting in sort of a time-limbo which isn’t really sustainable.

2. The fast release cycle without even so much as a test realm tends to result in content that feels rushed and buggy. It doesn’t have to be explained why this is bad for the game.

3. The constant release-pull-release-pull is a massive development vacuum that perpetually diverts resources away from the organic growth of the game, the story, and world that any MMO needs to keep people interested. Over a long period of time, the game suffers immensely and has little to show for it compared to traditional content updates, which causes a major loss of interest to both veteran and lapsed players.

4. The LW content so far at least has had a very ‘flavor of the month’ vibe with little in-game lore which results in the narrative feeling fragmented and incohesive and consequently lacking much depth (in other words, shallow). This is a shame because it’s a waste of the interesting lore permeating the world of Tyria and fails to properly engage players.

5. Rushed, time-gated content release after release becomes trite to the point of irritating very quickly. Completionists get frustrated and abandon the game, casuals ignore it because they don’t have time to experience it, and hardcore players don’t find it interesting enough to bother with. In short, it’s an epic fail for everyone that isn’t just in love with it for some arbitrary reason.

6. Most MMO players come and go, so the business relies as much on appealing to lapsed players as much as new and persistent players. When a player who quit months ago logs in to check out how the game has changed, they don’t notice much so therefore their interest isn’t rekindled and they immediately quit again. The development of content should be focused on creating appeal for all three groups. In other words, most content should be permanent with temporary content being supplemental, not the other way around like it has been.

I would move what needs to change is that there should be a better integration of the PS and the LS. The LS should mostly be built as expansions to the PS, and the PS should receive a number of upgrades to make it more engaging. This can include any or all of the following, and probably much more:

1. Longer and more varied personal instances and occasional full dungeons.

2. The ability to reset your story or go back steps using various Gem Shop items.

3. An upgraded PS/LS UI that lets you view various details including things like biographies of NPCs you encounter and the details about the Living Stories that you’ve participated in and replay events you have already played, using…..

4. A henchman system that allows you to recruit and manage certain aspects of the NPCs you are currently allied with and take them into PS/LS instances & dungeons with you.

5. Obviously, the LW should focus on adding more permanent content like new zones, new dungeons, new weapons/skins, etc and less on festival style temporary content.

Definitely agree with the general opinions here.

• Less grindy LS – it’s getting ridiculous, really boring, and really frustrating. Enough said. I personally think that the Southsun LS was my favorite, and very well executed. Didn’t feel quite as grindy as the more recent ones are. The LS are feeling a lot less personal now, like you aren’t really doing anything or making an impact. Not as much teamwork is involved, and it’s just is getting boring. Try to make them more personal, more fun, less grindy.

• Enough with Scarlet!! She should have been taken care of forever ago. No one is even hardly doing that whole thing now, and she has been in the game way too long. It’s obnoxious.

• Also, the first few LS rewards were freaking awesome. They are getting kinda lame now. Minis? Really? I rarely see anyone actually using minis. Everyone LOVES the backpack cover items!

• And definitely no more of the 10k, 100k price for items. it makes no sense. How are you suppose to save for an item that costs 100K Candy Corn, when you can only hold 250 per stack in your bank? You would need completely maxed out inventory slots, and possibly even a secondary character, just to hold it all. :P It’s just silly.

• Definitely loving the thought of single player dungeons! Sometimes, when you have the time to do a dungeon, you can’t get a decent group together, none of your friends can join you, or the other strangers in your party want to do the run a totally different way than you and just makes the whole experience….. not pleasant.

That’s the major ones for me. Still love the game to pieces! I just think it could use some improvement.

To touch on ideas from a few other players:

“CC/Condi Spam: This is mainly directed towards aetherblades but some other mobs fall into this category (Mummies). I enjoy mitigating CC and Conditions (preferably through dodging) but some of the aetherblades for example are in my opinion over the top when it comes to CC/conds. I would like the attacks to be diversified a bit more; the cc/condition ones to be put on cooldown in between other well-telegraphed attacks.”

I love that Lamir said this. One of my major gripes about the gameplay overall is that enemies rely WAY too much on taking control away from the player. I understand that dodging attacks and avoiding punishment is important, but when the penality is my character laid out on his back for five (5) seconds while getting beat on, it’s just not fun. Or when having my character on lockdown because some enemies spam their daze/stun/KD/blind effects on much faster cooldowns than I have available, I feel the monsters break the rules. Refer to Aetherblade Thumpers, Zojja in Twilight Arbor, Flame Legion Smoke Shamans, or any enemy with a longbow.
It’s bad enough I feel the game and its content consistently disrespect melee characters, but it seems like the only way the designers can “challenge” us is to take away our own control. Again, not fun.

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“Skins earned from the living world also need to be ‘living’. By that I mean much more user friendly. Like the zenith and hellfire/radiant skins.”

Xar, great point. I love, absolutely love, that the GW2 team is focused on updating conveniences for the MMO experience. Deposit All Collectables, I still bow down to you for that. Merged character bank, fabulous. Adding bank slots for the seasonal items, glorious. And most recently, adding reward slots for the earned achievement skins.

…So, why then are we still having to use the teleport orb to get old skins from Guild Wars 1 achievements, and why aren’t these back slot items added to the list of skins that we can grab whenever we want? It would really make the “limited time only” pain less painful if we could always have our achievements available.

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Someone else pointed this out a bit ago as well, and forgive the all caps but.. AHEM: STOP MAKING THINGS THAT REQUIRE 10,000 ITEMS THAT WE GET ONLY 3 AT A TIME! Also, YOUR TREASURE RNG IS TERRIBLE, PLEASE STOP WITH THE RANDOM BOXES, PLZKTHX

Sorry, but I had to get that out of the way.

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I also join the legion of folks who think the two-week rotation on content isn’t doing you any favors. It’s stressful, not fun, and full of bugs. Please re-assign some of your team to fixing the more critical, more generalized flaws.

Like the camera during jumping puzzles.
Or Charr jumping.
…Or Charr costumes. (Small rant: No way in the Mists would a creature that runs on all fours would ever, ever wear a dress or anything that hangs down the front. On top of that, any ‘dress’ cloth gear gets pixel-stretched something fierce. It’s terrible.)

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Back to Living World, please focus on refinement and pacing, so that the content actually works, is fine-tuned for 5-man dungeons (or open world content), and isn’t so much of a hassle. I love that dailies can count toward the meta, another fine stroke of genius, but seeing the Blood and Madness content time-gated because of it was just infuriating.

The content is shallow and full of gimmicks. Unleashing a huge 6-month storyline (paced once per month instead of 2 weeks) that leads to a new permanent dungeon would be fantastic. Bonus points if those dungeons have some of the ‘new’ stat items that can’t be gotten elsewhere (looking at you Sentinel and Dire).

Main point is, we’re tired of jumping into content, only to have it taken away. And some of us will totally buy a legit expansion box to get a hold of new character types and zones. (Tengu and Kodan please!)

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From Jheryn: “9. Personal story progression.”

Oh gods, yes. Look, a lot of us understand that, by end-game, the story needs to come together to a central point. But where’s the consequences of my decisions? Other point, where the kitten in my warband?!? Or my Vigil brothers? Perhaps the biggest sin is having Trahern kidnap our importance from us. Give us more personal story content where the NPC isn’t the star, and let’s start finding out why Zhaitan’s minions are still around after we’ve killed him.

Atlas.9704:

Next post I make will be ideas on how to catch someone up to speed.

So let’s say I’m a newbie to the game. I don’t know what a Scarlet is, never heard of Rox, and just heard about these Aether Molten Bladeliances.

How do I catch up in game? Notice now I said in game because sure there’s always the wiki or trying to navigate the news in GW2’s site. Those latter choices work best if you already know what to look for.

Fact is this game does need some sort of retelling machine without falling into the trap of pseudo-time travel that GW1 had. Have the main story plots retold by someone, but don’t make them necessary to play.

A skaald in Cragstead tell the gallant deeds of Braham and run the player through the instanced adventure of when he found his home attacked. Maybe an intelligence operative within Black Citadel provide a mission report on Rox’s actions against the Molten.

For the Six’s sake we could even have a Priory agent talk in detail over what Southsun cove is or have a Whispers agent warn the player about Scarlet. Maybe have a Seraph soldier recount the event of the Clockwork Chaos and allow the player to at least play out that mission!

I’m excited over the potential here, we could add more to the world by giving new and returning players a chance to relive some of these challenges. Yes I know that there lies the question of rewards, should they even get rewarded? Well that brings up an interesting thought. If they are rewarded it should be minimal, maybe some silver or karma. We can’t go about letting folks do a mission that had an exclusive reward because that would cheapen the reward for those that beat it when it was initially released.

At this point I have no solid ideas to pitch, but we do need something to retell these moments if ANet wants this Living Story to be engaging and memorable.

Personally I have enjoyed playing most of the living world so far, however there are some things that I would like to get some more attention:
- New lands. Most players have explored most of known tyria and I think that everybody would like it to see some whole new area’s. The bazaar of the four winds was my favourite living world because there was a whole new area to explore. When that living world is over, just keep those new area’s in the game so new players can also explore them.
-More use of already known lore. There are so many untold stories about the events that took place after gw1. It would be great if we could finally hear what happend to Livia and the Scepter of Orr. Or maybe it’s time to reintroduce the white mantle. They obviously are still active and it would be great to get some more story around them and the mursaat.
-More story focussing on the player. I would really like it to see some more story that you can just play single player whenever you want instead of hoping to find a coordinated zerg and farm the same bosses over and over again.
-More depth of story. Personally I really enjoy getting sucked into a good story. The story of the game was good in my opinion but when you’re done with that there isn’t any really deep story to follow.
- Introduce some new things that benefit the whole game. The account wallet being introduced is a great example of this. Introduce some more things like this via the living world. Maybe guild halls or personalised housing, since these are some thing I really miss from the original game.
-Dragons! After taking down Zaithan I think that its about time to finish some more elder dragons. They can be defeated and we have a giant pact army willing to fight some more dragons. Maybe open the desert gates to fight Kralkatorrik. However the story of the elder dragons should be able to do single player and it you should be able to do it any time you want. In a year or two new players need to be able to face all the elder dragons and not just face Zaithan and find out the rest has already been killed.

I would personally very much like to see a boxed expansion, just like factions and nightfall for gw1. That way you can introduce a whole new race or profession and I think everybody would like to explore Cantha and Elona again. I would prefer to see these lands in a boxed expansion though so you get a whole lot of story and much more land to explore in one time instead of having to wait a few weeks for the new part. With a boxed expansions you get alot more freedom to explore that world. It would be great if this could be done aside from the living world.

Lot of cool ideas here, read for an hour or so. Hope I see some of them in-game.

Really, this 2 week cycle is so short and feels forced, as others said LS doesn’t really connects to the personal story. You have lore enough to do some really epic and jaw-dropping stuff.

There’s a lot of space on the map, I want to explore them! I want the ruins of Thunderhead Keep, venture to Isles of Janthir, discover the new crystal desert and see Cantha and Elona(my favorites, sry, but Kryta and Tyria is boring after a year). I spent a lot of time in these lands in GW1 and really enjoyed the stuff you made(War In Kryta and Winds of Change was awesome!!)
Or after Zhaitans defeat no one really blocks the path to Cantha(here’s your chance) I know they’re isolationists, but imagine a siege on Kaineng Center(if it didn’t crumble from people building their houses on each other’s heads, you really nailed that city)
Npc’s are not recognizing us? Why? We killed Zhaitan! We are the commanders of the Pact, that’s something.
(On a sidenote: I hope I won’t see Scarlet in today’s patch. I hate the krait, but my hate for her is undescribable. Hope she won’t last any longer) I want to see White Mantle(always dreamed of their cape(another chance,come on, everybody wants capes, they had clipping issues in the 1st GW and nobody cared)), Mursaat, Ministry of Purity, Palawa’s Bone Palace, the Jade Sea and Echovald Forest and so on.

Suggestion, not sure if I have to write this here, but I hope you’ll read it.
Implement a something like the district system was in GW1 for overflows. It’s annoying to have 80 overflows for 100 ppl on Tequatl.

As for rewards, i’m tired of minis, don’t really care about them, never really did. Skins are cool, but not only back items. You could implement new armor/weapon recipes, or vendors through the LS or just as others suggested that we could withdraw them just like Zenith skins. (I think I read in an interview about a skin locker, not sure.)
Something like that would be good.
This is it for now, I get back to the virtual world of Guild Wars now.

My problems with Living Story/World:

Temporary Content:
Most of it is temporary. The idea of a Living World is that the world grows/changes over time. Not only is it unecessary to make most of the Living Story temporary, in some cases it also makes no sense.

I’m referring to the Crown Pavilion, It is still there, yet we can’t access it. Why? It’s good content, why would you prevent us from enjoying it? Or Cragstead and North Nolan Hatchery, 2 large settlements added and they have absolutely NO use, why?

Shallow Story:
The story always feels extremely shallow and rushed. In something called ‘Living Story’ you would expect the story to play a much bigger part then it does now. But most LS chapters have only one very short story instance. And after you’ve done that the story is pretty much no where to be found.

Elaborate on existing lore:
Most of the LS is about newly introduced lore that we have never heard of before. Aetherblades, Karka, Scarlet, Consortium; these are all things we had never heard of before. I think it would be much better to create LS based on Lore that’s already in this world like Flame and Frost (dredge and flame legion) and the Krait we are getting now.

I would like to know more about the Bandit war against Kryta, what the inquest is up to, how the conflict between the nightmare court and the pale tree is going. All these things that are already in the game, but never were elaborated on (save for the dungeons and some personal story quests).

Of course what I would like most is Living Story elaborating on GW1 plotholes, like the Staff of Orr and Livia, or whatever happened to the Bloodstones and the White Mantle (we know they still exist). But this is probably not likely to happen.

When the other dragons finally do show up…
Then please, don’t release it in the LS format you are using now, I beg you. Zhaitan had a whole campaign and 3 zones dedicated to him, the other dragons deserve no less.

With the current way of delivering content this will be a nightmare, small chunks of content will be released and everyone will rush through them in an hour. Then we have to wait weeks before we can continue the ‘story’.

Instead, for each dragon a HUGE chunk of content should be dropped so we actually have to take the time to complete it and fight the next elder dragon. Yes, I’m not talking LS size, I’m talking Expansion size.

More zones!
THIS IS VITAL! I know you want to do as much with the current world as possible (aka living world). But It’s just not working, over a year after launch and the world/zones barely changed. And even if it worked, people who have been playing for a long time have seen it all several times over. I’ve explored the world several times, I know the entire map from the back of my hand. And even though some zone changing events would be nice, it will never be better than a completely new zone. Why not let us go further into the world of tyria to explore new things?

Also, if you add more zones, do it right this time. Southsun Cove is not part of map completion and has no heart quests. This makes the zone pretty much useless.

Thanks for making this happen, Chris.

Okay, Living World.

TLDR; It’s nice seeing people out in the open world and seeing stuff change, but most living world content is far too simple, easy and grindy. Furthermore, it doesn’t promote camaraderie – probably the most important element of any MMORPG.

The Good:

- There’s usually people out in the open world at any given time. I can go to Frostgorge Sound at 2 AM and can still find a zerg farming champions. It’s quite nice seeing players wherever I go.

- Having things change in the world instead of being static is also nice.

- It’s good to be able to look at a player, and instantly recognize “oh, they’ve been around since insert update here” because of unique cosmetics, titles etc.

- It’s always fun reading the upcoming update page and seeing what’s just around the corner.

- Some of the Living World content has been really nice, like Molten Facility and Aetherblade Retreat. It was engaging and felt epic going into a limited time 5-man dungeon. I was surprised at the level of effort that went into something temporary, too.

The Bad:

- I’ve never played an MMO where the content updates are almost always a step backwards in difficulty from the main content of the game.

- The stories are too predictable. Villain shows up, you help NPCs deal with them, NPC gives speech, the end.

- The achievements are bloated and grindy. It feels more like a “to-do” list than something fun that I look forward to logging in and playing.

- The villains are supposed to be scary/a threat to Tyria, yet you can usually solo them without any difficulty (sometimes on the first attempt). If a Living Story boss is soloable, they should be tuned to the difficulty of Liadri.

The Ugly:

Here’s the real problem I have with Living Story/Living World type updates: there is absolutely no reason to play with friends, build communities, and create an epic in-game journey that you can look back on for years to come. You guys probably think there is, but there really isn’t.

The reason I play MMOs is to build camaraderie. I love overcoming challenges with friends – working together, sharing a common goal, proving ourselves. Feeling like a hero in-game – something that was emphasized in the manifesto video. Living World content like champions and non-Tequatl world bosses don’t feel heroic. If anything, they’re the opposite. You’re just a face in the crowd using auto-attack. If you leave, the mob/boss will still melt. You don’t matter.

Even with Tequatl, overflow mechanics make it difficult to even get on the same map as your friends. You can play perfectly, but your chance for success entirely depends on the people you end up with. Again – you’re utterly insignificant, unless you’re the one guy on the map who tags up and tries to organize people. Tequatl is a failure in design. The mechanics are nice, but the execution is terrible.

I have reached the conclusion that probably nobody at ArenaNet (who makes decisions, at least) has ever raided in EQ, WoW, Rift or any other game. You hypothesize about why it’s not epic to be in an instance. However – you couldn’t be more wrong. It’s a great feeling going into a huge, sprawling raid instance with you and your fellow guildies – where if somebody accidentally runs into an extra group of mobs, all 25 of you are done for.

It’s a similar ominous feeling to old platformers like Castlevania, where you ascend to the final, most powerful boss. Around every corner are deadly enemies waiting for you – just waiting… in the Living World, if you don’t Waypoint fast enough you won’t reach the mob in time. If you try to kill a champion with friends, half the map will shout at you for ruining the champion train.

In a huge raid instance, it will take you and your guild months to reach the end (on hard mode at least – usually weeks on normal mode), and you’ll work on it together. Raid times will be sacred – you all share the same goal, and you come together to work on it. At no point do you think “man, it sucks that I can’t see a load of random players running around while we’re doing this”. It feels good being instanced – it’s private, just you and your buddies. Much more immersing that watching champions drop like flies out in the world.

Living Story type content updates do not require you to invest in your characters, or your guild, or build communities. You don’t have to get better. You don’t have to study your class, or band together with others. You just log in, work your way through your little to-do list and get the cosmetic reward. There is no “journey” for your characters, no evolution, no long-term collective goal (i.e. growing as a guild – in PvE at least). It feels empty and frankly I only keep playing because currently other MMOs aren’t delivering.

A nice polymock-style (GW1) 1v1 fight would be great: new minipets could be used in fights(each mini with unique skillset), so minipets would be a better reward for the Living Story achievements, because ATM current minipets don’t motivate me at all.

suggestion: Players could first learn their skills against NPCs then they could fight against each other, possibly with some bet to make it more exciting

Lots of good comments already spanning a range of preferences. I’ve been trying to think of what I would want to see out of Living Story content going forward and here are a few things I’ve come up with:

- I would like to see more cohesion and feel more included. The Molten Alliance felt like prelude to something, the Aetherblades felt like they came out of nowhere, and then Scarlet is revealed as being behind them both in a manner that feels almost more like a retcon – she’s all super special herself, but it’s unclear how or why all these groups are actually following her craziness while nothing about it has felt particularly personal to me. The election was an interesting idea, but while we got a little face time with Kiel prior, Gnashblade seemed to come largely out of nowhere.

- Mindfulness of technical issues. The Tequatl revamp was pretty awesome. Unfortunately, it runs smack into weaknesses of the game system, with full instances pushing people to overflows in peak hours (disrupting that encounter as well as others like guild bounties) and any off-peak encounters being essentially an automatic failure. We ran into this with some of the climactic battles in the Lost Shores event as well, magnified by the limited time frame.
I don’t really know what the solution is. Any new, especially temporary, event is going to funnel a lot of people into a small area. And as much as I think being able to play cooperative PVE without grouping is a highlight of the game, it breaks down at a certain point. Encounters become trivialized. Server instances break up groups and divide people between “haves” who make it into a main, full instance and “have nots” who don’t. At that point, it stops being fun.

- While I don’t know how practical it is for Living Story updates, what I find myself really wanting to see is more development of the player characters, the Pact, and the Dragons. The Personal Story had its flaws, but I was far more invested in all of that (including the Dragons we haven’t directly seen) than I’m likely to ever be in Scarlet.

- Fewer piles of event-specific items cluttering up inventory with uncertain use after a few weeks.

I will keep this short and simple

Change 2 weeks LW into 1 month LW (or more)

Quality > Quantity

The first couple times going through an open world zone are the most fun. The first time you are just discovering it, the second or third time lets you explore the nooks and crannies as well as the DE you missed at first. After that it gets rather dull, as the variety in DE and the environment itself is fairly static.

Make DE more dynamic, and in particular actually change the face of the world depending on the result. There are some DEs that do this, but even in the most extreme case (Orr) it’s generally an on or off type of thing.

What I would like to see is something like the following:

Certain areas in Queensdale, Gendarran Fields and Harathi Hinterlands would be designated as potentially controllable by either Centaurs or Humans. In each area the current state would depend on the result of the last DE there as well as the state of adjacent (including across zones) areas. So at one location it might range from:

Human settled, Centaurs raiding supplies
Humans attempting to settle, Centaurs attacking Settlers
Both sides warring for control
Centaurs attempting to settle, Humans trying to stop them
Centaur settled, Humans harassing settlement

A different spot might be:

Human trade through the area, Centaurs attacking caravans
Humans asserting control, fighting off Centaur raids
No clear control, many patrols by both sides
Centaurs asserting control, Human raids
Centaur trade through area, Humans attacking caravans

The difficulty would be tied to the current state (human control with Centaur harassment is easy, Centaur control would be much more difficult) as well as how many adjacent areas are in a similar state. Trying to do a DE in the heart of the Harathi Hinterlands with Centaur control should be tremendously difficult requiring stronger groups, but could be much easier if a dedicated person or persons spent the time to work up the DE chains to flip the zone from Centaur to Human control.

The rate of change could be fairly slow, say an hour for one spot to go from Human controlled to Centaur controlled or vice versa.

At other locations it might be a whole different dynamic, take Brisban Wildlands for example. There could be multidimensional fights between Inquest, Bandits, Nightmare Court, Skritt and Asura, where if the bad factions become successful they come into conflict with each other and at a location you can support the weaker side against the other.

I think one of the most convincing storytelling strategies is through utilising deep & meaningfull personal relationships. For the Living Story content to be truly engaging it needs to be delivered with though establishing solid, permanent characters who are experiencing these plots alongside the player. The plot points should not be about characters we meet, but about cultural and political shifts that we, both player and npc are experiencing around us.
Firstly, we – the players – are the heroes in this Story and we should be leading the narrative. We should be initiating the exploration or should be charged with the responsibility of the task at hand due to our renown and fame. Other new characters should be recruited by us, or come to follow us because of the feats we have achieved. Why don’t we, the player, start a guild based in living story lore that seeks to bring unity among races and challenge the threat of the elder dragons, just as Destiny’s Edge have done. Why not make the player the leader of a friendly rival guild of do-gooder’s recruiting talent such as Braham, Rox & Marjory and lead our guild head on to the challenges that a living, changing world brings. Lets bring in characters to the story with the intention of them sticking around as a permanent and consistent ally and friend to join us in our Journey every week, every month, every year. When the next significant chunk of personal story is released I want my guild, friends, allies and followers to be following my lead as commander of the pact.
Secondly, Instead of establishing new factions and cultures, lets focus on developing depth for the factions and cultures that are already established In game so that the players become more immersed and invested in the world already around them. There are so many political tensions, unexplored lands, cultural rivalries and world mysteries forthe lore to tap in to! (A good example is Wooden Potato’s youtube series on gw2 mysteries).

PvE
We’ve got dungeons and fractals, whats nice thing to do for 5 players.
We’ve got guild missions, whats great, but really easy in the last days.
So we ofc need more cool dungeons and guild missions, but imo the game is missing a thing like raids. A good challenge for a guilds, and dont do it like… dungeons.
Give us a place with bosses, not champions and stuff like that…
We want to gather once a week in a guild group, discuss tactics and perform challenging fight with a demanding boss Also, please do not create raids for 20/25 players – no. Let every guild member go inside, let small guilds have a fun, and let big guilds have a fun too Of course, in this case scaling is important thing, and guilds need a pretty rewards, to encourage them to do it And let us to choose the level of difficulty, we will start from easier, and then play medium raids, and maybe hardcore… But encourage guilds to make more, and more difficult raids, cause if there’s no motivation, then people are going to skip this mode.

PVE
“Larger dungeon modes (called raid in WoW, and Ops in SWTOR) where your party consists of 8, 10, 12 or 16 players.”
GW2 definitely need something like this to keep PVE players.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

The Living Story is a good, ambitious idea, but there are too many things holding it back. There are too many Living Story ideas that conflict with what has already been established in the game world. The Living Story should take a backseat, and become a story that builds up to each expansion.

I am absolutely sure that GW2 will not survive on JUST the Living Story, but that doesn’t mean we should throw it away. It can serve as filler or buildup between expansions. Most people don’t really take Scarlet seriously anymore, so why not build on top of that?

Every month or so, Scarlet comes up with some cartoon villain dastardly plan, then we go and foil it. While we’re doing that, some dragon champion shows itself, and the buildup for an expansion starts. That way ANet doesn’t have to kill off their beloved Scarlet, only push her a little bit to the side. She can be more of a filler comedic relief. A pesky nemesis. The dragons will remain the big baddies, and the Living Story can fill out other parts of the story.

I would love for a big Living Story update that lets us go into the Wizard’s Tower in Kessex Hills, since that would actually be filling out some of the missing lore and developing the world. Just please don’t have Scarlet be the one living in the Wizard’s Tower, lol.

First, I want to thank ANet for this game and all the efforts they had done and doing to make it better and better every day.
I really enjoy something new with a frequence of 14 days. It’s real that sometime we can feel something like “I have to do it or i will lose this forever”, but we need to remember that is something we CAN do. Achievements and rewards needs a bit of time to be reached, but do we prefer something all can have without spending time and efforts? A reward is a reward ‘cause it costs a price of some kind I think.
I like Scarlet, in particular the mood she transfer to the story, she’s a totally mad genius and I love it. I think that she’s something in mind and also ANet is planning something, every story begins with something small, but at the end… we’ll see!
Imho something about dragons will come, not so soon, but sooner than we think!
Really I don’t know what developers have in mind, so I can only encourage their efforts and thei work, saying that I love living story.
Only 2 hints, really about my personal taste: it would be better if in the birthday’s gift there were different type of minis, not only one, ‘cause who has many pgs wouldn’t have had many identical minis.
I’ve seen a preview of what is claimed to be the ascended armors and i really dislike their designs, but it’s only my personal opinion. Thanks a lot for all guys. do always your best!

Another thought about expanding into new zones and areas to explore:
We are aware that you are hesitant to expand the world as it could split the player base further and make zones empty and neglected. Two solutions that combined could completely solve that issue – 1) Non-RNG Reward, 2) World Notification of Meta Events.
Let’s make the Meta Event of each zone run over a much longer spawn period, I.e. 2x a week only, and use a world notification system just like the scarlet invasion events to inform the players when an event is about to occur. Develop the event to cover a significant portion of that Zones’ landmass and then you will have regular episodes of a huge player base flooding previously empty zones periodically.
To make that system work you would need a dungeon token type system that rewards players with tokens to save up towards zone specific prestigious rewards like armor and weapons. This ensures that it is always worth participating in the meta events and rewards the player appropriately to the devotion they give to the game.

This is my very first post on the forums, and I’ll likely spend it repeating what’s already been said.

I’m a mom who gets a chance to log in and play briefly in the afternoons and then later in the evening when the munchkins are in bed. This makes me a pretty generic casual player, I think.

I enjoy the concept of the Living Story, and there are some places where I’ve seen it done very right. For example, the Frost & Flame chapter was positively wonderful. The story was introduced slowly (a touch too slowly) with comments being made by NPCs and then invasions starting to happen. We saw an influx of refugees come into the Black Citadel and Hoelbrak, and all the realistic problems inherent in such a situation. Where do the refugees live? (You built a camp for them, complete with rats added overtime!) Where do the refugees go? (You moved them to Southson, helping to end one chapter while opening the way for the next). You had NPCs talking, mini-invasions, and a really amazing dungeon. I felt like a crucial part to this story that was living and breathing all around me.

During last year’s Halloween event, I was also impressed by how the Lion’s Arch fountain was destroyed, and then we had to work to rebuild it. This attention to detail is really rather unheard of in MMOs where things magically get destroyed and then replaced in the blink of an eye. I feel invested in that statue now, because I helped to rebuild it. I would like to be invested in more of my environment; helping to make lasting, permanent change to what is around me.

Then— there’s Scarlet. I do feel like the two-week schedule has lessened the quality of story we’re getting for the sake of the quantity. I would much rather read one good book rather than a handful of jotted ideas with barely any detail, little lasting impact, and zero character growth. To be honest, I still cannot wrap my mind around Scarlet being -the- bad guy behind the Molten Alliance, it just doesn’t fit. At all. She’s so comical and over the top, and ends up being what roleplayers call Mary Sue, that she doesn’t have a fan out of anyone that I know.

I’m not a previous GW1 player, so I have only fallen in love with the current GW2 lore. But, I can understand the people who want to see more continuity from the game they played before. I would like to see some continuation of the rich culture, areas, and fiends you have already created.

More depth, more stories cut into chapters (ala Frost & Flame segwaying into Southsun Cove chapter), a variety of bad guys, a more permanent impact, and more environmental or cultural changes.

Maybe the Scarlet story has some overarching theme, beyond how tropey and overpowered Scarlet is, but from Southsun Cove on forward the story ends up feeling totally disjointed. More like random ideas thrown together under a weak scarlet-hued umbrella.

I have taken part in every Living Story chapter, and I like the creativity behind what you are trying to do. I just don’t feel like it’s a cohesive or coherent story, yet, and I’m looking forward to the day when it is.

As my addendum I would also like to say that the consequences to losing against Teq is a good thing and other bosses should have something similar.

The Aether raids would have more meaning to some players if local mobs were buffed up a bit if they won because the Aetherblades are helping them out.

The Claw of Jormagg’s victory could result in that zone causing chill to players at random times or ice turrets like rotmouths show up in Teq’s region.

Let’s have some consequences that are worthwhile if we, the players and heroes, fail to save a place.

Yes, i think just the same, i don’t undestand why everyone have to complaining about living story frequencies…. it’s an opportunity not a must, so enjoy teh game and the achievement you can reach, then restart with another one. oh, i want remeber that it’s right, an event is up official for 2 weeks, but you can complete the achievement in the next two weeks generally.

Reward Skins
The skins that are given as a reward for the meta should be accessible through the achievement rewards panel. The unique ones that drop should not….but if I got a skin as a reward for finishing an achievement meta, I should always be able to access this skin.

Other Rewards
I love that you’re starting to give us unique items that go in our home instance. My only problem is those unique items that we’re stuck with a physical object. The Zephyr sanctum model & the book we got from some other living story segment are the two that spring to mind. I personally deleted by book because I needed room in my bank, but I so far still have my zephyr sanctum model. Why can’t these be items that show up in our home instance somewhere too?

Storytelling
I love the short stories on the website, but I want to be able to access these stories in game. I know that making cut scenes is expensive and time consuming. It has been mentioned by others that even just a story book that you can interact with that gives you the story & some pictures would be nice to have. Our personal story has a tab with a recap and pictures from our journey. Why not make that tab “STORY” with sections for personal story & living story. As we progress through the living story, what we helped with shows up there and at the beginning/end of each story segment we get short stories that show up there as well. For new players they’ll get the short stories and a recap of each segment but nothing personalized because they didn’t participate.

Continuity
I know you’ve said you have an overarching plan for the story, but so far we don’t see what tying each section together. I love a plot twist and surprise endings, but there needs to be some (even a thin one) connection from each segment to the next. Something very obvious, so that even the most unobservant among us can see how they connect….it can even be a red herring.

Closing Thoughts
Overall, I love the stories. I always love achievement points and free skins (even if I don’t always like the design). Thank you for ever changing content and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

haha, the ability to watch it again and again. I can’t wait to buy my favourite TV show on DVD/Blueray.

The Walking Dead did the perfect thing to bring my favourite TV show on the gaming-medium. Interesting characters, your character as the main protagonist who has a deep bond with the rest of the cast. You feel like the story changes through your decisions.

LS – Story
As other have said, its not engaging or memorable. I barely remember any specifics of any of the LS patches, except maybe the Molten Alliance stuff. Kinda annoying to not see more lore/story stuff in game.

LS – Rewards
I’m kinda ok with the current rewards (minis/backitems), but we definitely need them added to the achievement panel thing (where zenith/ap armor is). If we were there for the LS section, why are we essentially punished by getting only one of the items? What if we want it on more than one character? We can’t easily transmute the backitem skins.
Also, why are most/half of the weapon skins only in the kitten BLTC chests? I don’t mind having to pay gems to get LS skins (brahams/roxs), if I know I can get them directly without hoping RNG favors me (which it never does).

I think the living story is a good idea but have found past releases lackluster and the slow going lackluster flame and frost story to start off with didnt help to give a good impression to the players. I feel the best LS update so far was clockwork chaos because you guys did a good job of getting me hyped by having scarlett graffiti the release page and the invasions and story was exciting and fun and i didnt find the achievements grindy at all. Now to give my feedback on various aspects starting with…

Achievements
You need to make sure getting the achievements not feel like a boring grind and allow players to skip achievments for things they dont like doing. I feel the way you are doing achiements now with dailies is a good way of accomplishing this…except you should make it possible to get the meta without the living world dailies and still have the daily ones and use those as a way for people to skip the achievements they dont like. I feel clockwork chaos did achievments the best so far. Even through there no daily LS achievments for that release,it didnt feel like a boring grind.

challenging and fun open world combat
You need to make the open world combat more challenging and fun like you have started to do with teq. Not just the world bosses but regular enemies and champions too. Combat is exciting in the dungeons but not so much in the open world. Also you need to make sure the open world combat isnt too challenging either. I felt you made teq a bit too challenging for players.

Major perm content
I want to see fresh and major perm content such as new maps/areas,new skills, new playable classes/races,new personal story. Also we could use more perm new dynamic events. The only ones we got so far are the skritt theif and scarlet invasions. What the recent new TA path and teq update are fine. But its only 1 boss and the TA path replaced an existing one which people dont like.

gw1 lore
I also want to see more gw1 lore. I would especially like to see the lore that didnt make into guild wars 1 beyond content that we going to see. Use gw2 to tell us what happened to evennia and other loose ends while filling in players who never played the first one on what they need to know.

ColinJohanson.2394:

So a fun question to ask to help direct the conversation a bit: What aspects of your favorite television shows would you think would be cool to see reflected in a game medium?

To a large degree, the things we want to accomplish with living world overlap in a lot of ways with what a television series does. Or another example of our goals: if you bought your favorite RPG and the story was constantly expanded or continued, for free on a regular basis.

Recaps, side stories with other heroes.
Let’s take my personal favorites Babylon 5 and Avatar The Last Airbender.
Both have multi-episode arcs with characters that unite or fight because of differing goals. Both sometimes had to recap, explain a back story, briefly for certain events.
Both also had multiple story threads for different characters and sometimes they united, but other times they just ended within that one character’s arc and didn’t affect the “main” storyline directly.

Now I will apply such thoughts to GW2’s Living Story.
Braham is heartbroken over the breakup of his girlfriend.
Rox is trying out for the Stone Warband.
Countess Anise trolled Logan with a Mesmer projection of Rytlock fighting him.
Logan is clearly shaken up over such a memory coming back.

Each of these are separate stories we could play with during different releases. Maybe even help these characters further along their resolution. Such as our assistance with Braham helps him get over his former gal and then he’s ready to help us take on the next Elder Dragon to prove himself a legend.
Rox may add us as her auxiliary to the Stone Warband out of gratitude for our help, which then allows us, the players, to talk with Rytlock about Logan some more.

With Rytlock and Logan patching things up more, Logan could give Anise a firm talking to when it comes to Jennah’s protection. Maybe she’s so cold to him because he’s needed to fight the Dragons and his affections for the Queen are a diversion?

Then ANet could write up whether Logan helps us take on a Dragon at the cost of his duties to protect the Queen one more time, like what happened in the personal story or something else could occur. He could actually step back and let us along with Rox and Braham build a new Destiny’s Edge or something akin to it.

I honestly doubt that GW2 can come close to a TV series because of the lack of story-content. I don’t have the feeling that Anet can create enough story missions for each Patch to make an interesting story. It’s just too little content each patch storywise so far, how would you compare a few dialogues each 2 weeks with a 40min epsiode each week?

I understand the whole attempt at a “living world”, but most of us end up not really connecting with it. Some casuals not finding the time to finish while active players finish stuff like the halloween one in less than 2h.

What i really wonder is why you guys dont make this temporary content permanent by simply adding a “hall of memories” or w/e you want to call it.

That would simply allow players to experience all this content at their own pace in an instanced manner just like the personal story.
This would also allow you to make bigger events that will keep regular players busy for more than 2h every 2 weeks.
This would also allow active players to still get that “living world” experience while also letting new players (or less active) see how the current world came to be.

Living World lacks depth

Our characters and NPCs do NOT interact with each other at all.
Our main character just enters the instance, defeats the boss, the end.
When I am playing your Living World, i feel like hunk for hire.
I have no part in the story other than being the henchmen who just helps(actually does all the work) in defeating the boss, followed by me getting paid(reward).

The first reason why your LIVING World lacks depth is indeed character development(lack of).
When you LIVE something, you remember it.
When you WATCH something, you easily forget it.

I watched a movie 2 days ago, i cannot even remember the title.
I last played EotN story 2 years ago, i still remember EVERY part of it.
Take a look at how the storylines went in GW1, although they were static cutscenes. My character, was completely involved in the plot. My character would tell Gwen to calm down when she tried to kill Pyre. My character would convince the norn to help hunt down destroyers. My character was even called a Bookah. My character was involved.

The second thing where your Living World comes short is replayability. This is the case for your Personal Story as well. There is no way to re-play them on the same character, you must go on another character. The way the game is currently designed is very hostile towards making alts(i know you read feedbacks, you already know this). Some people do not understand a book the first time they read it. When they read it a second time, the whole thing makes sense. Re-reading should not be chore(it is a chore to make a new character).
Moreover, it has the biggest shortcoming of being available for ONLY 2 weeks.
When something is re-playable multiple times, people will remember it.
Take this example:
What is the name of Vekk’s Father? I am sure 90% who played EotN knows the answer.
What is the name of the leader of the Order of Whispers? Ask in chat, 90% dont know.
We played EotN story dozens of times. We played Order of Whispers storyline once.
I hope i made my point.

It feels ironic that you call it a “Living World”, where it keeps dying every 2 weeks.
GW1 story lives forever, however it is unchanging. GWBeyond was truly living for the time it lasted. What would truly make GW2 a Living World is the story that keeps on adding every 2 weeks, as well as being replayable for those who missed it, and replayable multiple times for those who want to re-live it.

I believe many of you devs follow tv-series/anime/manga. When a new chapter/episode gets released, do you see the previous chapter/episode disappear completely? Have none of you actually reread a chapter of a book or rewatched an episode of a tv series? Doesnt it seem abnormal to you for the content that you put so much work to create just disappears every 2 weeks? Neither you, nor us want this. Change it please.

ColinJohanson.2394:

So a fun question to ask to help direct the conversation a bit: What aspects of your favorite television shows would you think would be cool to see reflected in a game medium?

A serial plot is a nice part of that, and that’s what GW2 has been delivering so far. Some parts have left a bit to be desired – especially lately, e.g. I don’t really get why the krait would start working with any sylvari willingly – but it’s been interesting to follow when I could. It’d make more sense if the information I needed to understand what was going on was more readily available in game, though I’m sure that’s well understood by now.

There is an aspect from less favorite shows I wouldn’t like to see too much of though: filler. A lot of the special event achievements are just that, and I’m still having trouble getting it through my head that I don’t have to get the special event rewards if they’re not fun… that 5,000 point chest is taunting me

The most insidious kind is filler that forces you to watch it to keep up, of course (a few minutes of exposition buried inside an hour of flashbacks for instance). We haven’t been too far down that path – the closest I can think of would be the dungeons – many of which were pretty tricky to complete – that had story events within them once you reached the end. Personally I haven’t played any of the Scarlet dungeons, more due to lack of time than anything else though, so I’ve had to keep up by reading the wiki. I did manage to defeat Mai Trin (took quite a few attempts mind you), and had I not, I wouldn’t have been able to get to the interrogation scenes that closed out that story arc.

Going “casual mode” isn’t ultimately necessary, though; any issues raised by the above could be solved just by allowing some nice way to find out what’s been going on lately after the event is over. Getting context within the context of GW2 is currently rather difficult – I feel the Heralds could be better-used here. Spill a bit of backstory for the last few months, not just the very most current event.

ColinJohanson.2394:

So a fun question to ask to help direct the conversation a bit: What aspects of your favorite television shows would you think would be cool to see reflected in a game medium?

Snap response: NONE.

If I wanted to be a spectator in a purely passive medium, I’d be watching TV. Instead I’m trying to draw enjoyment from an interactive medium.

This ‘borrow aspects’ sounds suspiciously like how we got Scarlet in the first place (‘Cause, Joker and Harley are kewl, right?) and that’s still pretty much the single worst aspect of the Living Story. Rather than quiz us about pop culture, take a look through the enormous “We hate Trehearn” thread and get the message that making us play second fiddle or worse faceless thug in an interactive medium is missing the point.

Upon Consideration: Get a grip on the mixture of episodic and serialized content. I’d probably hold up White Collar as my most recent encounter with a narrative that deftly balances “case of the week” with a smattering of “season long advancement via subplots” in every episode. The Living Story could definitely take a page from that kind of dual track releases.

Remember what you see today we started work on 4-5 months ago (or longer), so the lag time to adjust to feedback and what we learned isn’t going to be instant, it’ll come in waves of evolutions with each round of feedback and discussion.

With four teams on a 2 week cadence, I’d really hope your agility is more like ten weeks that sixteen-to-twenty… Wasn’t that the point of the arrangement?

I don’t think those story-missions from the past should be instanced. Maybe a new tech where you enter the mission map in an open world manner. Would if fragment the playerbase? Maybe a bit, BUT you could have days where rewards are greatly increased.

Personally I’d like to see something like that for dungeons:
“One of our Priory agents will take a look at the Crucible dungeon the next 2 days” – gold, xp, token,… +100% for the next two days.

For Living story missions it would look like this:

• “Braham will visit Cragstead again the next 3 days. Get increased rewards while he is home again”.
• The Cragstead area is open for 8 players permanently. Overflows will open once one area is full. Encounters scale for 1-8 players. You will relive history again. The first player who enters plays as Braham.
• In these 3 days the chance for a Braham/Rox Weaponskin drop is increased. +100% Gold, XP, Karma. Daily-Achievement 1: playthrough. Daily-Achievement 2: perfect playthrough without going down + killing all enemies.