Guild Wars 2

Especially since the bi-weekly updates, i think the living story doesn’t seem as epic, and it feels like content is constantly being rushed out. Also, instead of expanding on lore already in the main story, such as the next dragons, the living story has introduced completely new storylines and characters, which doesn’t really fit, and makes the story feel less significant. This also means that i can’t really connect with the characters and storylines as they have been and gone so quickly, which brings me to my next point: I feel like i am forced to play the game, or else i miss out on so much content, as it is released so quickly, and doesn’t have any replayability. Also, lately i have been noticing that the living story has really lacked much of an actual story and instead the bulk of the content just feels like an achievement grind – doing x amount of a pointless thing to unlock the achievement and progress. Now, story is even being hidden behind achievements (halloween) which means in order to progress in the story i am forced to grind meaningless achievements. I think that the content needs to be slowed down, made more significant, and a lot of focus needs to be taken off the achievements so it doesn’t just feel like the traditional questing system that you said yourself in the manifesto that you wanted to stray away from (do x amount of y). Personally, i would prefer less frequent updates or a break from the living story, and instead have much longer and bigger content like an expansion or something similar (maybe keep the living world idea but have it stretching over a much longer period), which is relevant to the main story, focuses on important things (i.e. the dragons), and is story based, not achievement based.

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.

I’m not saying we’re doing all of these things above, those are simply the goals we have to help make Gw2 unique and something innovative in the genre through a dynamic living world we envisioned 7 odd years ago.

I personally think we have a lot of work to do to get to the point we’re succeeding on these goals, but with every step along the way we’re learning an incredible amount. Some fantastic ideas and comments in this thread, and many of them match our own feelings on living world and what would make it successful as well. Many of these ideas are things you’ve all been suggesting for months (or longer) and will be reflected in future 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.

Colin, thank you very much for posting this.

That perspective explains a lot about the game, and helps me understand where the development has been and where it will potentially be going. It helps clarify the audience this game is probably aimed at.

Thank you. That is one of the clearest statements regarding the intent of the game / developers since pre-release. This finally brings the data I and my guild have needed to help plan our next step regarding this game.

-Stopped watching television over 36 years ago

I’m not looking for a TV show in my MMO. I’m looking for a sandbox to play in.

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?

Red John.

Just a good example of what I’m going to describe. If you want to do episodic content that is basically self-contained… where we get a beginning/middle/end in a relatively short time like a typical weekly episode of The Mentalist…you should also be continuing to advance the underlying, overall story arc. There should always be a least a little extension of our personal story and the story of the world (the dragons, the races, new areas of the map, etc).

Each episode (or at a minimum every few episodes) should provide some advancement to a permanent and personal story because it is the primary reward for continuing to play the game…for continuing to consume each new episode. We want to see the new exiting and unexpected story of the moment, but we also want to see the familiar story advance in meaningful ways. We become a part of a club of sorts…people who are following a long-term story arc and are inside on the jokes and know the characters well.

So…as has been said many times…you need to refocus a bit on providing extensions to the original game which become permanent expansions (even if it’s a little at a time). More zones, more personal story, etc. It needs to come frequently enough where players are drawn along with you as you tell the story.

Episodic content provides momentary entertainment and a fresh feel… but it’s that underlying familiarity and depth of story that keeps people engrossed and coming back to see what will happen next.

The thing is that in a good tv show we get many interesting characters and subplots, and they evelve pretty fast. In GW2 you are trying to do the same but those subplots are so slow that it kills the whole point. If we are waiting for months for a subplot to be resolved then I’m afraid how long it will take to resolve the main plot… years? When I say main plot I mean one dragon. The pace is just too slow. We should be getting multiple small subplots for many different characters and elaborate on them all at the same time with each new LS content.
Right now we have those characters and they just do nothing. Instead with each release we should see developement for each of them. And they all should have separate subplots to make it interesting. Right now it’s just plain boring to wait for three months to see one character from an old LS content

“The cinematics team really knocked it out of the park. The June team took some chances with the noir feel, writing style, and design and art choices. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how it would be received. Glad that some folks are “getting” the concept, as it’s not as common in fantasy MMOs.”

I want more of that noir feel we got during Dragon Bash.

Also, watch Supernatural.

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?

Interesting question trying to relate TV to video games. And I do like Nike’s response.

I guess you can compare what you are doing with LS to a TV show.

For example: The Walking Dead. Currently, they are in the prison(Lion’s Arch ?) and venture out into the world to get supplies or whatever (other zones).

Ok so the difference here would be that the show is suspensful and leaves me completely hanging at the end of each week. I wonder what is going to happen because the story, writing, and acting are phenominal. The story is well told. With Living Story, it isnt. Im not left with a cliff hanger. Im not in awe over what is being told.

And Nike did hit it on the head. I watch The Walking Dead for one hour each week. Passively watch it. With Living Story, I’ll be engaging with the content interactively. I expect way more than what I get with The Walking Dead, but it is indeed far less. I don’t see a detailed story being told. We continue to get fragments of the story that may or may not be tied together and if they are, they are so loosely tied together than to the lamen you cannot see the connection!

I like the idea of trying to make a game play out like a T.V. show and good idea to direct this conversation to that thought. But when I watch my TV show, I am aware of every detail on the screen because it has a purpose and the dialogue/acting tell the story in such a phenominal way. With Living Story, I had to come to the forums to ask what is going on. Simply put, compared to the personal story, the living story is being horribly told.

And thats not even touching on the other parts of this topic, like content, rewards, etc.

Edit: relating to the story aspect…theres things like caring about what happens to the characters, picking a favorite one or two characters(Daryl on the walking dead is my favorite), hating a few because they are annoying or cruel, really getting to know the setting and surroundings as if you were a part of that show and a part of that family. You develop an emotional tie to everything you see on screen.

For me, and I would assume for many in this thread, this has not happened. I have not developed an emotional tie to anyone in the story. Its boring, the characters are un interesting, the plot is un interesting, there are many vague aspects to the story. Im just not connected to it like I would be my favorite T.V. show. And I loved The Walking Dead from episode one…it grabbed me from the first 5 minutes. After many months, the Living Story still has yet to grab my attention for more than a few seconds.

I don’t want to be too blunt in fear of moderation, but if your aim is to have Living Story be told and unfold the same way as a T.V. show, and you have an audience you are failing to connect with at an emotional level, you are failing.

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.

I’m not saying we’re doing all of these things above, those are simply the goals we have to help make Gw2 unique and something innovative in the genre through a dynamic living world we envisioned 7 odd years ago.

I personally think we have a lot of work to do to get to the point we’re succeeding on these goals, but with every step along the way we’re learning an incredible amount. Some fantastic ideas and comments in this thread, and many of them match our own feelings on living world and what would make it successful as well. Many of these ideas are things you’ve all been suggesting for months (or longer) and will be reflected in future 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.

Thank you, Colin

I play GW2 instead of watching television. I stopped watching broadcast TV in the 1970s.

I play GW2 instead of using a Nintento/Playstation/etc. In fact, I’ve never used one.

Why? I want self directed play in a rich, self directed, persistent state world, which requires initiative and thinking on my part.

When Nintendo play is grafted into GW2, it becomes less rich and self directed, and less interesting to me.

Bringing the television series idea in…well…seems like GW2 stops being the movie we got at release, and starts being the low budget Saturday morning cartoon spinoff the studio used to squeeze a bit more revenue out of the movie property.

I’ll watch the movie.

I’ll watch a sequel to the movie, made on a comparable budget and of comparable quality.

…and I’ll ignore low quality spinoff content.

Clear?

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?

At first blush, I see episodic TV, as a whole, as a poor model for evolving a living world. Generally in a series the characters “reset” each week and just have a different adventure each week. This is akin to the temporary content we have been seeing so far in the LS. It comes and goes and we pretty much stay the same.

One show that broke this mold was Breaking Bad. There we saw a character move from point ‘A’ to ‘Z’ over the course of 5 seasons. What I liked best about it was witnessing true character progression based upon choices made. The choices Walt made affected himself and those with whom he was associated. Hell, airplanes fell out of the sky and stuff landed in his pool because of choices he made. Interesting character development, deep interrelated story, and lot’s of interesting intelligent associations like Walter White/Walt Whitman. I think if you used Breaking Bad, loosely, as a model, I’m OK with it.

But, episodic TV is still risky as a model. You could end up with a world that comes and goes in weekly installments and that’s pretty much what we currently have.

I want ZERO aspect of television. I feel there is far too much of the “extra in red shirt” role given to us in this game as it is.

I don’t watch TV, much less invest myself in it. I don’t spend RL cash to differentiate “my” char on a TV show.. I don’t have one. I don’t get a personal attachment. When the show became boring, I turned it off, walked away, didn’t care.

I don’t want to watch a script being mouthed by actors. I don’t want a script given to me.

I want far less of ANET functioning as directors, managing our every movement in game. “Cut. You aren’t doing it right”

Also, Colin…
I totally understand the desire for GW2 to be unique and to stand out in the game space. I’m just not sure that bi-weekly episodic content is the way to do it.

The game already provides some awesome improvements and genre-redefining differences from what came before. I think that development efforts could be much better focused on more of what makes the game great fundamentally, and less on gimicks (which is honestly what a lot of the LS seems like right now).

I am a little confused to if there is a difference between the living world and the living story, so I will give my input on both since I see others doing the same.

Living World

I know that roughly every fifteen minutes in Queensdale that bandits will attack the farm or Edna’s orchard will be overrun with spiders. While I am grateful for the consistency when trying to rush through a daily, this doesn’t feel alive to me, the npcs are stuck in a bubble constantly clearing out spiders or harvesting apples. They never try to do anything to prevent the attacks again, or do anything with the apples. Longer event chains with multiple paths will give the npc’s life and develop personalities and back stories. Maps with the highest amount of traffic should be given attention first, and the longest and most varied event chains since people are more likely to see them.

Example:

Clear out the spiders infesting the orchard -> Kill the Huge Orchard Spider -> split

RNG chance to Escort Edna to ask farmer over the hill about spiders -> Gather the materials for pesticide -> Escort Edna back to the Orchard -> apply the pesticide -> defend the orchard from the poisoned spiders -> clear the dead spiders from the orchard; results in a chain of 8 events.

Or

RNG chance to Escort Edna to town to hire mercenaries -> defeat the mercenaries in a drinking game so they’ll help Edna -> escort Edna + mercenaries back to orchard -> help the mercenaries defend the orchard from spiders -> find the spider’s lair -> kill the champion spider queen ; results in a chain of 8 events

While Edna’s gone, back at the orchard her assistant can be tending the orchard: Prune the apple trees ; fertilize the apple trees ; water the apple trees ; collect spices for Edna’s apple pies.

Having this chain that splits off to provide variety, and having the assistant taking care of the orchard while Edna is away will make it feel like these npc’s have life rather than waiting for the next round of events to start. Assuming each of the 8 events in the chain takes 5-10 minutes, that’s about forty minutes to a little less than and hour and a half (assuming I can do math) to complete the entire chain. I’d say the casual player plays 2 hours or less each night, if the apple event is lengthened to a longer chain the casual player would not repeatedly do the same events, they may not even have time to complete the two chains in one evening, and thus the bubble is not seen.

For the bandits attacking the ranch I could see an event to help build a better fence by collecting wood and stone, then actually helping build the fence, which the bandits would later tear down. Or training the cows to defend themselves so they can help fight the bandits in the next attack.

Seeing the npc’s doing something about their situation rather than getting attacked over and over again would breath a sense of life into the world. True, you cannot escape the bubble, but if you enlarge the bubble enough it won’t be as obvious.

Living Story

I love what you’ve done with Kessex, you’ve created curiosity and foreshadowing. I would like to see more of that.

What I would like to see now is character development. I want strong npcs. NPCs that we love, NPCs that we love to hate. I was an beloved NPC to betray us. I want to track down the NPC for vengeance and come across why I was betrayed and I want to be torn. What the npc did was wrong, the methods they are taking are wrong but I can understand why I was betrayed. In their place would I have done the same thing? I’d like to see racial prejudice, conflicting oaths and a dragon at the root of all the turmoil. Stories that bring emotion and show shades of grey are the best kind. I don’t even watch Hollywood movies any more because they are so predictable. Please don’t be predicable, please don’t have explosions just because they’re shiny, don’t make two characters fall in love because every other story has one. The good stories make you question your morals, the good stories you understand the villian and can see yourself acting the same way in their place. Crazy scientists aren’t good villains. The best villain is a dark reflection of your inner self.

As to favorite television shows. I don’t watch much television but I have followed Avatar the Last Airbender and Game of Thrones very closely.

In Avatar you have Zuko, the older prince banished by his father to caputer the avatar who has been missing for over 100 years. An impossible task. This desire to be accepted by his father drives this villain to hunt our main character. The Fire Lord’s desire to dominate the earth comes from his grandfather’s original desire to unite the world under one kingdom. This, he thought, was the best way to establish peace and unity. Then we have Azula, her mother favored Zuko, and she acted out to get attention. All she wanted was to be loved and accepted by her mother, but she knew her mother, “thought I was a monster.” After her mother left she truly became one.

Game of Thrones: again strong characters, good foreshadowing, and most importantly no one is safe. At some point in time a character that you like will die. Each character acts in their own interest and their personalities drive them. Cersei Lannister who’s one redeeming quality is how much she cares for her children. Jamie Lannister who ran into conflicting oaths and had to choose which to break. Arya, who’s had everything taken from her and is being eaten alive by the desire for revenge. I could go on. I’m more a fan of the books that the show (more clothing).

And lastly, I will say Harry Potter (the books) since I felt it would have had a better translation to the TV screen if it had been a TV series rather than a movie.

The characters are memorable, well-developed and quirky.
The plots,...such as the betrayal of Quirinus Quirrell and supposed betrayal of Mad-Eye Moody, who was really an imposter planted by the antagonist are mysteries to be solved. This community loves speculation, they would thrive on a mystery.

Also, in each of these TV series you have to have been following the show to understand what is currently happening. Looking at previous episodes can help you predict future ones. To do this there would have to be some way for people to get a “recap” of what’s going on within the game engine. Most players are too lazy to try to find the wiki that will explain the plot.
In short, send imposters to infiltrate us, betray us, and make us question our morals.

So far the events in the Living World are mostly ‘Alert! Some New Enemy is attacking!’.
This is ok once in a while, but someday someone has to fix the loose ends of the main story, and move forward.

1. There are still dragons around, let’s attack them. Move forward into their territory
   = new zones.
2. Zhaitan is dead, let’s clear the rest of his Risen. Move forward in time
   = permanently change old zones.

Yes, the time-travelling side effects of #2 are problematic. Nevertheless I’d like this to happen.

Pacing: One update a month would be better, at the moment it feels rushed.

My biggest issues with GW2 involve Living World content. Sure, we get monthly content, but 9 times out of 10, the content is removed after the month. The only real addition we have had that stayed is Southsun, but that place has gotten stale long ago.

There has been no announcement or hit of any expansion, and was stated that Living World events are their focus. Fine and dandy, but there is soo much potential content not being explored, and way too much focus on one time events.

So why not turn the Living World events into the expansions? An active exploration south into the Crystal Desert, or across the sea into Cantha. Every 2-3 months a new map. In between can be events for new problems and roadblocks for the exploration.

there is so much potential in this game, and I feel it has fallen stagnant despite the monthly events. I have barely touched the Halloween event because most of the focus is in the PVP, which I do not enjoy very much. The only real thing to do is close doors in the maze. Yay…

I want new places to explore that STAY.

Ah but with your favourite Tv show, you could miss an episode and catch up via recording, reshowing or dvd. There was never any time pressure like rhere is now.
The same with attracting a new audience. You currently have no way of doing this with the current story, yet tv shows will always get repeats or dvds to grab new watchers.

I li,ke the rpg analogy more, however it comes down to being able to play at your own pace, which any other rpg whether video or pen&paper will factor for. We are still tied to a single set pace here with no budge. Whilst I admire the Living World concept, this aspect risks stunting the growth of GW2 long term. Not so ething I would like to see.

Colin-

The question for you to answer is (and I mean this in the sense of “answer this question with your game” and not “I demand an answer to this…”):

What kind of television show do you want to be?

Right now, the Living Story feels a bit like a sitcom. Every “episode” stands on its own. Sure, some new characters come along as regulars. Some characters skip episodes, they go away for a bit, then they show up again! The story mostly is per-episode with some general themes that run over time.

I’d suggest this is the wrong type of show. Suggesting the right type of show is harder.

I saw Breaking Bad as an example above and that’s probably a good suggestion. Breaking Bad had relatively strong seasonal arcs that were introduced quickly, but the story played out over many episodes. I think this is what you’re trying to do, but I’m not sure it’s working.

Because of the way your development teams are structured, let me suggest another format: Lost.

In Lost, there was an overarching story, but the characters and storylines frequently split. You’d have two groups with two separate stories (the beach vs the caves, for example…) along with side stories which stretched multiple episodes.

What I think you should do – and there’s maybe some evidence you’re doing this – is have each of your teams work on a particular storyline. Kasmeer/Marjory is one – I’m assuming the Dragon Bash team is also the Tower of Nightmares team? So we can see them again in 4 months. Rox and Braham seem to be another.

You need to establish characters and storylines which will last years and be based on the same characters with a progression of content. There needs to be STRONG AND OBVIOUS connections between what they’re doing – Rox’s “reason” for being around Tequatl was pretty weak, to be honest. And their stories have to tie into a larger narrative about the world of Tyria. (Right now, this “larger narrative” seems to be Scarlet, but I’d much prefer her to be one of the 4 storylines.)

I probably have more to say about this, but curious what others think so I’m going to post and read all the stuff people have been saying while I’ve been typing this.

Living World: Rewards -

Please work to ensure the rewards are actually obtainable within the time frame given.

Take the recent Halloween Living Story. Limited Time drops with outrageous exchange rates.

Want a candy-corn bag? 15k candy corn.
Want a weapon skin? 10k candy corn + 10k other ingredient.

Even if you attempted to spread out earning materials across the 30 days it will be up, you need to earn 500 candy corn a day for the bag, and 300 candy corn/300 other each day for the skin. To assume that is earn-able in any reasonable amount of play within the Living Story is insane. When the living story goes away, so does the drops, so your left with high auction house prices to finish a holiday item. The person in charge of the recipe either can’t math, or thinks only the rich need apply.

Living World: Episodic content.
Other posts have generally got the idea you seem to strive for….
1. Bad guy wrecks up some known landmark/monument. (oh noes, the destruction.)
2. Good guys wreck up more stuff fighting bad guys.
3. By end of Living Story, everything is back to normal and nothing has changed.
Feels like watching Family Guy… No matter how much stuff is screwed up, everything is the same at the end of the episode. Our choices/change doesn’t really matter.

Want to be like tv episodes as well? Put everything in one place. Your episodes should have all plot relevant details in game. Not on some story page on your website, some on your twitter page, some on a developers blog on a forum where you can only visit on the third sunday of a month during a lunar eclipse. Use your website/other social media to tell small tidbits or rehash/advertise your living story. Scarlett is a failure in cohesive storytelling… Let’s tell part of her story on the website, but in game, all you get to see is “look at me… I’m CRAZY….let’s go smash things”.

Handalf.1894:

1. Zhaitan is dead, let’s clear the rest of his Risen. Move forward in time
   = permanently change old zones.

I think we all expect Zhaitans comeback before we move on. Let’s be honest the way he died was just plain horrible, anti-climatic and stupid thing I have ever seen.
For an elder dragon (one of the most powerful things in the world) to die like that is just ridiculous.
I don’t want to speak for others but I certainly cannot move on until I get a proper fight with Zhaitan. And Trahearne dies :P
Until this gets done I can’t see the LS moving on anytime soon.

It took me almost an hour, but I managed to read every single post so far. I found myself nodding along with a lot of what was said. While I would love to avoid repeating what has been said before me, I know it is something I run the risk of doing. Regardless, here is my two copper….

Like several others, I love the idea of Living Story. Yet I absolutely despise its implementation and to risk sounding harsh: It’s a joke. There is nothing “living” about it, save for the “Flame and Frost” event. It gave more depth to established content. It was exciting to learn more about Eir, Rytlock, and see that our foes were active. Not to mention that Braham and Roxx are fun characters that I want to see more of. It was nice, because it FIT. It was not a flash in the pan. It gave me a sense of a stepping stone toward something bigger and permanent. As amusing as some of the Living Story events have been….they are lacking. The Zepyhyr Sanctum was a close second for me, but the others don’t even hold third or fourth. You already have a wealth of lore and resources at your disposal, so stop ignoring them. But perhaps I am overly anal when it comes to stories – I break them down into their core elements out of habit, not choice (thus the handle name). The ideas and concepts have been fun and interesting at times, but it is how you have implemented them that kills it.

My question to you, as another creative individual: What is all of this for? What are you building toward? So far, I see nothing worthwhile. It has been a year. At the launch of each new Living Story, I keep asking, “What is the point?” I challenge your writing team to do better (I know they can). My apologies if I seem overly critical, but story-telling is a passion of mine, and it is insulting to see this from a company I admire so greatly. It feels as though you are sacrificing quality to keep up with a hectic schedule. While it may not be your intention, your actions have told players otherwise. It would be one thing if all of this Living Story content was building toward a permanent addition to the game by the end of the year (or dare I say six months). But it does not feel that way.

Someone mentioned having a feedback survey at the close of the Living Story content. Can I get an “Amen”? Folks could skip it, but it would also give you a sense of what people enjoyed about that one, what they want to see return (both mechanics and story-wise), and so forth.

A two week schedule….? I am curious as to why you chose two weeks, and why the sloppy grind that comes with it. I have already touched on my disinterest in your temporary content. It has reached the point where we ask ourselves if we even want to bother with the Living Story, or just focus on the game’s actual content (please note my choice of words there). Judging from others’ posts, it sounds like a monthly release would be far more feasible for the average player (there are always going to be exceptions of those desiring more, and some less).

And in the name of the Six, the Spirits, the Eternal Alchemy, the Dream, and the Legions…. Enough with Scarlet. I can see what you were trying to attempt with her, but she has graduated from mildly bothersome to perhaps being recorded in the Hall of Foes as the most annoying character you have yet created. Personally, I recommend giving her a tidy end and researching why players liked your previous villains, because it sounds like many of us find her flat, to put it gently.

I apologize if I sounded harsh at any point. I know my personal frustration with the game as of late was very much behind my fingers as I typed. But I also say all this because I do love this game so very much. It has been difficult to watch it “grow” the way it has, despite its promise. I know from the developer’s side, you have a plethora of challenges that the public never sees. These knit-picks aside, you all have done wonderful work. Some fixes and tweaks to the game have been more than welcome, and I know many more are to come. The game is not the polished product I know you all had initially wanted (or so was my impression), but you are getting there. I was glad to see that you all were seeking feedback. I hope this thread and the others have given you all some things to consider going forward. Good luck!

Respectfully yours,

N.

P.S. Okay, so that was more like two silver. Sorry!

I don’t want to be harsh, but I feel I have to be truthful about this. If the GW2 Living Story were a TV series, it would have been axed after 3 episodes due to lack of depth in the production and lack of interest from it’s viewers.

It should be meaningful, impactful and more well-thought-out with a good degree of testing before release. This is why I personally am against the 2-week turnover of LS arcs. Like has been said so many times here, there’s just not enough plot or depth, it’s here one minute and gone the next, and for casuals that’s another nail in the GW2 coffin.

I’m in favour of more depth, more engaging story lines and perhaps better AP payout and more decent rewards, depending on difficulty of the story to be completed. Something that gets players working together towards the end goal would be even better, because no one likes to do this stuff by themselves. An adventure is better shared with others than attempted alone.

My 2c… don’t spend it all at once. ((clink))

Handalf.1894:

1. There are still dragons around, let’s attack them. Move forward into their territory
   = new zones.
2. Zhaitan is dead, let’s clear the rest of his Risen. Move forward in time
   = permanently change old zones.

I’ll start with #2, I totally agree, in my opinion even if Zhaitan is dead, there is still it’s corruption effects in Orr; so in a living story we should fight and cleanse this corruption. How? There could be a monthly content, so let’s say that 1 week this corruption starts to expand outside Orr, 1 week we help the order of whispers infiltrating Orr’s corrupted HQ, 1 week we help the scholars finding a remedy and 1 week we help the vigil to conquer and cleanse Orr with the instruments we have found. Arah dungeon could be a waste (or a quarantine zone) left from this fight… but Orr would be free at last, and Anet could start preparing us for a new and more powerful dragon to fight (Handalf #1). Another idea could be that we’ll be lead to free other dragons ourselves, mislead by a traitor npc. (btw sorry for my bad english)

I personally believe that “Living World” Should be directly connected to Personal Story, because it seems a bit strange that a world that is “Alive” and characters that had a major impact in the reality of the story and in the changes the world has seen, are now absent, parked in a fort, and removed from the “Spotlight”. if they are to be replaced, that should be presented to us accordingly so we don’t feel that the story line has been “Broken” or even worse “Neglected”.

Consistency is pretty much about continuance. Also i believe that the Living World, as a means for players to keep on performing constant battles to defend the world, and to make people interested in doing so, there should be “awards” that are worthy of Heroes who give their best to defend their realm. It is obvious that evolution is the purpose of Role Playing game. as it is in real life. People expect to grow stronger. Wiser. Richer. Mature. Evolved. But performing Living world tasks, are somehow pointless. Boring. Tedious. and with very little rewards worth the time and the dedication. Heroes don’t wanna waste their time pointlessly.

1: A grid for allocating “Points” Using the same way you inserted the new “Luck” system would be amazing. But for all stats. by performing living story missions, and invasions you would be granted “essences” to allocate in the grid, allowing us to make our Heroes coming back over and over to grow. +5 Power, +5 vitality, +5 condition damage, etc essences would be given at the end of each living story and event. Heroes could chose the stat they want to add to their accounts, choosing what path in battle performance suits them better.

2: In case you haven’t noticed, half the content is “Dead” due to the fact that people want to pursue “Materialism” over content. This is how people’s nature are, and therefore, content should be made appealing in order to remain able to perform it’s purpose. Example: "The invasions start at a specific area, and there is a world announcement. NOBODY even bothers to go do it, because they have engaged in “TRAINS” farming random normal champions around the world because “the rewards are better”. This makes the whole purpose of the invasions seem like an “EPIC FAIL” of titanic proportions. Perhaps if you’d realize what players expect from the game, it would be easier to deliver better content.
We want consistency, Epic battles, Lore, team play, BUT most of all what players want is to have the feeling they are accomplishing something. It is very frustrating to give up 5 hours of your day, or more sometimes, and at the end of it all you gained from it was a bunch of non significant “Stuff” and a “dejá vu” memory of the past days.

3: Dungeons and Fractals have become VERY boring, because you started giving more credit and attention to the Living Story, and as a result. you now have successfully allowed for dungeons and fractals to become obsolete, and at the same time Living Story doesn’t compensate for that. So “CHAMPION TRAINS” are all there is to do nowadays of my 5 hours a day. Telling us to farm achievements as a means for fun, is insulting. Because achievements should be done integrated in a story based and seducing environment, and that just ain’t around lately. I have 2 legendary weapons done. all ascendant gear made and upgraded accordingly. all story line done. WVW and PVP done to exhaustion, achievements wise i have done the most relevant. so what am i taking from the game at the moment? Deja vus ’a’plenty and hardly no fun.

4: I know that you are trying to make the game fair in terms of progress and rewards so that people who cannot play as much as the others don’t feel they are left behind and too far to catch up. But if you indeed think about those who play 24/7 and are faithful to the game, constant, frequent loggers, dedicated and committed to the game, THESE are having a boring time most of the time, these are boosting noobs in dungeons, or parking in LA emoting their lungs out in the desperate need of attention. The game will never be fair to both sides if you continue to make content based on pointless tasks that produce no real WORTHY REWARDS.
And please giving people “skins” as means to satisfy them is plain mockery.

Sometimes i wonder if your development team actually plays the game. One thing is to idealize it, another thing is to experience it.

Anyhow, i love the game, and i’ve been sticking around waiting for it to become “Ideal”, although it is still far behind on my expectations but going on a good way i like to believe.
Keep up the good work and thank you for giving us the means to contribute with our opinions.

What’s awesome about my favorite T.V. shows/books? CONTINUITY, CONTINUITY, CONTINUITY.

I’ll give you an example. My favorite sci-fi series ever is Animorphs; something about it just grabs me every time. There is nothing better than when a book not only acknowledges, but builds off of an event or idea in previous iterations. #19, The Departure, is regarded by fans as one of the best books in the series because it is a culmination of several character hiccups or flaws in Cassie from the past and turns them into an entire ideologically provocative episode.

I’d love to see this from the Living Story. But there’s something that needs to be done first.

First, you need to set the stage. Your storytelling thus far has not been done well. My apologies to the writers, but every single person I know who plays this game has commented on how awful the single-player story was. It’s uninteresting, you don’t feel impactful, Trahearne is unlikable, the final mission is abhorrent, and you can tell the story has been stretched out. It doesn’t feel full of content, it feels full of filler.

We can tell the difference between fake continuity and real, meaningful continuity.

It feels insulting to just dab a little reference to past LS/LW stuff here and there. That’s not what we mean by continuity. We want things to matter, and in an interesting way. not just “Elect a politician and choose path A or B” way. That felt stilted and, to be honest, politics is one of the worst things you could emulate in a video game!

It’s very obvious that your writers don’t have an overarching story in place. Not that every LW event has to be a part of a larger scheme. Indeed, some shouldn’t. But you don’t have a clear direction, and it shows. Heck, hire me at minimum wage and I’ll write you an overarching story that fits with the current lore! You have SO MUCH to work with story-wise! Make it work! I believe in you!

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.

I’m not saying we’re doing all of these things above, those are simply the goals we have to help make Gw2 unique and something innovative in the genre through a dynamic living world we envisioned 7 odd years ago.

I personally think we have a lot of work to do to get to the point we’re succeeding on these goals, but with every step along the way we’re learning an incredible amount. Some fantastic ideas and comments in this thread, and many of them match our own feelings on living world and what would make it successful as well. Many of these ideas are things you’ve all been suggesting for months (or longer) and will be reflected in future 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.

Q: Is there any thought at all that this method of intended delivery may not work for this MMO?

I’m curious though. If it doesn’t work, then are you still going to trying to force it because that’s your desired path?

The new LS content sort of confirms what I said a few pages ago. The LS episodes are totally disjointed and the writing seems to follow the content as opposed to the correct way, which is content to follow plot.

Again, two random enemy factions teamed up to do something sinister. Where have we seen -that- before? Hmmm?

What’s next? Quaggan and Ettins team up to overrun Rata Sum? :p

As for the TV comparison – I don’t watch enough TV to offer a qualified analogy here, but I can tell you why the LS doesn’t work for me: Good series fiction has meaningful beginning, middle and ends for each individual episode AND a meaningful beginning, middle and end for the overarching plot. The LS doesn’t have either. The episodes are never really concluded – there are lots of beginnings and middles, but loose ends everywhere. What happened to the Molten Alliance? What about the Karkha? The consortium? Ellen Kiel? Tequatl? The Aetherblade? Nothing -ever- seems to get properly finished, the events and characters appear and disappear randomly, and if there is an overarching plot concept at all, I am really not able to see it. What the LS needs is some sort of stringency. So far it doesn’t have any. Episodes need satisfying endings and build on each other towards a big overarching climax, escalating the plot conflict (yes, ONE conflict, not two dozen minor disjointed ones!) over time.

Just saying, the current update is quite good embodyment of things going wrong with LS.

-Story: Krait and Nightmare Court alliance. Like, for no apparent reason, aside copying dredge and flame leagion. Next up, Centaurs and Inquest, then Icebrood and Jotuns, will ally toghether “Because REASONS”?

-Twice the usual cashgrabbing CS skins.

-Pve stuff in EB. Nonononono. When will you get it?

-Temporary.

-Achievement grind/race and little more.

My favorite thing about a good TV show? I can rewatch my favorite episodes.

Would love to re-live turning into an Avatar of Balthazar and doing work on some Risen. Guess i’ll have to level a new Priory character every time I get the urge.

Neither reality nor “epic” storytelling function in episodes.

TV may be an exception to this, but is necessarily gimmicky for it. I have yet to come across a TV show in which I cannot predict the kind of ending or the story arc between “cliffhangers.” Watching a TV show is a practice in willing submission to gimmicks. You know you’re going to be led along, and you do it ‘cause that’s what you expect from a TV show. DO NOT TRY TO EMULATE A TV SHOW.

Reality doesn’t function this way and neither does a good book. Reality is usually small moments of complete chaos punctuated by long stretches of boring tedium. Naturally, this is precisely what most of us who play MMO’s are trying to escape from, which leaves only epic storytelling as a suitable model.

Epic storytelling begins small.

In every good story, the narrative always begins small. GW2’s Personal Story kinda does this, but very quickly launches the player into a quest or mission of grandiose proportions. In the same way, the LS goes from 0-60 in no time at all. This and this alone could be blamed for the “cartoony” feel of the LS. It needs build up.

Epic storytelling reveals the big picture subtly.

No good storyteller gives away the ending from the beginning, but EVERY good storyteller knows how to weave hints into the chapters. The LS at the moment tries to be “one step closer in plot reveal,” but in the end is one disjointed event connected to the next by shoddy NPC exposition—if any.

At the moment, it doesn’t feel as if there IS a “big picture” out there for the progress of the LS. No clues within the story as it’s presently being told imply that there’s a serious threat going on. Rather, we’re forced to accept that Scarlet is a credible threat, and that there is a believable motive behind her actions. This makes for very poor storytelling. The question on everyone’s mind behind every release is “Why? Why is Scarlet/[insert antagonists here] doing this?” Thus far there hasn’t been even a hint as to an answer.

Epic storytelling always moves from “situationally-threatening” to “world-threatening.”

This goes along with starting small, but pertains more to the “events” rather than the player himself or herself. In every LS release thus far, the “story” is immediately “world-threatening.” The F&F release did this better—and is commendable for it. But despite its move from situation-to-world, it never actually made it to world-threatening. Rather, it was a minor annoyance to certain northern provinces that could be resolved through beating an otherwise harmless dungeon.

On the other hand, the Scarlet invasions ignored the “situationally-threatening” aspect and jumped right into “world-threatening.” That kind of move is both unbelievable and ruins a good story. Hitler did not invade Europe one day on a whim. The world saw it coming as each “situation” evolved and coalesced into a world-scale problem.

The LS can maintain the two-week release pace only if each release moves from situation to world appropriately. Otherwise it just feels like riding one roller coaster after another rather than waiting in line and letting the screams of the riders ahead of you build excitement.

In Epic storytelling, the contribution of the hero is always understated.

There’s a reason Frodo and Sam are the heroes of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and not the epic warriors Gandalf, Aragorn, or Lego-gimli. What Frodo and Sam accomplished is essentially a “go deliver this package to so-and-so” quest. But the understated nature of their efforts firmly cement them in the hero status first, because we can relate to them, and second, because we believe it.

In Epic storytelling, the hero doesn’t always win.

This is pretty self explanatory. A LS where, no matter what, the player ALWAYS wins removes yet another layer of relatable realism. A hero (i.e. the player) becomes the hero because he or she overcomes loss. This is why the recapture of Claw Island feels so rewarding. There is immense loss at first that’s then over come later. the LS needs more of this. One two-week release which ends with the Dragons overwhelming a section of the world followed by another which allows the playerbase to recoup and regain what was lost.

Finally, in Epic storytelling, there’s always an end to the story.

The reason that expansions to a game are so successful lies somewhat in the fact that they are a self-contained story with a beginning AND an end. The LS should emulate this, and be willing to allow periods of “downtime” where the tedium sets in. You can’t maintain intensity indefinitely and remain relatable and believable.

My point in the above is simply this: if the LS is going to succeed, it needs to follow the movements of a epic work of fiction, with all of the components of good storytelling involved.

If it stays in the episodic, schizophrenic format of the present, it will continue to limp along and fail to entice new players and woo old players. The fundamental desire of the human heart is to be part of something bigger than oneself. Not to accomplish a list of tasks in a out-of-left-field story.

I would like a living story that doesn’t involve “Blending” (god, I’m getting a little tired of that phrase.) of enemies to form alliances. Dredge and flame legion, Pirates and Inquest, Nightmare court and Krait. I’m a little hesitant to think of what may come next. Oozes and Skritt? Then the force comes and goes without making much of an impact to the world. I would like one lasting enemy with great detail and make it do actual damage to the world.

So far, I feel the Toxic alliance is doing well in impacting the world. But it is still a new evil faction without a lot of detail and…..

Why is everything related to Scarlet? Now, I’m being hypocritical but I do have a point here. We hardly see her, and every alliance before is magically tied to her. I’m sorry, but I was fine with her being head of the Aetherblades, but the Molten Alliance? And now she has made a Toxic Alliance? This living story seems toxic. On top of this, she feels like a rip off of Harley Quinn. Which made people look at the Bloody Prince as the Joker. (I don’t support it but the make up is oddly simular)

I understand we can’t focus on the dragons as part of living story unless it is permanent but it would be nice for once. Tequatal wasn’t very lore based.

I guess that is what my whole rant is really about…..LORE

I want to know more about the world. But at times, it feels like you are throwing random things together and calling it good. And the dragons hardly seem like a threat when living story is spinning a wheel to see what new concoction of enemies it wants to throw our way? Remember the Sunspears? Or the Ministry of Purity? What about the Tengu? The Gods? There is so much lore available to build on and I feel locked out. (alright Ministry and Sunspears are on different continents. Probably has to wait for an expansion pack that I don’t think you guys are actually working on.)

I saw the “emulate expansions” in the epic post above. I believe this captures my take on evolving a LW/LS. In an expansion you typically have new territory, an expansion of characters new and old, perhaps a complete story told. Evolving a LW should do this step-wise. You could do this step-wise in GW by marching slowly to Cantha, opening up new territory, participating in new story that built on old story, with beginnings and endings, rescue a queen, slay a dragon, whatever.

I like the idea of emulating an expansion in a step-wise manner much more than emulating an episodic TV show. (Like I said above, if we’re talking Breaking Bad, I’m flexible.) What this would require, I believe, is to lose the value proposition of a two week dev cycle and move to a longer cycle that would allow for reasonable steps in delivering an expansion over time. It might be a safer model than simply telling a story, epic or otherwise.

Raine.1394:

I saw the “emulate expansions” in the epic post above. I believe this captures my take on evolving a LW/LS. In an expansion you typically have new territory, an expansion of characters new and old, perhaps a complete story told. Evolving a LW should do this step-wise. You could do this step-wise in GW by marching slowly to Cantha, opening up new territory, participating in new story that built on old story, with beginnings and endings, rescue a queen, slay a dragon, whatever.

I like the idea of emulating an expansion in a step-wise manner much more than emulating an episodic TV show. (Like I said above, if we’re talking Breaking Bad, I’m flexible.) What this would require, I believe, is to lose the value proposition of a two week dev cycle and move to a longer cycle that would allow for reasonable steps in delivering an expansion over time. It might be a safer model than simply telling a story, epic or otherwise.

Essentially this. Practical implementation of the theory I went on about. Broader steps with complete story-arcs told in a believable, relatable, and inspiring fashion.

I would like to see depth in the stories that unfold through each “chapter”. Don’t be scared to make us choose the wrong path, for example. Late realizing that we are not the good guys might be far more interesting. Crazy villains can be fun from time to time, but the best ones are for sure those who care for their goals, for their teammates and underlings, that have some kind of ethic and logical reasons to do what they do.

My biggest issue with Living Story is that it is on a 2-week cycle and feels extremely rushed. So, first suggestion:

1) Living Story content should have some method to be re-visited after its two-week cycle is over. I’ve seen several good suggestions regarding this. My favorite suggestion was just to place instance entrances out in the world where the Living Story has taken place. Upon entry, the player is given a flash-back instance of the Living Story arc. This encourages exploration, and allows players to happen upon story content that they may not have known existed. Another suggestion I saw that seemed viable was using either Marjory’s Journal (or similar item) or the Story Panel to allow entry to the flashback instances. I do think that these instances should allow progress toward as many of the achievements as possible so that players can pursue achievements at their own pace.

Secondary issue is that the Living Story seems totally unconnected to anything lore-wise:

2) For the longer story arcs, the Living Story could have lore discoveries that are interact-able objects, similar to the Marriner plaques, that offer clues as to where the story is headed. These bits of lore could be tracked in a Living Story panel in the Hero window. This would do a lot to quiet concerns that the Living Story is totally unconnected to anything else in-game, and fuel speculation about where it’s going, rather than wondering whether it has a direction at all.

Third issue is that the Living Story’s characters are not very well fleshed out:

3) For each LS release, I think more extensive lore and backstory could be added to the LS panel for each character (maybe major events also), allowing the people who are interested in lore to read more in-depth details. The website posts are fine, but they aren’t enough to satisfy any lore-hound’s desire for details, and honestly, they’re very easy to miss entirely. Each entry could be updated as a character takes part in the various LS arcs.

Fourth issue is that there are far too many ‘activities’ and not enough actual game content added.

4A) The achievements where you have to run around carving pumpkins or smashing 1000 pinatas are not enthusiasm-boosting. These achievements should be kept to a minimum. When these types of achievements ARE used, it would be nice if there was a purpose to them. For example, X# of pumpkins could award a candy corn cob or refined Halloween ingredient usable for the new crafting recipes. This would also have the side benefit of making the new recipes a tad less overwhelming.

4B) Reduce the number of repetitive activities and mini games, and focus on open world content. Honestly, the mini-games have been very hit-and-miss. I don’t know what portion of the player base I’m speaking for, but my understanding is that the activities are supposed to be a break from playing the regular game…not the other way around.

Speaking of time dedicated to activities and mini-games:

5) With the LS achievements, we are expected to play these mini-games a LOT in a relatively short period of time in order to take advantage of temporary achievement points. I have no problem with the achievements that award a loot bag for repetition. They reward people who actually like the mini-game, and that’s fine. However, with Lunatic Inquisition, for example, now we’re given up to 50 achievement points for a game that requires up to 15 minutes per game? That’s the potential of 20 hours spent just in that game in the space of a month. These repetition achievements should not award achievement points at all, IMO. The loot bag is enough.

That’s all I can think of at the moment…I may have to edit later as I think of other things.

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.

I’m not saying we’re doing all of these things above, those are simply the goals we have to help make Gw2 unique and something innovative in the genre through a dynamic living world we envisioned 7 odd years ago.

I personally think we have a lot of work to do to get to the point we’re succeeding on these goals, but with every step along the way we’re learning an incredible amount. Some fantastic ideas and comments in this thread, and many of them match our own feelings on living world and what would make it successful as well. Many of these ideas are things you’ve all been suggesting for months (or longer) and will be reflected in future 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.

I’m hoping to get a little clarification here on something. By “episode” it sounds like what your goal is, is something close to a TTRPG’s session, which I think is an acceptable goal. (Or at least a better example than a tv show. You watch a tv show for 1 hour a week, you can play a single session of D&D for a broader range than that.) Does that sound accurate?

<From here on in its more nebulous personal opinion and idea that I’m expressing.>

However it’d be important to note that the players really drive the session, so it’d be nice if the community’s choices, even if there’s more binary ones, had a way of driving that story. (Or at least help direct you to the beginning of the next session, so that there’s of transitional smoothness. Not just THIS and then THIS.) And related to that, it seems like you’re trying to use the current sessions to create a story arc, which Ithink is important to distinguish between the two. The rewards should last the length of the story arc, and, imo, should be a cumulative thing. So if every new release brings related rewards to that arc, they cumulatively add to the last release. That broadens the time for people to work towards what cool things they want, as opposed to only getting them for a brief window. (I do however support the idea that the rewards should all use the same, for lack of a better word because we don’t need more, currency. So you’re choosing the things you like most if you’re short on time, but its still possible to just get everything but that’s harder to manage. More of a spitball.)

And I think this final note is important: If you guys think you need more time, call off a session. The players will be bummed, but in this thought process you’re our DMs and we’d much rather play a well written work of yours than something you rushed out or stole from a module and shoe horned in. And at the end of a story arc, leave some rest time. You don’t need to just rush into the next arc. If you build up a cohesive story that our characters decisions actually feel a part of, there isn’t a need to worry about us waiting. (And I’m aware of the difficulties with the direction being chosen by a group. I still wanted the Charr to be the winner in that election, but I think we could all live with things turning out differently sometimes as long as it looks like things are happening because of it.)

Just my single copper piece.

Greetings! Thank you for this opportunity to engage in a discussion about the LS. I have always thought Anet does listen to it’s community and cares deeply in what we want out of a game. You guys have created an amazing game!! (Even if you have yet to put tofu in the game. humph)
Also thank you Colin for asking a question. Asking us questions like this is a great way to guide the discussion. We all care about this game and want to give feed back so the more Questions and direction you can give us to give you helps!
As I feel many have touched on some of the concerns I have with LS I will focus on the question: what aspects of a TV show do I want to see in a game setting?
I think it boils down to story telling (Yes TV is not the same or as engaging as playing a game… but whether I am watching the story or eyeball deep in playing it… if the story isn’t good I loose interest.) So here are some Aspects that I think help keep me tuning in every week or signing in the game:
~Conflict
Struggle, pain, drama, betrayal, power-struggles, hopelessness, overwhelming odds etc! I watch shows with heroes because I want to see them save the day. And when they are down for the count I feel for them. Epic struggle is important. Impending doom gets us out of the pubs in Hoelbrak and out fighting to save the world. Make us suffer a bit. Blow up some houses in Divinity’s Reach and show us some Homeless NPC’s. Maybe we could all donate mats to rebuild an orphanage? But make me feel bad! Punch me or someone else in the gut! Make me want to Do something about it!
Character conflict is also essential. Good example of this was Gwen and Pyre in GW1. Wow what a fun twist! The deep seeded hate that goes back generations between their races. I loved the interaction between these two. Would they settle their differences to come together? This was so great! Mini conflict is important too. Conflict between my character and others… conflict between NPC’s. little nuances that make game play and the world around me richer and more real. Cause as we all know real life can be a struggle sometimes, it helps make the good times feel oh so much better!
~Villains that are multidimensional. Scarlett is a good example. She just hates and wants to destroy. What is her motivation? Who was she? What wronged her so badly to make her this way.. And my Favorite is when a villain turns good. Or so we hope… I watch in angst as a villain is taken into the inner circle.. Will he/she betray the protagonist? Can he/she be trusted? Can he/she truly have changed? It leaves me on the edge of my seat. Engaging, real, full characters with their own quirks.
~Foreshadowing and Cliff hangers
Good shows leave me hanging at the end of every episode. Whats going to happen? I already (through good story telling) care about my main characters.. now they are in peril… What will happen!? This newest content was great…
La-de-da I am swimming along in Kessex Hills and BAM I hit this weird wall… ooooooo Whats this!? Now I am curious and I am gonna tune in to find out. When my guild was doing the guild bounty last week we ended up in Kessex hills and some people didn’t know about the magic wall.. it was FUN to tell them about it… Slow, connected, in depth building of a story is much more powerful than quick jerks forward in the story. make me curious and leave me hanging!
~Living vs growing
To me when you say “living” … I don’t think constant change, I think depth. A game I can explore and feel like it is almost real. When I can relate or “totally get” what a character on a TV show is going through I tune in. This community is so sharp. We pick up on the littlest things. For example. I go to the same merchant in LA. it’s just habit. And Every time I hear the same comments from NPC’s around me.. As I am selling my stuff I actually catch myself talking along with the NPC because I know what they are about to say. Changing little things like this once in a while… making the world feel real would be kinda neat.
~Reruns!
UGH I have to go to my In-laws for a week and when I get back my dog is puking, my car broke down and I have to go to the dentist for a broken tooth. Now I missed 2 weeks and have no idea what the heck is going on!? That’s ok. I can pull up HULU on my xbox and watch last weeks episode. But in Gw2… I am outta luck. I know you guys are working on this one already.. But I had to say something anyway!

Thanks again for letting us all give you our two cents! I have no idea if anything I have written will help but the fact you will read it makes me feel involved. I think you guys are doing a great job at figuring this all out. It’s new territory and that means there is a lot to learn. I’d rather you guys keep trying new things and maybe falling on your face from time to time than just doing the same thing everyone else is doing. I am having a terrific time playing! Woot!

As many people said before me the world seems to be live at a first sight, but after a year playing, all seems to be artificial. And when you have more than one character at cap level, with maps fully explored, this feeling is even more deep.

I’ve red a lot of good ideas, but I didin’t read every post, so I don’t know if someone has already suggest to create a complex chain of events: almost all the events consist on just 2 or 3 steps – the quest starts, it can be solved or not and, in the first case, it can start a new gathering quest. After that, all come back home.
What if this process has a more complex scheme? Something like a tree diagram of events?
For example at the second step the event could bring the player to attack dredge directly or stealing their resources. Than the player could choose to stay in the camp and defend the resources or outflank dredges and strike them in their back, now that they are more weak.
Obviously the end of every step could produce a different effect – failing a step doesn’t mean that the player fails the event, at least if he/she fails one of lower steps – so if the player fails the attack he/she could have to face the defense of the encampment by a lot of enemies. Or if the player fails stealing goods in time, he/she could be attacked by dredge waves bigger than those would have attacked if the quest would be completed.
This system brings a lot of possibilities in just one event and give more life to events, it would be like an “under the open sky dungeon”.

Another aspect of the “living” world that not seems too much live is the importance of your character in the whole world. In the personal story you become a commander, you have saved the world from the first big threat and saved or lost a lot of souls. But when you go in the open world nobody seems to know you. NPCs speak with you as you were a common nonentity. I think that something that represent your hero, at the end of the killing of Zhaitan could increase the feeling to be important, to be famous and to be thanked. Not necessarily a statue, but even a building, a portal a monument of Zhaitan’s dead…

Last but not least I totally agree with people saying that the dragons presence is too low. They are our enemies and we are eager to see everyone of them, so defend an acampment from Zhaitan poison or Kralkatorrik shards could be interesting. Ok, sure, we have faced just Zhaitan, at the moment, but this does not mean that we finally see or have to defend from manoeuvre from other dragons or their first liutenants. Besides dragons are the best creatures in the fantasy world and I can’t wait to fight them again :P

P.S.: english is not my first language, so esxcuse me if I made mistakes…

I’d like to see more permanent content in the LS. Teamcontent maybe like the GW1 missions – too difficult to do them solo, easier than dungeons, telling a story and repeatable.

More permanent content will develop GW2 steadily forward.
Adding a mission every month or maybe every three months could develop GW2 into a game with more teamplay. Atm its more like “mhh…what can we do as a guild?” “dungeons”. Missions could add a new option, especially for casual players – dungeons are often too hard. There are alway discussions “too hard” “not hard enough”. Split it up into dungeons, storytellingquests/missions/storydungeons and maybe elitedungeons instead of having only dungeons as real teamcontent.

(you could even add something like the “Zaishen Challenge Quest” – “do mission X today and get a reward”. Titels “done 10 different Missions” or hardmodemissions with seperate titels/rewards.)

The LS Dungeons could be permanent content: introduce a new “aetherdungeon”, each new dungeon could be a path of it. Some exclusive skins or items used to craft exklusive skins could drop in this dungeon – maybe like the “shards of mist” in the fractals.

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.

.

All of my favorite TV shows kind of follow the same format. You have an encapsulated episode the night of the showing…but in the background, there is an over-arching storyline that is season-long that is right in your face, but you can’t quite grasp the meaning of it.

Example: Farscape: Each week follows a monster of the week format (or situation of the week), but over-all there is an underlying story (evading the peacekeepers in first season, different ones in each other season) with an over-arching bad guy (Crais then Scorpious) with clear motivations for why they hate the protagonists (he killed my brother)…with the characters and events changing things around them (Aeryn Sun going from pure soldier – to caring woman, Chiana and Pilot growing up, Rygel getting less selfish, even Moya (the ship) having a baby! (shes a living ship))…I cared about the characters even as an observer…because I watched them change and grow…and they brought me fascinating places in the universe…alien worlds to explore! Some episodes were serious, some where silly, but all went towards the end-story…which sometimes lead to serious repercussions for the ship and it’s crew.

Dr. Who: Same thing, monster of the week format, kill the monster…but wait….what was that over there? Why does every episode have something about a “bad wolf” in it? oh wait, there is something bigger going on in the background…end of season…holy crap! At least one episode dealing with the “bad wolf” and finally a closer episode to tie it all together and close the season.

In each of these also, things happen, people change…and….“Previously, on farscape…” recaps.

The way I see current living story as a TV show….it is “The Simpsons” Each week, something happens that has something to do with Bart and Homer…maybe Homer sets off a nuclear bomb in the middle of springfield…next week…Springfield is re-set and Bart and Homer and Lisa go on another adventure. While this can be entertaining (with good writing), it can also get old really fast….you don’t care what happens to Bart each week, next week he will be exactly the same as the start of this week.
Actually, I take it back, its not even the simpsons…because right now we do not get an “episode” every two weeks….instead we get a tiny piece of an episode every two weeks….all the content we have gotten so far over the last 6 months has not even given us a single episode…it has a beginning (to a great many things) but still no middle or end to any of the beginnings.

We’re not talking much to each other here. I’d like to ask everybody a question of my own:

What if Living Story steps didn’t have “conclusions” at all? What if something just happens and we’re left to deal with it indefinitely? Would you enjoy playing the content even if you don’t get to “win” or “defeat” somebody during a patch cycle? Or is some sort of conclusion, even just a mini-conclusion, a necessary piece for you to enjoy content?

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.

I’m not saying we’re doing all of these things above, those are simply the goals we have to help make Gw2 unique and something innovative in the genre through a dynamic living world we envisioned 7 odd years ago.

I personally think we have a lot of work to do to get to the point we’re succeeding on these goals, but with every step along the way we’re learning an incredible amount. Some fantastic ideas and comments in this thread, and many of them match our own feelings on living world and what would make it successful as well. Many of these ideas are things you’ve all been suggesting for months (or longer) and will be reflected in future 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.

Good to see you guys are actually reading this stuff.

Though I’m not actually answering your question, I’ve got an idea. A lot of ppl is suggesting that they hould revisit older releases. You did something similar in GW1.
That was the scrying pool in the Hall of Monuments in Eye of the North. You could improve that system and let players do the older stuff or recap them on what’s going on, what happened so far. Remember the Keiran missions in the wilderness. We could replay them and we could watch cinematics and so on. It was a good and working mechanic of the game. You guys should consider it.
Though it is destroyed and lies in ruins, I don’t think the magic just fades away
And you could use the npc to hold reward skins just like we hold HoM skins.

timmyf.1490:

We’re not talking much to each other here. I’d like to ask everybody a question of my own:

What if Living Story steps didn’t have “conclusions” at all? What if something just happens and we’re left to deal with it indefinitely? Would you enjoy playing the content even if you don’t get to “win” or “defeat” somebody during a patch cycle? Or is some sort of conclusion, even just a mini-conclusion, a necessary piece for you to enjoy content?

In effect you’d either 1) be adding to what already exists in the game (persistent content that has to be “dealt with” whenever you come across it) or 2) you’d introduce the kind of real-life tedium that makes people want to get away into books or movies or video games.

A good example of this is Scarlet’s invasions. Even on SoR we don’t see organized attempts to complete them, and when they pop in an area I’m presently trying to run around in, it’s more of an annoyance than an interesting twist.

What makes stories so compelling to humans is the concept of beginning and ending. Idefiniteness is both uncomfortable and unappealing. Conclusions in the LS don’t have to be hard conclusions, but there has to be some resolution to one part or another to convince players that the LS is worth doing.

That’s as I understand it.

Now, if you’re meaning a consistent addition of Heart-like events, or new and evolving dynamic events added throughout, I think that’d certainly be interesting. It’d create more value in exploring old areas. BUT it wouldn’t advance a LS. The DEs as they stand hardly do anything to tell as story, other than “someone screwed up, must fix it, fixed, wait for them to re-screw up.”

There’s potential there, but it’d have to be done very, very well.

First, thanks for bringing this very important issue up for discussion.

To begin with, I’m going to ignore the crimson-coloured elephant in the room and talk about the living story in generalities instead of the specifics. I’m planning to craft a general critique on Scarlet that brings together the criticisms levelled against her and will, hopefully, assist in improving her story and help prevent new characters from receiving the same backlash, but that’s something I’d prefer to leave to some other day.

With respect to comments made previously on making constructive criticism, I’ve endeavoured to start each section with the action suggested (in bold), with the following paragraph giving reasons and further clarification.

To begin with, I’ll start with pacing concerns:

A fortnight is probably too short for the temporary content and rewards. It would be fairer to keep everything available for at least a month. Story content is probably more important here than the rewards, and the Twilight Assault path being permanent is a step in the right direction here. However, it is very easy for someone to have a fortnight in which it’s not practical for them to commit to the game enough to collect a set of briefly-available achievements, especially if those achievements require forming a group to achieve. Slowing the pace so that everything is around for at least a month could simply allow for overlapping events, or you could just slow down the schedule in general and use the extra time to do more polishing on future releases, more buildup, and putting work into developing expansion-like chunks of content later on. And in the long run, storybook/Hearts of the North style “happened in the past” quests would be a suitable way to let new players experience the story, even if this is done on a purely no-risk-no-extrinsic-reward basis. (To be honest, I’m a bit nervous as to what adding the MF and AR will do to the existing balance of fractals – it’s either require cutting both back significantly or generate fractals that require significantly greater time investments than the existing ones.)

Event-related daily achievements, beyond those available in a single day, should not be required for the meta-achievement. The introduction of daily achievements that count towards the meta-achievement was a great idea for people who find a handful of the base set of achievements overly onerous, but it should not be required to complete dailies over several days to get the meta. Someone who, for whatever reason, can only play during one day during the period should at least have a chance.

More buildup. We saw how much attention the little teaser for Tower of Nightmares got. Imagine if that had been built up over a couple of months. Start with new events involving the krait collecting lumber and slaves. Somebody shows up to investigate the increased krait activity just as the barrier and illusion goes up. Next update the tower is taller, and the full cast (including that golem’s owner, who is planning a reconnaissance mission close to the barrier) has shown up and is discussing it. Finally, in the last update before the full reveal, the illusion reaches its full height, and the golem’s owner, who we had an opportunity to meet in earlier teasers, has gone missing – basically, at the point that it was at a fortnight ago.

Don’t be afraid to hold back some parts of the story so the entire story can be released in on go.Some stories are probably better told as one big, expansion-like instalment than via the Living Story model. To draw a Guild Wars 1 analogy, War in Kryta worked well as a LS-esque storyline, but the momentum and sense of urgency inherent in the Prophecies campaign would have been lost if we’d had to wait a fortnight between missions. There are some storylines that work as gradual buildups, but there are some that work best as big, meaty chunks you can sink your teeth into. The playerbase-revitalisation effect of having a big chunk of content coming out at once rather than as bits and pieces that are easily worked through in a couple of hours a day (if you have that couple of hours) is not something that I think should be underestimated.

Second, some comments on “filling out” the story:

If a meta-achievement reward is of story significance, there needs to be an explanation of WHY completing the meta-achievement gives you the item in question. The example I’m referencing here is the candy corn golem mini in the Halloween event – there’s no explanation as to why completing those achievements causes a mini to suddenly appear in your inventory. This is an acceptable break from reality if the meta-achievement reward is a shiny with no story consequence (in most of them, you can assume it’s given to you as a reward by an NPC or looted from an enemy), but if the meta-achievement reward is significant to the story, how you get it should be mentioned as part of the story. For instance, in the case of the candy corn golem, the mechanism could be that Mad King Thorn grants the mini candy golems to those that sufficiently impress or amuse him, and completing the meta is how you accomplish that. From a broader perspective…

For those people who are interested, exposition is good. Yes, some people are just in it for the phat lewts and aren’t going to care about the story, but for those who do, the amount we’ve been getting from the Living Story has been fairly scarce and unsatisfying. This is one that’s hard to give examples for without referring to the elephant, so I’ll leave that to when I make a more detailed critique of Scarlet’s story, but one example outside of that would be the explorable paths of dungeons – the Archivist’s Sanctum dungeon runs have often lamented the lack of lore in those, particularly where Arah is concerned (where the explorable paths are essentially archaeological expeditions). Having books and other texts in such areas that are readable by those who are interested and which could be ignored by those who are not would be a good addition there. I may be speaking from a biased perspective, but some of the best updates from my perspective have been the ones that fill out the game world and characters involved – the Zephyr Sanctum is a good example there.

And finally, here are my thoughts on the variety of stories in general:

Have a wider range of simultaneous stories. We’re getting close to the aforementioned elephant here, but the truth is that Scarlet could have been the most popular antagonist in the history of gaming and there would still be some people who dislike her, and more that would like her but would like to do something else on occasion. Between Guild Wars 1 and the starting material for Guild Wars 2, you’ve created a deep and compelling world with a wide range of potential stories – even setting aside large-scale material like the dragons and opening up other continents, there’s Krytan politics to delve into possibly leading to the Mantle, the mystery of the true nature of the Sylvari to delve into, the situation with the charr-human peace treaty, and more. Observe how much enthusiasm there was for the initial teasers for Tower of Nightmares, followed by how rapidly that deflated when enough of those teasers came for people to come to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, that it’s going to be another chapter in the Scarlet storyline. Having multiple storylines running that, while they might interact on occasion, are generally distinct from one another would help make Tyria feel like a more realistic world, as well as giving players who are dissatisfied with one storyline the opportunity to have other storylines that they may enjoy more.

Allow Living Story to build on events in the Personal Story and dungeons. I can understand the desire to keep each character’s personal chronology consistent, but with respect to the above point, this policy seems to be blocking off a lot of material from being developed. The simplest resolution would be loosen the restriction and accept that sometimes players will play things out of order (it worked for Guild Wars 1, after all), but as a compromise position, I’d offer the following:

Have Living Story content that builds on personal story or dungeons require reaching an appropriate point in the Personal Story and/or completing the appropriate Story Mode dungeon. To avoid pressuring players to have to rush to accomplish this, have such content be permanent with no temporarily available rewards. Some parts of the personal story do explicitly occur simultaneously – the idea here is that the character has reached a point where they would have done the associated content if the player had made the appropriate choices. For instance, content that builds off the Where Life Goes arc might require a character to have completed their 11-20 personal story arc, but does not require having completed that arc specifically (although a character that has might receive special recognition).

ColinJohanson.2394:

What aspects of your favorite television shows would you think would be cool to see reflected in a game medium?

Here is a new episode(chapter) for you:

The pack is going to explore some new territory beyond Orr (a new map or 3)
But to get there you must accompany the army/caravan.
Right before you get to the new map BAM! Zhaitan is BACK!
make it an epic level encounter think Tequatal only bigger and better. No time limit, lots of strategy, weapons, spells and whatnot. If it takes 3 hrs for to kill him so be it. And once he dies (for real this time) you can enter the new zones.
No getting to the new maps unless you final kill Zhaitan.
And no AFK people taking up the map!

Rewards:
Ascended Armor/Weapon of your choice and opening the new maps.
or at least some special Exotic gear for the death of Zhaitan like a weapon made of his tooth/claw, armor from his scales or something.
(the only thing epic about his first ‘death’ was how anti-climactic is was)

Use books as an example instead of tv shows.

p.s. Do not use The Walking Dead as a good example. EVER. (zombies are boring and the show is like every other zombie show/movie ever.)

On a personal preference level:

More scholars that aren’t Asura. Yes, the asura are the most intellectual of the races, but there have been quite a few things where it feels like an asura has been slotted in as the default intellectual investigating something when a scholar from another race (the Priory recruits all races) could be expected to have a stronger interest. Regardless of what they may claim, the asura do not have a monopoly on skilled researchers

On Colin’s Question:

It’s amusing on some level that you ask this, because one of my criticisms on the Scarlet story, as other people have said, is that it’s too much like traditional episodic TV shows. You have the villain getting up to shenanigans, or every so often the heroes seize the initiative and stick it to the villains instead, but nine times out of ten at the end of the episode what happened didn’t really matter. The heroes have foiled one plot, but next week the villain will be back to serve up another with no indication that they’ve been slowed down in the slightest by their defeat last episode.

Now, the Living Story isn’t quite that bad, but Stargate SG-1 or most Star Trek serieses are probably good analogies. Most episodes, particularly in the early seasons, didn’t really progress the story in a clear fashion, although some things that seemed to be a typical self-contained episode would prove to be very important later, but every so often there were core episodes that were very important to the story.

The thing is, when you get twenty-six episodes or whatever a season, you can get away with having a lot of Mission Of The Week episodes. When you’re only getting about one a month, though, you need to cut out this chaff. Every episode should be progressing the story in a meaningful fashion, to the benefit or detriment of the protagonists – more like Game of Thrones or other serialisations of novels than Star Trek or other traditional episodic television shows. Now, there may (and, I think, should) be multiple stories running concurrently, and a few light-hearted breaks from the story are certainly worthwhile – but they should be the spice, not the main fare.

To put it in a nutshell – give us chapters, not episodes.

I find it very concerning to hear Colin talk about trying to get inspiration from the TV medium for the video/computer game medium. That’s just not going to work. Storytelling is nice in games, but its never going to be more important than the game, and game stories just can never compete with a medium that doesn’t have anywhere near as many roadblocks to new content (debugging, graphics, camera programming, user inputs). There is a reason why the Living World/Story stuff is like 20 minutes of game content (about 1-2 minutes of story) but given to us every 2-4 weeks. That stretching out of such thin content is a huge turn off. I really wanted to get into the Flame and Frost stuff, but it was almost impossible to feel anything towards it. And even now, after having done it, it all feels quite pointless to have done any of it. This also ignores what seems to be a growing reliance on reading dialog boxes that people just don’t want to bother reading. Nothing living about that, and frankly, nothing impactful about that either.

I thought GW2 was supposed to be about a dynamic and living world that you didn’t have to read much of anything for you to know whats going on and what you could do. That’s what Living World should be. I want dynamic events to actually chain more, and to make more sense to the world. Grow the story with dynamic events, that actually add and build into your content and don’t go away.

What if instead of having a fleeting 1 minute cinema of Scarlett and Jenna falling, and then a temporary dungeon we wont see again. I can barely remember any actual Living Story by the time we get to the new stuff. Instead, built scarlet’s minions fighting a dynamic event chain in a map that doesn’t have a lot of play. Let whatever events you have help reinforce where the story is, and could be. And no, I don’t mean this random map hopping non-sense you have going on now.

Look at a chain as simple as the pipes in Queensdale. I can see from afar that’s going on there, and whether or not it needed assistance. I thought that was cool at first. I could see tangible impact on the world. Only, it never amounted to much, and it never grew into something more. Maybe a merchant disappeared for 5 minutes? Why hasn’t this ,or other chains, grown over time? Why haven’t I been able to experience this event one day, playing it out thinking “I’ve seen this 100 times before” only to find it respond in a new and different way? You’ve tried to have some dramatic events in higher level maps (like in Orr), but the problem is almost no one is on those maps. I can’t count the number of times I’ve wanted to do a temple only to hear crickets on the map. You should be using Living Story as a constructive way to getting people to repopulate all your maps over time, and actually play content on those maps that are built into a flowing story, not just a random “stay here for 30 minutes, and it will amount to nothing to the map”. Maybe a map like Iron Marches should start to be a base for Scarlett, and she can have evolving dynamic event chains that feed off the rest of the content already there.

Long story short, I’m very disappointed in the confusing and self-defeating direction Living Story has gone in, and its starting to look like you guys don’t even realize what the problems are within your game. Nor are you really seeing the potential of the game really could be if you actually got player interest and motivation in line with your actual content that remains in the game.

I have several ideas, but for now I think a repeating trend in this topic is that the 2 week rotation is just too much. Not only for us, but for you as the developers. The once a month rotation was pretty nice. It made sure every person got all their stuff done in time without feeling rushed, yet moved along enough that it didn’t feel like an eternity waiting for the next part. Yes some people were impatient, and honestly those kinds of people always will be. They can never be satisfied no matter how hard you try. If the Ls rotation was moved back up to once a month, you could add smaller content to fill it out throughout the month that does not require grinding out achievements in a 2 week timeframe, nor require you, as the devs, to jump through so many hoops you’re tripping over your own feet and working yourselves to death.

I know you guys are capable of some epic content, so allow yourselves the time to do it. You’ve introduced enough things into the game right now to keep us plenty busy while we wait for the next LS chapter. I did see some mention dragon minions on an invasion schedule like Scarlet (and I doubt she will be around forever, but I think the invasion concept is a good idea and the dragon minions could keep it going after she’s gone). The most recent LS changes have felt more solid and like they affected the world more permanently, which is what we’ve been asking for, so good job with that and keep it going. I know some are worried about the old content being lost forever and never to be experienced by new players, but what you did with the current kessex hills was brilliant and something I suggested a while back. Many people have wanted the past LS still available to at least experience, and I think setting it all in instanced story-type areas that replace the current zones (or something similar) would be perfect. This would even be a way to introduce a new Orr that is being healed. The old will still be available as normal, but perhaps for a while, make the liberated Orr a story-type instance like kessex is now with some events to help push along Orr’s recovery. One day, it could be flipped so that the old Orr becomes the story instance (perhaps after some LS builds up to it) and tailored to allow for smaller populations to experience it and complete it. These would be long term goals of course, but something to consider.

tl;dr:
Stop with shoving content out the door every 2 weeks. It’s not healthy for you guys as developers- you’re working yourselves to death- and it’s not healthy for the game community. it makes the content too grindy and seemingly forced. 1 month LS schedules would work fine.

I’m not sure if TV is really comparable here.

I watch TV, I have a story told to me, for me.

In a game I want to play, I want to be a part of it, I want to influence it. Not just hash through a script…

That said I do watch TV. Do you know what the best thing about watching TV is?
I can watch it on my schedule. If I miss an episode I can catch the re-run, dowload the show, use netflix, amazon, hulu or even cable providers on demand channels to watch what I missed, or even catch up on something new from the very beginning. None of that even reflects that I have a DVR to ensure I don’t miss a thing.
TV is watched on my terms, at my lesiure.

The current living world / story is none of the above. No chance to replay any of it. No were (in game, and that’s the important part) to recap what went on while I was attending to life. If you miss something its gone forever and you lose / miss out seeing the episode and the rewards.

There needs to be something in game (NOT fractals) that let’s me replay past chapters. Rewards / skins and all. (I have ideas for this but it would be a much larger post and is probably more appropriate somewhere else. Unless you want them here) The frantic pace of the living story, the feeling of regret if you miss something cool, the ‘lost’ feeling if you come back after an event, knowing that skin you missed is gone forever. All of this compounds to make a less than pleasing impression of the living world / story.

Tommyknocker.6089:

Copy/Pasted from another thread.

After playing this game for over a year I would like to give an example of what I believe a true living world should be.

First and foremost it NEEDS REAL consequences for failure. If you have centaurs taking over a town when you fail, why must they end there? If given long enough the centaurs can and should take the whole kitten map, enslaving and forcing the npc’s within the areas to be hostile to the PC’s (similar to a flipped keep in WvW). Waypoints, once the map is taken, should all be contested, making the trip to that map impossible save for entering through a nearby map. And why stop there, if the centaurs form an alliance with the dredge they could start controlling even more of the maps. If however they are at odds with the dredge we could form a temporary alliance with one side to defeat the other or at very least see then openly at war with one another.

(rest of post snipped for brevity)

As much as I personally would like this, I suspect the majority of actual PvE players would not. PvE players tend to prefer “static” locations; they like to go into a place and know [x] is a safe place that will always have certain things.

I can only see that idea leading to frustration and players quitting.