Guild Wars 2

1st off all, thanks for doing this. I really really appreciate it.
Second though is to not only look at the discussion here. Many people who like what you are doing are not writing on the the forum and are only dissapointed when you steer away from what they enjoy. I worked for customer service for a phone company. 99.9% off the people taking the time to contact the company where dissattisfied with something. Still only 2% off the customers ever contacted the company.

So before drawing any conclusions my first advise would be to have an ingame survey.
Discussions both in mapchat and in my guild indicate a totally different view regarding Scarlet then you get out here. an ingame survey would lead to a good view off what ALL of the community wants and not only those that complain.

Personally I like most things bout the living story and yes I like Scarlet and dont udnerstand why people hate her. She wasnt dropped on us. her existance was hinted a long time ago, but too many people dont even read mails they are getting (Eir after flame and frost, indicated that someone was behind this alliance) or listen to in game conversations (First time the name Scarlet was dropped was during the first Aetherblade dungeon by Mai Trin). The first part off the queens jubilee clearly indicated we where going to meet this scarlet and then 2 weeks later she was there. So it was very cleverly done.

My tips for the living story are:
1: No more backpacks or make all current ones skins in the achievement pane. I have actually been picking the PvP-skins off the last two backpacks for the simple reason that I wanted to preserve the skin as proof off my participation, but I dont have any characters that had room for a backpack.

2: More special themed maps like Bazaar, Queens pavillion and labyrinth. Those maps where all very much fun and very active. If you re-use them please make them different. I could imagine that e.g. the bazaar would turn into a battle between aetherblades and merchants and we have to help out the merchants.

3: More clear communication. Many people where disappointing when the TA-overall achievement dissapeared. This is not the first time. I would suggest a timer in the achievement like the daily/monthly timer, indicating how much time you have left.

So far for my 2 cents.

I’m really glad to see so much discussion on here about plot and pacing, because I definitely think those are things that need to be addressed in this game. But I want to take a moment to point out here that the latest release illustrates a lot of the points I made in my post about the Living Story updates causing issues in the rest of the world. One only needs to glance at the game bugs forum the day of release to note how many things unrelated to the living story are affected by these releases.

On a more personal note, my main (and ONLY level 80) character is now rendered unplayable due to a graphic glitch which makes his eyes appear empty and soulless and I, prone to nightmares, have chosen to continue sleeping over playing the game until it’s fixed. But as the glitch remains unacknowledged by the Devs, it could be weeks or months until said issue is addressed. It’s not uncommon for bugs like this to sit for weeks or months unfixed. Awhile back there was an issue with whisper’s armor having a dye channel inadvertently removed and if I remember correctly it took over a month for it to be fixed.

Things like this might seem ‘nitpicky’, but every time a player is affected by a glitch like this, or a bug with an event they want to play, or the unpolished rough edges of the new releases, it affects their overall enjoyment of the game. And every time that happens it’s a little harder to get them back. When you’re writing a novel, the same is true of your structure, grammar and plot elements. Every inconsistency, every mistake means a risk in losing your reader. How many bugs of this nature, that seem completely unnecessary, does a player sit through before they throw up their hands and walk away? How do you get them back after they do?

It’s another argument for a slower pace. For more time set aside for testing and polish. Are bugs going to happen? Yes of course they are. But not every living story update needs to bring some new disaster with it. It’s to the point where I’m starting to dread the updates because opening the game turns into ’what’s going to be broken this time?’

I’ve been taking a break from GW2 recently. Before people crowd onto me with the (understandable) viewpoint that seeing as I haven’t been playing, what’s the point in me commenting, let me explain.

I have two children, and I’ve just separated from my husband. As much as I love gaming, and GW in particular (I have loved the world since shortly before Nightfall launched, and have a real passion for the lore and gameplay of GW1 and 2), life takes precedence.

One of the things I really loved about GW was that, unlike other MMOs, I wasn’t penalised for taking that stance. With GW1, the three campaigns and EotN meant that life could throw me a curved ball (say, getting pregnant) and I could still play. The content was there, waiting for me to play it through. NPCs and quests could be completed in order, and there was no rush. If other people were ahead of me, so be it! They completed things faster, got rewards more quickly, had better armour because they could coughcough grind out faction points for EotN skins.

Now, here I am with GW2. And there’s all this living story content which I have missed, and it feels like a barrier. Suddenly, I log into the game and I have a countdown to finish content I might have found out about halfway through its fortnight of availability, and I feel like I can’t play the way I want to or I’ll lose the opportunity to experience the story.

I don’t especially mind about missing out on weapon skins, although I love to collect them. I want to play through story, I want cutscenes, I want lore. I want to walk around the world and see the impact of events, past or present, upon that world.

Something I loved about GW1, that I think would work for GW2, was what I experienced from bringing characters across campaigns. When I took my Prophecies-born monk into Elona, and went back to try and complete all the missions, I was able to. And the most simple device explained how I could be playing content which clearly I hadn’t been there for: A line of text telling me I was essentially taking part in a retelling of events past.

This device was used across campaigns and handily sidestepped the passing of time, allowing two years to fall between Prophecies and Factions, and the events of Nightfall. It allowed for EotN and the GW:B content too. Some of it was gated until you had completed the main campaign bosses, some of it simply had that caveat, but it all allowed players to complete content which altered the world, while still allowing for those who hadn’t bought the game yet a chance to play through as well.

How was this technique overlooked in GW2? All of the Living Story events could be kept in-game by a well-placed NPC or interactable item which allows players to “relive” past events much as we can the personal story. The storytelling elements of the LS are mostly instanced anyway, so why not leave those instances there for people who want to play through the world’s story?

It would remove a huge barrier to re-entry – something that GW2 developers once stated they did not want to exist in the first place. I can’t be the only one put-off getting into GW2 again because of the 2-week pace. It’s punitive, in a game that was supposed to focus on fun.

I can’t help but think that the quality of writing has suffered from trying to make it okay to “miss” parts of the story. By tying it all together in this way, people can still catch up on the plot, and it can allow for a more cohesive narrative – fixing many different problems with a solution the studio has already employed elsewhere.

I am one of those who rarely post anything on the forums, but that does not mean I hate what the developers are doing. I really like the freedom and mechanics of GW2.
However, that does not mean everything is perfect here. Every game has some aspects that do not suit me and it is only natural, because it is impossible to make a perfect game that absolutely everyone likes.
My issues with the living world are:
1. Lore seems a bit shallow and as some have said, disjoint. While I do love the idea of temporary events to progress the story, it is currently hard to say that anything I have done has had any kind of impact. Stuff has happened, even more stuff has happened and… almost everything is as it used to be? I would like to see that living world would really be living, events changing and interacting with each others (I know, this might be really, REALLY hard to do), areas changing and so on. Something that I could watch later on and my character could say “Oh yes, this sight reminds us all that we can’t let things like that happen ever again” (or something like that).
2. Achivements unfortunately guide my way. Living story is pretty much achivement fest for me, meaning me running and wondering “How can this be done” instead of “Oooh… nice story and events… one… more… event. Now when did I do those achievements?”. Add challenge to the achievements so that achieving them would really mean something (something like Liadri-difficult). Also permanent achievements might be nice.

I know I had something else too but my mind is currently blank. Mayby it comes back to me later.

ps. Thank you for communicating with the community. This is something we truly need.

Here are some of the things I’ve observed/my suggestions ><.

Continuity and characterization:

• 1.a Instead of always adding new threats and characters, work sometimes on expanding what’s already there in a meaningful way. Tyria is a beautiful world, full of interesting characters you have already established, yet most of them are relegated to cameo roles.
• 2.a People care about characters. Characters drive stories. Those short-stories on the site are nice, but they can’t be our only reliable source of lore and character development!

Disconnection:

• 2.b The pc so far has been very marginally involved with what has been happening. People do not feel connected to the story.
• 3. Involve your community! Community events [with the living story as their main theme, such as the diorama contest last year] help people forge a deeper connection with their games and usually make for a very positive and creative atmosphere. Take the living story outside of the game and make the players live it! The rewards do not need to be anything grand.

Awareness, continuity and communication:

• 1.b Right now it very much feels like every two weeks some random event pops up somewhere random in the world. I believe this week’s LS (The Tower of Nightmares) had a nice lead up, but too much of it was still left to chance. I would have never known that something weird was going on in Kessex Hills beforehand if I hadn’t looked at the forum/official site. Why not add some npcs talking about it (even very vaguely) in the main cities, for example? We do not need a herald, just some clues here and there.
• 4. The living stories themselves are often lacking in clarity and direction. Why is looking at the achievement panel the only way to understand what is going on, most of the times? It’s either that or some bright gold star in the world map. There needs to be a middle ground.

Pacing and quality:

• 5. It has been said so many times I lost count, but the current pace is simply stressful and kills the fun. Quality and replay value over quantity. Instead of being stuck doing the very same thing dressed up in a different skin week after week, releasing a LS update once a month should give you enough time to truly come up with some unique, different ideas. [Example: People have been clamouring for the home instance to have a use, so you put a quartz node in front of the orphanage in Salma District? Just… why?]

Gem Store:

• 6. Time-gated rng weapon sets is a business practice that puts off a lot of people and has been giving Anet a bad image. It leaves a sour taste in the community that overrides most of the positive impressions.

I went off on a bit of a textwall before, because I was focusing on what, for me, is the main barrier to my re-entry into GW2 (along with few friends playing any more – but they have stopped playing for similar reasons!) So, here is a more concise post, a bullet-point list of things I would love in this game, or that I think would help:

1 – Don’t tie into an ironclad guarantee of fortnightly releases. I mean, sure, aim for them, have bugfixes in patches that often, sure thing. But forcing yourselves to that schedule when you cannot keep up is daft. You keep saying how you’re limited by fortnightly delivery – well, why tie hamstring your game like that! You should be going for an optimal format, not a “limited” one.

2 – More permanent stuff, less transient. We know that this is coming, on the 4 month delay, but it really can’t be said enough. It’s only fun if you’re the narrow-band player who isn’t too casual, but isn’t too hardcore either. Which means it caters to as many people as raids do in other games.

3 – Make the lore you add visible in-game. I mean, heck. You posted a story about Scarlet studying in Rata Sum? Why can’t we read that story in Rata Sum! Why does no one in Hoelbrak or Black Citadel talk about when she was there? If you add characters, add teasers in-game that they’re coming. Or, you’re telling me she was known about years ago in Rata Sum and no one ever said anything? Nope, not buying it.

4 – Make story re-playable. “Journals”, items you click which take us to instances, NPCs who open instances, all that stuff. We had mission books in GW1, and they worked.

5 – Reduce or remove the grind-based achievements. Farming mobs and opening chest after chest in a cycle around a map is boring. We don’t need 20 achievements in a patch if they all suck. What about 5 or 6 that are different and challenging? Find one hidden item, kill one mob in a particular circumstance, that sort of thing. Achievements turn to grind when they are too commonplace, because there’s only so much variety they can have. Far better to get three different ones which take skill or you have fun doing than ten, eight of which are just killing the same mobs in different places.

6 – Use the lore that already exists. I mean, come on, there’s so much of it! There seems this focus on adding new stuff, new characters; it’s new new new. But there are so many existing characters that could be used instead. Or as well as; it doesn’t have to be either or.

7 – Expand. So far we’ve a focus on revisiting existing places, and sure, that’s fun. But there’s a whole world out there, and so far we’re still stuck in the same place we started, save one new zone, and another which flies in for an annual hi-and-goodbye. Tyria is bigger than this. I want to see it!

8 – Tie existing components together. So, here’s my question. What are the Pact up to? I mean, Zhaitan is done with for now, we’ve seen no signs that they’re going after another dragon just yet, so what are they doing? Heck, why haven’t they turned that nice, big army on Scarlet yet? It’s a pact to protect the world, and right now she seems to be one of the biggest threats. You’re telling me the army that took out a dragon can’t bombard her into oblivion?

9 – Part of Expand really, but, well. Zhaitan’s gone. What about news from Elona, or Cantha. Maybe Bubbles is in the way of Cantha, but Zhaitan was the main reason no one could hear from Elona. You’re telling me no one’s even curious? Even if we can’t go there yet, surely someone would have tried it? Can’t we get the odd NPC with a bit of news? A different textbox, or, say, a “newspaper” in LA with a global summary of what’ going on. You say you want to make this like a TV show? Well, a TV show has unity and depth. In the good ones, nothing happens in complete isolation. Even filler episodes show us something to give greater context to the world and characters. Where’s this depth?

10 – Playability. So, all those tokens, back-items, minipets, and other fluff we get. Where do we put them? I have a Zephyr item taking up bank space, I have gauntlet tokens too, and those election support thingies which I bought but never got round to using. It’s all so gosh-darned confusing trying to sort out what items are worth keeping, and what is junk. Likewise, finding out what you need to do if you join a LS patch halfway through. I can’t play all the time, and when I do come in, I get three letters, some of which are outdated, and I spend the first few minutes thinking “Umm, what’s going not now?” If I’m like that and I usually read the website, what about the people who don’t? I shouldn’t be left looking at 3rd party sites to try and work out what I have to do.

BobbyStein.2315:

Player Agency
For many players, their feelings of “playing second fiddle” likely began with Trahearne’s introduction in the Personal Story and have persisted somewhat with the Living World releases. This is partially by design and partially due to constraints both budgetary and technical. The quote below is from a forum response I posted after launch.

“Q:What do you guys think about the incredible negative feedback you got for Trahearne?
A:Narrative Designer Scott McGough and I talked about this very topic some time ago. In short, Trahearne was intended to fill a very specific role that, in terms of both gameplay and story, the PC could not fill—an order-neutral character with extensive knowledge about Orr and the magic of undeath who could coordinate a global war effort and make the necessary plans, thus leaving the actual gameplay up to the player. Further, Trahearne’s character design was intentional in that he would be a reluctant hero who, through interacting with the player, evolved into someone who could step up to lead the Pact.

This didn’t resonate well with some players for a variety of reasons. We’re comparing external feedback with our own, since we have plans for Trahearne and other existing characters in future live updates and expansion content. We won’t spoil what we’re discussing, other than to say we’re looking at many different options for his current implementation and beyond.”

In regards to the Living World constraints, there are a few factors at play that prevent the player from speaking:

• With our current tech, the PC cannot speak outside of a cinematic conversation (which were featured inside the Personal Story at ship) or contextual chatter (crippled = “My leg!”). We intend to explore possible solutions in the somewhat near future.

• Our revised cinematic technology does not currently support player voice variants (i.e. 10 different PC voices).

• The text of every player line has to be translated 10 times per language to account for each player race/gender combination.

• The VO of every player line has to then be recorded 10 times per voiced language. (In other words, it’s freakishly expensive to voice the PC as 1 PC line in English = 10 English voiced lines + 10 German voiced lines, etc.).
  That stated, the player doesn’t need VO in order to have agency in the story but we are limited in what we can track since it gets added to the player’s record, which is already large.

We have a few things planned for upcoming releases that should make the player feel like more of a driver and less of a passenger, but please remember that it takes upwards of four months for content to go from concept to completion. Nothing I say here will happen immediately due to the nature of how we build things.

Thanks much.

You’ve completely ignored the biggest problem with the living story, most players WANT PERMANENT CONENT! You’ve got 10 pages of people telling you that they want new zones and more permanent content. Yet you haven’t responded or provided an answer to these players at all. I’m not trying to be rude, but I thought the idea of this thread was for you to listen to the community and provide us with feedback. You still need to address:

1. Permanent content! We want new areas!
(New zones and areas etc.)

2. The pace of the Living Story!
(2 weeks is too fast!)

It would be really appreciated if you could address these issues.

When reading massive posts like these I really rely on the dev posts.. because I can’t read every single post from every single person.. WAY too much, so thanks for bringing up the points you’ve gather from other posters Chris and Colin.

So, knowing that pacing (story is too slow, seems disjointed, releases are too fast, 2 weeks can be killer) is covered, which I agree with, I’ll move on to cover some other points.

In a television series, you can rewatch episodes. If the episode is something you really like, you rewatch it.. or if you miss it one week, you can rewatch it later. I think a lot of people have mentioned this, that there is no way currently to redo some of the living story (which I can understand would be hard, you can’t just remake the world to what it was for that one player). So what I think would be neat is a way to at least track the living story in a fashion similar to how we can track our personal story.. We have that personal story tab that essentially shows us a synopsis of how our personal story progressed. I’d love it if that story tab had subtabs, one for the personal story and then one tab for each story arc (so currently, one for personal story, one for scarlet). This way people could at least read what happened and be up to speed with the current storyline.

My favorite tv shows are Twin Peaks and The Prisoner. Do not make your video game like them.

This is a video game though, not a TV show. You should replay the Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas, Planescape: Torment and/or Neverwinter Nights: Hoards of the Underdark. Those are video games that know how to tell a very good story.

Yetiyen.7269:

BobbyStein.2315:

*

You’ve completely ignored the biggest problem with the living story, most players WANT PERMANENT CONENT! You’ve got 10 pages of people telling you that they want new zones and more permanent content. Yet you haven’t responded or provided an answer to these players at all. I’m not trying to be rude, but I thought the idea of this thread was for you to listen to the community and provide us with feedback. You still need to address:

1. Permanent content! We want new areas!
(New zones and areas etc.)

2. The pace of the Living Story!
(2 weeks is too fast!)

It would be really appreciated if you could address these issues.

Chris Whiteside said that initially he and Arenanet’s involvement in this thread will be sparse. The fact that this individual gave a two page post as he did, along with a few followups is good enough for the first few days.

He did address pace, but the story pace. As in, the “is the story being told too slowly or too quickly”? He would like to seperate story pace with release pace. I personally view them as related, but that is my opinion.

Give them time to gather the feedback and respond. We as a community love to jump on them the minute they mispel a word or say something that isnt true(I am totally guilty of this, I know). We harp on everything they say, so they want to make sure they get it right.

But, as you said, I do hope they address perma content vs temp content, along with story pace vs release pace, along with fluffy content vs substantial threats to tyria.

BTW, to the person who compared the LS to Power Rangers and Anamaniacs..I couldn’t stop laughing. Because its nearly true!

Anyways, give them time. They will hop into the frey soon enough. If you haven’t noticed, they have hopped in here a small handful of times to stir the pot. First with Colin’s post about our favorite TV show and LS playing out like a TV show, and then with Bobby Stein talking about the time and financial difficulties that come into developing voice narrated story telling vs the bread crumbs we have been receiving.

I’ve seen several people say two weeks is too fast, but the LW stuff when all this started, with the refugees, was too slow… or too little. Maybe that was my problem… a monthly update instead, but with more material, might be a better way to go.

Hey Chris, Colin and Bobby…look to other games that do episodic content. Look at how they deliver it. Do not look at another medium to try and balance it upon your own.

If you really must, take a look at a game like Defiance. That’s as close as a reference as you can get to what you’re after….and they’re not doing so hot right now.

I disagree, the release schedule is too quick but the story itself is too slow.
Once again Scarlet may be behind another alliance, but yet her motivations are not given to us. It has nearly been a year. Using the TV comparison this has gone well into Season One and yet the villain still doesn’t make sense.

If we happen to get some inkling as to why she’s doing this within the next few updates, without using the defense of “she’s insane”, I will once again reevaluate my stance.

Perhaps instead of attempting to emulate a TV series, the developers should try emulating those old ‘pick a path’ adventure books. Those, at least, were interactive.

No matter how many times one watches the Star Trek original series episode Spock’s Brain, the outcome of the story won’t change and RC Spock won’t be any less silly. But at least one can watch Spock’s Brain again and again and revel in its silliness whenever one feels so inclined, unlike much of the Living Story.

Furthermore, this whole thing seems pointless. Is there anything in this thread that has not been said already? I’ve been posting about the Living Story/World ever since its debut. I’m not going to go through it all again here, because now the devs say they are listening.

At this point, who will still be here in four months to witness the fruits – if any – of this ‘collaborative’ endeavor?

Yetiyen.7269:

You’ve completely ignored the biggest problem with the living story, most players WANT PERMANENT CONENT! You’ve got 10 pages of people telling you that they want new zones and more permanent content. Yet you haven’t responded or provided an answer to these players at all. I’m not trying to be rude, but I thought the idea of this thread was for you to listen to the community and provide us with feedback. You still need to address:

1. Permanent content! We want new areas!
(New zones and areas etc.)

2. The pace of the Living Story!
(2 weeks is too fast!)

It would be really appreciated if you could address these issues.

1. Demanding things from the developers will get you nowhere.
2. Bobby Stein – correct me if I’m wrong, guys – is a writer. He can’t address those issues because that’s not what his job is.

I have two points I would like to make.

I would prefer it if you changed the structure of the living world “episodes” a bit. They all feel like they are a bunch of pointless grindy things that are bookended by nice instances.

Take the Halloween one for example, the bloody prince can only be hurt by candy corn. So we need a living candy corn elemental. So far I’m with you, it’s silly but it’s halloween so it’s okay to be kitchy.

Then we go do a lot of grindy things, that (and this is the important part) have nothing to do with creating a living candy corn elemental. At the end of doing a series of unrelated tasks, we get a candy corn elemental in an achievement chest.

And then we take the candy corn elemental into another instance.

Why??? There is no cause and effect there. At least provide the illusion that we’re creating the elemental.

Second, the incredible inflation in the cost of things in the living world. For example, 25 skill points for the anti-toxin. Are you really saying that this healing skill almost as good as Tome of Courage, Rampage, Spirit of Nature, Dagger Storm, etc… I feel like if the current team were part of the original development team it would take 100 enemy deaths to unlock the #2 skill on a weapon.

I do understand that ascended gear essentially destroyed the various in game sinks for karma and skill points and therefore you need some new sinks. But make spending my points useful and proportional to the cost of everything else, come up with useful things, don’t just inflate the price of the few items you have

BobbyStein.2315:

Scarlet
If memory serves me, we foreshadowed Scarlet’s existence through a comment Mai Trin made during one of the summer releases. This got some folks speculating on who she was, her part in all the attacks, etc. Scarlet debuted in August during the Queen’s Jubilee and has continued to make appearances here and there that slowly reveal her role in the overall plot.

The operative word here is “slowly” and judging from all the responses, many feel that the plot is moving ahead at a glacial pace. That Scarlet is nothing more than a cardboard cutout villain.

I will readily acknowledge that her presentation has elicited some strong reactions in the community. Some people love her. Others hate her. While that kind of polarizing view can sometimes be an asset, it brings some polarizing baggage to the conversation every time her name is brought up. Here’s where I think we could have done a better job with her.

• Tone: Scarlet is crazy, but she sometimes comes off as over-the-top and madcap. While that works in a lot of scenarios, it’s not something that’s been extensively explored inside of Guild Wars 2 before. There is a reason to her madness but we haven’t revealed it yet. Perhaps it would have suited her character better to have shown that somewhere alongside her introduction. Scope had something to do with it in her debut, but honestly we knew she would be featured in multiple future releases so…

• Pacing: …we made the conscious decision to pace out her character development over multiple game builds. In other words, we haven’t gotten to that part of her story yet, but since nobody outside the building has an idea of what’s to come I can understand the reactions that she’s “one-dimensional” or conveniently powerful. We’re aware of the perception and feel that future releases will have content that develops her character.

Those are unfortunately not the main problems with Scarlet. Yes, the problems you have mentioned are important, but they are not what make her a “cardboard cutout villain”.

It’s the effect of putting the cart before the horse. Instead of making a villain, designing her personality and goals, her abilities and resources (with a reasonable explanation where she gets those resources), and then deciding what she can achieve with those resources in order to get to her goal, it seems you are doing it the other way around. Thinking what she can do, then making up (or not) resources for that. Without even caring whether her posessing those resources is reasonable or not.

Let’s look at the current Toxic Alliance as an example.

We have an alliance between Krait and Nightmare Court, that serves some mysterious (and completely unknown to us) goals of Scarlet. To explain how this alliance came into being, obelisk shards were introduced. There is no explanation how they ended in Scarlet hands. There is no real explanation why Krait didn’t pursue other, more traditional for them means of obtaining those. No, the shards exist only to serve as a handwave explanation for the current story arc.

It certainly look like the alliance was designed first, and the means to forge it were made second. We can also only hope, that what they are doing does mesh somehow with Scarlet plans in some way.

Of course, at least this time there was an attempt to explain it at all, so it’s already an improvement to what was going on before. It still looks like someone just threw the dice to decide what next 2 groups would be merged in alliance this time.

Not to mention that her plan so far looks like going the “we’ll think something up later. And since she’s mad she doesn’t have to act logical, does she?” way.

This is not the problem of information pacing. This is a problem of setting consistency, story consistency, internal logic and general believability.

And it’s currently so bad, that i don’t believe anymore that it can be fixed somehow in further parts of the story arc.

TL/DR:
there’s a nice quote i heard somewhere: “A difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense”. Your fiction doesn’t, and this is something you need to work on first.

BobbyStein.2315:

Player Agency
For many players, their feelings of “playing second fiddle” likely began with Trahearne’s introduction in the Personal Story and have persisted somewhat with the Living World releases. This is partially by design and partially due to constraints both budgetary and technical. The quote below is from a forum response I posted after launch.

I wanted to chime in specifically on the issue of “player agency” this has been a subject of discussion in lots of MMOs for a good while now and I think it is one of the areas that GW2’s personal story really floundered on while in contrast the living story has been doing a great job.

In any MMOG it makes like zero sense for the player to be “the one”, this trope is a throwback to single player RPGs and it really needs to go the way of the dodo. One of the things another MMO (The Secret World) does probably better than any current game on the market is its story, and I’d argue that part of that is due to writing a story for the MMO genre rather than around it. MMO’s particularly themepark MMOs could do so much better regarding story if only they’d work with the idea that the player is one of many.

Surprisingly to date GW2 has been better than many MMOs in this field precisely due to some of the living story updates. It is really quite positive to the genre as a whole to recognize characters as taking part in communal efforts, rather than being “the one” (just like everyone else who participated in the story) who saves the world.

One of the concepts heralded on GW2’s development was the idea that the game is “your story” and in the first and second arcs of the personal story this is done brilliantly. In the first arc, stories are relatively small in scope/scale yet personal, relevant and meaningful. In the second arc stories grow a bit grander as each player is participating in a broader effort as part of their faction, yet still there is meaning.

Then in the third arc Treahearne enters the scene, and we’re fed the exact same garbage storyline every MMO (and every single player RPG) has fed us for the past decade or more. The player becomes a key figure to destroying the dragon and saving the land. It seems like the quality ideas developed in the first and second arcs were just thrown out the window. Another of the game’s core ideas (the ability of the player to shape the world) gets thrown out as a byproduct of this terrible storytelling as the entirety of Zhaitan’s being defeated really is only ever represented in the personal story instance… why even bother?

Worse yet from a storytelling point of view, once players are saving the universe everything else becomes relatively meaningless and trivial. Much better imo to have small scale conflicts/issues that players can contribute to and see the actual impact of their work.

I’d like to add that this recent LS update is a step in the right direction. I like seeing impactful changes to the world. Scarlet has forged an alliance and it has changed Kessex Hills. Even after this event, I’m hoping to see a continuation of this concept. Perhaps (if we win) the smoking hulk of what remains of the tower, still housing disgruntled Krait. Perhaps a scar of toxic destruction carving through Kessex and into an adjoining zone before the end. Despite the win, there’s still lasting damage done to Tyria and new DEs arise because of it.

This is my hope when playing through this latests LS release. It’s a good step in that direction that will truly create a Living World where our actions and the dangers we face shape Tyria.

After yet another ‘alliance’ plot, I’d have to say we really need some diversity of plotlines in the Living World as well. It really is becoming a ‘team rocket’s blasting off agaaaaaaain’ scenario where every single release has exactly the same plot structure.

Add that to the fact that Scarlet doesn’t only violate common sense/lore in her own right with a really unconvincing backstory, but seems capable of making entire other factions/races behave contrary to their cultures as established in the lore, too (see: xenophobic krait suddenly allying with the NC, misogynist Sons of Svanir taking orders from a woman), and it’s becoming a real uninspiring mess that I really just can’t invest any interest in at this point.

I realise it’s now going to be a while before we move on from Scarlet, even if all the feedback about her is taken on board, but until she’s gone and we get back to the real lore, my interest in the LW is probably going to remain limited to ‘do I care about/want this release’s cosmetic reward or not?’.

Faowri.4159:

After yet another ‘alliance’ plot, I’d have to say we really need some diversity of plotlines in the Living World as well. It really is becoming a ‘team rocket’s blasting off agaaaaaaain’ scenario where every single release has exactly the same plot structure.

Add that to the fact that Scarlet doesn’t only violate common sense/lore in her own right with a really unconvincing backstory, but seems capable of making entire other factions/races behave contrary to their cultures as established in the lore, too (see: xenophobic krait suddenly allying with the NC, misogynist Sons of Svanir taking orders from a woman), and it’s becoming a real uninspiring mess that I really just can’t invest any interest in at this point.

I realise it’s now going to be a while before we move on from Scarlet, even if all the feedback about her is taken on board, but until she’s gone and we get back to the real lore, my interest in the LW is probably going to remain limited to ‘do I care about/want this release’s cosmetic reward or not?’.

Yes, it’s feeling a little bit like we’re fighting the Legion of Doom. Why would the Krait and the Nightmare Court work together, or work with Scarlet? From what little I know about the Krait it seems like they would be at cross purposes with everyone.

Put another way, there should really be a logic behind these alliances. A reason the Krait, who attack everyone on sight, would agree to this. A reason the nightmare court would agree to this. Other than a cackling evil supervillian, I’m evil because I’m evil motivation.

Let’s talk about our good friend River Song from the ‘Doctor Who’ series.

Disclaimer: I realize I’m likely stepping onto the minefield of an ancient internet flame war just by lobbing those words over the wall; I apologize. Treat me with tolerance.

But since River was introduced and teased to us over the course of literal years, I think she has interesting parallels with the case of Scarlet. There’re some great differences in how the two characters were/are being handled.

To wit,

1. River was human from the start.

She had fears right from the beginning; and a murky but intriguing backstory. The vulnerability made her likeable and the mystery made us want to learn more. It’s certain that she was quick witted and visciously competent right from the start, but there was still depth.

Scarlet is a random cackling madwoman at this point in the story. I’m glad to hear that’s not all she is, but we should see more of that earlier in the story. Moreover, she manages to pull off the batkitten insanity while remaining hyper competent and having everybody on her side except US. Not likable in the slightest.. and yes, I’m going to say that villains, even villains we despise, have to be sympathize-able. We know why Ahab wants to kill the whale, we understand it on a deep gut level. The Joker not so much.

2. It was okay for River to be a side character sometimes.

River wasn’t pulling all the strings all the time. Not all the plot was dedicated to or instigated by her; even during the height of her story arc there were episodes that didn’t mention her at all.. and episodes where she was allowed to react as any character would to unforeseen disaster.

Scarlet is behind every single thing. We never catch her out of control; we never see how she interacts with other factions or people whose goals conflict with hers aside of ‘I wanna destroy you!’. How DID she convince the krait, let alone anybody? Am I wrong for thinking there could have been amazing story content there, perhaps with her even starting out as a seemingly friendly NPC?

3. River had tangible connections to the protagonists.

I realize this one is fuzzier and difficult to do in a game with many players. But for the sake of argument, let’s call Amy & Rory the audience stand-ins for the Doctor Who series. Even when we didn’t realize it, she was intimately connected to the two protagonists. The emotional involvement there made for gripping story telling.

Scarlet jumped out of nowhere. Therefore, she means about as much emotionally to the audience as the prime minister of Malaysia would. I’m willing to bet you could get more more gut-wrenching emotional involvement out of a single quest where you have to put down poor zombiefied Tybalt than any world-shattering invasion from the cackling madwoman we’ve never met.

So to summarize, I think we need more build up, more nuance in the characters – but yes, long arcs are fine. I realize your competition gets away with saying ‘Hey, the old gods drove this guy insane! again!’ all the time.. but you can do better.

Other thoughts..

1. Having to worry about npc enemies potentially rallying is kinda fun.

2. Don’t tell story via achievements.

3. I want to run the molten facility again. Don’t remove these things!

4. It’s weird having the rest of the events going on as per usual in the rest of kessex hills. I realize that’s an issue of resources, but perhaps events in the immediate vicinity could be turned off during the crisis.

TooBz.3065:

Put another way, there should really be a logic behind these alliances. A reason the Krait, who attack everyone on sight, would agree to this. A reason the nightmare court would agree to this. Other than a cackling evil supervillian, I’m evil because I’m evil motivation.

Yeah, I mean, why couldn’t they give the Krait some sort of reason, in-game, to work with the Nightmare Court? And tie it to Scarlet? You know, something like… Scarlet somehow can get the Krait some of their important religious artifacts. The Krait are xenophobic, but they are also religious, so maybe their religion can overcome their xenophobia?

Just spit-balling here…

timmyf.1490:

Yeah, I mean, why couldn’t they give the Krait some sort of reason, in-game, to work with the Nightmare Court? And tie it to Scarlet? You know, something like… Scarlet somehow can get the Krait some of their important religious artifacts. The Krait are xenophobic, but they are also religious, so maybe their religion can overcome their xenophobia?

Just spit-balling here…

To some degree their xenophobia is part of their religion.

Besides is it so bad to have a minor race try to make a power play without her interference?

Back to her alliances:
Her Aetherblades made more sense: Inquest like to use technology without that meaningless “ethics” and Pirates like loot.

Her Molten Alliance worked because both sides needed each other’s magic or tech, but they didn’t like each other really. The Flame Legion aren’t completely xenophobic like the Krait nor are the Dredge. Supremacists, no doubt, but Krait will just gut you as they see you. If you are lucky you might be held captive to be gutted later.

BobbyStein.2315:

Your first point is true. When feedback is phrased like a demand it usually gets ignored. Constructive, thoughtful commentary is what we need. Thankfully, there’s a lot of it in this thread so I and the other devs appreciate that so many of you are taking time to formulate your thoughts.

Regarding your second point, yes, I’m the lead writer. I manage a team of narrative designers and writers who are currently tasked with writing plot, advancing character development, and drafting dialog for the Living World releases. I do not set the release schedule or contribute meaningfully toward critical design systems like rewards, skills, combat, etc.

That stated, comments about the release pacing (a.k.a. how frequently we put out Living World updates) and related features (task tracking, replayable content, etc.) are extremely useful to others at the studio.

Thanks, Bobby. I can only speak for myself, but I do appreciate the work you guys put into the forums. Especially given that, unless you’re not on the west coast for some reason, you’re reading and responding to the forums at 7:30am, which I think says volumes for how seriously you guys are taking this.

timmyf.1490:

TooBz.3065:

Put another way, there should really be a logic behind these alliances. A reason the Krait, who attack everyone on sight, would agree to this. A reason the nightmare court would agree to this. Other than a cackling evil supervillian, I’m evil because I’m evil motivation.

Yeah, I mean, why couldn’t they give the Krait some sort of reason, in-game, to work with the Nightmare Court? And tie it to Scarlet? You know, something like… Scarlet somehow can get the Krait some of their important religious artifacts. The Krait are xenophobic, but they are also religious, so maybe their religion can overcome their xenophobia?

Just spit-balling here…

Hmm correct me If I’m wrong, but i’m pretty sure, either in idle talk or one of the NPCs at the camp said that there was rumours Scarlet got an Obelisk piece for the Krait.

Edgar Doiron.2804:

Hmm correct me If I’m wrong, but i’m pretty sure, either in idle talk or one of the NPCs at the camp said that there was rumours Scarlet got an Obelisk piece for the Krait.

That’s what he was alluding to.

Kiayin.3427:

Here are some of the things I’ve observed/my suggestions ><.

Continuity and characterization:

• 1.a Instead of always adding new threats and characters, work sometimes on expanding what’s already there in a meaningful way. Tyria is a beautiful world, full of interesting characters you have already established, yet most of them are relegated to cameo roles.
• 2.a People care about characters. Characters drive stories. Those short-stories on the site are nice, but they can’t be our only reliable source of lore and character development!

Disconnection:

• 2.b The pc so far has been very marginally involved with what has been happening. People do not feel connected to the story.
• 3. Involve your community! Community events [with the living story as their main theme, such as the diorama contest last year] help people forge a deeper connection with their games and usually make for a very positive and creative atmosphere. Take the living story outside of the game and make the players live it! The rewards do not need to be anything grand.

Awareness, continuity and communication:

• 1.b Right now it very much feels like every two weeks some random event pops up somewhere random in the world. I believe this week’s LS (The Tower of Nightmares) had a nice lead up, but too much of it was still left to chance. I would have never known that something weird was going on in Kessex Hills beforehand if I hadn’t looked at the forum/official site. Why not add some npcs talking about it (even very vaguely) in the main cities, for example? We do not need a herald, just some clues here and there.
• 4. The living stories themselves are often lacking in clarity and direction. Why is looking at the achievement panel the only way to understand what is going on, most of the times? It’s either that or some bright gold star in the world map. There needs to be a middle ground.

Pacing and quality:

• 5. It has been said so many times I lost count, but the current pace is simply stressful and kills the fun. Quality and replay value over quantity. Instead of being stuck doing the very same thing dressed up in a different skin week after week, releasing a LS update once a month should give you enough time to truly come up with some unique, different ideas. [Example: People have been clamouring for the home instance to have a use, so you put a quartz node in front of the orphanage in Salma District? Just… why?]

Gem Store:

• 6. Time-gated rng weapon sets is a business practice that puts off a lot of people and has been giving Anet a bad image. It leaves a sour taste in the community that overrides most of the positive impressions.

This poster right here has every complaint and fix to this I can think of. I back his feedback 100%.

Hey Anet, Just thought i’d add my opinion on the living story topic. First of all I think we need some expansion on the next dragon becoming a main threat after Scarlet is dealt with which will hopefully be soon, i would like to see more personal story missions with deeper and more emotional character development. Destiny’s edge at this point should be with the alongside the Pact and Trahearne in there further endeavors. Speaking of Trahearne maybe even before the next dragon, Orr needs to be cleansed; considering Zhaitan is dead the Risen have been been pushed back to Orr and are being dwindled by the Pact forces. There should be no more Risen in the main land of Tyria, so Caledon Forest etc and only sanctioned to Orr, Saying that Trahearne by now should have at least come up with a way to cleanse Orr given the events in the personal story. So that means a remodeling of Orr less death and more life and showing that there are less Risen and new events showing the Pact are pushing the Risen out. Hope you like my idea and maybe you have already considered this, I would love as a GW1 and 2 vet see this.

Thanks!

Galen Grey.4709:

Elbegast.6970:

Halvorn.9831:

There is a very general problem.

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

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

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

That isnt true. When Molten Alliance patch was removed it left behind the refugees. Those refugees had direct impact on the next LS segement. They build a ton of infrastructure in southsun. When that ended the infrastructure was left there but the refugees themselves moved over to cragstead. By the end of that Cragstead was rebuilt from a town in ruins. The refugees are there to this day, you can go talking to them. Even little things remain… go to Holbrak to the area where the refugees camp were you can still see to this day the charred ground when the campfires were set and the lack of snow patches where the tents were pitched. The world doesnt reset to its exact state before the patch ones the patch is removed. little changes remain. The story does evolve. Those poor refugees are a good example. created in january they’re still in game today.

The “world” may have evovled, but the game did not. Wayfarer Foothills and Diessa are exactly the same post Flame and Frost, barring 2 new areas that contain no gameplay within them.

When the same LS “chapter” introduces a new enemy faction with new mechanics, two new unique NPCs, and one of the most highly regarded dungeons in the games (albeit short) lifespan… I dont want to be left with only some nameless refugees and different colored pixels in the corner of Hoelbrak.

BobbyStein.2315:

timmyf.1490:

Yetiyen.7269:

You’ve completely ignored the biggest problem with the living story, most players WANT PERMANENT CONENT! You’ve got 10 pages of people telling you that they want new zones and more permanent content. Yet you haven’t responded or provided an answer to these players at all. I’m not trying to be rude, but I thought the idea of this thread was for you to listen to the community and provide us with feedback. You still need to address:

1. Permanent content! We want new areas!
(New zones and areas etc.)

2. The pace of the Living Story!
(2 weeks is too fast!)

It would be really appreciated if you could address these issues.

1. Demanding things from the developers will get you nowhere.
2. Bobby Stein – correct me if I’m wrong, guys – is a writer. He can’t address those issues because that’s not what his job is.

Your first point is true. When feedback is phrased like a demand it usually gets ignored. Constructive, thoughtful commentary is what we need. Thankfully, there’s a lot of it in this thread so I and the other devs appreciate that so many of you are taking time to formulate your thoughts.

Regarding your second point, yes, I’m the lead writer. I manage a team of narrative designers and writers who are currently tasked with writing plot, advancing character development, and drafting dialog for the Living World releases. I do not set the release schedule or contribute meaningfully toward critical design systems like rewards, skills, combat, etc.

That stated, comments about the release pacing (a.k.a. how frequently we put out Living World updates) and related features (task tracking, replayable content, etc.) are extremely useful to others at the studio.

Thanks for your feedback, but it doesn’t sound like you’re the person who should be addressing many/most of the points this thread brings up.

I actually had a question about this insatiable need for a dragon-centric story from everyone. I did not play the original GW, and while I do like dragon fights because they tend to be epic in scale, why is everyone in love with them? Sure, they are neat, but surely, and arenanet has shown this capability even in GW2, there are other epic villains and bosses to fight. I know as per lore there are certain dragons out there in the guild wars universe. Putting scarlet aside, because I think she is a shell of a villain, would you folks not be happy if the next major villain were not a dragon? If it were some enormous titan or something?

Which brings be to another thought which relates to dragons and a reason why people might love them so much: Dragons tend to be huge which lead to epic encounters and cutscenes. Sure, agreed. But you can have an even more interesting villain in the form of a humanoid such as Scarlett, if she was written better. Take Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2. Arguably one of the better villains in a video game from recent years. His character just dogs you all game, ruthless, belittles you, holds nothing back. In a way, I feel the writers of Scarlet tried to emulate Handsome Jack a bit, but fell a bit short. And then when you do fight him, it is a pretty interesting fight. I think he was well written. If scarlett had more character to her, her form as a sylvari would be completely acceptable to me. Size and form are irrelevant.

What Im trying to say is..Im trying to wrap my head around this need to have GW2 villains be dragons or large and epic in scale. They are fun, but there is no need if the character is well written. Is it because they relate to the lore of guild wars more?

rizzo.1079:

Thanks for your feedback, but it doesn’t sound like you’re the person who should be addressing many/most of the points this thread brings up.

Were you expecting the devs to come on here and do one of these?

1. “Point somebody made.”

Here is our solution to this point.

2. “Another point from somebody else.”

Yes, we will fix this by doing X on the patch that will hit on Date.

3. “Angry point, RNG bad, Scarlet Sue.”

You’re totally right and we’re sorry. Here, have Cantha!
—-

If so, I think you’ll be rather disappointed with how this process will go.

After playing the content last night, and seeing comments like this:

2. Don’t tell story via achievements.
4. It’s weird having the rest of the events going on as per usual in the rest of kessex hills. I realize that’s an issue of resources, but perhaps events in the immediate vicinity could be turned off during the crisis.

I think it’s a recurring problem. We get story at the start of an update, then we have the achievements, which brings no story really, and once we’re done the meta, we get another piece of story.

That’s how it was during Blood and Madness. And also how it is in Tower of Nightmares.

I mean, I do understand that filler part with the achievements, we’re fighting these foes for this event and such. But take the Obelisk Shards we’re sent to transcribe.

When I first saw that, I was like Yeah! Krait Lore on each shard! But nope, it was just interact and find the next one. It’s stuff like this, that I think are missed opportunity to expand the lore.

Also, when something this big arrives to a map, I really do think that most event surrounding the area should be canned and new one should take their place.

Like this one that triggered when I was playing last night. It really felt out of place in the middle of this Krait infestation.

That is all. Keep up the good work, really like that opening story, and all the NPC idle talk and what they had to say.

Kasmeer event references the short story about Majory Delaqua, nice touch!

cesmode.4257:

I actually had a question about this insatiable need for a dragon-centric story from everyone.

Mainly it is because other villians are out to conquer or subjugate while the very existence of the elder dragons threatens to eraddicate Tyria.

Who cares if alliance number one takes over zone ‘A’ if an elder dragon is going to awaken and destroy the planet?

As a hero, who do you stop? The guy invading fort <whatever> or the primal force of nature that is going to bring about the apocalypse?

cesmode.4257:

I actually had a question about this insatiable need for a dragon-centric story from everyone. I did not play the original GW, and while I do like dragon fights because they tend to be epic in scale, why is everyone in love with them? Sure, they are neat, but surely, and arenanet has shown this capability even in GW2, there are other epic villains and bosses to fight. I know as per lore there are certain dragons out there in the guild wars universe. Putting scarlet aside, because I think she is a shell of a villain, would you folks not be happy if the next major villain were not a dragon? If it were some enormous titan or something?

Which brings be to another thought which relates to dragons and a reason why people might love them so much: Dragons tend to be huge which lead to epic encounters and cutscenes. Sure, agreed. But you can have an even more interesting villain in the form of a humanoid such as Scarlett, if she was written better. Take Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2. Arguably one of the better villains in a video game from recent years. His character just dogs you all game, ruthless, belittles you, holds nothing back. In a way, I feel the writers of Scarlet tried to emulate Handsome Jack a bit, but fell a bit short. And then when you do fight him, it is a pretty interesting fight. I think he was well written. If scarlett had more character to her, her form as a sylvari would be completely acceptable to me. Size and form are irrelevant.

What Im trying to say is..Im trying to wrap my head around this need to have GW2 villains be dragons or large and epic in scale. They are fun, but there is no need if the character is well written. Is it because they relate to the lore of guild wars more?

GW had one dragon. Glint, a benevolent lesser dragon. We never fought an elder dragon, they were dormant. The Great Destroyer was.. a Destroyer. The re-emergence of the Elder Dragons destroyed the world as we knew it in GW. They are the dominant force on the world and reshaped the world totally. Tyria now is the result of the Elder Dragons.

I guess you have no idea how much of the world was taken from us. No connection to Cantha, Elona, no clue how big an area the Shiverpeaks were. No real idea how thin a shred of Tyria we play in.

But yeah, ignore em. Not that big a deal compared to Poison Ivy with a Brain concussion.

Xar.6185:

cesmode.4257:

I actually had a question about this insatiable need for a dragon-centric story from everyone.

Mainly it is because other villians are out to conquer or subjugate while the very existence of the elder dragons threatens to eraddicate Tyria.

Who cares if alliance number one takes over zone ‘A’ if an elder dragon is going to awaken and destroy the planet?

As a hero, who do you stop? The guy invading fort <whatever> or the primal force of nature that is going to bring about the apocalypse?

I thought the dragons were only there to suck back the excess magic in the world… so hmm if we’re fighting them, aren’t we the one that will destroy the planet?

I’m going to try to keep this short – I would like to see the idea of southsun expanded. The idea of an island (or a map) that changes over time and where the plot is driven forward. I think it was great to see it grow – then the story was “over” and now there is literally no reason to go back there, especially not alone since the events are deadly and usually at choke points.

One of the main problems, as far as I understand, is not to scatter players all over the place. Having a main area that does not interfere with world exploration, the personal storyline etc that is ever changing because it can literally explode would be great.

We could go back and forth in our story, the queen has her tournament, a dragon attacked southsun, moto opens his SAB, civil war broke out on the island, the mad king arrives, the ground caved in and there is a dungeon to discover, Tixx is here, we shouldn’t have gone too deep into the dungeon – mutated karka appear, happy easter, a pirate boat goes ashore in southsun …

cesmode.4257:

I actually had a question about this insatiable need for a dragon-centric story from everyone. I did not play the original GW, and while I do like dragon fights because they tend to be epic in scale, why is everyone in love with them?

In a world where dragons are perceived as the “ultimate threat”, I always found this extra stuff to be filler.
We don’t assume it that way. We’re kinda told that from the game’s outset.

Edgar Doiron.2804:

After playing the content last night, and seeing comments like this:

2. Don’t tell story via achievements.
4. It’s weird having the rest of the events going on as per usual in the rest of kessex hills. I realize that’s an issue of resources, but perhaps events in the immediate vicinity could be turned off during the crisis.

I think it’s a recurring problem. We get story at the start of an update, then we have the achievements, which brings no story really, and once we’re done the meta, we get another piece of story.

This is precisely the problem with Achievements being part of the living story. They add no story themselves. They give us check lists of things to do, which after several LS releases, becomes a boring grind to get the next mini pet and achievement points. I would love if the living story was void of achievement grinding. Why do we need 10-20 achievements that ask you to run spirit sanctum race 100 times, or carve 300 pumpkins, or close 5 invasions, or whatever. Its pointless. Its just grind and we do not want to do that.

Focus more on the story, more on the reward of experiencing the story and living in the ..living story. Less on the extrinsic reward of achievements, achievement points, meta achievements, minis, etc. More focus on intrinsic. I think we’ll still do the living story eventseven if we are not being showered with rewards and AP because its something new to do!

Edgar Doiron.2804:

I thought the dragons were only there to suck back the excess magic in the world…

If that was true, they would not be the primary antagonists. Unfortunately for those living in this era, it seems they are also a force of unbridled destruction, that is aimed at eliminating all civilized (and not so civilized) races. Risen, Branded, Icebrood, Destroyers… all of them have on thing in common – they attack and kill on sight (or corrupt into mindless minions) everything that is not them.

@dragon subtopic: I understand its part of GW history and lore, and that given the choice of fighting Zhaitan or some crazy sylvari lady, Id fight zhaitan. Definately. But if Scarlet had some method at her disposal to do considerable harm to the entire world of Tyria..say, remove…asura from the face of Tyria(just an example), would that be inching closer to being as interesting as fighting dragons?

As this is a lot bout the release speed.
There is a lot of discussion bout this. The main problem in my opinion is that not everyone spents the same amount off time, but too many people are afraid to miss a thing. I am currently ‘between jobs’. This means I spent bout 8 hours per day online (would be more, but I’m restraining myself).

The current living story that started less then 24 hours ago is almost done for me. When the game came out I still had a job and was restricted to 3 hours per day to play.

So I do think that the living story should be rewarding/interesting for people regardless off playtime, but it should not only serve the people with less time but also those with enough time.

My suggestion would be to add more rewards. lets take a living story that rewards a mini for example. Dragonbash would be a good example. You might remember the miniatures that dropped.

If you do 4 of the living story achievements you get a Mini Holographic Branded Minotaur.
If you do another 4 (different set off) achievements you get a Mini Holographic Axe-Wielding Destroyer.
for the 3d set of 4 achievements you also get a Mini Holographic Corrupted Wolf
for the 4th set of 4 achievements you get a Mini Holographic Risen Knight

If you get all achievements you can choose to put them all 4 in the mystic forge and get Mini Holographic Colossus.

This way hopefully people will feel less forced to do all achievements. Due to grouping the achievements in sets of 4, people can pick what reward they want. For the people like me, with more time we get an additional reward and motivation to do everything.

This could also work for e.g. the mining node in the home instance. For doing 4 halloween achievements you get a candy corn node. For doing all halloween achievements you get it upgraded to a rich candy corn node.

I’m not saying that it has to be a minuature or a node in the home instance, but I am saying that doing a small bit off the living story should be as rewarding as doing everything.

Last remark is that everyone should be able to finish the living story. In that I mean they should be allowed to know how it ends regardless off how much time you put into it.

For example clockwork chaos as it was:
The Queen did her speech, then people needed to do a lot of grinding to find out how it ended. Then people needed to do a lot off grinding before they could go into the the playhouse to find out how it ended. as a lousy fix you made it so that people could join in with someone who did this. This kind of independence is annoying to people. Instead you could release the content over time.
Day 1: The queens speech – first reward
Day 3: The asura emmisary gives out his device and sents the players to start the investigation – second reward. This part is optional.
Day 5: The investigation is done, now the emmisary needs parts for his portal device. – third reward. This part is optional.
Day 7: The portal device is ready and we can enter the playhouse.

So even if you didnt do anything the portal device will be working for you. All parts can be done later on. So you can decide to skip, and later find time and still do that part.

So, now it’s time to deploy my analysis and criticism of Scarlet. Thanks again to the ArenaNet devs for this opportunity for discussion, and in particular to Bobby for his continued engagement with this thread.

Anyway, my general dislike for Scarlet has been fairly public, although unlike many such people, I do think she’s redeemable (as a character, not as a Heel Face Turn subject). Here are the things I think weaken her story, and what I think would help in improving her or, in cases where it’s already too late, help prevent similar mistakes in the past:

1: She does everything.

A large part of the “Villain Sue” reaction has come from the short story, which presents her as being an expert in, basically, everything that’s relevant to engineering, from every race apart from humanity (which she picked up in Jubilee…). Part of the reason for this is that it feels like unnecessarily inflating the character to make her more powerful.

Given what we know of her story, here are the elements that were actually necessary:

1) She’s a sylvari, and doesn’t like the idea of the Dream telling her what to do.

2) She was an impressive enough engineer, and has such a strong interest in knowing how things work, that she caught the attention of the College of Synergetics, and studied with them.

3) She then proceeded to work with the Inquest, confirming her lack of general morality.

4) She undertook an experiment to probe the true nature of the Eternal Alchemy that flipped her crazy switch.

Studying at the other two colleges is filler that just seems to be there to make her appear more impressive – and throwing in stuff that serves no purpose except to pump up a character is a classic Mary-Sue trait. Likewise, becoming an expert in norn metallurgy and charr engineering was not only unnecessary (a basic grounding in the latter can pretty much be considered assumed knowledge for any engineer) but also missed the opportunity of having more characters. Instead of being Beigarth’s apprentice herself, she could have won Beigarth’s disgruntled apprentice to her cause as a metallurgist. Instead of studying under a charr gladium who became so angry at her leaving that the gladium tried to coerce her into remaining by force, why not recruit the gladium that’s desperate for a new warband? Extend this into the story arcs as well (maybe she had an infiltrator on the watchknight production line that installed backdoors, for instance) and we could have a full Rogue’s Gallery.

2: She’s forming these strange alliances on a whim, and our explanation as to how have generally been “Scarlet did it”.

This is essentially the Scarlet-specific side of the “extrapolation is good” angle.

To be fair, the signs in the current update indicate that this time around, we ARE getting explanations as to why this particular alliance has formed and how Scarlet pulled it off. However, this has been the exception to the rule. Despite having had an Aetherblade captain in custody for months, we still have no idea how the Aetherblades formed (except that they have, or had, some alliance with the Inquest) or just why they’re so afraid of Scarlet (“They work for me, you know, because they like living!”). Going back, we have the Molten Alliance – there was a lot of speculation back during F&F of how such an alliance could have formed without needing an external party at all, but what we got at the time was that it was brokered by some snake-faced, silver-tongued woman from the city (that turned out to be Scarlet). At the moment, the only explanation we’ve been given for either is “She is Scarlet, whom all evil factions are sufficiently charmed and/or terrified by to do whatever she wants.”

Let us know how she does that. Did she form the Molten Alliance through pointing out to the dredge and Flame Legion leaders that they both had common enemies united against them that were sure to defeat them unless they formed alliances in turn? Is she blackmailing the Aetherblades by threatening to reveal all their hideouts to the Pact? Knowing these things would help to flesh out both Scarlet and the forces that serve her.

(cont.)

3: The buildup could have been a lot better.

Again, I think you’re working on this, and that’s good. However, there were a lot of missed opportunities to provide more buildup that could have increased our investment in the story.

Take Scarlet for instance. How much more investment would we have had in her story if we’d met her as Caera beforehand? Helped her demonstrate to the College of Synergetics that she’s a worthy student? Commiserated with her over her treatment by her asura classmates? Wondered at her disappearance until we “rescued” her from the Inquest, then returned her to the scholarly mentor who has an experiment in mind that, if successful, will ensure her recognition? Come across the end results of the failed experiment, and being left with the concern of what happened to her when we couldn’t find her body?

Given the logistics involved, I’d accept that this wasn’t really possible the first time around, but for future villains, especially those intended to be a kind of personal nemesis to the PCs, this sort of thing would be quite valuable. Make it personal. Make it someone that we knew before they went bad.

On a related note, we were told around Dragon Bash that the Aetherblades stole their airships from the Pact. As commanders of the Pact, how is it that the first we knew of airships going missing was when a fleet of them started airdropping pirates into Lion’s Arch? This is the sort of thing where receiving some report to that effect a few months earlier could plant a seed that could grow later, even if there’s not really much at the time the players can do about it.

4. We’re getting mixed messages as to whether we should take her seriously

On the one hand, we’re getting short stories going on about how awesome she is while she organises more and more alliances of enemy factions under her banner. On the other hand, this supposed genius of a threat, on our first encounter, is found being lead into her own cannoball fire (which she declares are her only weakness), fighting renowned heroes with a giant club, and letting herself being lured into explosive barrels, while treating every engagement as a massive joke.

There’s… a bit of a dissonance here. Should we take her seriously, or is she a joke villain? If the latter, she really shouldn’t be the main focus of the Living Story, but I’m reasonably sure she’s the former. In that case, her behaviour can (and, during the TowerTalk interview, effectively has) been explained by her massively underestimating the PCs – but the more she continues treating the PCs and their allies as jokes while they foil more and more of her plans, the sillier it gets. She needs to start taking us seriously – which doesn’t mean she can’t continue getting laughs at our expense, but as the story progresses she needs to start appearing less happy-go-lucky. To take the archetypical example: the Joker plays cruel jokes on Gotham City in general and Batman in particular, but he still takes Batman seriously as an adversary.

(cont.)

First I am going to throw in some positive input about the living story. Later after I put more thought into it I will make a post about some improvements:

1- I like that the living story is low key as compared to the over all main storyline with the Dragons. I like that the living story doesn’t have anything to do with the dragons. Reason why is with the living story being low key, it isn’t detrimental for someone to take a break and miss the content, since it doesn’t affect the dragons storyline. If the storyline has anything to do with the Dragons, then it should be permanent content, but having a low key storyline is perfect for it being temporary content.

2- This current living story update (Tower of Nightmares) is perfect in time needed to gain the reward. In ~4 hours of playing I was able to get 11/14 achievement done towards the final reward. This tells me that the time needed is very casual friendly. I am estimating about another 2 hours or less to complete 3 more achievements, so ~6 hours to get the final reward. 6 hours to be done in 2 weeks (assuming we only have 2 weeks and it won’t carry on pass that) is very casual friendly because the casual player doesn’t need to spend their whole playing time to get the final reward.

So that is the positives I see about the living story, and I hope it continues on that path in that regard.

I will make another post some other time for the improvements I would like to see.

5. Scarlet makes the good guys look like they’re holding the Idiot Ball

Idiot Ball plots are annoying in general, but particularly annoying when it’s the player’s allies – and, by extension, the player – that is made to carry it by the writer.

From my perspective, this is not actually the obvious. I can accept that Scarlet can pull off many of the stunts that she has. Blowing up the Dragon Bash? She discovered some means of creating a magical explosive that the Lionguard didn’t know to look for, people can slip up without carrying the Idiot Ball. QJ? She’s Tyria’s equivalent of a master hacker and has (or should have) subordinates who are probably more experienced with magitech than the humans who built the Watchknights, and we’ve seen that asura golems are not immune to being hacked either.

The actual problem is… it’s a common trope that the bad guys usually have more interesting equipment than the good guys, one which Guild Wars 2 subverted with the Pact. However, many of Scarlet’s toys, apart from the steam creatures (which we’re still waiting on an explanation for, but that’s the sort of mystery that it’s reasonable to wait for a bit on) are coming from things that were made by the player’s allies. As referenced above – if the Aetherblades stole their original airship models off the Pact, why hasn’t the Pact been more active in looking for retribution for this (maybe the explanation is “that’s what the PC’s actions represent”, but that’s something that we should be told)?

However, I think the biggest issue here is in the holograms. It was Lion’s Arch that made them, and during Dragon Bash, they were formidable combatants. Now, while they were a festival-only thing, we can accept a certain element of lassitude here (maybe the holograms can’t actually directly hurt people, but each generator was accompanied by an adjudicator that judged when a contestant would have been beaten had the holograms been real). In Twilight Assault, though, it’s a major part of the path that the holograms that the Aetherblades stole in Dragon Bash are actually genuinely suitable as weapons of war. With that being the case, why aren’t we seeing the Lionguard and/or the Pact making large-scale use of their own hologram generators, whether against Scarlet or against their other enemies? Even if the Lionguard generators remain at the level they were during Dragon Bash, the ability to deploy generators that will create four potent, completely expendable soldiers when activated is a potent defensive resource – I simply cannot believe Scarlet is the only one that’s seen their potential.

In the bigger picture, this comes into letting both sides see the obvious uses of a new technology, and letting the allies of the players advance as well as their enemies. It makes for a more compelling world when the arms races aren’t one-sided.

On a similar note of letting the good guys develop as well as the bad – as well as the Lionguard starting to use hologram generators in defending their havens, once the Queen and Shining Blade are suitably comfortable that the security holes have been patched, it’d be good to start seeing Watchknights start being incorporated into Kryta’s military. For both the holograms and the Watchknights, let’s see them actually being deployed in the defense of their respective nations rather than being relegated to use as toys.

(cont.)

mercury ranique.2170:

So I do think that the living story should be rewarding/interesting for people regardless off playtime, but it should not only serve the people with less time but also those with enough time.

*My suggestion would be to add more rewards. *

That right there, is my major gripe with the Living story. It’s called living story not living rewards.

Why is everyone so focused on rewards, when the game isn’t gear based. I’d like a bigger focus on Story more than rewards. If you’re just doing the achievements for the rewards, and not really enjoying the story. What’s the point?

Let’s go back to dragon bash, following the living story granted us a book, which we could replay the cinematic of our first meeting with Majory Delaqua. Now that’s a nice reward for a Living Story. It’s actually tied to the story. A Useless mini that gets stored in my collection? A Back item, I have so many back item skins that I don’t even know what to do with them anymore.

Why not reward us with more lore, instead of more fluff.