Guild Wars 2

Hello all.
I am sick with a bad head cold and can’t seem to be be able to put words together because of it, but, after reading this thread, I feel I don’t have to as everyone has done a beautiful job.

Speaking for myself, I am enjoying the frequent content. On my wishlist is more missions that can be done solo. Waypointing into Kessex and finding myself in a mission was a very wonderful experience. I am a reader. I love lore. I like taking my time and seeing all there is to see.

One thing I do not want to see more of in future Living Stories, or any mission in GuildWars2 for that matter is locking important things (Like Voting) behind Jumping puzzles. I am a clutz. I have real problems getting to some Vistas. Locking shinies behind Jumping Puzzles is ok, but important things, like voting, is not.

Anyways, I look forward to seeing what this talented bunch of Devs have in store for us

Lisa-Stumbling back to bed clutching a hot water bottle.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Conncept.7638:

BobbyStein.2315:

It’s more a matter of finishing what we started, implementing what we’ve already designed, and setting the game up for the next arc…

Why couldn’t the design team have this attitude when they attempted and failed to expand on the event system? I swear it seems like they barely even tried…

Hi Conncept,

Can you provide some more details please in order to add more value to the discussion. Can you explain what you mean by attempted and failed to expand on the event system? Where do you think we failed and what do you see as success?

Chris

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

Conncept.7638:

BobbyStein.2315:

It’s more a matter of finishing what we started, implementing what we’ve already designed, and setting the game up for the next arc…

Why couldn’t the design team have this attitude when they attempted and failed to expand on the event system? I swear it seems like they barely even tried…

This is exactly my thought. I think stopping at 60 new events “around the world” was bizarre. Honestly, did the team expect people to even get a sense for added DEs until they got to almost doubling the # in the game? I’m surprised at that.
The current DEs repeat so fast & with such an obvious cycle that the world isn’t dynamic. we were told that certain events would be on month-long cycles. It seems pretty obvious that the current number of DEs, in terms of making a dynamic world, is not NEARLY enough.

If they don’t add regular DEs, i’d love for them to think about doing something that is actually more free-agent or battle-plan type stuff. I think Rifts invasions are far superior to the Scarlet invasions & I think using tech like that where, say, Centaurs actually build up forces, then move out(like, actually move), taking control of certain points on the map & disrupting current DEs & towns, would be more interesting. Especially if they vary their strategies & order & it only happens like twice a week.

I think it would behoove them to think of certain PvE maps like WvE.. with push & pull, roaming mobs, mob zergs, keeps, upgrading..etc.. but they need to do it in a way that is not scripted. the mobs need to be free-agents with agendas, not rail-following, spawn-at-this-time mobs.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Conncept.7638:

BobbyStein.2315:

It’s more a matter of finishing what we started, implementing what we’ve already designed, and setting the game up for the next arc…

Why couldn’t the design team have this attitude when they attempted and failed to expand on the event system? I swear it seems like they barely even tried…

Hi Conncept,

Can you provide some more details please in order to add more value to the discussion. Can you explain what you mean by attempted and failed to expand on the event system? Where do you think we failed and what do you see as success?

Chris

Perhaps one of the best ways to move forward with this (given the state of the game and the resources available) would be to begin implementing additional steps to already-present DEs. Imagine the surprise when the Shadow Behemoth’s death spawns an onslaught from “the other side” that then has to be stopped before rendering all the waypoints in the south of Queensdale contested.

You’d have a bunch of players going, “Wait, what? It’s not over?” The “newness” of the event would add to the surprise and the motivation to discover the other DEs that suddenly have more to them.

Whereas I’m not opposed to the introduction of more, independent DEs, I think the real strength of the DE system lies in prolonged encounters that evolve as they’re played out. At the moment, this doesn’t happen much (save for Orr invasions). So at the very least I believe this would be a good place to start.

The Living World should be:

Recurring Festivals
New DEs and frequent upgrades to existing ones
Occasional temporary side-stories that are autonomous from the larger story and are used to bridge lore gaps or enhance existing lore

Anything that doesn’t fit in the above, including larger stories that are attempts to move the world forward in time (such as the F&F story), should be implemented as permanent expansions to the PS, which should also get some general upgrades like the ability to replay instances and read NPC bios.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Conncept.7638:

BobbyStein.2315:

It’s more a matter of finishing what we started, implementing what we’ve already designed, and setting the game up for the next arc…

Why couldn’t the design team have this attitude when they attempted and failed to expand on the event system? I swear it seems like they barely even tried…

Hi Conncept,

Can you provide some more details please in order to add more value to the discussion. Can you explain what you mean by attempted and failed to expand on the event system? Where do you think we failed and what do you see as success?

Chris

Sure. A short time in to the games release, before the LS, the developers stated that they wished to spend development time and resources expanding on the existing ‘core’ event system over the whole game world, everybody loved the idea and I haven’t seen players so excited since. Note that when it was announced existing events was the wording used.

Cue the Modus Secleris events. While they did have some interesting combat mechanics they didn’t scale properly, and had no story; but more importantly they (and whatever events were implemented with them, players still don’t know what those 60 events were) couldn’t be found by any method except scouring the entire bleeding world, and none were in any way related to the existing event, stories, characters, and areas we loved and were hoping to see expanded. They were just… there… they could have been placed anywhere in the world without actually feeling like they were part of the world.

In short, the design team completely botched it. What was implemented was not what players wanted or had in mind when they asked for expansion on the DE system.

And then seemingly without any feedback whatsoever, from which they may have concluded that these events failed for reasons that could be easily addressed in even a single subsequent attempt, the expanding of the event system just seemed to piddle off as southsun came and went, hard-stopped for the holidays, and a few months later the LS started with its temporary content and side-story rather than the expansion of the core content and existing stories I believe most players hoped for.

What I believe players wanted can be summed up as: Expansions on the existing stories and event mechanics already within the world, to the end that these stories feel more alive, expanding outward based on more advanced event mechanics, more story steps, leading to more varied story steps, player choice, and player success or failure. That expansion can come by way of the LS updates, or just retcons of new content into existing areas.

I don’t want to see a giant tower out of nowhere on the front lines of the war with the centaurs nearly as much as I would like to actually see the story of the war with the centaurs. I don’t want to see the dredge and flame legions ‘powers combined’ as much as I would like to see the stories which the flame legion and the dredge are already a part of continued. Tyria already felt like a living world on release, those feelings just needed to be continued, but were instead diverged away from, and in some cases wholly ignored.

(Sorry I’m saying ‘them’ as if you aren’t part of the conversation but I have no idea if you were a part of the team of developers at the time or not)

I’ll flesh this out if I have time or if more people would like more in depth details but I’ll try to get across my point.

The living story steps need a way to be replayed that fits into the world / lore. I also think that this replayablility should apply to the personal story and even parts of holiday events.

I think a good way to do this would be to utilize the main cities in certain ways.

Lions Arch has portals to every city, portals to WvW, easy travel from the heart of the mists, the mystic forge, all the dungeon vendors and fractals of the mists. Oh and Moa racing. It is chock full and needs no more stuff to make peolpe travel there.

In the Grove. Use the pale tree and the dream to ‘see / participate’ in the living story steps or replay personal story parts (perhaps even choosing differently, though this wouldn’t affect your actual PS, just let you see more parts without creating another character of the same race). The pale tree actually does something similar to this for you and Trahearne in a story step. Doing it this way lets people select what they want to do. Want to do the Molten Facility? Don’t hope for a random fractal, put it here selectable in the Grove. Same thing for Aetherblade retreat. This would allow the living world / story to continue at whatever pace it wants without rushing and herding players from map to map. Players would be able to step in and out of the story without fear of missing anything.

The Black Citadel is the perfect place to host warband vs. warband… Er…. Guild Vs. Guild rather, on a neutral field so to speak. Guilds could post on an in game ‘bulletin board’ for challenges or schedule matches or even recruit.

Hoelbrak should be where all of the ‘pvp’ activities portals are located. Like southun survival, crab toss, sanctum sprint, keg brawl and maybe even add on a special rotation of the limited time activities like reapers rumble, dragon ball or snowball mayhem.

Rata Sum needs to have the Super Adventure Box become permanent. There could still be a ‘living’ focus brought to it once or twice a year when new levels are added or tribuilation mode is altered or new skins are cycled in and out. Also the polymock arena is there so if and when that is implemented that make two strong reasons to visit Rata Sum.

That leaves Divinties Reach. This is where we leverage the Queen’s Gauntlet combined with the heart quest in plains of ashford, Help Paenula train the troops by fighting in the pit and capturing creatures. Players would be able to go to DR speak to a ‘Big Game Hunter’ of sorts and choose first by location, then by type etc a specific PvE mob to fight solo or in a group. These could be bounty targets, wandering champs, dungeon bosses etc. All unlockable by doing specific things. For example if you wanted to choose the cave troll from queensdale you would have to have queensdale map completion or have killed a certain number or type of trolls. To unlock Kholer from ascalonian catacombs you would have to have completed AC story mode first etc.

This would help to spread out the population from LA and allow people to replay the living story steps in a non immersion breaking way.

DarksunG.9537:

Conncept.7638:

BobbyStein.2315:

It’s more a matter of finishing what we started, implementing what we’ve already designed, and setting the game up for the next arc…

Why couldn’t the design team have this attitude when they attempted and failed to expand on the event system? I swear it seems like they barely even tried…

This is exactly my thought. I think stopping at 60 new events “around the world” was bizarre. Honestly, did the team expect people to even get a sense for added DEs until they got to almost doubling the # in the game? I’m surprised at that.
The current DEs repeat so fast & with such an obvious cycle that the world isn’t dynamic. we were told that certain events would be on month-long cycles. It seems pretty obvious that the current number of DEs, in terms of making a dynamic world, is not NEARLY enough.

If they don’t add regular DEs, i’d love for them to think about doing something that is actually more free-agent or battle-plan type stuff. I think Rifts invasions are far superior to the Scarlet invasions & I think using tech like that where, say, Centaurs actually build up forces, then move out(like, actually move), taking control of certain points on the map & disrupting current DEs & towns, would be more interesting. Especially if they vary their strategies & order & it only happens like twice a week.

I think it would behoove them to think of certain PvE maps like WvE.. with push & pull, roaming mobs, mob zergs, keeps, upgrading..etc.. but they need to do it in a way that is not scripted. the mobs need to be free-agents with agendas, not rail-following, spawn-at-this-time mobs.

I’ve been saying for a while now that they need to add WvW mechanics (especially supply and siege) to PvE in dynamic event form. In fact when Colin was talking about adding dynamic events to the world post launch, I was thinking this is what he was talking about. Hirathi Hinterlands is probably one of the best examples of DEs working really well. I had so much fun there, but since it’s so far out of the way and the rewards are not any better than other places no one goes there in numbers that would be fun.

I think Orr has some of the best dynamic events with actual consequences for losing (contested waypoint and no access to the armor karma vendor or losing access to Arah). I would like them to expand these two ideas (map conquest and consequences) to certain regions with dynamic events that matter to players.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Can you provide some more details please in order to add more value to the discussion. Can you explain what you mean by attempted and failed to expand on the event system? Where do you think we failed and what do you see as success?

Chris

Well let me answer this one, as I was very underwhelmed by the dynamic events as well.

My expectations for the dynamic events and the game as a whole were quire different, mainly due to all the promises in the manifesto. The whole “the game cares that you’re there”, for the most part.

I expected much more of a sandbox world driven by player actions and player choices. I expected that all the servers would diverge and become different, because of all the different choices made by players (much like Ultima Online). I expected players/guilds to be able to hold non-instanced territory (like owning towns in GW: Factions but better) and shape it as they’d see fit. And the dynamic events tying into that in order to force the owning players/guilds to make fresh choices to develop it further, perform ‘maintenance’ on their holdings or to transfer ownership of territory to better performing players/guilds.

At the moment I just do not feel my characters or my guild is having any kind of impact. The way dynamic events are now are just fundamentally lacking and focussed in an area that doesn’t interest me. It feels like it is just a silly push-the-lever-and-get-reward random slotmachine system; no wonder that players end up in two groups: those that look for optimal runs to get the most reward out of the system per hour, and those that become bored by it and burn out.

I think the focus shouldn’t be on gold and item loot at all. But rather reward the player by having meaningful influence, a way to change the world around them, make meaningful decissions, etc. I do not want to feel like a faceless Power Ranger beating up the villian-of-the-week over and over. I do not want to feel like playing through a time travel episode of Star Trek, which always has a big reset at the end, rendering the actions of the crew meaningless. I want hardcore choices and painful consequences. Think Game of Thrones. You failed? Too bad! Off with that head! No character shields!

Hello,

i have one question. This thread was supposed to be closed 3 days ago if i am right. It is good that is is not becouse discussion is productive, but when we will start to talk about other things that people wanted to talk about?

Xar.6185:

I’ll flesh this out if I have time or if more people would like more in depth details but I’ll try to get across my point.

The living story steps need a way to be replayed that fits into the world / lore. I also think that this replayablility should apply to the personal story and even parts of holiday events.

I think a good way to do this would be to utilize the main cities in certain ways.

Lions Arch has portals to every city, portals to WvW, easy travel from the heart of the mists, the mystic forge, all the dungeon vendors and fractals of the mists. Oh and Moa racing. It is chock full and needs no more stuff to make peolpe travel there.

In the Grove. Use the pale tree and the dream to ‘see / participate’ in the living story steps or replay personal story parts (perhaps even choosing differently, though this wouldn’t affect your actual PS, just let you see more parts without creating another character of the same race). The pale tree actually does something similar to this for you and Trahearne in a story step. Doing it this way lets people select what they want to do. Want to do the Molten Facility? Don’t hope for a random fractal, put it here selectable in the Grove. Same thing for Aetherblade retreat. This would allow the living world / story to continue at whatever pace it wants without rushing and herding players from map to map. Players would be able to step in and out of the story without fear of missing anything.

The Black Citadel is the perfect place to host warband vs. warband… Er…. Guild Vs. Guild rather, on a neutral field so to speak. Guilds could post on an in game ‘bulletin board’ for challenges or schedule matches or even recruit.

Hoelbrak should be where all of the ‘pvp’ activities portals are located. Like southun survival, crab toss, sanctum sprint, keg brawl and maybe even add on a special rotation of the limited time activities like reapers rumble, dragon ball or snowball mayhem.

Rata Sum needs to have the Super Adventure Box become permanent. There could still be a ‘living’ focus brought to it once or twice a year when new levels are added or tribuilation mode is altered or new skins are cycled in and out. Also the polymock arena is there so if and when that is implemented that make two strong reasons to visit Rata Sum.

That leaves Divinties Reach. This is where we leverage the Queen’s Gauntlet combined with the heart quest in plains of ashford, Help Paenula train the troops by fighting in the pit and capturing creatures. Players would be able to go to DR speak to a ‘Big Game Hunter’ of sorts and choose first by location, then by type etc a specific PvE mob to fight solo or in a group. These could be bounty targets, wandering champs, dungeon bosses etc. All unlockable by doing specific things. For example if you wanted to choose the cave troll from queensdale you would have to have queensdale map completion or have killed a certain number or type of trolls. To unlock Kholer from ascalonian catacombs you would have to have completed AC story mode first etc.

This would help to spread out the population from LA and allow people to replay the living story steps in a non immersion breaking way.

Ah! Another good idea. By seperating places out like this, you give specific types of people with similar interests reasons to go to these amazing cities. This idea will actually give players the feeling that the world is bigger and more expansive, filled with all kinds of adventure. Currently we are always just hanging out in Lion’s Arch, and when we think about these other cities, we just see a “wanna be” LA without as much to offer.

And to expand on my earlier post, these cities can get attacked (infrequently) and if the players fail to defend it, they lose access to the city and whatever it has to offer until it is retaken. And unless all 5 cities are free, players can’t access the Fractals in LA (giving players incentive to participate in these events).

Shakkara.2641:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Can you provide some more details please in order to add more value to the discussion. Can you explain what you mean by attempted and failed to expand on the event system? Where do you think we failed and what do you see as success?

Chris

Well let me answer this one, as I was very underwhelmed by the dynamic events as well.

My expectations for the dynamic events and the game as a whole were quire different, mainly due to all the promises in the manifesto. The whole “the game cares that you’re there”, for the most part.

I expected much more of a sandbox world driven by player actions and player choices. I expected that all the servers would diverge and become different, because of all the different choices made by players (much like Ultima Online). I expected players/guilds to be able to hold non-instanced territory (like owning towns in GW: Factions but better) and shape it as they’d see fit. And the dynamic events tying into that in order to force the owning players/guilds to make fresh choices to develop it further, perform ‘maintenance’ on their holdings or to transfer ownership of territory to better performing players/guilds.

At the moment I just do not feel my characters or my guild is having any kind of impact. The way dynamic events are now are just fundamentally lacking and focussed in an area that doesn’t interest me. It feels like it is just a silly push-the-lever-and-get-reward random slotmachine system; no wonder that players end up in two groups: those that look for optimal runs to get the most reward out of the system per hour, and those that become bored by it and burn out.

I think the focus shouldn’t be on gold and item loot at all. But rather reward the player by having meaningful influence, a way to change the world around them, make meaningful decissions, etc. I do not want to feel like a faceless Power Ranger beating up the villian-of-the-week over and over. I do not want to feel like playing through a time travel episode of Star Trek, which always has a big reset at the end, rendering the actions of the crew meaningless. I want hardcore choices and painful consequences. Think Game of Thrones. You failed? Too bad! Off with that head! No character shields!

-Yes to guild ownership of keeps in the open world and let them fight on set “siege times” (so we don’t take away from WvW).
-Yes to actions that influence the world.
-Yes to consequences.

Phenn.5167:

Perhaps one of the best ways to move forward with this (given the state of the game and the resources available) would be to begin implementing additional steps to already-present DEs. Imagine the surprise when the Shadow Behemoth’s death spawns an onslaught from “the other side” that then has to be stopped before rendering all the waypoints in the south of Queensdale contested.

You’d have a bunch of players going, “Wait, what? It’s not over?” The “newness” of the event would add to the surprise and the motivation to discover the other DEs that suddenly have more to them.

Whereas I’m not opposed to the introduction of more, independent DEs, I think the real strength of the DE system lies in prolonged encounters that evolve as they’re played out. At the moment, this doesn’t happen much (save for Orr invasions). So at the very least I believe this would be a good place to start.

I like this idea. Since exploration of the world and DEs seem(ed) to be the major focus of GW2 at ship, I’d love to see significant additions to that aspect of the game in future releases. Adding DEs in the way you described fits nicely in the success/fail conversation that we had earlier. Not only can we have chains initiated by failing events, but continuations of short chains or stand-alone events from success.

World bosses are a perfect example. Despite lead events like Jormag’s and FE’s, when they’re done, everyone scatters and says good job. But defeating something awesome enough to be dubbed a World Boss should have resultant effects as well. And since they’re never failed (Teq aside) having chains that follow them would be cool.

Especially if they’re random. What if 1 of a possible 3 different chains followed an event? That would be cool. Maybe dependent on the size of the zerg or time of day or completely random. Then, after we defeat the Shadow Behemoth, either 1) a swarm of shadowy monsters pour out of the portals, 2) 3 new portals appear at locations around the swamp that must be closed, or 3) the SB’s “corpse” leaves a shadowy residue that must be carried (and defended from random attacks) to a nearby outpost for study/cleansing/etc. The residue could have a toxic/slow effect forcing it to be dropped often or else death to the carrier so-to include more people and not make it a footrace.

Many awesome ideas. Here’s what I’m taking away from it:

Regarding the Living Story and Permanence.

The issue seems to be pairing a changing evolving world of new content with preserving that same content so the game “grow” rather than just “change”.

I see a new player logging on a year down the road. The open world is in whatever state the current Living World releases have brought it to (perhaps a new Khan-Ur is invading Kryta, about time). The new player stumbles into Lions Arch plaza and sees some drunken Norn with a LW marker.

Drunkard: “I wuss right here when it happened! Captain Theo Ashford himself, fried to a crisp!”
Player: “When what happened?” → Que Instance

The player (and party) is now in the Dragon Bash instance. Upon completion, he is spit back out into the open world, where heralds are still yelling about Khan-Ur Slagtusk’s Invasion. The player can now continue on the old story from his current point (steampunk pirates? Yes, please) go back to the beginning (I obviously need to catch up) or just skip ahead to anywhere in the LW story up to the present release (oh THAT Scarlet. Yea, no thanks).

This keeps the world “living” and alive with constant updates and real world changes, but the story remains accessible and playable as the game moves forward. I feel that the developers are keen on seeing the open world grow and change, potentially in radical ways. But as a story players must have a way to go back and replay or catch up. I think players across the spectrum will appreciate the story more if they see it as something physically part of the game, like the first season of a TV show they can either rewatch for all its charm in trying to figure itself out or skip in its entirety to get to the polished meat that I have no doubt we will see in Guild Wars’ future.

But before any of that happens, we need the physical structure of the storytelling in place – the ability to replay story instances and key content from previous LS updates (or at least moving forward).

So I skimmed around this huge thread and will touch upon different subjects so not to make a HUGE post of things in one shot. <Disclaimer: my views and suggestions>

Living wold
As the devs already know if feels disjointed, I feel indifferent about scarlet (not a good thing), 2 weeks to complete events can be a bit jarring for casuals, the meta rewards are a slew of one time use skins and ofcorse the lack permanent content ETC ETC ETC. lets stalk solutions.

Reliving the living world:
As of right now, you miss an episode, there no way for you to know, or relive that moment. Having, scryers, historians, lore masters or even books that allow players to replay instances you already had in game as a way to tell the story is a good start without taxing the development.

Exp: Player heard of the adventure of last xmas with the toy factory and wish to see it himself. Goes to his local scryer/book (could even be in home instance):

“Tis a tale of the great toymaker Tixx and the naughty toys that went on a fritz”
Do you wish to relive the Toypocalypse?
-> Yes (can bring up to 5 friends)
-> not this time

Thus you essentially took a temporary content that has long passed and made it permanent with no ill effects to the outside world. You can do this with all the instance events. Wanna relive the events of dragon bash? Sure, your put into the death of the council member or the aetherblade dungeon.

Arc! and Structure:
2nd topic is overall LS structure, and your doing a lot better on this. Your trying to do too much all at once and its coming across as a mess of stories. I understand what your trying to do, have multiple stories going on at the same time so you can have multiple threads kind of like Game of Thrones. Unfortunately it feels more like you read one book up to page 5 drop it and pick up another. You could do this but also reinforce your original or main Arc as you pick up others.

Exp: the nightmare tree has brought upon disarray in kessex, as the orders work to get in , new trouble arises and the centaurs use this distraction to bring down all of the human outpost in Kessex

And there’s your mini arc, with a DE (leading to an all out attack on fort Salma) which brings me onto DE + player choice + LS + failure. Ya you can do it all and have your cake too. Im at work, now but I’ll try to wrap this up later tonight.

DJSushi.5406:

Many awesome ideas. Here’s what I’m taking away from it:

Regarding the Living Story and Permanence.

The issue seems to be pairing a changing evolving world of new content with preserving that same content so the game “grow” rather than just “change”.
snip

lol, beat me to it. kitten office meetings.

DJSushi.5406:

I see a new player logging on a year down the road. The open world is in whatever state the current Living World releases have brought it to (perhaps a new Khan-Ur is invading Kryta, about time). The new player stumbles into Lions Arch plaza and sees some drunken Norn with a LW marker.

Drunkard: “I wuss right here when it happened! Captain Theo Ashford himself, fried to a crisp!”
Player: “When what happened?” -> Que Instance

High-five for this guy. Given that much of the Living Story happened in instances, it should be possible for them to remain available without too much trouble. (I don’t know enough about the GW2 tech to say that for sure, of course.)

But I’d suggest something else: we have these guys called HERALDS that everybody ignores… what if they let you re-live old parts of the story? The same guys who tell you about the new stuff will fill you in on what you missed.

I wish there was more content added during the living story that was scalable. For example like in The Secret World’s new skirmish system. I’d love to have a mode of play where I could experience lore and story in solo, duo, or in a five man group depending on my mood. The varying difficulty levels TSW uses for that system I think would fit GW2 really well given that there is a real tug of war between casuals and more hardcore players.

I just wish there was a mode of play connected with lore and story where we had more control over how many people are there, and how difficult the content would be (with increasing amounts of rewards of course for greater difficulties). New “skirmishes” could be added during different living story events, and would give a tie to those older story points after the event was over and would give us more permanent content.

Handalf.1894:

I really like the scenarios described by Nike.2631, and would like to direct your attention to the also brilliant ideas developed by Shriketalon.1937 in his thread To Merge the Personal and Living Stories .

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

I must admit that I expected the link above to be a poorly hidden attempt of someone using an alternate account to bring a self-serving light to some piece of ill-inspired “Look at my idea” tripe… Boy, was I wrong.

ikr?

That thread is DRIPPING with the awesome.

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

I have been reading thru 34+ pages of player inspiration and I have been pleasantly pleased with the insight and forward thinking that is emerging from this thread.

A shining star of colour and brilliance that I have been enjoying so far has been the well thought out, in-depth experience by story-master: Nike.xxxx (in case positive call outs are bad too, in my defense, I didn’t include the actual .xxxx so it could be anyone right?)

Well, speaking on behalf of the broader category of all-possible-Nikes: Thank You. In a thread like this, even with direct and regular Developer participation, the accolades of our peers is frequently the finest of prizes . I really do appreciate the occasional approving word from fellow players. It encourages me to keep bringing my best game.

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

But move over on your pedestal Nike. It looks like Shriketalon.xxxx is looking to give you a run for your money. A bit of friendly competition of the enlightened just keeps everyone on their toes. Well done folks.

Plenty of room up here .

As much as I may be proud of my 3 larger concept pieces, they’re NOT intended as blueprints for action. They’re just examples of how to take one or two very specific pieces of technology we don’t have yet, and wrap them with things we know are possible with the current engine. When I give a big shout out to other people’s work in this thread (its a HUGE thread, apologies to those whom I’ve missed), its often because like my proposals, they are rooted in 90% re-used parts, brought to new life with small, ACHIEVABLE additions to the current toolbox .

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Conncept.7638:

BobbyStein.2315:

It’s more a matter of finishing what we started, implementing what we’ve already designed, and setting the game up for the next arc…

Why couldn’t the design team have this attitude when they attempted and failed to expand on the event system? I swear it seems like they barely even tried…

Hi Conncept,

Can you provide some more details please in order to add more value to the discussion. Can you explain what you mean by attempted and failed to expand on the event system? Where do you think we failed and what do you see as success?

Chris

Essentially, it’s been said that the teams stopped adding DEs because it “was met with little fanfare”. To me, that’s a horrible design philosophy & it came when they had barely scratched the surface on what it would take to make a significant impact on DEs.
The number of DEs in the game is probably at half of what it should be to make the game feel alive. (as an aside, the LS doesn’t make the world feel live. DEs do. Which you’re kinda killing by funneling people only to the LS stuff) I would have thought (especially since there was a big deal made about how you were going to add DEs) that by 1 year, the number of DEs would have doubled & the variation in cycle length would have been drastically increased. Instead, the teams tried it for a tiny length of time & dropped it wholesale. I would have preferred that philosophy with Scarlet, not with DEs.
I feel like figuring out how to make new, more expansive kinds of DEs should be the teams focus. Making the game more live. not just having, essentially, story festivals.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Conncept.7638:

BobbyStein.2315:

It’s more a matter of finishing what we started, implementing what we’ve already designed, and setting the game up for the next arc…

Why couldn’t the design team have this attitude when they attempted and failed to expand on the event system? I swear it seems like they barely even tried…

Hi Conncept,

Can you provide some more details please in order to add more value to the discussion. Can you explain what you mean by attempted and failed to expand on the event system? Where do you think we failed and what do you see as success?

Chris

Hello, Chris! I think this is an important area of discussion. Pre-launch, it seemed as though ArenaNet was very excited about adding more and more events and greatly expanding on the variety out in the world. I believe Colin made a comment to the effect of hoping to see 300 events a year later in an area that had 100 at launch; I don’t hold him to this because I know that development plans change, but I bring it up to illustrate the sort of thing that I was excited about in regard to the expansion of the DE system.

Unfortunately it didn’t come to pass, and later Anthony Ordon made a post explaining that the release of more DEs had been attempted in the first patch, and many players in the thread and elsewhere took what he said to imply that one attempt had been made before moving on to different ideas. I won’t belabor the point here because the other thread discusses it in detail and the feedback has most likely already been noted, but while I don’t know the specifics behind the reason for the development shift, it did disappoint me. One of the things that first attracted me to the game pre-launch was the idea of these events updating, changing, and being added to; the system is one that I enjoy and that has a great deal of potential.

While Anthony’s post doesn’t rule out the future addition of more events, it does seem to indicate that large-scale plans to add to them were moved away from, and I hope that it’s something you’ll consider giving another try at some point. Incorporating large-scale changes and additions to the DE patterns in zones could really help the world feel alive, as well as allowing for more opportunities for permanent content.

For example, living world additions usually don’t affect the landscape in the sense that currently-running dynamic events tend to ignore them. If the Molten Alliance spawns in the middle of a Flame Legion camp, the existing Flame Legion enemies don’t change their behavior despite the fact that they technically just got a huge influx of reinforcements. As part of Flame and Frost it would have been really cool to see DEs added to current Flame Legion and dredge camps that show them collecting resources for the Molten Alliance, ect.

I think it’d be really exciting to see the world respond to new events like that. The foreshadowing in the area of Viathan Lake before the Tower of Nightmares patch was fantastic, and I love that toxic krait have been added to normal krait spawns in places. But the centaurs right up the hill keep trying to rebuild the bridge and attack the Seraph as though there isn’t a giant death tower 100 feet from their doorstep, and I think that hurts the feeling of permanence and impact on the world a little.

To add, I also agree with what Conncept says here: “Tyria already felt like a living world on release, those feelings just needed to be continued, but were instead diverged away from, and in some cases wholly ignored.” There have been nods to continuing storylines, but the story actually feels more “epic” to me when it’s kept on a fairly intimate scale and the cosmically earthshattering events are doled out sparingly.

(continue..)
DE is the future:
So I was perplexed that you main selling points of LS are not epic DE but instead instancing. So lets look back at this (and this just might be because they require more man power, I’ll leave the logistics up to the Devs). DE are what makes the world of tryria feel alive and thus they should be a common thing in your LS. Now most players feel DE’s don’t hold enough impact in them as in failure or consequence which is true but lets add that nifty feature of player choice and maybe we can get cooking. ( now the player choice doesn’t have to be HUGE, but def visible. A nice area where you know payers did “this” but the overall choice hasn’t kill the Devs last 2 months of work)

Quick Exp: The nightmare tower in kessex is being attack at all fronts,

• DE/1: Offshoots sawn, Payers zerg down the 4 main shoots (like they do now)
• DE/2: With the offshoots gone something comes out of the tower (boss fight) Large Krait warrior with Nightmare courts
• DE/3(win): players kill the Krait boss, and the nightmare court retreats into the Tower (large chest reward) and an npc appears at the door. After a while shoots will spawn causing the npcs by the door to run back to camp (DE/1)
• DE/3(lost): players wipe, large area around kessex is fouled causing poison dmg if you stand idle (think fire fractal) until the offshoots are destroyed again (DE/1)
• Player Choice: Servers that complete this event can then vote on where to go now, Up the tower, or head below.

This kind of dictates were the next LS is heading first, developers would have already made the tower complete but can now slow release 1 week player choice and the next the week the top lvl. Another player choice they can add in the same arc can even be the fate of the tower or which order they thing should guard it.

Exp: let’s say the tower is defeated and blown to bits and now only a stump remains, who should remain to guard said stump? Vigil/Priory? (Whispers want no part in babysitting it. ) if players vote Vigil in time, they can build a fort around it with guard post on the shore, If priory they can build labs to study the toxin.

After thought: In the end this can even be use for bigger choice, say down the line by choosing the vigil player can buy and new skill to add toxin to the next 3 attacks or if they choose priory then something like hallucinogen causing enemy to take a certain % of its outgoing dmg or something like that. Possibilities are endless.

Next I’ll touch upon Rewards (OooO Shinys!!)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Thanks for the info. I will have a think.

Chris

I totally agree with Conncept. The existing & ancient stories should be fleshed out though the evolution & expansion of the current DEs. I’m also a bit worried that this seems like a new idea. Adding more & more & more new stories for the sake of being new is disjointed & doesn’t feel alive. it just feels added on. Also, with DEs the story can progress in real time. Not just one week: oh look, a giant Scarlet-tower! Instead, we’d com into the zone & see Krait chopping down wood in an event where we have to stop them. Then if you don’t scare them off, the have an event where they bundle the wood & you have to stop them. if you do, you take the wood back to a fort to fortify it & centaurs or Krait try to stop you. If you don’t stop them, they carry the wood, into an underwater cave with a toxic krait boss & you have to stop them. this could cycle for a week along with 10 other “the Krait are doing something” DEs & make sense.. instead: no DEs, just listen to Majory tell you everything, done.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Conncept.7638:

What I believe players wanted can be summed up as: Expansions on the existing stories and event mechanics already within the world, to the end that these stories feel more alive, expanding outward based on more advanced event mechanics, more story steps, leading to more varied story steps, player choice, and player success or failure. That expansion can come by way of the LS updates, or just retcons of new content into existing areas.

I don’t want to see a giant tower out of nowhere on the front lines of the war with the centaurs nearly as much as I would like to actually see the story of the war with the centaurs. I don’t want to see the dredge and flame legions ‘powers combined’ as much as I would like to see the stories which the flame legion and the dredge are already a part of continued. Tyria already felt like a living world on release, those feelings just needed to be continued, but were instead diverged away from, and in some cases wholly ignored.

(Sorry I’m saying ‘them’ as if you aren’t part of the conversation but I have no idea if you were a part of the team of developers at the time or not)

Thanks for the info. I will have a think.

Chris

Please think on this.

This sums up my greatest, grandest frustration with Guild Wars — the complete and total failure of ANet to follow through on existing great stories. What attracted me to GW2 was the expectation of experiencing more of what was there and unresolved in GW1..

Scarlet’s true evil is that she eclipsed the rich world many of us came to love. So many unanswered questions, so many dropped stories, we have races and places that have been let to rot while Scarlet cackles madly. Perhaps that is her greatest evil — the focus on her is destroying/making us forget the Tyria we loved.

If you want a list of dropped/forgotten/ignored story-lines, just let us know.

The tyria being more like a living world at launch is prob the best comment ive read so far. There were so many stories going on and the fun was exploring and getting involved in them. The key was, what was going on in the shiverpeaks was a completely different scenario to what was going on in maguuma. Lots of unrelated stories, building gradually over time, would make just as interesting, if not more so, Living World than a singular, linear and focused storyline.

A world built entirely on ever changing events rather than a personal story Could be something amazing.

I’ll echo the Modus Sceleris disappointment. I never heard of them until I stumbled into the group in Lornar’s Pass one time. Initially it did bring a smile to my face that this was possibly something I haven’t done before, but taking on the whole guild with one Ranger wasn’t too appealing, plus I only found out about the other events related to them via wiki.

Conncept’s post echoes some of my feelings as well. ANet gave us the Sinister Trinity in Brisbane Wildlands and yet in this Living World they seem content with just their little corner? Why? Why forge new alliances when we haven’t properly concluded ones that could be expanded on?

Now I’m not saying that I never wanted the Molten. In fact it would have been neat to have that built up slowly instead of giving us one or two releases where we start investigating them.

They could have been slipped in while the other stories (Centaurs, Nightmare Court attacking the Grove, Bandits, Inquest) are being explored. Eventually they would be given their time to shine and it would have made more sense to the player base.

The player base has seen evidence of build up within the game, this Krait tower is such an example, the Pavillion was such an example. Something big was going to happen, sometimes the players were lucky enough to catch some NPC dialogue (mostly text if I remember) which had us teased about certain things happening. In fact the Heralds were a decent start.

Some players are simply asking ANet to expand on what is already there. That helps bring a world to life. Instead of always predicting that the bandits will strike Curtis’ Ranch why not have us surprised one update where the Troll or Ettins come smashing in? Then we’ll wonder just what the heck is going on? Later we find out somebody disrupted the natural order of things. Whether ANet decides to keep that going or not is up to them, but at least something already established was shaken up.

With all the mentions of DEs and whole DE-chains overarching entire maps, i feel it should be pointed out that at least 70-80% of such build-up events should be doable solo or with a small amount of people.

A big issue with Living Story/World things that remain in the game (like the scarlet invasions, possibly the toxic offshots later) is that they are designed purely as Group Events, meaning for zergs. Once Wintersday arrives, and Kessex is still not cured, how many people do you think will still bother doing the group events? Just how many servers and worlds have had a single successfully averted Scarlet invasion in the past week on any map?

If any events added to stay for longer than the 2 weeks life of the actual LW event, they should be made with the fact in mind, that unless they are enjoyable enough, people will move on from them to “fresher” things. Leaving the few who would do them still, alone, and uncapable to finish them with the little numbers they have. Making the events themselves like Tequatl: A ghost-town with only a single server-wide attempt a week, most of the time still failed.

“Fresher” is a lie though, as it stands now, its mostly just another zergfest with a different skin and theme, with another batch of Archivement Points to farm toward.

DarksunG.9537:

Essentially, it’s been said that the teams stopped adding DEs because it “was met with little fanfare”. To me, that’s a horrible design philosophy & it came when they had barely scratched the surface on what it would take to make a significant impact on DEs.

The number of DEs in the game is probably at half of what it should be to make the game feel alive. (as an aside, the LS doesn’t make the world feel live. DEs do. Which you’re kinda killing by funneling people only to the LS stuff) I would have thought (especially since there was a big deal made about how you were going to add DEs) that by 1 year, the number of DEs would have doubled & the variation in cycle length would have been drastically increased. Instead, the teams tried it for a tiny length of time & dropped it wholesale. I would have preferred that philosophy with Scarlet, not with DEs.

I feel like figuring out how to make new, more expansive kinds of DEs should be the teams focus. Making the game more live. not just having, essentially, story festivals.

This was something I touched on a few pages back: the concept of a Critical Mass of Dynamic Events.

I describe some examples of my own favorite areas that have enough events to bring them to life for me, but I was wondering if you had any locations you thought the game had begun to deliver on the promise of a living world? Anywhere you can point to right now and say the Devs got it right?

lakdav.3694:

With all the mentions of DEs and whole DE-chains overarching entire maps, i feel it should be pointed out that at least 70-80% of such build-up events should be doable solo or with a small amount of people.

A big issue with Living Story/World things that remain in the game (like the scarlet invasions, possibly the toxic offshots later) is that they are designed purely as Group Events, meaning for zergs. Once Wintersday arrives, and Kessex is still not cured, how many people do you think will still bother doing the group events? Just how many servers and worlds have had a single successfully averted Scarlet invasion in the past week on any map?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

When we were asked for our top 3 topics/concerns Dynamic Events Scaling was and still is my #1 issue.

DJSushi.5406:

Many awesome ideas. Here’s what I’m taking away from it:

Regarding the Living Story and Permanence.

The issue seems to be pairing a changing evolving world of new content with preserving that same content so the game “grow” rather than just “change”.

I see a new player logging on a year down the road. The open world is in whatever state the current Living World releases have brought it to (perhaps a new Khan-Ur is invading Kryta, about time). The new player stumbles into Lions Arch plaza and sees some drunken Norn with a LW marker.

Drunkard: “I wuss right here when it happened! Captain Theo Ashford himself, fried to a crisp!”
Player: “When what happened?” -> Que Instance

The player (and party) is now in the Dragon Bash instance. Upon completion, he is spit back out into the open world, where heralds are still yelling about Khan-Ur Slagtusk’s Invasion. The player can now continue on the old story from his current point (steampunk pirates? Yes, please) go back to the beginning (I obviously need to catch up) or just skip ahead to anywhere in the LW story up to the present release (oh THAT Scarlet. Yea, no thanks).

If it functioned this way, I think it would create a game that felt like it had the true depth of a living world. I hope ArenaNet can find a way to do this. Just think of playing an alt and leveling this way; I could level to 80 only playing through the most epic moments in GW2 history.

I feel disappointed in the consequences of failing events in both living world and dynamic events. Back when I originally heard of Guild Wars 2, I imagine that these dynamic events would all lead into encounters as large as the world boss of each zone. However, I was disappointed to find out that most events just continually cycle within minutes, and very few things change when an event is lost aside from a fast travel point being contested.

Even though they are more repetitive, I feel like the dynamic events in Rift are far more interesting on average because there are serious consequences for ignoring them and not teaming up. We need to see massive invasions. We need to see roaming packs of elite monsters that don’t just contest one location, but eventually all of them.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

Hi, Colin! One option I’ve heard many people suggest is more unique rewards from event completion, possibly connected to heart vendors. In FFXIV, certain harder FATEs (DEs) award a special minipet on completion. The Secret World awards zone-specific vendor currency for repeatable missions. Even though WoW left a lot to be desired for me due to zone outleveling, I could always find reasons to return to specific zones because there were things to get there that couldn’t be found anywhere else—and they were desirable even at max level because they were prestigious and cosmetic.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

I wouldn’t mind if you guys tossed in some higher level materials in the reward chest. Ancient Wood, Orichalcum, stuff like that.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

Colin, I’m pretty honest that I think that the LS rewards should contribute much much more to the general farms. You did a great job for that on scarlets invasion and the queens pavilion and thats a good start. The reason why I’m saying it is that I allready discussed it in a different thread bout the champ bags ninja nerf.

You want us to stay hooked on this game and we love to stay hooked on it. One element is the introduction off some hard to get items like e.g. the legendary. You made a good decision to make it really hard. But currently you are kitten ing people off by destroying farms that are good for getting the items needed. People really get their hopes up on getting the legendary sooner cause a new farm is discovered and are really angry when it gets removed (I’m one off them).

The reason you need farms in my opinion is that you cant deliver content as quick as people can do them. So to keep us hooked you also need farms. Whatever you do wont change it. But you can use the living story to make it more controlled.

At the moment it is running from farm to farm waiting till it got nerfed and move on (and being angry bout it).

In the living story you can put farms that are obviously temporary. But if they contribute to the goal many people have (AP’s, legendary, cultural armor) it would be much more interesting. It even doesn’t have to be as good as other farms in game. Personally I dont play to have a legendary. I play to have fun, and to have fun I dont want to mindlesly do things but have a goal in game. It is why I’m going for eternity. not cause I really want it, but cause it gives me a goal to play for. The real reward is fun

So keep us hooked and keep us having fun, can be combined in the living story. It would feel much less being a labrat while you try to balance the farms to experiment with temporary content.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought introducing champion loot boxes was meant to spread players around the world and to help out with the group events that frequently had champions. If so, this didn’t do a good job. I would rather see the champion loot boxes moved to dynamic event success with different contribution levels awarding different tiers of loot boxes. Dynamic event mobs should not drop loot.

For normal events bronze would reward fine, silver masterwork, and gold rare. For group event bronze would reward masterwork, silver rare, and gold exotic. The contents of the boxes may need to be tweaked for this to keep the economy sound. This solves the problem of getting players doing dynamic events as currently champion and world boss farming seems to be the hot activities at the moment (and coincidentally, one of the things that made me vacate the game as I saw it heading nowhere meaningful).

However, this does not solve the problem of spreading players around as you no doubt know. When people used to farm karma they were very good about finding paths of least resistance to getting the most karma for their time spent. A similar problem has happened with champion farming and would happen with this, but at least people are doing events. I know farmers hate diminishing returns, but I have not thought of anything quite as effective at moving people around than preventing them from getting bigger rewards when repeating an event. Perhaps when events have more meaningful impact on the world this won’t be a problem, but with the current dynamic event system where events recycle very frequently diminishing returns seems like the most effective way at spreading players out.

I am of course open to other suggestions on spreading players out around the world.

Edit: Like my own. How about instead of diminishing returns there is increasing returns for doing unique dynamic events. Every day at reset an account based dynamic event meter would reset. For every unique event completed the meter would grow increasing rewards on subsequent events.

THE QUEEN’S JUBILEE: AN ALTERNATIVE

I want to highlight this particular Living Story release in terms of a missed opportunity for engagement, and another example where the active pursuit of epic detracted from the final product.

The issue is credibility of threat. By making Queen Jenna the central target, the event tried to chase after scale – to have the seeming of importance. Unfortunately because much of the playerbase realizes that Queen Jenna is in fact an untouchable target, intricately woven into public spaces and the Personal Storyline, this push for epicness was self-defeating. The attentive player simply did not buy-in, and was left waiting for the inevitably successful defense/rescue to play itself out.

BUT IN ANOTHER KRYTA NOT SO FAR AWAY…

What if we still saw all the same events, but through new eyes. Introducing Tarrek Linmoor, an up-and-coming Seraph. This earnest and capable warrior has been hand picked as Logan Thackeray’s squire for this event, a chance for him to gain promotion into the senior officer corps. He wears similar but simpler armor to Logan, he’s a bit arrogant towards the Watchknights like his mentor but he’s highly respectful to the player character and on the whole someone you grow to approve of. Maybe you’ll share a tankard or three and compare war stories after the festival. He’ love to hear more first hand from the [player’s heroic title] themself. It’ll give him a great story to share back at the barracks.

In short, we like the kid.

Scarlet makes her appearance and chaos ensues. While her attack is still focused on the queen, it becomes abundantly clear to the player that Linmoor, a truly loyal and committed vassal of the throne of Kryta will sacrifice himself for the queen’s safety. The kid is a deader unless we step up our game to the utmost and fight back hard enough that it doesn’t come to that.

Risk. Tangible risk.

The outcome isn’t a foregone conclusion because we don’t know if its even possible to save Tarrek from his better nature. We like him. We know his death will be a loss to us, to Logan, to the Kingdom. But can we prevent it? We don’t know… but we want to find out!

Now we care. Now we’re engaged. Now the story matters.

I don’t know how much time is left on this forum discussion, but at the end, could we get this stickied/locked per usual, but with A constructive and conclusive rundown on what key things you learnt from the feedback you got?

Not everything, but some key factors that you think you may have overlooked in the past which have come to light thought this thread? I’d be good to see what you guys thought before hand that you succeeded in and what you didn’t.

I think a big problem with DEs in the world is discoverability. It’s much easier to do the champ farm because the next step is always obvious, and you know exactly when you’ll get a reward. With events in other parts of the world, you don’t really know where they are at any given time, and if it’s a place you’ve already explored the prospects for advancing your goals (whatever they are) are far less reliable.

Obviously there are some players who don’t enjoy exploration and doing things just because they’re new, and it’s futile to encourage them to move off the optimal events. Probably these guys should be powering Orr’s events.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

I got a weird idea.

What if everytime you successfully completed an event, you get a “<zone> Fame” buff on your character. It’d work like those on kill sigils in weapons, except itd stack on succession of an event. The buff would only apply to the character as long as it stayed in the zone, resetting upon leaving.

It can buff mundane things like stats on your character… exp/gold/karma…

Or you can get a bit more creative… like it lowers WP costs in the region as you gain stacks. Merchants charge you less gold/karma based on your stacks… or buy back your junk for more coin. You can repair your armor for less. if you can craft in the zone, the chances of boosted crafting exp goes up. Maybe even access to locked dungeons.

Just spitballin.

I know this is going a tad off topic from just living story, but it should be addressed in part. There needs to be more randomization in the spawning of Champion monsters and dynamic events. In addition, a good idea would be a sort of “Zone Of the Day” system where events in that specific zone award more EXP/Karma and possible loot drops equivalent to Champions if you receive Gold. That would get people changing zones every day instead of just the most efficient one.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

Well, how about… and I’m spit-balling here…

• Laurels? Say, a 2-3% chance?
• Black lion keys? Again, only a small chance
• Tickets from past events, such as the dragon bash?
• More materials
• A chance at a random title; an increase in fame? Not sure how that would work; maybe fame is like luck, and as you gain it, merchants would give a discount?)
• Some peasant rarely gives you their first born child in gratitude as a mini-pet…
• Maybe some of Miyani’s crafting items for the Mystic Forge?
• Better rare and exotic drops
• a few random ascended materials, though this may be coming for Damask.

Make the special stuff drop once per day per event, like event chests.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

I think an example of a quest that is awesome but suffers from not having a “proper” reward is the one in Lornar’s Pass that starts with collecting dwarven relic boxes and ends with a fire creature at the end. It involves Bloodstone Shards and is a great quest chain. It really should be a Meta Event. This was the type of event I thought we would get more of when you guys were initially talking up GW2 years ago. I also think this is where events should have different outcomes in the chain based on how people do and they should be really obvious.

Another example of something that would be great is making Temple Defenses mean something. We only get rewarded when we take a temple. I think it would be great if we got rewarded more for defending the temples and that could involve Events that make groups travel all over the map that the Temple is in. The defend events could get harder and harder until servers couldn’t beat them anymore and then it would reset and we would have to retake the temples again.

As far as your rewards question: I think that longer event chains should have mini chests after each link in the chain and result in a chest like the one in Harathi Hinterlands for taking down the chieftan centaur. Another option would be a DE Medallion system with Vendors in LA. Yet another option is have the escort chains (or chained events in general offer crafting mats for Ascended Weapons and Armor.

P.S. You guys do a great job with the game, and I met you at a Meet and Greet at the Hard Rock Hotel in 2011 at ComiCon in San Diego. My computer crashed while playing the game and you fixed it personally. I had a great time talking and hanging out with you all. Good luck in the Collaborative development of the game!

Dynamic Events could award reputation for the zone they are in. Each zone could have a rep merchant that opens upon 100% zone discovery completion. Rep merchant can sell armor and weapon skins unique to zone, not gear, skins only. This would be a lot skin creation, but you already have so many meshes you could just mix up some good looking combinations and re texture them. This would encourage replay in old zones, and give a non-rng reward for doing so.

You could do the same for wvw too.

ColinJohanson.2394

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

• I feel there is a disconnect between gold participation (shiny gold medal, way too easy to get) and the actual rewards (maybe one silver and a pittance of karma). I think it’d be good to make participation count for more, such that if I get gold I actually feel like I did a serious amount of work, and have the rewards match up with that shiny medal.

• Someone mentioned zone-specific rewards – fantastic idea. Give me rewards that are unique to a zone. Maybe I get rare cooking ingredients that are native to a region (similar to how buying cooking packages with karma used to work). Something useful that doesn’t cause the immediate reaction of “oh, a green – salvage time!”

• Maybe provide a scaling reward for “heroism”. The greater variety of events you complete in a row, in a given time frame, give better and better rewards. If I’m running all over Kryta helping everyone in need everywhere, instead of farming the same few events, maybe citizens recognize that and I get more karma/gold/doodads as a reward for being a hero to everyone.