Guild Wars 2

Okay I’ve been following this thread long enough and I’d like to post something on a topic I know stuff about.

About the recurring characters, when I first ‘met’ Braham, I didn’t like him at all. However, when he teamed up with Rox the chemistry between them was so good that I really started to like him. I loved seeing both of them back in the Gauntlet, as in the cinematic in the latest update.

Kasmeer and Majory have the same for me. They really ‘work’ together. There’s actual chemistry between both of them and that makes them interesting to me.

Scarlet, although I do love her voice acting (I think there’s no Sylvari that sounds this good) is shallow to me just because she’s doing all of it herself. Yeah she has her alliances but there’s no interaction, no chemistry, no nothing between them. Scarlet is above all of this, she has nobody to interact with and that doesn’t do her character any good. Characters grow and develop when they interact with others, but since she’s not interacting with anyone she just stays the same. And how she is right now doesn’t work for me. I don’t even think she’s a convincing villain, she’s just a bored child to me.

Also, I would like to thank you guys personally for that recap cinematic in the latest update. I missed the assasination and it was great to see something of it, even if it was minimal. You should make these recaps more frequently, I think.

Okay, i dont mind all the zerging and dps-racing that much even though it becomes a major issue.

My problem though is that living story and the dynamic world of gw2 main goal is to make the game feel alive and dynamic right?

Then why are we getting flash-temporary bits of content? Its like when the skypirates, molten alliance invasions didnt happen. I mean the only thing that reminds me of them is simply a couple of handfull of 5 NPC’s and the designated area the living story was designed on (hoelbrak, lions arch) have been slighty changed. Problem is that there is no purpose at all to go back there. So since most of us havent gone back to hoelbrak there is no trail left of the content we got. Living story team knows that ls is like a tv-show. But what i feel is, that we get these flashes of episodes that seems to make no sense and then dissapear unfinished. That makes me feel dissapointed. I can only blame this in my opinion, on the overall unfinished content that is living story.

What i expected from Living story when it was announced back in Januari was for example. When Blood and Madness ended yesterday, that Lions Arch has been changed slighty. I mean we had all this festivies of Halloween. Couldnt there haven been something left that still had to be cleaned up, like the decorations on walls. And some changes on NPC’s. Everytime i go to the BLT in LA i hear these Azura’s making the same jokes about Sylvaries and Salads all over again for the 100th time. Not exactly living. It isnt too much effort to make changes in these things right, some npc changes and decorations still hanging to show that this LS Happened.

But instead Lions Arch has been the main focus point of 5th festival or polics. Lions Arch is changed completely redecorated, and then changed completely back. Dynamic world needs to be the main focus again.

And btw i dont mind my bad grammar, im not horrible at english.

And one more thing i like to mention. Even tough u cant improve the quality of LS wich is completely understandable. U at least have to introduce subjects properly. For example: when we knew from the trailer that we were gonna invade the tower. We all expect to simply zerg in to the top. And what happened when the patch released? Exactly that a zerg race. Zerging isnt that bad, but it has to be introduced properly. The Nightmares Within patch is another one where i feel like im fighting these mobs for no reason. Living story needs to at least introduce suprises: like when the Mad king blew up his statue.

Galen Grey.4709:

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

Some major reasons why people don’t like Scarlet Brair aka a serious problem with the Living Story
snip

Its a valid argument but consider a few things.

first in the short story it says she completed dynamics and statics in under a year each so its 24 months for both not 54 months. It took a bit longer for synergetics I would say that means a few months more not years longer.

Secondly and perhaps more importantly her experiments with Omadd allowed her to see the fabric of reality itself. She emerged from the chamber understand things like, the nightmare court, the pale dream and how all fits in a grand design. The same could be true for all races and all people in Tyria. That might have enabled her to form alliances in mere days not months because by knowing each people’s design, each time she could have offered them exactly what they were looking for. Her brokering the alliance between krait and nightmare court seems to support this.

Not just this but all of it could have been happening in parallel. Ie she might be negotiation with all 3 groups from day 1.

Also we do no know how much time has passed since launch.

strictly speaking going with the day night cycle. 12 years has passed since the living story started. (2hrs for a single day in tyria)

Plenty of ways how they fit this and make it work.

Why yes, I agree there is plenty of ways to make it work (the easiest being a flux capacitor and a Dolyak Cart that can travel 88 miles an hour) but that is in no way the issue I was presenting.

My point is it’s just not believable. Most people could not fit that much education and mischief in an entire lifetime let alone a mere 18 or so years. And yes I get it she is the once in a lifetime exemption to every rule:

• Smarter than the Asura
• A better Engineer than the Charr
• A better Blacksmith than the Norn
• Makes Trahearne look like a sapling
• She is an expert in firearms, artillery and Hylek Alchemy
• A master of Dynamics, Statics, a phenom of Synergetics
• A criminal, terrorist and assassin
• Controller of the Watchknights
• The leader of the Molten Alliance, Aetherblades, and Steam Creatures
• Realizes that The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is in fact, NOT 42
• Did I forget anything? Oh yeah… Is a stark, raving, nutty as a fruitcake, lunatic criminal mastermind

Come on now, that’s just not cricket!

Leave Destiny’s Edge to deal with the Elder Dragon irritant. We need a new Guild, one that can handle a Supervillain the likes of Scarlet Briar, and I have just the group:

• Asuran Mesmer: Velma Dinkley
• Norn Warrior: Fred Jones Jr.
• Charr Necromancer: Norville “Shaggy” Rogers
• Human Ranger Daphne Blake with her pet Great Dane

Yes my friends, I give to you the next saviors of Tyria… The Scooby Gang

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

Why yes, I agree there is plenty of ways to make it work (the easiest being a flux capacitor and a Dolyak Cart that can travel 88 miles an hour) but that is in no way the issue I was presenting.

My point is it’s just not believable. Most people could not fit that much education and mischief in an entire lifetime let alone a mere 18 or so years. And yes I get it she is the once in a lifetime exemption to every rule:

• Smarter than the Asura
• A better Engineer than the Charr
• A better Blacksmith than the Norn
• Makes Trahearne look like a sapling
• She is an expert in firearms, artillery and Hylek Alchemy
• A master of Dynamics, Statics, a phenom of Synergetics
• A criminal, terrorist and assassin
• Controller of the Watchknights
• The leader of the Molten Alliance, Aetherblades, and Steam Creatures
• Realizes that The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is in fact, NOT 42
• Did I forget anything? Oh yeah… Is a stark, raving, nutty as a fruitcake, lunatic criminal mastermind

Come on now, that’s just not cricket!

Leave Destiny’s Edge to deal with the Elder Dragon irritant. We need a new Guild, one that can handle a Supervillain the likes of Scarlet Briar, and I have just the group:

• Asuran Mesmer: Velma Dinkley
• Norn Warrior: Fred Jones Jr.
• Charr Necromancer: Norville “Shaggy” Rogers
• Human Ranger Daphne Blake with her pet Great Dane

Yes my friends, I give to you the next saviors of Tyria… The Scooby Gang

You’re generalising too much…

she’s smart yes but no where has it been stated that she’s smarter then all asura, in fact quite the contrary remember the clockwork chaos release? specifically emissary Vorpp? Not only he was able to defeat the defences she puts up to stop us from accessing the playhouse but even mocks her:
“Engineering prodigy,“ they said. “Intuitive grasp of phenomenological design and transcendent systems.“ Pfah, I say. Pfah!

Better blacksmith then the Norn, hardly in the short story itself its plainly illustrated that she left long before she even mastered the art much less supassed all norn masters Her mentor begged her to stay so he could teach her all he knows but she still left “She didn’t need to be a master smith to forge the kinds of creations she envisioned.”

No where did it say at least prior to her seeing the fabric of reality that she’s the best at everything. (in fact I dont believe anyone pointed that out after she saw the fabric of reality either) The story merely says that she is a quick learner, quick to grasp stuff and has a wide range of interests and that she gets bored quickly of the various disciplines.

Once again your 18 year calculation is ignoring all the time that passed since the launch of the game. I dont know if Arenanet are sticking to the actual passage of time in the game but if so with 2 hours real time per day every month that passes in real life is an entire year in the game. So its entirely possible those events took place over longer then the 18 years you’re assuming.

Besides this is a fantasy world. Why is a dragon tooth impervious to any weapon known to anyone believable but a prodigy is not? Geniuses exist even in real life. stuff impervious to everything ? not so much!

Galen Grey.4709:

Secondly and perhaps more importantly her experiments with Omadd allowed her to see the fabric of reality itself. She emerged from the chamber understand things like, the nightmare court, the pale dream and how all fits in a grand design. The same could be true for all races and all people in Tyria. That might have enabled her to form alliances in mere days not months because by knowing each people’s design, each time she could have offered them exactly what they were looking for. Her brokering the alliance between krait and nightmare court seems to support this.

Due to this lack of knowledge we now have players who were once interested in her not giving any care about what she does in the future.
The logical thing for the writers to do now would be allow the heroes an update or two which gives us missions that investigate how she went about with these alliances. Find a former pirate who worked with the Inquest that will spill the metaphorical beans or raid some of her old labs.

Simply put: Build up more on the alliances already established instead of just throwing out another one we simply stop in the next release. It starts to get old for some and thus they lose interest.

Atlas.9704:

Galen Grey.4709:

Secondly and perhaps more importantly her experiments with Omadd allowed her to see the fabric of reality itself. She emerged from the chamber understand things like, the nightmare court, the pale dream and how all fits in a grand design. The same could be true for all races and all people in Tyria. That might have enabled her to form alliances in mere days not months because by knowing each people’s design, each time she could have offered them exactly what they were looking for. Her brokering the alliance between krait and nightmare court seems to support this.

Due to this lack of knowledge we now have players who were once interested in her not giving any care about what she does in the future.
The logical thing for the writers to do now would be allow the heroes an update or two which gives us missions that investigate how she went about with these alliances. Find a former pirate who worked with the Inquest that will spill the metaphorical beans or raid some of her old labs.

Simply put: Build up more on the alliances already established instead of just throwing out another one we simply stop in the next release. It starts to get old for some and thus they lose interest.

I agree that there have been a bit too many alliances. Luckly they ran out of races now though technically there is still centaurs and sons of svanir. Skritt and the Grawl. But no I have faith there is not going to be another alliance.

We’ll see, I am still curious to know whats her end game.

I am not so sure that would be useful. I doubt she used the same method on all 3 groups. We know she used obelisks with the krait and I assume the promise of nightmare to the nightmare court. None of that would work with the charr + dredge or Pirates + inquest so it had to be different methods with different groups.

More specifically on subject I kinda dont envy Arenanet. I personally love what they’re doing. Every living story has been giving me pieces of a puzzle and each piece helps me understand scarlet more. I am then able to theorize what could actually be going on. But for other players this isnt a good way to deliver story.

Some people like the scenic route even though it takes longer, others prefer the direct route. It is really impossible to make everyone happy.

Thanks for the honest reply Bobby. We had a bit of a discussion on this subject in the lore section right as you are posting this, and I also felt there’s not much to reply to when faced with overwhelming negative feedback.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Scarlet-Slayer-of-Lores/page/4#post3198086

Personally I’m also underwhelmed with the story, just to be perfectly honest. But I do enjoy the other characters (Marjory, Kasmeer, Rox and Braham). I also enjoy the game play of the Tower of Nightmares.

I think Scarlet’s character could be improved, if we learn her motivations, and if there are some plot twists thrown into the mix. I would love to see the community discuss on how the story will go, and the story then taking off in a totally different direction. I would also welcome seeing more hidden bits of lore in the open world, that are undocumented, and that we can seek out for ourselves.

smeen.4237:

Also, I would like to thank you guys personally for that recap cinematic in the latest update. I missed the assasination and it was great to see something of it, even if it was minimal. You should make these recaps more frequently, I think.

You’re welcome. To be honest, we wanted to do this sort of thing for every release but we just haven’t had the resources. I’m glad that for some people this elicited the intended response. Some folks were disappointed that we didn’t reveal more details in the cinematic, and I can understand that, That’s why we made a conscious effort to put more info in upcoming releases, so keep your eyes open.
[/quote]

I liked it too. It’s good to have things like that. I’m curios about upcoming releases.

Galen Grey.4709:

I agree that there have been a bit too many alliances. Luckly they ran out of races now though technically there is still centaurs and sons of svanir. Skritt and the Grawl. But no I have faith there is not going to be another alliance.

My money would be on Centaur/Hylek.
The Hoof Hop.

BobbyStein.2315:

People want more details about Scarlet. We know that. Details will be revealed in the near future and will be paced more aggressively. Until then, I hope you enjoy the game and our most recent Living World release and continue to constructively tell us what you think. Thanks.

Gameplay wise I liked the interior of the tower. It is like a villain version of Queen’s Pavillion.

Also I will echo smeen’s comment about the cinematics. Very engaging and I print-screened every one of them.
I apologize if any of my comments seemed confrontational or non constructive.
It mostly was born from frustration more than anything else.
However if no grievances were found in my posts please disregard then no harm no foul.

Thanks for your answer Bobby, i noticed the same and was wondering what it was about (though i already asumed the reasoning)
I hope we can get a more through discussion about the matter after the arc is finished.
You are in the process of learning and i am courious about what you learned, which ideas you had had to be revised and what your overall vision was against how it ended up.

In my opinion the idea of Scarlet is great: A force which is devesatating to the world, but on a more personal level, to bridge the gab between the natural forces that are the elder dragons.

There is so much discussing around the character, good and bad, so it would be quiet interesting to hear things from the brain she came from.
I am mostly interested the basic idea and what could have been (what had to be cut, or waht didn`t work as intended), as long as you don`t have to hold these things back because you want to use them elsewhere.

For the recent release. As i mentioned before. I understand that you wanted to bring everyone up to par, but for something “big” as this, that was a letdown.
Perfect for people who have missed something, “uninteresting” for people who are active behind the lore.
(also i guess i missed Scarlets snarky speach aside from the cutszene and before the Hybrid since i never met her in the duneon. i guess i bugged out)

The Nightmare Chambers are great. Offer good variety and you used the tie ins to the PS, great idea.
However you shouldn`t have used it.

The reason is: Kashmeer mentions that Scarlet controlls the hallucination we are seeing somehow. (thats why we are fighting aetherblades and molten alliance there, without any stimulus for these hallucinations)

However Scarlet is talking about these “personal” hallucination as if she knows everything about your character.

So it is just confusing (as intended?). It would only make sense maybe if Scarlet wasn`t there to beginn with and everything was a dream… but i am getting off topic.

While i appreaciate the fusion of LS and PS here, i think you used it to early. Mostly with the mentors.
They would have better served as undead/risen later somwhere along the lines of Orr and Zaithan revisited, instead of Scarlets mindgames.

They are beloved characters and need a better send-off (if i am right, only forgal got even a proper one… i have to check). (i appreaciate the Trahearn oportunity, even though i am in the middle ground about him.)

ColinJohanson.2394:

There is a thin-line between content that drives the story forward, which if it lasts forever feels like the story never really progresses, vs. content that all goes away and ends up feeling like the world never actually progresses. Which releases, and more specifically what aspects of specific releases do you feel were successful balancing content that didn’t remain forever that progressed the story, while simultaneously leaving enough of a mark on the world to feel like the world is changing an evolving?

For me the original invasion of Southsun Cove was the best example of this, it had a lot of “story” style content that made sense to happen and then go away, and also left a lot of permanent experiences as a result of that storyline.

I totally agree with you on this. The big problem with the original Southsun Cove wasn’t actually how it worked but the fact that it was so laggy that we couldn’t enjoy it as you envisioned it.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Another food for thought: Back when we invaded Southsun, we did a lot of “one time” events with the story content. Folks complained that one time wasn’t fair because they would miss it, so we extended the “story” style content so you now have 2-4 weeks to experience it. Does having it around this long take away from the sense of story progression, and make it feel like it should be permanent when it’s taken away? Or would simply having (using the TV analogy) something like TiVo that allows you to see the story you missed balance out this issue?

Personally, I’m on the side that think that one-time events are a great idea. I think that if there would be a NPC somewhere that could makes us travel back (party travel) to a one-time event instance where that said event occurs just like the first run it would be great. People that missed it would be able to take part in it in some capacity anyway and people that liked it and would like to replay again would be able to.
However, one-time events are really problematic because of the time zones. Even with that kind of NPC, I’m sure that some time zones will always be shafted with the selected hour for the event. Maybe it would be a good idea to do rolling events at different hours? Per example, different hours for NA servers en EU servers so that it occurs during prime time for both areas. Still, Oceanic people don’t have their own server, so maybe it could be possible to do the event at a different hour on a different server? Like, 7 PM PST on Borlis, 8 PM PST on Blackgate, 9 PM PST on TC etc. Keep the same schedule for every server and give the capability for everyone once to switch server to match their schedule accordingly. But still… there are overflows? What to do with them.

I don’t really have a solution yet to appeal to everyone living everywhere in the world but one time events are great when you can be there. They’re not when you can’t.

Can we try to keep responses concise? Getting hit with epic walls of text for just over 9000 damage hurts my eyes. Id like to stay with this thread but the bibles you guys are writing..makes it difficult. Can only imagine what the folks at arenanet go through reading these, however detailed and constructive they may be!

Taking the risk this has been said before: A big issue mentioned before with the living story was that people who can’t play for 2 weeks or more will miss out on parts of it. It’s the nature of the way the living story works/progresses and obviously you can’t please everybody. Make the pace to slow and people will complain it ain’t working, make the pace to quick and people will feel left behind.

That being said: The short cinematic at the end of this release does wonders to make people curious, however that also leaves a " void" since people will wonder what they’ve been missing and if there’s some important information to fit the pieces together. Is it an option to introduce some kind of instance/cinematic that makes people relive events past in further details?

BobbyStein.2315:

Jaken.6801:

I hope we can get a more through discussion about the matter after the arc is finished. You are in the process of learning and i am courious about what you learned, which ideas you had had to be revised and what your overall vision was against how it ended up.

Yeah, we’re learning a lot about integrating story with gameplay with the two-week Living World release cadence. It’s exposing issues with our writing process, presentation, and development methods that we’re working on improving with each release.

I’ve been formulating a LW season postmortem in my head that I am looking forward to sharing internally first, and then one day discussing publicly if I’m given the opportunity.

I don’t want to put words into your mouth, nor do I want to get you into trouble…but from some of your responses it sounds like youre not a huge fan of the 2 week cadence. It sounds like you would rather be afforded more time for quality writing, character developing, and story telling vs getting stuff out the door in a few weeks.

I dont expect a response(even if I am correct). Just know that you are not alone! We would rather you guys have more time to do what you feel is best, rather than be on a public deadline for every single patch.

BobbyStein.2315:

Jaken.6801:

I hope we can get a more through discussion about the matter after the arc is finished. You are in the process of learning and i am courious about what you learned, which ideas you had had to be revised and what your overall vision was against how it ended up.

Yeah, we’re learning a lot about integrating story with gameplay with the two-week Living World release cadence. It’s exposing issues with our writing process, presentation, and development methods that we’re working on improving with each release.

I’ve been formulating a LW season postmortem in my head that I am looking forward to sharing internally first, and then one day discussing publicly if I’m given the opportunity.

Just a quick, short idea. Have you considered opening out the writing/plotting to the fans as a sort of contest. The winner get’s their idea incorporated into the LW. It’d be a great way of connecting the fans with the developers and getting some great buy in from the community.

I realize it might clash with some ideas you have on the go, but you can always set limits and rules as to what is acceptable (for example, no Shatterer Vs Jormag battle godzilla style in LA)

Gameplay-wise, my biggest problem with the Living Story is how time consuming, and, frequently, how boring it is. I often play these releases only because of the temporary item, and… I get the feeling this is intentional. I think those items are there not with the intention of rewarding players who play it anyway, but to hook people who wouldn’t otherwise play it. There is an appeal to limited time items. Looking back at Guild Wars 1, people often liked the festival hats for their age or exclusivity. I believe the limited time items in this game will be regarded in a similar fashion over time, but they won’t be admired for being earned (with the exception of ones like the Gauntlet mini, which truly were earned). What I’m getting at is that to get the meta achievement it takes more than it should, and I really feel this way after the last release, Tower of Nightmares.

I’m always really iffy on anything that has to be done x amount of times. What does it prove? If it’s fun, shouldn’t we be doing it on our own because we find it fun, and not because we’re told to? Things like kill 100 Toxic Allegience or do 50 door events. What does 50 door events prove that 20 doesn’t? My impression is that it’s a way to make the player invest more time, and investing more time gives a vague feeling of ‘earning’ it. I sort of liked the diving goggles in the Zephyr Sanctum. That was fun, my only problem is that I felt it was difficult to discover without a guide. Simple achievements like that are fun, make you feel like you’re exploring the content, and don’t take up a lot of time doing the same thing repeatedly. Then there’s items gained from single achievements, like the balloon and torch. The torch, I think, was good — you still had to do something repeatedly, but each time was different because there were different races. It also wasn’t excessively time consuming. I found acquiring the torch fun, and I still felt like I earned it by beating all of those races. Then there was the balloon. I did not like travelling to all of those hot air balloons and doing all of their events. It was fun the first couple of times, but after, not at all. But I didn’t want to miss out on the limited time item, which I wanted more for its limitedness and novelty than as a reward for “earning” something, and despite being more time consuming than the torch, I felt like I earned it less, because I wasn’t figuring anything out, I was just doing the same task many times.

I think you guys were on to something with the daily achievements. It allows players to circumvent achievements they don’t prefer. But what I don’t like is not also providing enough achievements normally, thereby forcing the player to do dailies. I think option is really important, especially if someone starts near the end and doesn’t have enough available days to do the required dailies.

Another thing I greatly dislike about these items is that they take up bank space and you only have one. I see absolutely no reason to not do something like the festival hat creator from GW1. You already have a system like it in place with the achievement skins, and I think using a similar system for holiday and cash shop skins would make the game much more enjoyable.

Story-wise, well. I feel like the story is mostly tacked on, and that makes me sad. The whole appeal of the Living Story originally was that it made the game feel more alive and immersive, so I’d figure the story would be the biggest draw, but it still feels like these limited time items are the bigger draw. If you took out those items, how many people would still play the content? I almost feel like these items are a detriment to the LS as a whole because of the focus on meta achievements and playing things just to get these achievements.

And having to complete the meta to finish the story? Don’t like that one bit, sorry. Having jumped on the boat too late in the Halloween event to get a lot of easy dailies, I found myself doing some of the harder, more annoying achievements to get the meta, and it felt so disconnected from the story. She wants a candy corn mini, and you get a candy corn mini out of nowhere once you do enough things enough times. It just reinforced how weak these stories feel. I definitely feel the candy corn mini should’ve been given from a singular achievement like the torch/balloon, and the achievements you can unlock in the Bloody Prince Thorn fight should have counted towards the meta, which would provide the candy corn node. I think that would have been a lot more fun.

Subject : Pacing of the Living Story using the latest two patches as examples of what I think should and shouldn’t be done.

My biggest gripe I think with the story in the Living Story is the pacing of it. As many discussed before, me included, we’re getting too few tidbits of story per patch to make it worthwhile story-wise. So it feels like there isn’t any progress at all. The back to back releases of Tower of Nightmares and Nightmare Within are a prime example of this.

When Tower of Nightmares released and I saw that big tower in Kessex Hills, without reading anything about it, I thought “So cool! I’m eager to get inside! Let’s get this first instance done with so we can enter that beast!”. You see my disappointment when it ended with saving Marjory and Kasmeer. I sincerely think both releases should have been one.

How?

First, the starting story instance in Tower of Nightmares was single player. I’m all for content that is soloable but it should also be scalable according to the number of players going in. We got a party together just to do this instance and experience Anet’s work together (it’s a MMOG right?) but once you enter Kessex Hills, you were thrown in a single player instance. So… our party split up and we went on our way… a little bit annoyed because of it.
The instance itself wasn’t very fun but that’s not really the point I want to make here.
Once it was done, we got back together in Kessex Hills and I looked around for a way to enter that tower… since it was the most appealing thing laying around. After some reading up, I came to the understanding that there was no way to enter that since Marjory required some spores to make the antitoxin.
Okay, story-wise it’s a great idea, it makes sense really. The antitoxin should be required to plow through that tower. However, that sound story element was rendered into a “grind X spores” achievement over the next two weeks which totally destroyed the enjoyment of that part of the story for me.

I’m not sure I’m making any sense with this but the point I want to make across is the feeling with the pacing of the story.

1) New patch, big awesome tower pops up in Kessex Hills = Excited, want to go inside!
2) First story instance, makes a party, solo instance = disappointed I can’t enjoy the content with my friends.
3) Very short story (more like an introduction to what’s going on) is done rather quickly = not that much fun.
4) We got back together in Kessex Hills… the tower! Let’s forget that bad start, the tower will surely be awesome = Excited again.
5) Learning that we can’t enter the tower = very disappointed.
6) Learning that the only thing left for the next 2 weeks is to grind achievements = depressed about the new content, not feeling like doing anything of it anymore.

How about if instead of this, we got the following?

(continued)
1) Once you entered Kessex Hills, you were prompted to enter the story instance with your party.
2) The instance would have went on like it did but once you had reached the end, it wouldn’t have stopped there. (maybe in a different story instance though)
Instead of Kasmeer and Marjory getting to the conclusion by themselves that the antitoxin is required, them and the players organize a party with the available manpower in Kessex Hills (namely Seraph and/or Lionguard). As Commander of the Pact (tie-in personal story stuff), the player has to go recruit either or both parties through dialogue choices. Then they join up in the ruined village near Viathan Lake and the player is prompted with different choices of assault tactics given by the different factions. Once the tactic is chosen, the party and NPCs storm the base of the tower and look for an entrance.
Lo and behold, the toxic vapors prove to be too much for them and NPCs are dying like flies. Kasmeer calls for a retreat and the party has to withdraw under the anger of the kraits, back to the village.
Kasmeer and Marjory concludes that we require the antitoxin. The various factions that helped in the assault put together the new camp on the ridge and the instance ends.
3) Players need to gather the toxic spores (as was required by the living story achievement) and give them to Marjory.
4) Completion prompts a new story instance from Marjory where the player has to test that antitoxin. The mission is to use it, via the portable air conditioners, and save prisoners from the kraits (following the previous failed attempt in the story). The antitoxin work as the party saves the prisoners so a plan is put together to enter the tower. End of instance.
5) Marjory gives the next instance right away — breaching the tower. The party needs to help a group of demolitioners to break through the krait defenses and open a way inside the tower. It’s a success but the advance in the tower fails at great costs and many NPCs give their lives trying to reach the top. Reinforcements are required to continue further.
6) Queues in Nightmare Within like it is right now.

If you don’t feel right with party-based story instances, you can turn them into world events which would be awesome too :
3) World event — Players need to gather enough toxic spores for Marjory to make antitoxin to breach the tower.
4) Completion of #3 leads to follow up world event — Players need to save prisoners with antitoxin.
5) Completion of #4 leads to follow up world event — Players need to breach the tower with demo squad.
Add in some nice champion bosses/legendary bosses on the krait side and it’s a win.

Previously, the involvement of the player was barely helping out Marjory and Kasmeer with fedex tasks while waiting after them to open the way.
With that idea, the involvement of the player would have become active in breaching the tower and taking part in the whole of the story. Furthermore, no gap in one story arc. This is a main point I told Colin previously in this thread about episodic content vs tv episodes. Tower of Nightmares → 2 weeks gap → Nightmare Within feel totally disjointed. However, Tower of Nightmares + Nightmares Within together as a whole feels right, one part of a whole arc. Still, it’s one part of the whole Scarlet arc. This is a subplot of the main Scarlet plot, so it shouldn’t be broken in pieces. You’re diluting your story way too much.

You probably won’t be able to answer this but on the off chance you can, I’d really like to know if defeating the other elder dragons is something we’ll get to do in the near or far future, or are they are to remain in the background while you tell different stories?

Can we discuss the trade-offs to developing Living World.

From what I have seen of comments and interviews, it seems that Anet is not planning on making an expansion. Or, at least, if an expansion is to come, it is not being actively developed and will not be done any time soon. The reason given is Living World. In essence, Anet has traded working on an expansion for LW. It has been over a year, has this been a good trade?

I would say no. If this were an MMO with planned expansions, an expansion would be announced about now in its life cycle. That expansion would be coming out in the next six months. That expansion would include multiple (likely 5) new full zones. Included would also be a full story for this expansion, likely continuing the personal story in a meaningful way. This expansion would also include new races and classes. This expansion would have been where upgraded crafting would have gone. This would also have included additional skills for classes. All this would have come out between now and 6 months from now, or about 1.5 years after release of the game.

Instead we have LW. LW has given us one new zone, tiny and incomplete. LW has given us a stilted LW story, disconnected from the personal story and of no consequence to the player or the world as a whole. LW has given us one new skill, made almost exclusively for time-limited content. LW has given us extended crafting, but stranded us with no new recipes of consequence to fill the gap between 400 and 500 (I expect armor will come soon with no new recipes there as well). LW has failed to provide new races or classes.

What are your thoughts on these trade-offs?

I do not mean to discuss holiday content, QoL updates, class balancing, PvP and WvW updates, skins, bug fixes, or graphical updates, as those should be ongoing regardless of expansion releases or LW updates.

Grimthagen.6019:

Generally though you don’t see Lex Luthor taking on the Justice League as a whole single-handedly or even with a small army of thugs, he needs a group around him just as strong as the JLA to serve a believable role as a threat.

Pfft. Nah, just give him Unshakeable and an astronomically buffed health pool.

I agree with you, though. I hope they’ve used the past year to write a truly epic plot involving the next dragon on the list.

Not sure if anyone mentioned this before (not really the kind to sift through 40+ pages to find out, one of the reasons i really admire the team for doing this), and i do realize this is for LW content mostly, but is there any chance of expanding (or maybe I should say exploring) the content of WvW?

What I mean is introducing some sort of story/lore about places that we fight over in there, make it more interesting. And the Mists seems like a perfect place to start when it comes to writing a story about places that already exist and don’t even need to be changed.

As to avoid the wall of text here, I am just going to say I’ve already posted some ideas on how this can be achieved, just curious if that’s a thing you consider doing along with the LW since the seasonal WvW is considered a part of it.

Here is the post for those interested:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Unused-potential-an-idea-repost/first#post3170254

BobbyStein.2315:

Jaken.6801:

I hope we can get a more through discussion about the matter after the arc is finished. You are in the process of learning and i am courious about what you learned, which ideas you had had to be revised and what your overall vision was against how it ended up.

Yeah, we’re learning a lot about integrating story with gameplay with the two-week Living World release cadence. It’s exposing issues with our writing process, presentation, and development methods that we’re working on improving with each release.

I’ve been formulating a LW season postmortem in my head that I am looking forward to sharing internally first, and then one day discussing publicly if I’m given the opportunity.

I was actually just thinking something along those lines myself actually. Once the Scarlet storyline is finished (so spoilers aren’t going to be a concern, with the possible exception of links to future storylines) it’d be interesting to see a postmortem on what your plans were, what factors went into your decision-making, what you think worked and what you would do differently if you were to do it again. (Particularly given the context of the CDI.)

cesmode.4257:

BobbyStein.2315:

Jaken.6801:

I hope we can get a more through discussion about the matter after the arc is finished. You are in the process of learning and i am courious about what you learned, which ideas you had had to be revised and what your overall vision was against how it ended up.

Yeah, we’re learning a lot about integrating story with gameplay with the two-week Living World release cadence. It’s exposing issues with our writing process, presentation, and development methods that we’re working on improving with each release.

I’ve been formulating a LW season postmortem in my head that I am looking forward to sharing internally first, and then one day discussing publicly if I’m given the opportunity.

I don’t want to put words into your mouth, nor do I want to get you into trouble…but from some of your responses it sounds like youre not a huge fan of the 2 week cadence. It sounds like you would rather be afforded more time for quality writing, character developing, and story telling vs getting stuff out the door in a few weeks.

I dont expect a response(even if I am correct). Just know that you are not alone! We would rather you guys have more time to do what you feel is best, rather than be on a public deadline for every single patch.

As I recall it’s not out the door in a few weeks, it’s out the door in a few months as 4 teams work on the LS. So which ever team put out this last LS update they have 2 months before their next update will go live. Or at least that’s what I’m lead to believe from what I’ve read.

Chris, you may want to have a look at this thread on Reddit, they share a lot of reasonable concerns with the Living Story and rollout process, even if the title is a little misleading.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1qixm0/why_make_expansions_when_you_can_sell_a_pack_of/

Btw, make sure you capitalize you ’I’’s. Your high school English teacher would be aghast.

Also, I have to point out having some of this living story affect WVW is a really really bad idea.

Look as it is now – merc camps also have Krait and another NPC’s there. Not only does this make is far more difficult to take these (which in EB, are worthwhile to take and control), but for this season they are tied to an achievement, which is going to make it far more difficult to obtain. The WVW achievements are not casual friendly outside of dominating servers – restricting these further based on living story is not cool.

If such things are going to be added to WVW, please add them in a place where they will not influence the main game mode. People go to WVW to fight other players and servers – not to mess around with PVE mobs who impede that goal.

In a previous post someone said a day was 2 hours in Tyria, but 2 hours is just the day light hours, 2 hours and 40 minutes would be an entire day. So it’s not 12 years it is less, prob 9 years or there abouts. Sorry, I read it and wanted to make it right :P

Anyway when it comes to Scarlet again having too much of something wears down the value of it. People need to be wanting more of that character and that’s done by limiting it with great stories surrounding them, but right now when it comes to Scarlet (most) people want less. “not X again” comes from it not being to the person’s liking or having too much of it, in Scarlet’s case I suspect both are true. I also think if characters have breaks (Scarlet) it would give the LS teams more time to discus how to connect her story to the players for the next time she returns. Instead of pushing her out every update with a growing unhappy player base. Maybe her finale will be great and epic.

Simple point: why all of the events I’ve seen by now were destructive to the world? Why it is villains who are active? Why not to have some ‘good’ races doing something good in collaboration? Restoring some areas from an influence of Dragons, building something new and so on.

Regarding your Idea, Lanthar, I’ve posted a suggestion on the forum before stumbling on this topic. We don’t have the same topics on the fench forums ^^

Here’s the link to the suggestion:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/A-living-W-orr-ld/first#post3196459

I think a living world could also be something like this. Not only villains destoying like you said, but also we, the “good guys”, collaborating to restore it.

Ok, here’s my general impressions of the new Nightmare Within patch, as a Living World example.

Mostly, I like it, but there are some minor issues.

I like the general story we have here. It might have been nice to have an “instigating event” for accessing the tower, like having to actually assault it in a solo story instance, but I understand that these can take time. I’m glad that it did not have a “gate clearing” cyclical event like Arah that might have prevents access on unmotivated servers.

Moving through the tower is fun and presents a lot of unique challenges, but can be really tricky. If you aren’t traveling in a massive zerg it can be largely impossible, I was able to solo my way up once, but only because I’m fairly sure I was about a minute behind a massive zerg that was clearing events ahead of me. It would be nice to have more “safe” areas where you could actively avoid all enemies to recover. I also don’t like how Elites are at so many of the choke points, which makes even nibbling at the floors without a huge zerg almost impossible.

I like the teleport golems (although I chafe under transport fees), but it’d be nice if there were a peak teleport, and I’d also love to have a “portable teleportation golem” so that you can jump to the 2nd and 3rd floors directly from any point in the map, rather than having to pay to WP to the ground and then pay to WP to the floor you want. It would make a fun reward for reaching the top or something.

The smaller chambers had some fun little dialogs and encounter options. I’ve run them both solo and in groups, solo seems to go faster and easier, but can be more punishing of failure. The final story mission especially I was unable to get past the Molten room solo, and in smaller groups the enemies can stack up. You pretty much just have to ignore them and kill the portals ASAP and then run. I think the other rooms tended to take a bit too long between waves. I suppose it’s to give you a chance to heal up, which may be necessary, but I think there should be some better way to do that which keeps the flow going. Would it be possible to spawn a healing effect? Like at the end of each wave a massive rain falls on the whole room that heals everyone to full, and the battle continues immediately?

As to the main story, it fell a bit flat. I feel like I get Scarlet well enough, I’m not a hater, but there just wasn’t a lot of meat to this one. You go in, circle the map, she taunts you a bit, and then the instant you show up she throws a cutscene at you and runs away. No real interaction at all. The cutscene was nifty enough for people who hadn’t been paying attention to the LW, but didn’t really add anything we didn’t already know. I still think it’d be great to have a quest similar to last year’s Mad King quest, which presents you with holographic echos of Scarlet’s interactions with the other races to put them into place. I think a big part of the problem is that in serialized fiction, you’re often shown the bad guys doing their own thing inter-cut into the season, so even when they aren’t directly facing the hero, the viewer knows that they are up to something.

Overall, this resulted in a story that built to a climax, then just went “poof” and then you had to fight a random snake boss. I like the boss, but the story climax should probably occur after you kill him, not before.

Btw, my favorite GW2 story characters, in order, are Marjory, Zojja, Kasmeer, Anise, Tybalt, Tassi, Feron, Sieran, Galina and Snarl, Caithe, Rytlock, Evon Gnashblade, Agent Batanga, Queen Jenna, Rox, Braham, Forgal, Kiel, Logan, Trehearn.

In terms of story villains, it would be Shodd, Teyo, Mai Trin, Kudu, Gavin, Faolain, Scarlet, Noll, Mouth of Zhaitan. Anyone else didn’t really register a strong characterization, I suppose.

Moving forward:
What would I like to see done with the Tower after this event is over? I’d like to see it stay, but in a much reduced capacity. I’d like to see us “kill” the tower, but keep a lot of its “corpse” intact. I’d like it to stop infecting Kessex, the skies turn blue again, and most of the zone returns over time to its previous state, including new growth taking over the barren western hills, and many of the larger vines retreating. The tower itself could remain largely intact, except maybe the tip or something, so you could still run the three floors and use the chambers maybe. I would recommend scaling the enemies back a bit though and maybe remove the blocking walls, so that a solo player could run through it (without fighting too much and ignoring events), and a small group could tackle all the enemies and events.

Here’s an idea:

You should have allowed the players to lift the illusion around the tower.

Here’s how it would work:

The illusion around the tower responds to certain spells or attacks, but only with a cooperative effort of dozens of players, can the illusion be lifted. You don’t tell the players how to do it, you just let them figure it out for themselves.

It is far more engaging to get the players involved, and have them be the heroes, then to have an npc lift the illusion for them in a cut scene (This once again enforces this idea that the npc’s in the game have powers that the players do not have).

Lifting the curtain would be server-specific. In other words, each server has to organize and do it individually. Don’t tell us how to do it on the website, and don’t tell us what’s inside. Allow us to discover it for ourselves, but get us involved! Allow the players to do these epic things together.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Here’s an idea:

You should have allowed the players to lift the illusion around the tower.

Here’s how it would work:

The illusion around the tower responds to certain spells or attacks, but only with a cooperative effort of dozens of players, can the illusion be lifted. You don’t tell the players how to do it, you just let them figure it out for themselves.

It is far more engaging to get the players involved, and have them be the heroes, then to have an npc lift the illusion for them in a cut scene (This once again enforces this idea that the npc’s in the game have powers that the players do not have).

Lifting the curtain would be server-specific. In other words, each server has to organize and do it individually. Don’t tell us how to do it on the website, and don’t tell us what’s inside. Allow us to discover it for ourselves, but get us involved! Allow the players to do these epic things together.

And the overflows? Nothing can be server-specific because of the overflows.
But I like the idea of the player actually doing the work. But not entirely in this case.
The player hasn’t studied for years to know how illusions work unless they’re a mesmer. To dispell an illusion, you need to know alot about illusions. Since the general player doesn’t, it would be a mesmer-only content if it was to fit with the story and for it to make sense.

So yes and no.
The NPCs -does- have powers that we don’t and it makes sense for them to have that both from a story perspective and from a gameplay perspective.
I’d like for the player to do things like this, but only when actually applicable. And in this case I don’t think it is. But in other cases it may be.

Well look at it this way, perhaps what is needed to bring down the illusion is simply a magic overload. That way all classes get to contribute. Don’t restrict it to just mesmers, allow all classes to take part in it.

It bothers me to no end, when npc’s do things that players can’t do. It seems like a forced plot device. Basically, those are moments when npc’s hog the spot light, when it should be the players that are the big stars.

I want to see individual players be allowed to take the spotlight in the Living Story. Kind of like how commanders on our servers organize dozens of players to take down Tequatl. Imagine one mesmer player focusing on bringing down the illusion, while all other players channel their magic into that player, to give one person the power to shatter the illusion. Let us be the stars of the show.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Here’s an idea:

You should have allowed the players to lift the illusion around the tower.

Here’s how it would work:

The illusion around the tower responds to certain spells or attacks, but only with a cooperative effort of dozens of players, can the illusion be lifted. You don’t tell the players how to do it, you just let them figure it out for themselves.

It is far more engaging to get the players involved, and have them be the heroes, then to have an npc lift the illusion for them in a cut scene (This once again enforces this idea that the npc’s in the game have powers that the players do not have).

Lifting the curtain would be server-specific. In other words, each server has to organize and do it individually. Don’t tell us how to do it on the website, and don’t tell us what’s inside. Allow us to discover it for ourselves, but get us involved! Allow the players to do these epic things together.

Sorry… I dont want to be beholden to the coordination of dozens of strangers to get access to content that’s only around for two weeks. Full stop. It’s all I can do to finish the Nightmare Within achievements while groups of people are still actively climbing it.

That said, you bring up a good point. Hearing about the wall coming down after the fact feels like a bit of a wasted opportunity.

Maybe the beginning instance of Tower of Nightmares should have had us defending Kasmeer as she prepares to take the wall down… something like that.

So I was talking with another player last night on TeamSpeak about our respective reactions to the living story. While there was a lot said there was one thing that I think really stood out to me (and I apologize if it has been said before).

The living stories that actually change outcome based on player decisions are much more enjoyable then when we feel like we are just going down a set script.

One of my favorite living stories was when we got to vote for our favorite candidate (Ellen Kiel and Evon Gnashblade), and our votes actually made a difference as to the projection of the world. I’m assuming from a development perspective this was probably a hard thing to offer since you have to prepare the initial change for both scenarios. Although on a side note it would have been nice to see some graphical representation of our votes so that we knew it wasn’t rigged. ;-)

I think one of the things I would love to see integrated is that feeling that we are, as a community, changing the world based on our decisions. It really makes it feel like a “Living Story” when we get to act as agents of the course of the story, and I think doing this as a community is a great way to keep the spirit of the MMO alive.

On a side note I do like the progress bar on the “Nightmare Within” LS. It again makes it feel like as a community we are making a change in the world based on our actions (although the action is really only the one sided choice to inject the anti-toxin). It also gives some sense of failure because we don’t know what will happen if we don’t inject enough toxin in time….

summary bump? hmm?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Part 4

The Scarlet arc exposition has been to slow and we agree with this. We also know how much you all want to see more of our old lore built upon and we agree. I am looking forward to hearing your feedback around Scarlet once the arc ends.

Continued…

Summary Bump

I guess this covers what I’ve been talking about. I hope it means we will not see a years worth of LS dedicated to one villain. It sounds like different aspects of lore will be included in the LS at various times through out the next LS season. That would be great Sorry if I sounded too negative in my posts against Scarlet.

BobbyStein.2315:

The biggest reason why we introduced new characters for Living World story content was because we weren’t able to separate the Personal Story and Living World timelines and characters. So while we could have used iconics or existing characters more liberally in the Living World releases, we couldn’t put them through any meaningful changes because it could potentially break continuity elsewhere.

If you create a character that has no dependencies to existing content then you have a lot fewer restrictions in how you use them. The good news is that we’re taking steps to address this very concern and we’ll be sharing more details on our solution in the coming months.

Lord Faren was kidnapped and i believe that many human noble could still see him in their personal story… It is not cool… There is no system that could block personal story progress, but if the game had one, it would be awesome. Would be an integration of various systems (PS, DEs and LS).

e.g.

Personal Story & Living Story integration

I am in favor of kill a major character in the living story and replace the personal story quests where he appears… Many people would like a revamp in Personal Story and you could do it using the Living Story. I do not think personal story should have a timeline, i mean, i would like to choose which elder dragon i would kill first (When more than one is in the game) instead of having to kill zaithan first with all my alts… but since The Pact was created during the battle against Zaithan, it would be hard to fix.

Dynamic Events & Personal Story/Living Story instances integration

When a place has an active dynamic event, it should be impossible to start an instance, the instance should be blocked as are the waypoints. It’s not cool to be in a village in flames and suddenly you start the instance and it is burning no more.

Story instance & World integration

You did an instance where all waypoints in the world become defective, then your character can not use it in the world an have to do another instance to fix it.

People should be blocked from entering Straits of Devastation without having Fort Trinity quest to do or have it done. When you first enter in the map the instance quest starts automatically.

Conclusion

We need immersion, this game is an RPG and that’s why I’m liking the LS, do not give much importance to those who complain about temporary content or blocked content (such as dungeons entrances)… In an RPG the world has to influence your way (even if it is blocking things) and you can also influence the world (even if it only influence your character like PS blocking waypoints only for your character).

Shouldn’t great MMORPGs be great RPGs too? – Mike O’ Brien @ Guildwars2.com

It is clear that you want to create a great RPG then would be good a integration between all systems. Maybe even WvW could influence in the world by creating events, rather than buffs… Events in Lions Arch to make TP unavailable on your server (not the gem store), and destruction of crafting stations.