Guild Wars 2

I’d like to know if ANYONE came away feeling they understood Scarlet’s invasions from an in-setting perspective? Seriously, is there a single goal on any map they appear on that they take action to seize? No, of course not. They’re like deer, or dolyaks, just another form of natural resource.

Call that an episode of television and look at it again. Where’s the closure? Where’s the progression of the episode plot OR the season plot? We study the mystery and it dumps us into last week’s map, not the hidden base, the mysterious staging ground, the chance to actually move things along towards a meaningful conclusion.

Look at the waves:

We fight steam monsters… what?!? Last I checked they had their own world-striding evil mastermind to control them that should have rolled up Scarlett into a little ball for tampering with their dominion.

We fight Twisted watchknights… seriously where do these things keep coming from? Because if Queen Jenna had THAT many tucked away to be casually stolen by Uber-girl, the Queen should have being using her ‘speech’ to announce her ascension to Empress of All Tyria. We don’t have the slightest clue where these things come from. No factories, no infrastructure, nothing but flimsy cardboard plot that hands all of Jenna’s advisors the idiot ball for a total lack of safeguards on her new army.

We fight Molten Alliance… again whut, who, where, how, why!??! We smashed these guys so hard they literally disappeared from their native maps entirely and now they just sort of spring up again, thrust through a portal from All 6 Gods knows where? This is rich plot development? Or is it cheaply reused game resources because any sense of accomplishment from the ending of the Frost and Flame arc needed to be wiped away in the name of elevating Scarlet’s cred.

And then Aetherblades. I still don’t get how I overlooked airships packed with pirates for the first 79 levels of my main’s life. They just sort of appear. And I’m trying to puzzle out “They work for me, because, they like living.” Because clearly they DON’T like living given they way they throw themselves into the zerg-blender. We FARM these fools, not fear or respect them.

The lone hint of where these massive and yet totally directionless armies come from is the fuzzy fx for the portals, which appears to be nothing more than a re-used asset from the Steam critters. Still waiting to see if that was a no-effort filler or will one day have actual pay-off.

So is anyone from Anet going to respond to the pages and pages of feedback that the pace of Living Story releases is too fast? I feel like we’ve been saying it for months and being completely brushed off. Here’s my take on what’s been happening:

ANET: Hey guys, we’re going to give you Living Story updates every two weeks! Cool, huh?

Players: Um…that’s kind of…fast…don’t you think?

ANET: Nah, you’re going to love it! No one else is doing it! We’re unique!

Players: No, really, we’ve tried it, and it’s too fast. It’s kind of stressful actually. Can you slow it down a bit?

ANET: We’re committed to bringing you Living Story updates every two weeks! We’ll continue to work hard to make this happen, even though it limits the things we can do because of such a tight release schedule. But we’re doing this for you because we know how much you enjoy it

Players: No! Just stop it, okay? Please! We don’t like it. It’s burning us out. Are you even hearing us?

ANET: Hey, look at our new web advertisements! They say “Free DLC every two weeks!” Pretty slick, huh?

Players: <…sob!>

Hi Colin,

ColinJohanson.2394:

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

DBZ TFS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkCd5hn3yrI
It is nostalgic but grown up, as much as the esrb rating will allow which is a lot in terms of delivery.

ColinJohanson.2394:

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

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

I read about a journal. That is it right there. During the two week meta you get rewards. After you can still use your journal to experience (play?) the ‘story aspect’ of the two week content in a chronological order, instanced, and scaled to solo/group. Gw1 missions with Gw2 two week meta rewards.

If a new player buys Gw2 they can play all the old LS content in a story driven format.

ColinJohanson.2394:

I personally think we have a lot of work to do to get to the point we’re succeeding on these goals, but with every step along the way we’re learning an incredible amount. Some fantastic ideas and comments in this thread, and many of them match our own feelings on living world and what would make it successful as well. Many of these ideas are things you’ve all been suggesting for months (or longer) and will be reflected in future releases. Remember what you see today we started work on 4-5 months ago (or longer), so the lag time to adjust to feedback and what we learned isn’t going to be instant, it’ll come in waves of evolutions with each round of feedback and discussion.

Queens Jubilee LS cut scene was amazing in terms of art where the still picture of the Queen falling. Lord Faren was an E rating. Push the T. Push the infrequent use of strong language and crude humor all rolled up in awesome.

Every time a developer says the magic word

Dragons

I just melt into a puddle of happiness!

Say it again!

minbariguy.7504:

ANET: Hey guys, we’re going to give you Living Story updates every two weeks! Cool, huh?

Players: Um…that’s kind of…fast…don’t you think?

ANET: Nah, you’re going to love it! No one else is doing it! We’re unique!

Players: No, really, we’ve tried it, and it’s too fast. It’s kind of stressful actually. Can you slow it down a bit?

ANET: We’re committed to bringing you Living Story updates every two weeks! We’ll continue to work hard to make this happen, even though it limits the things we can do because of such a tight release schedule. But we’re doing this for you because we know how much you enjoy it

Players: No! Just stop it, okay? Please! We don’t like it. It’s burning us out. Are you even hearing us?

ANET: Hey, look at our new web advertisements! They say “Free DLC every two weeks!” Pretty slick, huh?

Players: <…sob!>

You missed the NEW punch line:

ANET: But we’ve finally acknowledge you have concerns. IF, and we do mean IF we choose to act on that feedback, we can change course in a mere 4 months! The next 8 episodes? They’re locked in!

ColinJohanson.2394:

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

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

For episodic TV, I am a fan of suspenseful dramas. What keeps me tuning into the same show is:

1. Character Development:

Characters should be well developed, with back stories to feel connected to them. The viewer should see them make tough choices and be aware of the degree of cost to that character. There should be quality character interaction so that they don’t feel like some token character there just to fill a niche. Sadly to me Scarlett does not feel that way to me. It seemed that it started that way then it lost what momentum it had.

1. Seriousness:

Like I said before there should be some level of cost. To me that makes me feel invested and keeps me coming back to tune in again and again to see those consequences.

1. Humor:

Well that contradicts the previous one, but let’s face it. A TV show that is all seriousness with no humor is intense, and gets rather boring. I loved the series 24, but I was quickly burned out after season 3 & 4. It needed something to balance the intensity of the series.

1. Fun:

Some of my favorite shows had some level of grandness. Some new adventure, new sights, something unique that kept things fun. On another side on of my favorite TV shows of all time: “Friends” had that fun factor because of the situations they faced daily and how they handled them humorously.

1. Cutscenes:

Missed most of all from GW1 stories. We had a little return of that with Rox and Braham in the Fire and Frost story. We need more of that to get that this is a story feel. Hopefully less talking heads in the future and more of the cinematics/cutscenes.

1. Cohesiveness:

Probably the most important part of any episodic series. There has to be an obvious central theme that connects all the little episodes together. I know that there is something with the LS that does connect them because it was said out of game in an announcement. Good story telling, however, shouldn’t rely on that. Good story-telling makes that obvious in the story. Right now the LS feels so disjointed, I do not see at all how Mad King, Toy Maker, Southsun, SAB, Aetherblades, the Bazaar place, and Scarlett all connect. Hopefully we do soon.

I would suggest write the story out as a whole and then tell each chapter with each new patch. My two cents tho – what do I know – I am not a game designer.

HOWEVER

After playing through just the intro of today’s Krait tower story I see some of these things I mentioned in there. Hopefully this trend continues!

Calae.1738:

-Pirates turn Lion’s Arch into a hostile fortress of pirate invaders and actually STEAL player items and gold.

Or make factions that consist on players that can do stuff and drive the story with some serious wars and killing and stuff, like in EVE. Something like WvW but impacting to lore and rewards? Agree on fact that personal story is not impactful as well.

What would I like to see from a TV show in a game medium? Twists and an atmosphere like GoT or Skyrim, personalities we care about and hate! You already have the base lore for it: The Gods, the Titans and the Dragons! Warcraft 3 had Illidan, Arthus, The Burning Legion and the Lich King (sorry I haven’t played Gw1 so this is the only thing I can refer to.) Warcraft 3 had multiple people/factions doing different stuff all over the place. In comparison to that one game, WoW did not add much I would say in my opinion. (I did have good immersive moments in WoW though but they were few.) Expand on your Gw2 lore and make it rich! Make it worth following! Flesh out the personalities! And then make it happen in the game. (‘Rich’ might be a bit vague but there are gimmicks you can use to make the lore appear so. Am sure you storytellers know more than me about this stuff.)

Once the lore stuff is in place, we need stuff to do that makes a difference to the lore. Difference between a game and TV show like GoT is that we are in it. The election was a crude version of that. The best example for a successful game that has this is EVE. Wars and invasions happen between factions the results are in the players hands. In that game anything can happen but we don’t need to go to that extend to make Gw2 feel real. All I am saying is the election was a very crude version.

WoodenPotatoes in youtube, that’s all I’m sayin

BobbyStein.2315:

Dragons
Guild Wars 2 has a dragon on the box cover. The primary motivation for players on their 80-level journey is to kill a dragon. So yeah, giant, winged beasts are a part of Tyria, they’re core to the game, and we haven’t forgotten about them. That stated, I can’t say when we’ll return to them—only that we will. There is a plan in place.

Thanks Bobby for the explanation. I gather from the quoted section that there doesn’t seem to be any plans in the near future to continue on with the storyline of the Elder Dragons, which I personally find somewhat disappointing.

Of course, much of the subsequent LS releases would already have been planned out, so that’s understandable. However, given the amount of existing lore that is available to be expanded upon (new regions, several other dragons that players are expecting to encounter), I didn’t think there was much need to develop a whole new arc that seemingly detracts from the main storyline of fighting dragons. It gives me the impression that the developers thought there wasn’t enough content available, and therefore such ‘filler’ arcs had to be put in place to prolong the experience. However, even if instead of expansions, the developers decide to use LS as the means for new content, at a staggeringly fast pace of unlocking one new map a month towards, for example, Cantha or Elona, to head towards the next dragon, it would still easily take a year before we encounter the next dragon, giving the game several years worth of content. This includes making use of the current meta-events that the LS uses to provide content for players to do, but directed towards dragons rather than other villains.

So given the amount of lore that it seems a lot of players are excited about (more dragons, more new continents), and of course a lot of old players probably bought the game for, these arcs with seemingly unintuitive alliances and side villains do feel to me like filler content. Perhaps this is because the game was built up to give players the impression that the dragons are the big enemies in the game. And therefore it can be difficult to be excited about.

I think judging from some of the responses here, a lot of people will be very excited if the LS takes a turn towards the next dragon after the conclusion of the current arc, since it will feel like the main content they were waiting for.

I hope that helps!

A lot of updates have been pretty self contained in the world. That is, the update stuff happens, and everything around happens, and they’re entirely separate. A tower in Kessex is raining poison death all over, but for Fort Salma, and the centaurs, and the sylvari camp, and garenhoff, it’s just another day. Stuff like this really makes the “living world” feel artificial and empty. Do you see this as an actual problem worth addressing? Are there any plans to expand on just how much impact the living world has on the actual world itself? A giant tower and a green sky is nice and flashy, but if half the zone is still acting business as usual, it loses a LOT of the effect.

I must say that I’m a little worried about the frequent references to TV shows.

Certainly there are things that GW2 could learn from good TV shows such as:
- having characters the viewers actually care about
- having a sense of it’s own lore and actually using the lore that has been established
- including all of the relevant content in the TV show and not requiring the viewer to go to the internet to acquire basic knowledge
- having a story that feels continuous from one episode to the next with logical conclusions where appropriate
- having a general feeling of consistency and purpose even when the episodes are written/directed by different people
- knowing how best to use a more limited budget than your average movie

But I think it’s very important that GW2 is treated as much as a game as it is a “two weeks per episode” TV series. The actual game content needs to be compelling and there needs to be a realization that the strict two week period is not always going to be in the best interest of either story or gameplay. In the middle of your standard TV season, even the good ones, there’s often episodes that are often filler content. Maybe there’s some character development or some interesting plots, but it’s often just putting pieces in place between the hook of the season start and the finale. That doesn’t work in games because the player needs to be both mentally and physically involved in the proceedings.

Short and simple, quality > quantity

If you made every champ mob we kill turn into a dragon at like 50% hp the living story would be amazing all the time.

I am going to join in with the many people saying that the Living Story is being done poorly at this time. The Living Story (pardon me, Living World – we all know story is not involved) feels like content that would be developed for a FTP tap game on a phone, not an AAA MMO company. The story is nonexistent and the content is shallow, repetitive, and contains tons of real money or gold sinks – usually in the form of RNG boxes or material-heavy recipes. The content is rushed out as fast as possible with the idea that people logging in, people clicking at things (usually just the F button) equals quality content. Also, where are the dragons? Or the guilds in the story? Did I purchase an MMO about dragons and guilds, because I’m no longer sure.

In game, if you blink, you might miss the story for each LW update. This is unacceptable. Stories are printed on the website and blogs but not in game. Why not? In case Anet was unsure, you are running an MMO. That means the players are all required to view the game as you update it on your servers. Why then, is it acceptable to put a story on your website, but not in game? It takes the same amount of time to add in a book or npc somewhere easy to find that says the same story as what is written on your website. Copy anything said in game anywhere else you want, but don’t hide in game story out of the game. It seems like the most basic concept. Anet, you have a constantly updating game, why not utilize that.

Next, I will say that the current LW story arcs are shallow and boring. Scarlet is no dragon. That aside, she’s also not a good villian. The entirety of Tyria is currently united to fight the threat that is the dragons, and you’re saying a crazy lady with some henchmen is a threat. It isn’t believable by a long shot. Scarlet specifically is that Saturday morning cartoon villain that is evil just because. I’m sorry, that is in no way compelling or competent story telling. Give me motivation. Give me substance.

This is where I will join in the chorus and ask that LW updates be slowed down. It is clear that there is no planned end or goal to the current LW updates. Take your time and plot out a clear path for your writers to follow. Then take time to write an appropriate story with round, dynamic characters for that arc. It needs a rising action, conflict, and denouement. Every LW update can’t end with the bad guy slipping away and nothing resolvedand the world not changing.

That leads to my next point, change your world. Kill your darlings, Anet. Tyria is pretty to look at and a nicely done game. However, if these updates and the story is to matter, you will have to make permanent changes to the map. I don’t just mean fixing unfinished areas (like the collapse in Divinity’s Reach), but adding new, real zones (hearts, poi, skill points, dynamic events, regular events, vistas and all), and changing old ones in significant ways. Yeah, players will miss things that join later. And, so what. Life changes. A Living World should actually be living.

Next, please please please stop giving us shallow, repetitive tasks and calling them LW. Closing 100 doors, destroying 500 dragon pinatas, killing 300 minions, etc. etc. These are not good design or gameplay. I didn’t log into a vast, virtual world to complete the same, mind-numbing task over and over. The same goes for zerg gameplay. Content that is made to be zerged and made more profitable than the regular game should not happen. Scarlet’s invasions and the Queen’s Pavilion were embarrassments of design.

I am sorry I do not have many suggestions to fix these issues. I think the LW schedule is ambitious. But it’s execution is flawed to the point that I feel it is more a curse than a boon. I do not know how I would do a 2-week update schedule, but I now know what I wouldn’t do.

Nike.2631:

I’d like to know if ANYONE came away feeling they understood Scarlet’s invasions from an in-setting perspective? Seriously, is there a single goal on any map they appear on that they take action to seize? No, of course not. They’re like deer, or dolyaks, just another form of natural resource.

Not sure if this is the right place to talk about it but I would say I definitely understand the Invasions from an out-of-universe perspective, but my in-game character would be a lot less knowledgable. That said, they’d be able to figure out that the MA was formed by Scarlet’s machinations as well as the Aetherblades and somehow the Steamcreatures fit in too.

If you’d like I can link you to reddit posts I’ve written defending these things and explain my POV, PM me.

I would like to respond to what Bobby Stein just posted. I have followed his name a lot and I know he’s been responsible for writing in GW2 after a long time doing writing things in GW1 too. He’s been involved with Tyria for a while and I think as a fan/observer of this now very transparent dialogue he has grown as a writer, a developer and as a community collaborator. It sounds like a big PR dribble quote I’m making but I want him to know that I think he is adding value to his professional skills. People went out of their way to talk about why they hate Trahearne (mostly inappropriately or without merit) and he took it in stride in the initial post-release feedback topics. I think the story has started to increase in nuance and general quality since August 2012. He’s part of that change.

He sounds honest in these posts and gets me to feel, at least this one fan, that the team can accept they didn’t put forth an excellent writing component to their product at onset but they have the option to do more or to do better. I think his plan for Scarlet’s characterization and what is apparently planned is just what we needed to hear. At least for me. I think Scarlet is similar to “Mary Sue” type but she probably isn’t one. I defend her against hordes of internet opinions on Reddit from time to time. If she has more to her than being crazy than I might just be right in my hunch. I hope for the sake of lore and story progression that she shows some cool aspects of Eternal Alchemy or other things that make Tyria the way it is. She can expose cool new and old aspects of lore to us! Anyway, thank you Bobby and to the team for having this discussion. Keep adding that sexy nuance to your set pieces.

John.5732:

—snip—

Give this man a medal. He hit every note pitch perfectly. I agree 1000%.

Well said.

BobbyStein.2315:

…I’d like to say thanks to everyone who posted constructive and/or detailed feedback regarding the Living World story and characters in this thread. While I can’t post spoilers about future content, I would like to address some of the opinions that have been brought up. Bear in mind I may have touched upon these topics in other threads that were tied to previous releases (or mentioned within interviews on external Web sites) but I’ll put my most recent thoughts here for discussion….

It makes me so happy to get some insight into what is going on when you guys develop. The pacing is a BIG problem with me. I don’t care so much about the dragons as long as what’s supplemented feels grand, cohesive, and consciously devised.

As far as having one plot line from beginning to end as opposed to having several working at the same time I offer that having several running at the same time isn’t a problem as long as they are discernible to the player easily.

With Scarlet it just seemed like she was doing-stuff-not that you were setting up plots that while she is the person pulling the strings, will ultimately progress mostly independently.

minbariguy.7504:

So is anyone from Anet going to respond to the pages and pages of feedback that the pace of Living Story releases is too fast? I feel like we’ve been saying it for months and being completely brushed off. Here’s my take on what’s been happening:

---

ANET: Hey guys, we’re going to give you Living Story updates every two weeks! Cool, huh?

Players: Um…that’s kind of…fast…don’t you think?

ANET: Nah, you’re going to love it! No one else is doing it! We’re unique!

Players: No, really, we’ve tried it, and it’s too fast. It’s kind of stressful actually. Can you slow it down a bit?

ANET: We’re committed to bringing you Living Story updates every two weeks! We’ll continue to work hard to make this happen, even though it limits the things we can do because of such a tight release schedule. But we’re doing this for you because we know how much you enjoy it

Players: No! Just stop it, okay? Please! We don’t like it. It’s burning us out. Are you even hearing us?

ANET: Hey, look at our new web advertisements! They say “Free DLC every two weeks!” Pretty slick, huh?

Players: <…sob!>

One, it’s not “Players”, it’s “You.” You do not speak for anyone other than yourself.

And the problem is… Arena.net TRIED the every month bit initially. Players ground through it in three days and cried for the next three weeks they were bored. They are giving us what the majority supposedly wants.

I question the wisdom of trying to appeal to the content locusts… but at this point, the play time requirements to keep up have not been obscene for me.

Players burning out is entirely a player-side problem. You don’t HAVE to complete EVERY meta event, ya know? You CAN get the thrust of the living story in a handful of hours.

chemiclord.3978:

And the problem is… Arena.net TRIED the every month bit initially. Players ground through it in three days and cried for the next three weeks they were bored. They are giving us what the majority wants.

I don’t think it’s a majority that wanted biweekly LW updates. I think Anet should have provided larger, deeper, and richer experiences, yes. But, when you give some mindless tasks, anyone can complete them in less than a week with endless play.

Furthermore, the players who have the free time to play and grind for more than 4 hours a day on a daily basis are not the majority. They are just a vocal group. No matter what content Anet makes, there will be a minority of players that will pour through it in an extremely short amount of time. They will have to deal with waiting until other players catch up for LW. There are countless other things they can get ahead on (Champ grind, legendary grind, PvP, WvW). If Anet updated at the pace these players go through content, it would essentially be daily.

It was said best on this forum a while ago that there are many types of MMO players. One group are just looking for the newest shiny to grind and then move on. There is no way Anet can keep these players long term. They will move onto other MMO’s to grind their shinies.

chemiclord.3978:

minbariguy.7504:

So is anyone from Anet going to respond to the pages and pages of feedback that the pace of Living Story releases is too fast? I feel like we’ve been saying it for months and being completely brushed off. Here’s my take on what’s been happening:

---

ANET: Hey guys, we’re going to give you Living Story updates every two weeks! Cool, huh?

Players: Um…that’s kind of…fast…don’t you think?

ANET: Nah, you’re going to love it! No one else is doing it! We’re unique!

Players: No, really, we’ve tried it, and it’s too fast. It’s kind of stressful actually. Can you slow it down a bit?

ANET: We’re committed to bringing you Living Story updates every two weeks! We’ll continue to work hard to make this happen, even though it limits the things we can do because of such a tight release schedule. But we’re doing this for you because we know how much you enjoy it

Players: No! Just stop it, okay? Please! We don’t like it. It’s burning us out. Are you even hearing us?

ANET: Hey, look at our new web advertisements! They say “Free DLC every two weeks!” Pretty slick, huh?

Players: <…sob!>

One, it’s not “Players”, it’s “You.” You do not speak for anyone other than yourself.

And the problem is… Arena.net TRIED the every month bit initially. Players ground through it in three days and cried for the next three weeks they were bored. They are giving us what the majority supposedly wants.

I question the wisdom of trying to appeal to the content locusts… but at this point, the play time requirements to keep up have not been obscene for me.

Players burning out is entirely a player-side problem. You don’t HAVE to complete EVERY meta event, ya know? You CAN get the thrust of the living story in a handful of hours.

I think the purpose of this thread is to create a constructive conversation about what we personally like and dislike about living story…what we think works and doesnt work. Criticizing someone elses post or opinions is only going to lead to the endless debate that runs wild in the forums.

I have no problem whatsoever with the pace of the LW/LS stuff. I think its just fine, for the most part.

Its just the stuff I want to see aren’t there. I want to see the advancement of the campaign against the dragons. And here’s the thing: if the next dragon campaign isnt available, LW/LS stuff could still be inserted. With the death of Zhaitan, for instance, what if we started seeing minions of the other dragons encroaching in various ways? What if we saw some “villain” races had factions making overtures to join the alliance against the next dragon, while other factions within the race worked hard to overthrow it?

Seems to me you could start doing lots of foreshadowing and preluding with LS/LW stuff. Maybe intertwine other stories in at the same time. For instance, if the Krait were building this tower while referencing trying to retake their home seas from the elder Sea Dragon for example, and see a few early battles between the envenomed Krait and some weird corrupted sea creatures coming after the krait, throw in a few Largos, etc, could be a lot of fun, and preluding to the dragons while still keeping the actual campaigns off in the distance.

Scarlet is an awful villain and I’m sure many of us just want to bash some dragon heads. Can’t we just get an expansion to do that? Thanks. Also, your current design philosophy sucks.

The living story 2 wek time frame is as already mentioned too short of a time to envelope a person into this content. Maybe 3-4 weeks per LS to give it more of a living feel. 2 weeks after release ramp it up with harder battles or some new “stage 2” fights. I love farming the Scarlet event and try to get it everytime but i feel like all i do is farm now to get my MF% up there and for ascended weapon materials. i thought you guys said it wouldnt be a grind to get the required mats? I like farming but the amount of mats required for some of these are a little OP. (i cant keep enough elder wood to craft to refine my spiritwood planks)
I want the game to feel like it did when Trehierne was seeking counsel from the Pale tree. like i was part of something bigger, some grand plan that will save Tyria. For now im just grinding through mobs and farming to replace all my exotics with ascendeds.
Also the ascended rings/earrings should allow you to put 2 of the same type on a charactor. not just an offensive and defensive one.

Drecien.
6-lvl 80’s 2 more on their way. Why? cause some must fight so that all may be free!
Every class, every race.
For Grape Justice!

BobbyStein.2315:

So after a few releases it started to feel like there were a lot of unresolved plot threads out there and you (the player) had no way of knowing which ones would be resumed.

few releases? we’ve had plenty more than just a few and no questions were getting answered, its just more of a case of questions getting stacked upon the unanswered ones.

there are ways to hint on things without giving away the secret you want to be revealed later, a series of steps leading up to the big reveal which are tied off after each patch but still progress further along a development line.

For example you say there is more to Scarlets craziness than what we know, you could have a scene with a clouded figure behind her with only the eyes visible. Now we know something is behind her just not what or who or why. But you have given us something… a development or possibility. It doesn’t even have to be a figure it could merely be the eyes… just anything to help understand this story, and to understand her better. Its a cliché example but still its an example of how to progress things while still pushing the story further.

For that example it would tell us something but not exactly who, next would reveal who but not why, then why but not how…. etc

BobbyStein.2315:

There is a reason to her madness but we haven’t revealed it yet.

I might add that I’m slightly disappointed that you tell us this within a Q&A thread.

I think that there is a clear mistake you made with our two less-than-beloved Sylvari that you didn’t make beloved characters like the order mentors and DE. With Trahearne and Scarlet both, you made the story about that one character. For this to succeed, you have to make one character for everyone, a character everybody will love. No writer has ever done this or ever will. With Destiny’s Edge, I can hate Logan and Zojja and still love stories about the group. That’s because I can still love Eir and Rytlock (and think Caithe is completely ignorable). It’s even better with the orders, since I can pick the one I like best. Can’t take Magister Sieran seriously? Join the Vigil, you’ll love Forgal. In both cases, not having the story be about one person allowed you to make characters that were for a portion of the player base and not so much for the rest. And for those that they were for, they were home-runs. From a player satisfaction standpoint, that’s much better than having one character for everyone who ends up not resonating with much of anyone.

And here we go again. You know, you defined the Krait as a xenophobic hate everything race here.

Now.. another implausible, improbable and formulaic “alliance” Really. Again.

You should not need “input” from us to have one guy at your developer sessions say…Hey..do ya think we are pushing the evil alliance thing a bit too much?

Undoubtedly Clown Queen will be involved eventually.

Really Really Bad. It’s like Team Rocket with an evil army. You can do better.

BobbyStein.2315:

Story Pacing & Continuity
(snip)
Perhaps a better approach would have been to start and resolve each arc before introducing another.

Yes that would be the best route.

We’re planning on resolving as much as we can by the time the Scarlet arc concludes. (Yes, there will be a conclusion.)

THANK YOU! Bonus points if the player can kill her off for good.
I’m talking “WvW flag through her heart and scream out a battle cry” type of conclusion to ensure she doesn’t come back.

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

Memory serves you well, in fact she was sort of mentioned even during Flame and Frost.

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

Carboard cut out, deus ex insanity, and various other descriptions that would put the Trahearne-hate to shame. Now please remember I like the concept of her, but having all these alliances associated with her is getting tiresome. Especially now with the Toxic Alliance, because the Krait should have thrown the Nightmare Courtiers into a Slap Chop and offered them to their swimming Krait Gods if you look at the Lore of GW2.

I hoped that because of the insanity that Scarlet spreads it allowed the Krait time to make this tower themselves and not because of interaction by Scarlet.

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

• Tone:
• Pacing:…We’re aware of the perception and feel that future releases will have content that develops her character.

Hopefully this new content you speak of will give her more development. Once again even though I am a supporter of big bad guys like her, I also believe that she doesn’t need to be the center of every bad thing.
Lex Luthor wasn’t behind everything in Superman, Joker wasn’t behind everything in Batman.

I understand this is her arc, but she seems to be all alliance happy like some anti-Trahearne. I know you (ANet) have said that she has a motive, she has a goal, but honestly as a player I’m just not seeing it. At least not yet and I would really like to understand.

Ok here is my opinions. I started playing, when flame and frost started so I can’t comment winterdays or haloween.

Things I like about the LS:
- I think the pace is actually very good. 2 weeks cycle keeps game fresh and entertaining. F&F 4 month updates were boring as hell.
-Dungeons (MF,AR). Especially AR. I find it so much fun. It was just the right difficulty (maybe a bit too hard for casuals). But dungeons are one of the things I enjoyed the most in LS.
-gauntlet. Aw yeah that was some great design. (ignoring the hard to see red circles >.<)
-permanent changes (TA,teq)
-hard content (liandri, AR, tribulation mode).. gives you very good sense of achievment.
-fun minigames (short fastpaced minigames that involves skills and brains): sanctum sprinter, southsun survival.
-good rewards from some LS (invasions, skins from dragon coffers, skin with fortune scraps, …)
-good solo instance ( canach fight was quite interesting)

Ok and things I didn’t like
-bad rewards from some ls (obtainable weapons with only black lion key, costs too big (khm, halloween, khm), also newest living story WTF 5 skillpoints what reward was that ???)
-too much mindless zerging (invasions, now this event…)

JohnnySupernova.9182:

A lot of updates have been pretty self contained in the world. That is, the update stuff happens, and everything around happens, and they’re entirely separate. A tower in Kessex is raining poison death all over, but for Fort Salma, and the centaurs, and the sylvari camp, and garenhoff, it’s just another day. Stuff like this really makes the “living world” feel artificial and empty. Do you see this as an actual problem worth addressing? Are there any plans to expand on just how much impact the living world has on the actual world itself? A giant tower and a green sky is nice and flashy, but if half the zone is still acting business as usual, it loses a LOT of the effect.

I do see where you’re coming from on this, but this was brought home to me the other day when I got my rather disused ranger alt into Kessex for some levelling and to complete some hearts. While I couldn’t penetrate the lake thanks to the great big invisible barrier masking the tower, I could still complete local events and get some xp in this ‘normal’ world. Now the ‘normal’ has clashed with the ‘living’ world it’s a kind of alternate reality, but the show must go on for local events as well.

This is so the world that we knew before this patch doesn’t detract from what everyone who is L80 and out for the new patch/LS update story running around in a zerg killing champs and collecting spores. So if someone does actually finish this arc of the LS before other people do and then choose to bring out a low level alt into that area, not a lot will have changed… just the colour of the sky, lots of toxic things to stay away from, etc. so while the alt’s world is now a tad more limited (in Kessex), it’s still playable.

ColinJohanson.2394:

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

I watch the credits of all marvel movies just to see a short tease…
So i like teases… and we have seen interesting teases in some releases… the problem is that many people are disappointed because theories always seem better than what actually happens. :s …but keep doing it ^^

Returning to Marvel, I agree that some characters take time to gain depth… This was happening with the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (that I hope it have teases for movies), many people complain that the characters and actors are terrible, but this is starting to get good, it seems that GW2 was suffering from the same problem.

One thing missing from the game for me is just a “bit” of reality and immersion. Marvel movies, despite being fiction, seem real enough… The Walking Dead is also a good example.
I enjoyed being forced to do “The Nightmare Unveiled” when entering Kessex. I played GW1 and was forced to do missions to access certain maps and always enjoyed it. I feel that GW1 was a game much more alive and realistic than GW2.

-

I’ve seen many friends complaining that LS only lasts one day, they do all the achievements on launch day, it’s their fault, but I saw that you put some achievements in daily, so it is impossible to do everything in one day. But I think this is still little… might have cooldown for some types of achievements, such as collecting items, that you could only collect after a cooldown… but the more near the end of the LS this cooldown decreases, when missing five days to end, the cooldown no longer exists.

Some of LS dynamic events should happen in a lower cadence… and could accelerate when lefting a few days to the end of the release. Or then we could have better Dynamic Events. Orr is what is best in dynamic events and his concept would work well in LS.

eg: Marjorie, Kasmeer and members of the orders could be in different places, Garenhoff/Shadowheart Site/Fort Salma/etc, and then we would have an event to escort them all to the Nightmare Tower… they would set up a temporary camp that can be destroyed, causing them to retreat… Dolja only ask for the Obelisk Shards while she was in the camp and you would have to search for one obelisk at a time…

It could also have a better use of day/night cycles… They could retreat at night… I see no no point in having it in the game, Guild Wars did not have it, this helped GW1 to appear more real and living, because I could imagine that LA was empty at night.

We could have events to free the entry to TA for the duration of LS. I know some people complain about these events pre-dg, but I think it would be okay to do that during LS.

BobbyStein.2315:

There are some folks who feel that the Living World story is moving too slowly and/or that the themes and plots feel disjointed between releases. I somewhat agree with this sentiment.

why just somewhat?

BobbyStein.2315:

One of the challenges of the semi-monthly release cycle is that we’re limited in how much content we can put inside each one.

this seems like a self imposed problem that you can solve by simply saying we will release stuff when it is ready and it will last as long as it is appropriate. Freeing yourselves from self imposed time constraints would also help the quality over quantity problem people have been bringing up as it is pretty obvious some of the stuff is rushed and just disappointing.

BobbyStein.2315:

If memory serves me, we foreshadowed Scarlet’s existence through a comment Mai Trin made during one of the summer releases. This got some folks speculating on who she was, her part in all the attacks, etc.

you did get us speculating. your delivery of the villain behind it all did not live up to the speculation and was disapointing. part of this is pacing and part because scarlet is just not a good villain.

BobbyStein.2315:

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

it doesnt bring the good kind of polarizing baggage where we want to stop the evil villain. it brings the bad kind where she is annoying and we just want her to go away and never be mentioned in game again. People think she is a cardboard cutout villain because thats all you have shown and i think its too late for more. You have poisoned the well on scarlet with the poor introduction and the sooner scarlet never shows up again the better. I wish you could give us an in game poll on this and if scarlet is as unpopular as almost everyone I talk to thinks then it would be great if you could change your plans and make her go away early and for good.

BobbyStein.2315:

In regards to the Living World constraints, there are a few factors at play that prevent the player from speaking:
With our current tech, the PC cannot speak outside of a cinematic conversation (which were featured inside the Personal Story at ship) or contextual chatter (crippled = “My leg!”). We intend to explore possible solutions in the somewhat near future.
Our revised cinematic technology does not currently support player voice variants (i.e. 10 different PC voices).
The text of every player line has to be translated 10 times per language to account for each player race/gender combination.
The VO of every player line has to then be recorded 10 times per voiced language. (In other words, it’s freakishly expensive to voice the PC as 1 PC line in English = 10 English voiced lines + 10 German voiced lines, etc.).
That stated, the player doesn’t need VO in order to have agency in the story but we are limited in what we can track since it gets added to the player’s record, which is already large.

these limitations are very understandable but they don’t speak well for anet being able to deliver expansions type content within the context of the living story format.

I don’t post often, but I’ll reiterate my understanding of the Living World concept anyway:

[The Living World Concept and the Expansion Model]

• ANET, you’ve stated before that you can deliver all the content a traditional expansion would contain via means of the Living Story.

• You’ve also stated that you’re not sure which approach you want to take – whether it would be a traditional expansion or slowly adding all the things that make up one through the Living Story.

It’s been a year now and you’ve added one permanent new area, and one permanent new skill (from today’s update in fact). Don’t you think it’s time to decide which direction you want to go in?
- Living World only serving as filler content between major boxed/digital download expansion releases

or

- Living World truly expanding the epic of Tyria in an episodic format that actually progresses the main plot of the game and leads up to new regions and landmasses of the world.

For the latter, I wrote a short example (in another thread) of how you can accomplish it. I’ll expand on it here. I’m sure you’ve already considered it yourselves but here it is anyway, laid out for you, with ideas on how you can connect things even:

[Route 1: The Campaign against Kralkatorrik]
• Start by opening the gate to the Crystal Desert (in the Fields of Ruin) and adding the “corridor” area that will connect Ascalon and the desert itself. For this segment of the Living Story you’ll have Zojja rallying Destiny’s Edge and its supporters to begin the campaign against the next Elder Dragon. Now, since you want to keep releasing new content every 2 weeks, obviously it wouldn’t be feasible to keep adding a new area so often. So, how about a new area every other month? Release the first after you’ve build up several areas in advance, just so you’re ahead in case something unexpected occurs.

• 4 episodes: the above means you’ll have four Living Story segments to play with before moving onto the next area. They don’t all have to be inside that new area, however they can easily be related to it (e.g. to prepare for the journey, the leading characters need to revisit the relevant dungeons to obtain artefacts/keepsakes to help them in the battles ahead; this means you can revamp the other dungeons at this time, while keeping the plot relevant to the main story of GW2). Then you can have a segment focusing on the securing of the new area from the Branded so you can advance forward… etc.

• Arrival at Glint’s Lair: an obvious choice to GW1 players. This would be the next area of the Crystal Desert. Can easily be added as a Living Story of its own. Episodes centered around the aftermath of Kralkatorrik’s meeting with its former Lieutenant. Exploring the ties to the Zephyrites even further, and learning more about Glint’s legacy. You can even have Scarlet crash on the party and explore more of her motives, making her less of an obvious filler villain and more relevant to the story.

[Route 2: The Unending Ocean]
For whatever reason NCSoft doesn’t allow you to work on Cantha. We get it. But, if they ever did give you the green light here’s how that could go:

• Opening of the Dominion of Winds – introduction of the new Tengu race. All about the Tengu finally opening up to the rest of the races and sharing their knowledge of new weapons and skills!

• Transportation to Cantha – through the ancient Tengu arts of the Winds players “ride the currents” to arrive on a small island off the coast of Cantha.

• First few areas of the continent will be in the style of the Bloodtide Coast (lots of water with a few island masses inbetween). Take this opportunity to revamp underwater combat (from scratch preferably). Introduction of new threats, enemies, maybe even a new dungeon that connects the island to the Canthan mainland via an underground passage sneaking into Kaineng City..?

I could go on, but I’m skeptical that any ANET person would even read this far so I’m just gonna go to bed now. In conclusion I just want to say that these are just 2 directions you could take with the Living World that accomplish your idea of expansions delivered through content updates, while at the same time creating a sense of an ever-growing, exciting, and living world, which is how I envisioned it when you outlined your plans for the game.

I am going to restate this in a shorter message, because I want to make sure it is heard:

Re: How does it compare to a TV series?

If I heard about a TV series that had essential plot points revealed in a format completely outside of the television series itself, I would not watch that show. And the excuse of “it’s too hard/expensive to tell that story in the show” would go unheard by me, on account of me not watching it.

You didn’t sell me a short story blog. Use your game.

Please, someone, tell me that you’re hearing this.

chemiclord.3978:

Players burning out is entirely a player-side problem. You don’t HAVE to complete EVERY meta event, ya know? You CAN get the thrust of the living story in a handful of hours.

There’s definitely some truth in that but I think there are some things ArenaNet could do from their end as well. I have no problem with the “grindy” content being out there so people can go killing 20 champion mobs for special event-related loot if they want it – it’d be pretty selfish to deny them that if it weren’t hurting anyone. I just think that it should be clearer that this is an optional part of the story – and sometimes this means actually making it be optional.

If I have to run around swatting Toxic Offshoots for a couple hours to get stuff to Marjory to progress to the next phase of the story, that’s actually kind of grindy. Farming achievements to get a candy corn elemental in Blood and Madness? Even more grindy. (That was, sadly, a case where you did have to finish the meta-event for the story. Either that or I’m reading the guide wrong.) Getting to the dungeon in Clockwork Madness? Not so bad but took a lot of time since you needed to wait for invasions. I’m not sure the main thread of an event’s storyline should be gated on time-consuming activities like that.

This particular aspect was working fine earlier in the year – I would prefer to see a return to that. It doesn’t have to be tied to the longer release cadence. (Not that I would mind monthly releases either, but the real kicker in the two-week format has been the filler. I don’t really want to spend my time on that.)

riddleguy.9738:

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

Problem is, how can you make it feel like it isn’t a grind, when it is? I mean only thing we get from “achievements” are some meaningless cosmetics and meaningless points, since they’re just a score and everything is based on: kill x, gather y…

Hi,

I was more than happy to see that ANET is taking steps to include the players’ opinion in future development of the game. Actually what CAN make Tyria & GW2 a Living being – is the players’ choice, and that’s why I’d like to share a few opinions on LS/LW, some of which will echo what’s been said before.

Abstract:
1) The pace is wrong. It’s too fast with too superficial contents, leaving no time and no reason to immerse.
2) There’s no story in story – random, unconnected events. The narrative explaining the plot is carried out in wiki & website, and not in-game. New items/resources/mechanics are introduced in the same manner: website&wiki instead of NPCs / in-game content
3)Players’ actions have no real impact on the world. The war with dragons is in a stalemate, success/defeat in boss events changes nothing, new content is introduced out-of-the-box with no players’ influence on it.

Long story:
1) The pace: most people here say the pace is too fast. I’d say that’s correct, but not because of the amount of things to do in each release, but just the opposite: we get small, repetitive bits of content every two weeks, with 0-2 cut-scenes / talking-heads’ dialouges and some grinding. Every two weeks. and…

2) The story/narrative: the LS releases are completely unrleated to each other. For me (I’m a relatively new player – started in June) it’s just a handful of totally random characters and mobs. Personally, I don’t even see the problem of improbable alliances and ither things like that, which have been mentioned by others here, beacuse I totally don’t see the Story in Living Story.
The fact that there is some plot behind all those events should be outlined INSIDE the game, and not on a forum/website/twitter. For me it’s ridiculuos, that every two weeks I need to spend an hour on:
reading official release info > find no story, no answers, just a list of places/mobs/rewards > go to the game and talk with NPCs > find out nothing > go to wiki, 3rd party websites, blogs, and finally get some rough idea of what’s going on…

Seriously – you have so many NPCs who could tell the story in-game, and I need to read a website to understand the new content? I get one letter in-game, most often with a pretty good narrative, then a main NPC with 10-15 lines of speech and that’s all the immersion. All that’s left afterwards is grinding.
Oh, you say there are minigames and activities? That’s really, really cool (no sarcasm here), but I don’t play them, you know why? Because you totally don’t explain them:
CTF in Cutthroat Politics was fun, but I had to reach for 3rd party sources to understand the mechanics.
Lunatic Inquisition: get dropped in a labirynth with a goal: survive or kill. That’s all to it – nothing else. No clue what’s going on, total mess, lot of players (great, but what are they doing?).
Mad King Says – anyone played it? I even didn’t know about it until I looked into the achievements panel, and even then – I still don’t know when/where/what.

You introduce new items & materials and you choose to tell me about a new dagger skin on wiki? There’s a new crafting recipe and i find about it on wiki? Come on! Make the main NPC tell me a story of a lost / discovered / invented new technology / magic / whatever which explains the appearance of tons of new resources and items. Show me a cutscene or a render of a new weapon or a new resource discovered in some deep mine / dungeon.

3) The impact: So tell me, what true changes happened in Tyria beacause of players’ decisions? We had an election, which was so close to Earth politics as can be: they changed nothing except prices of travel (temporary) and the choice of pass-times (like in ancient Rome: “Panem et Circenses!”). We defeated Scarlett bazillion times. She returns again. We killed Tequatl, Shatterer, Claw… they return and their minions too… What would happen if we didn’t do any of these? Nothing. Absolutely nothing, and Tyria would remain the same.

And if something changes in Tyria it’s completely independent from our choices. We received the Crown Pavilion. Thank you, I really liked the boss runs. But it was a gift. We had nothing to say/do here, while we could have, for example, built it ourselves: gather materials, do side quests to help the construction, consult the choice of mobs/bosses via in-game actions (e.g. if players bring more destoyer trophies there’d be destroyers in one zone, if more pirate trophies – pirates, etc.).

So these are basically the three main concerns about LS/LW in my humble opinion.

Aye.8392:

draxynnic.3719:

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

As much as I agree with the previous point I wholeheartedly disagree with this one. Too much build up ends up with too slow a story. Any more than a week of the Tower teaser and I would have simply lost interest, kinda like following those refugees around looking for their lost items. It was too drawn out. I sure don’t mind seeing things change a little at a time, but those changes need to occur over the course of days, not weeks.

I can certainly see where you’re coming from – the early stages of F&F were certainly pretty slow. However, that’s because that was the only thing that was going on.

Imagine if, at any given time, you had one story that was at the equivalent of Act 1 of Flame and Frost, another at the equivalent of Act 2, yet another at the equivalent of Act 3, and then finally you’ve got the current focus of the Living Story which is at or near the climax and moving more quickly. You’ve still got one story which is moving quickly at any one time, but you have changes in the rest of the world that show what else is developing.

perilisk.1874

As for Order-neutral, you could have-had a single junction point at the end of the Order-specific arc where a small group of forces from the three Orders get backed into the same corner and learn to survive by working together under the player’s leadership, and that battle forms the core of the Pact. Then the next arc would be bringing people from outside that battle on board with the idea.

Really, Trahearne’s story should have been separate from, but entertwined with the Pact and Personal story (like Destiny’s Edge). It could have even been a different mode (as DE was Story Dungeon mode). Have him relay his knowledge of Orr in the form of flashbacks, like the books in GW1 where you replayed the experiences of a lore character through their eyes, and with their abilities. Maybe if people -were- Trahearne while he was stealing the spotlight, they wouldn’t mind so much.

The first there is an interesting idea. Currently, the first Battle of Claw Island is a bit weird since while all or most of the stories are supposed to be happening simultaneously, for Claw Island it’s only your order that is there. Having the other two mentors show up, along with additional characters from each of the orders, would create the core you’re speaking of.

The second part is something I suggested myself as a solution to “Kormir syndrome”, but the thread I started failed to gain any traction. There are much fewer people complain about Keiran, for instance, because we do get to see Keiran being awesome. It’s a necessary part of the game that NPCs are generally going to be less effective in combat than the PCs when fighting alongside them – having missions where you’re put in the shows of the NPC in question and get to see what they’re really capable of when not crippled by “do not overshadow the PCs” would go a long way to showing that the NPCs do actually have their own intrinsic worth rather than just leeching off the PCs.

Dragons
Guild Wars 2 has a dragon on the box cover. The primary motivation for players on their 80-level journey is to kill a dragon. So yeah, giant, winged beasts are a part of Tyria, they’re core to the game, and we haven’t forgotten about them. That stated, I can’t say when we’ll return to them—only that we will. There is a plan in place.

Look, I get that you guys want to keep some element of surprise or whatever, so if you don’t tell us when the dragon war will continue in earnest then that’s ok, but I hope to God that you guys know, to the date, exactly when you intend to kick off the assault against the next dragon (and I hope it’s soon). More Tequatl-like mini-bosses will not cut it, we need to be actively progressing towards the next unkilled Elder Dragon and off the guy, and this can’t be “whenever we get to it,” it needs to be a major priority event on the development calendar already.

If I were going to predict in August 2012, I would not even imagine that it would be this far into 2013 without even a hint of the next Dragon assault.

Also, while I’m enjoying what you’re doing in Kessex Hills right now, I hate that it had to come at the expense of such lovely terrain. We need more “pretty” zones, less “ugly” zones like Orr, and now lower Sparkfly and Kessex. The world is getting worse, not better. When we resolve this story, Kessex should be as pretty as it was before all of this.

Ohoni.6057:

Dragons
Guild Wars 2 has a dragon on the box cover. The primary motivation for players on their 80-level journey is to kill a dragon. So yeah, giant, winged beasts are a part of Tyria, they’re core to the game, and we haven’t forgotten about them. That stated, I can’t say when we’ll return to them—only that we will. There is a plan in place.

Look, I get that you guys want to keep some element of surprise or whatever, so if you don’t tell us when the dragon war will continue in earnest then that’s ok, but I hope to God that you guys know, to the date, exactly when you intend to kick off the assault against the next dragon (and I hope it’s soon). More Tequatl-like mini-bosses will not cut it, we need to be actively progressing towards the next unkilled Elder Dragon and off the guy, and this can’t be “whenever we get to it,” it needs to be a major priority event on the development calendar already.

If I were going to predict in August 2012, I would not even imagine that it would be this far into 2013 without even a hint of the next Dragon assault.

Also, while I’m enjoying what you’re doing in Kessex Hills right now, I hate that it had to come at the expense of such lovely terrain. We need more “pretty” zones, less “ugly” zones like Orr, and now lower Sparkfly and Kessex. The world is getting worse, not better. When we resolve this story, Kessex should be as pretty as it was before all of this.

Just my own personal preference, I prefer the opposite regarding zone changes. I would like more permanent zone changes. A dragon sweeps through kessex(for example) and torches everything leaving kessex in a smoldering ruin. Now, we have a whole new bit of lore to play out with the surviving NPCs. New DEs, new hearts, new everything. Arenanet could phase this in so while leveling you see Kessex as it is now. After hitting 80 and picking up a breadcrumb ‘quest’ similar to how you get notified of LS events via mail, then Kessex changes for you. I think arenanet should do some phasing. They should do some phasing with Orr too. Now that zhaitan is defeated for many of us, why are all the minions still chanting his name? Phase the zone so that the NPCs are in a rebuilding mode of Orr. New DEs and everything as a result. This phasing only kicks off after you have completed the personal story, per character of course.

I think phasing should be a part of this discussion.

Yetiyen.7269:

Temporary content is a real issue with the game in general. After scrolling through several pages of opinions from fellow players, it seems that everybody wants Permanent content. You’ve got such a great game, and you’re ruining it by rushing out Living Story that has no impact on the world. Personally I’d like to see:

I wouldnt say everybody no. Temporary content is important in that it gives us passage of time and change. I personally Like temporary content and I believe its essential for immersion.

That being said I am not against replayability. For example yesterday’s content was an instance which means they could make that replayable through an NPC if they choose. Let me elaborate. I think it would be wrong if that instance remained in game as is with the next update. It wouldnt make sense down the road having an instance that shows you finding the tower after we beat it and it wouldnt be there anymore right? However I would be infavor of some npc in the mists that allows you to replay it. Or better yet a nice interface, something like we have in the personal story that allows you to replay each instance even after its gone.

Elbegast.6970:

Halvorn.9831:

There is a very general problem.

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

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

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

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

Hmm.. The TV show comparison is an interesting one.

TV show’s I would aspire the LW to be like:
Breaking Bad
The Wire
West Wing

What it’s currently like
Power rangers
Looney Tunes
Animaniacs

As others have mentioned the LS updates seem unconnected, missing a solid central story arc. The story that is there feels a bit like flimsy good vs evil stuff and could really do with some more realistic and interesting characters like flawed protagonists or heroic villains who really believe that what they’re doing is the right thing.

Let’s take Scarlet for example. She would have been much more interesting if she started out as an NPC who helped the players discover something (linked to the dragons perhaps?) and/or needed the player’s help to discover it. Then events unfold (losing a friend/lover/family?) that slowly drive her to want to make us stronger against this sort of evil, maybe she evolves to loathe weakness and sees it everywhere. Then in an effort to “help” she unleashes clockwork bots (that the players have helped her create earlier) on the world to weed out that weakness. Instead of saying crazy things she could just say that she’s sorry but someone needs to do this, etc.
In the mean time though the nightmare court has been expanding operations and have been using krait obelisks to power themselves and control the krait as well. Now it seems that Scarlet and the players have a common enemy and we find ourselves working side by side with Scarlet and her bots and Aether Pirates against the nightmare court. Maybe Scarlet dies because she realizes that there’s no place for her in the world anymore, but not without taking a big chunk of the nightmare court/krait with her. After that it could progress to that some of the Aether Pirates join forces against the looming threat of a new dragon’s power, etc, yada yada You could talk to these friendly Aethers and hear their side of the story, what motivated them (booty!) and why they join us now (we won so more booty to be had, yargh!).

I personally feel that that sort of thing would be much more interesting because you, as the player, get to experience the story from the start; you helped it come to pass and get to see things from both sides of the argument. You think you have an idea of a character, then a plot twist happens that shows the character in a totally different light. Players can feel in two minds about helping a certain NPC or fighting a certain enemy. In general, hinting of the existence of something way before it’s introduced does bolster the lore and makes the player feel more part of the lore when it finally does come to pass. Sometimes surprises can be cool but they don’t help to properly build mystery and background.
Then again, maybe that’s what’s happening right now in the background but it takes time to “simmer” and players demand instant satisfaction at the same time.

Apart from that I also feel that we could do with some more prestige content; difficult stuff that (hopefully) rewards you with an achievement and possibly some unique skin. Examples are Mad King’s Clocktower, Liadri the Conceiling Dark, even ranking first in Sanctum Sprint does take some effort. I won’t say Tequatl because that requires too many people right now and is a dead event most of the time on most servers. Apply some scaling so you can do it with 15-20+ people and we have a winner I believe. Anyway I digress, right now most of the updates are achievement hunts, which I generally don’t mind – it’s something to do and a reason to play my character which I enjoy – but it’s not a feat to have done it. Prestige achievements are basically endgame for the more hardcore players, so it would be nice to see some more of that.

I like the themes in general though: Aether Pirates are pretty cool but kind of popped out of nowhere, would be cool to have had some lore in game hinting their existence before they actually arrived.
I do like the new toxic Krait and the mystery that is the tower, even if right now it’s mainly achievement hunting. Them popping out of nowhere does make sense in this context as there was something going on in Kessex before.
The Molten Alliance did have some buildup but I felt it was lacking a “sensible” backstory (if that makes sense). The F&F dungeon was cool, would like to see it permanent.
The Bazaar was lovely, the new skills well thought out and fun to use and it felt like a whole chunk of lore added onto the game… until it went away again.
Queen’s Gauntlet was brilliant too, really requiring people to know their profession inside out and play well.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

Hmm.. The TV show comparison is an interesting one.

TV show’s I would aspire the LW to be like:
Breaking Bad
The Wire
West Wing

What it’s currently like
Power rangers
Looney Tunes
Animaniacs

A LS update where Loghan and Zojja start selling alchemically altered magical dust. Now that would be something.

chemiclord.3978:

One, it’s not “Players”, it’s “You.” You do not speak for anyone other than yourself.

Have you read this thread? It’s obviously not just me.

You’re right in that I do not speak for anyone other than myself, though. I don’t need to. All those other people are right here in this thread, saying the same thing that I am.

ColinJohanson.2394:

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

My favorite TV show is Babylon 5.Why?

because of its huge story arch
living story accomplishes that very well here. I love how a seemingly single character + some one powerful in DR has so far managed to get together Flame legion + dredge, pirates+inquest, krait + nightmare court. I am curious what was the driving force behind it.

because of character development
Living story does this relatively well. Little things like fun dialog between Braham, Frostbite and Rox helps in that it gives a reference on how the characters act and think. The little short stories released on the web are also little gems in this regard.

because it wasnt predictable
Again I feel Gw2 does a good job here. We dont fully know whats driving Scarlet and what her end game is but we know what’s causing it. Frankly I cannot tell at this point how the whole Scarlet saga will end and thats great. Some people have asked Arenanet to divulge where the story is headed but I think that would be a mistake. Trying to speculate whats going to happen next is half the fun and knowing where the ending is going to be will ruin that. Personal story is a good case in point. As much as people seem to hate story telling in LS, I personally find it great so far. With a good ending it will all become even better.

because main characters were mortal
This is where the LS is a bit weak. Main characters so far feel immortal. Thats one thing I hated in many Tv shows. If you’re a main character there is no need to worry when you’re in peril we know you’ll get out of it. Babylon 5 was great in that regard… it was the first show I saw that wasnt afraid to kill off its main characters. It would be nice if the same thing happened in LS as well.

I suppose everything has been said already (didn’t manage to go through it all though), but I do have a small request for the devs:

If your are introducing a new content, like those Invasions (which were pretty fun), remember to make them appear in 2 or even 3 maps at the same time. Otherwise, people end up cramped in 1 LAGGY map with no hope of doing anything because of zergs everywhere

Thank you.

ColinJohanson.2394:

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

Erm, Netflix mayhaps?

With regards to the TV show question Colin posted:
- Game of Thrones but a less brute version (we do need some characters to stay alive) for it’s multiple storylines with surprising outcomes.
- Breaking Bad: excellent and believable flawed characters and no real bad guy (well Tuco maybe but even he’s a victim of circumstance).
- Orange is the new Black for it’s ability to turn characters upside down and build solid back story for each of them.
- Star Trek Voyager/Next Generation for it’s ability to look to ourselves and philosophy about what makes us human.

Also would like to thank Bobby for his insight into the dev process, it’s very informative and helps understand the confines in which you guys need to work.