Guild Wars 2

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

cesmode.4257:

Id like to hear Chris’s, or any developer’s, thoughts on Phasing. Blizzard adopted this technology and technique years ago so it isnt a new concept and Id be surprised if you dont have the tech or expertise to pull it off.

Utilizing phasing could solve some of these issues.

For example, a player leveling could experience the wolrd, for example Kessex, as it was originally. Once he hits 80, via some quest line or something kessex turns into what it is today. To solve the issue of undead minions and the zhaitan talk in Orr, once your character has defeated zhaitan, these things change. Friendly NPCs no longer talk about if they can defeat zhaitan. They chant that they have! And the number of undead minions are reduced because you have defeated their master.

Thinking about phasing further, I cannot imagine why it isn’t utilized especially in a game like GW2 where open world content and dynamic content is the core.

Was not called “Phasing” but was used often in GW and prominent in all of the GW Beyond content. One example, when a Canthan character Cleansed Zen Daijun, it was cleansed forever. Afflicted gone, forever. But.. full of afflicted for those who had not cleansed it, and for foreign devils. Instanced Zones were changed often to suit individual quests and players.

When you started WIK, Kryta became full of White Mantle and Enforcers, Shining Blade units and Camps, etc, but only for players on that arc. When done, the added NPCs, bosses, camps, Allies…. gone. You could take quests to relive parts of it, Boss Bounties, but were specifically told you were doing a historical re-enactment. When finished, Salma was Queen of Kryta. Prior, she was not. That was permanent.

I would say Anet is fully aware of it, and for whatever reasons chose to scrap the approach, save the instanced versions of zones used in the personal story.

Two words why they don’t do it: Temporary Content

Now if content wasn’t temporary anymore after they did this, it could certainly work.

I like a lot of the DE ideas flying around. I really like the second chance ideas, what I would add how ever is something I between. I’ll use the charr tank as I liked that idea.

If the tanks fails, I think you should have to survive a rush of attackers from the enamy base. As I think after popping a tank the they would think they could take you out. So if you servive that then the ash legion could offer the plan B. That way it’s not a instant get out of jail free card. As I think sometimes that is what the second chance would be.

As. For LS I think ToN is a step in the right direction story telling wise. I know what’s gong on and why I’m helping. The AP’s added to dailies for the LS meta is also a nice touch. But I do feel the rewards should be a little better from the LS seeing as it’s a one shot deal. Back item skins are nice an all but we’ve had 5-6 of them this year alone if I’m not missing any. I would rather the effort give me a nice bunch of lorils or maybe some mats for making ascended weapons, like deldrimor steel ingots. Or a choice of the above. At least then people could get something they want from it. If you want the nice skin you can have that. If you want the mats you can have that, or the lols.

I agree with some points about the achevments. I too feel some of them are very old school kill ten rats. Which I was hoping we had all moved past. I know that achevments are limited as to what they can be, dew to the two weeks cadence. But sadly I don’t really have any ideas as to how they could be any better. Other than maybe make them tie into the story instances. Maybe have there be more than one way to do the instance and get points that way for replaying and trying different tactics etc. maybe have ones for dodging certain attacks from the instance boss. Things like that. Maybe that would make some of them a little less mind numbing to do.

I would also like to see some of the Guild Wars story threads tied up too. Like why the Ebon Vanguard was recalled. Why Ebon Hawk was built. What happened to Evania. What happened to Livia how did she find the The scepter of Orr and what happened after. And what happened to the rest of the hero’s I called friends. I know they are all dead bar Ogden. But the how’s and the whys would be great to know. And it could all be sold as fining out about the Guild Ogden was once a part off, or even Gwen for that matter. But I think it would just be easier to use Ogden as he is in Guild Wars 2. Each story could be triggered by talking to Ogden then chosen the same way a dungeon story path is if a group are doing it. Or your PS choices. You could tie in achevments in this my finding different ways of doing things, kind of like in the Bonus missions books in Guild Wars. Finding “possible” ways things played out. Would add replay to the LS. Also make it fun for group play. As I’m sure you could do it that some achevments need more than one person to do and would stop the Zerg also. Or I guess you could use the consortium, they have found a way for people to partisipate in ecco’s of past events. That way players could bear witness to the battle of Ascalon city and whiteness the Foe Fire. Of the events above. If you used the consortium you could have a new map and DE’s that people could take part in. Like prepping for the Battle of Ascalon. Running weapons to the charr. Batting waves of ascalonian soldiers. Until the Charr army is ready then the next events could kick in until the Foe Fire happens.

Anyway I think I’ve rambled on enough. Hope this helps, even if it’s just a little.

minbariguy.7504:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We are committed to quality not quantity.

Perhaps it would have been more accurate if I’d stated that you were prioritizing release dates over quality. I get that you guys have every intention to release quality content. You’re all very passionate and committed to what you do, and you obviously want to create things that people enjoy.

However, allow me to make an observation. I’ve noticed that when you discuss future content or features (other than Living Story), you never commit to a release date. My understanding was that this is because game design can be unpredictable: things change, features may not work exactly as you intended, bugs may pop up, or it may simply take more time to polish a feature for release than you intended. And you don’t want to release content before it is ready, hence…you never commit to a release date.

Except for when it comes to Living Story.

Suddenly, every two weeks, just like clockwork, there it is. Right on schedule. How, then, can it be that your priority is on the quality of the release, when you are committed to releasing it on a specific date no matter what?

If you are saying that you now have the ability to make sure that content is ready by a specific date, then surely you have the ability to commit to dates for all your releases (not just Living Story). But of course, we know that this isn’t the case.

So while you may want quality, it certainly isn’t your priority. It can’t be. Not on a specific release schedule. It’s impossible.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

This said there is a lot we can and are doing to meet concerns regarding the cadence and really polish the positives we have already achieved in this area.

I would be really interested to know what you guys are doing to meet my concerns regarding the cadence. Because I honestly have no idea how you can do that while simultaneously stating that the cadence will continue unaltered no matter what any of us says.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

The cadence is something we discuss frequently. We are a very collaborative team and do our best to never sweep anything under the rug (-:

I’m curious as to what these discussions are like. When you are having these discussions, does it ever come up that many people are vigorously opposed to it? Or is it the impression of the team that the current cadence is both popular and desired? If so, do you have any metrics to back this up?

Finally, a simple question:

Why are you unwilling to adjust the release cadence? What is the reason that it must continue, no matter what anyone says? Can you at least help us understand that?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. This right here – especially the last question. The sad thing is we’ll never get a real, honest answer. Right now this thread feels like a PR stunt. I hope I’m wrong.

Carelius.1430:

minbariguy.7504:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We are committed to quality not quantity.

Perhaps it would have been more accurate if I’d stated that you were prioritizing release dates over quality. I get that you guys have every intention to release quality content. You’re all very passionate and committed to what you do, and you obviously want to create things that people enjoy.

However, allow me to make an observation. I’ve noticed that when you discuss future content or features (other than Living Story), you never commit to a release date. My understanding was that this is because game design can be unpredictable: things change, features may not work exactly as you intended, bugs may pop up, or it may simply take more time to polish a feature for release than you intended. And you don’t want to release content before it is ready, hence…you never commit to a release date.

Except for when it comes to Living Story.

Suddenly, every two weeks, just like clockwork, there it is. Right on schedule. How, then, can it be that your priority is on the quality of the release, when you are committed to releasing it on a specific date no matter what?

If you are saying that you now have the ability to make sure that content is ready by a specific date, then surely you have the ability to commit to dates for all your releases (not just Living Story). But of course, we know that this isn’t the case.

So while you may want quality, it certainly isn’t your priority. It can’t be. Not on a specific release schedule. It’s impossible.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

This said there is a lot we can and are doing to meet concerns regarding the cadence and really polish the positives we have already achieved in this area.

I would be really interested to know what you guys are doing to meet my concerns regarding the cadence. Because I honestly have no idea how you can do that while simultaneously stating that the cadence will continue unaltered no matter what any of us says.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

The cadence is something we discuss frequently. We are a very collaborative team and do our best to never sweep anything under the rug (-:

I’m curious as to what these discussions are like. When you are having these discussions, does it ever come up that many people are vigorously opposed to it? Or is it the impression of the team that the current cadence is both popular and desired? If so, do you have any metrics to back this up?

Finally, a simple question:

Why are you unwilling to adjust the release cadence? What is the reason that it must continue, no matter what anyone says? Can you at least help us understand that?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. This right here – especially the last question. The sad thing is we’ll never get a real, honest answer. Right now this thread feels like a PR stunt. I hope I’m wrong.

I think it’s money. Every new LS there is Gem Store items linked to them. Most of all the Black lion clam tickets. I’m willing to bet Black lion keys make up the bulk of money that the game brings in. You get 1 from doing you PS if I remember right. And I have had one drop in the world the whole year I’ve played the game, and in my build of over 200 I think, I’m one of 5 people who have had them drop in the world, not from opening a Black Lion Chest.

I would like to see the 3 orders involved in the LS, make my choice of which order to join count for something outside of PS. They all should be involved in protecting Tyria.

Adding more maps once in a while would not hurt.

Dyes that add an effect to armor (other than color) would give all armor piece new life.

What BrotherBelial mentioned where we found out about past events would be great. Fill in the back history of Guild Wars 2. It could either be set in the present to find answers that a historian asks or it could be a flashback sort of thing, where we become that historical person and relive those events. It would probably be more expensive as it might require instancing to be truly effective but this would be way more interesting than zerg here then zerg there and also find 20 of these. The best way to do this might be a personal story like setup with instances at different points on the map you go to. To reduce costs, don’t have any voice acting. Ditch that in favor of text bubbles.

This sort of story could be left ingame forever for anyone to do whenever they want. All they would need to do is talk to the correct NPC to initiate the story line. This would allow you to explore the game’s lore, have releases all can do and have it permanent for people to do at leisure and in the years to come as they start the game.

I think the Living Story has had a good base implemented in the game, for which to build upon. I know it isn’t perfect, but it is still a great start.

Some things that I think might help improve the LS are:

Map Changes – the way you started altering Kessex Hills by taking out the forest and town and adding piles of wood underwater was a great idea. If the world is allegedly changing, then we should see more of things like that. Orr, especially, needs to start improving in appearance. Perhaps starting with the parts closer to the “safe” zones?

Achievements – perhaps we could switch from the short span of Achievements, to the Meta Achievement system you’re using for WvW? I think that would give people a greater period of time to earn them, without making people feel like they had to focus on Cheevos, rather than other content.

Rewards – things like permanent harvesting nodes are great. Let’s add more worthwhile rewards. Maybe an Armor piece for the bigger Achievements, that could be saved to create a COMEPLETE (all 6 pieces, not just a stand alone piece) set over a few arcs?

Skin Wardrobe System – A lot of the rewards we’ve been able to earn so far have been skins. Unfortunately, we don’t really have a way to use them again at a later time, after earning a new skin. Is there some way to combine the PvP Locker with the Achievement System for the Achievement weapons and armor, to create a PvE locker?

Scarlet – I actually like her. However, maybe we could get a bit more info released about her to flesh her out? I mean, I’m almost positive that she’s a Dragon’s Champion (Mordremoth?) and that that is why she seems to surpass so many other NPCs in terms of ability. I’d like to know more.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Carelius.1430:

minbariguy.7504:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We are committed to quality not quantity.

Perhaps it would have been more accurate if I’d stated that you were prioritizing release dates over quality. I get that you guys have every intention to release quality content. You’re all very passionate and committed to what you do, and you obviously want to create things that people enjoy.

However, allow me to make an observation. I’ve noticed that when you discuss future content or features (other than Living Story), you never commit to a release date. My understanding was that this is because game design can be unpredictable: things change, features may not work exactly as you intended, bugs may pop up, or it may simply take more time to polish a feature for release than you intended. And you don’t want to release content before it is ready, hence…you never commit to a release date.

Except for when it comes to Living Story.

Suddenly, every two weeks, just like clockwork, there it is. Right on schedule. How, then, can it be that your priority is on the quality of the release, when you are committed to releasing it on a specific date no matter what?

If you are saying that you now have the ability to make sure that content is ready by a specific date, then surely you have the ability to commit to dates for all your releases (not just Living Story). But of course, we know that this isn’t the case.

So while you may want quality, it certainly isn’t your priority. It can’t be. Not on a specific release schedule. It’s impossible.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

This said there is a lot we can and are doing to meet concerns regarding the cadence and really polish the positives we have already achieved in this area.

I would be really interested to know what you guys are doing to meet my concerns regarding the cadence. Because I honestly have no idea how you can do that while simultaneously stating that the cadence will continue unaltered no matter what any of us says.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

The cadence is something we discuss frequently. We are a very collaborative team and do our best to never sweep anything under the rug (-:

I’m curious as to what these discussions are like. When you are having these discussions, does it ever come up that many people are vigorously opposed to it? Or is it the impression of the team that the current cadence is both popular and desired? If so, do you have any metrics to back this up?

Finally, a simple question:

Why are you unwilling to adjust the release cadence? What is the reason that it must continue, no matter what anyone says? Can you at least help us understand that?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. This right here – especially the last question. The sad thing is we’ll never get a real, honest answer. Right now this thread feels like a PR stunt. I hope I’m wrong.

I think it’s money. Every new LS there is Gem Store items linked to them. Most of all the Black lion clam tickets. I’m willing to bet Black lion keys make up the bulk of money that the game brings in. You get 1 from doing you PS if I remember right. And I have had one drop in the world the whole year I’ve played the game, and in my build of over 200 I think, I’m one of 5 people who have had them drop in the world, not from opening a Black Lion Chest.

I don’t really think its a problem. All non-sub games need a cashshop to survive.

I agree with the poster above yours though, the cadence is too much. A 6 months cadence may end up with a lot of bored people who quit for other games, but 2 weeks is a bit too frequent to pull of quality content.

…. the way it is done currently anyways. The problem is that every single update is ‘important’, so it ends up with every update having average, mediocre quality. A solution would be to keep the cadence, but split the importance of updates up.

Some bi-weeklies could be just one new minigame or a balancing update with a new skill. Just small things to keep the playerbase entertained, so effort can be concentrated on the big, expansion-quality updates.

Xae Isareth.1364:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Carelius.1430:

minbariguy.7504:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We are committed to quality not quantity.

Perhaps it would have been more accurate if I’d stated that you were prioritizing release dates over quality. I get that you guys have every intention to release quality content. You’re all very passionate and committed to what you do, and you obviously want to create things that people enjoy.

However, allow me to make an observation. I’ve noticed that when you discuss future content or features (other than Living Story), you never commit to a release date. My understanding was that this is because game design can be unpredictable: things change, features may not work exactly as you intended, bugs may pop up, or it may simply take more time to polish a feature for release than you intended. And you don’t want to release content before it is ready, hence…you never commit to a release date.

Except for when it comes to Living Story.

Suddenly, every two weeks, just like clockwork, there it is. Right on schedule. How, then, can it be that your priority is on the quality of the release, when you are committed to releasing it on a specific date no matter what?

If you are saying that you now have the ability to make sure that content is ready by a specific date, then surely you have the ability to commit to dates for all your releases (not just Living Story). But of course, we know that this isn’t the case.

So while you may want quality, it certainly isn’t your priority. It can’t be. Not on a specific release schedule. It’s impossible.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

This said there is a lot we can and are doing to meet concerns regarding the cadence and really polish the positives we have already achieved in this area.

I would be really interested to know what you guys are doing to meet my concerns regarding the cadence. Because I honestly have no idea how you can do that while simultaneously stating that the cadence will continue unaltered no matter what any of us says.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

The cadence is something we discuss frequently. We are a very collaborative team and do our best to never sweep anything under the rug (-:

I’m curious as to what these discussions are like. When you are having these discussions, does it ever come up that many people are vigorously opposed to it? Or is it the impression of the team that the current cadence is both popular and desired? If so, do you have any metrics to back this up?

Finally, a simple question:

Why are you unwilling to adjust the release cadence? What is the reason that it must continue, no matter what anyone says? Can you at least help us understand that?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. This right here – especially the last question. The sad thing is we’ll never get a real, honest answer. Right now this thread feels like a PR stunt. I hope I’m wrong.

I think it’s money. Every new LS there is Gem Store items linked to them. Most of all the Black lion clam tickets. I’m willing to bet Black lion keys make up the bulk of money that the game brings in. You get 1 from doing you PS if I remember right. And I have had one drop in the world the whole year I’ve played the game, and in my build of over 200 I think, I’m one of 5 people who have had them drop in the world, not from opening a Black Lion Chest.

I don’t really think its a problem. All non-sub games need a cashshop to survive.

I agree with the poster above yours though, the cadence is too much. A 6 months cadence may end up with a lot of bored people who quit for other games, but 2 weeks is a bit too frequent to pull of quality content.

…. the way it is done currently anyways. The problem is that every single update is ‘important’, so it ends up with every update having average, mediocre quality. A solution would be to keep the cadence, but split the importance of updates up.

Some bi-weeklies could be just one new minigame or a balancing update with a new skill. Just small things to keep the playerbase entertained, so effort can be concentrated on the big, expansion-quality updates.

I don’t think it’s a problem aether. It was just my opinion of a maybe why ANet don’t want to change the cadence. I like others bought more bank/bag slots, BL keys mutation stones, perm harvesting tools. I’ll happily pay money for theses things. I bought just about everything from the in game store in Guild Wars, bar a few costumes and merc packs. So for me this is a non issue. :-)

The release cadence should be random. Add stuff when it’s ready rather than on a timetable. AND DON’T TELL US IN ADVANCE! Players should be surprised with new releases rather than anticipating them. When players expect content, their fallible, speculative brains ascribe all sorts of wondrous ideas to what little information they may have about the next release. Once the content goes live, they are inevitably let down.

An actual living world changes randomly and not in two week cycles. Some changes are big. Some changes are small. And the most catastrophic changes of all usually come without warning.

Elbegast.6970:

The release cadence should be random. Add stuff when it’s ready rather than on a timetable. AND DON’T TELL US IN ADVANCE! Players should be surprised with new releases rather than anticipating them. When players expect content, their fallible, speculative brains ascribe all sorts of wondrous ideas to what little information they may have about the next release. Once the content goes live, they are inevitably let down.

An actual living world changes randomly and not in two week cycles. Some changes are big. Some changes are small. And the most catastrophic changes of all usually come without warning.

I think its quite nice to expect updates. When I was in secondary school, I remember I used to rush home/to a friend’s with excitement every Tuesday in anticipation of the next weekly RuneScape update.

It was great.

Elbegast.6970:

The release cadence should be random. Add stuff when it’s ready rather than on a timetable. AND DON’T TELL US IN ADVANCE! Players should be surprised with new releases rather than anticipating them. When players expect content, their fallible, speculative brains ascribe all sorts of wondrous ideas to what little information they may have about the next release. Once the content goes live, they are inevitably let down.

An actual living world changes randomly and not in two week cycles. Some changes are big. Some changes are small. And the most catastrophic changes of all usually come without warning.

They did that with tower of nightmares. I didn’t know anything had changed in Kessex Hills till a guild member asked what the black stuff coming from the lake was. With that one question. About 15-20 members headed to Kessex to see if we could find out answers. It was awesome.

Nike.2631:

Worst features: It all comes down to 1 word: Scarlet. She’s actually not terrible when she’s on screen. I don’t mind fighting her directly. I find her dialogue faintly witty. The problem is everything attributed to her off screen is poison to my enjoyment. ‘Crazy’ people DO NOT BUILD EMPIRES. They occasionally inherit or seize control of an empire and the first thing that happens is THEY RUN THEM INTO THE GROUND. You have a fundamental mismatch between character archetype and their use in the plot.

This could work… if she was just acting as a catalyst throwing alliances together to see what happens and then losing interest and then leaving them alone to watch from a distance to see what they do. This would fit with her character – curious, crazy, immoral.

The problem is that, as you point out, she’s not leaving them alone but forming an empire of minions that are supposedly petrified of her. The other problem is that if she was just acting as a catalyst, you could just as easily write her out and come up with plausible reasons for the alliances to form spontaneously rather than through Scarlet’s intervention

I had time at work today to jot down notes on a few things I didn’t mention in my post this morning, so here we go again:

Housing and Living World Believe it or not, these two DO go together. Be it personal housing or a guild house, this is a prime place where the players get to change the world, even if it’s in only a small instanced zone. And (or so one would hope), they get to have more say in HOW they change it than they do in actual LW events. Getting to add trophies or unlocks into a personal space is a great way to let players feel they’ve changed something in the game world.

Cosmetic End Game If you guys really want to continue to think that you offer this, then you have to offer the cosmetics. If you no longer offer a cosmetic item, then that content is worse than gone. Now you have players that see it, and realize that it would be perfect for a character of theirs (that they may roll up just because said item gave them an idea), and then realize that they’ll never have a practical (or any) chance at it.
Suggestion: Don’t do that! Also, when earning them, realize that there’s a line between effort and work. Effort’s good, work is bad. And rare chance RNG is… well, a topic for another time, but you can guess.

Story and the solo player I’ll be honest, ANet. You messed this one up before you ever began the LW stuff. You dropped the ball at the very end of Trahearne’s personal story (can’t really say it’s ours by that point), and you have yet to pick it back up. Story content should be EASY to get to, so people can keep up with the plot. It should NEVER be locked behind group content, be it a dungeon or something that requires a large group of people to take down. Casual players, or people that are just short on time, can’t really be expected to group just to get the story. Sure, let group content happen, but the main plot should NEVER be hidden from casual solo play. If the main action of taking down a threat happens in a dungeon, fine. But plot wise, say “We’re sending a team in to take that down, if you’d care to join”, and then have a wrap-up for single players. Don’t force us to join groups for major plot points.

Dungeons vs Solo This is the other side of the above. Don’t force people to earn the “right” to enter a dungeon that’s part of the LW story. If they want the plot, it’s there for them to play through, or they can read up on it online. Or whatever. If the dungeon is what they’ve been looking forward to, don’t hold it back from them until they find 20 doggie biscuits or whatever. Give them a quick briefing, and let them rip into it. Nobody likes having to do prep work before having fun. Nobody.

Level 80 I hate to break it to you, but not all characters are level 80. And yes, most of the time instances and what not will scale you up to level 80, but that’s not fair. We all know that even a well equipped level 30 scaled up to 80 isn’t as powerful as an actual level 80. Case in point: Flame and Frost. I loved that the first big storyline was taking place in a couple of fairly low level zones. I could play just about any of my characters in it. And I did. And then the two instances came out. I took my level 30 engineer into them… and got slaughtered. Badly. This wasn’t a level 80 zone, why was it a level 80 instance? It made no sense to me.
Suggestion: Unless it’s set to happen after the Personal Story, ask yourself if it really needs to be level 80. What level SHOULD it be, considering the location and enemies?

Hi,

I just wanted to share my favorite/least favorite updates. I have been playing since around July and the first update I participated in was Cutthroat Politics.

My favorite update was probably Queen’s Jubilee/Clock Work Chaos. The reason why is because I had watched a story summary on youtube prior to the release of the patch and I had heard about Scarlett. I was excited to play the patch because I was convinced something important was going to happen for GW2’s storyline and I wanted to be there to see it. Of course, neither the state of humanity or Scarlett’s motives have really been built upon since then. But at the time I really liked the opening cutscenes to both patches (although I never actually played the end of CC).

Tequatl or Twilight Assault are probably my least favorite patches. I liked what they tried to do with Tequatl, but I didn’t like the lack of story and that most players weren’t able to experience it right away (due to the difficulty of the content). Twilight Assault is probably my least favorite. When Twilight Assault came out I took one look at my achievement panel, debated whether or not to do the achievements, and then I never played it. Instead I watched a story summary on youtube and I felt like I didn’t miss anything. If you’re going to do small group content I think it is better suited to the open world. I also don’t like doing living-story updates for the achievements.

Honorable Mention: I have really liked the Tower of Nightmares so far. It feels more story driven (hunting down Krait Obelisks and such). My only complaint is I don’t like zerg content and I’m not really incentivized by the reward. I want doing the event to be my reward. I don’t like trading in a currency to buy something.

Tengu Test Run People want a new race, and it’s pretty clear to a lot of us that Tengu are set up to be the natural choice. But some people seem to think that it’s not going to happen, that Living World can’t deliver on something that big. So, ask yourselves… can it? Can you pull this off LW style? If not, then you’ll find even bigger things also out of your reach. You might need to adjust, a lot.

Story size It’s an old question: Is bigger really better? Do you really need to throw huge chunks of plot at us all in one go? What would happen if you started telling some smaller stories? Or how about just breaking up an ongoing story or two, and let a bit more of each come out with each update. Update one: Something’s happening in Kessex Hills. Update two: They find the illusion and break it. Update three: The tower is spreading, but this might allow you to make a counter to the poison. Update four: You can now enter the tower. And while this is going on, other things happen as well. It’s not all JUST that one story. Maybe in update two, there’s a plot by some separatists to poison cows going to slaughter in order to weaken the charr. Updates three and four have an ongoing story where Moto’s been kidnapped by the Inquest. Smaller stories and story segments, but mix them together.

Scarlet Just… no. Get rid of her as soon as you can, and never look back. Seriously. If you want a great mastermind, give us a Bond villain type, and then give them commanders that we can face. The commanders can be of all the various personality types, with the main boss keeping them all in line and hiding in the shadows. Until then, Scarlet’s new name is “Mid-Boss”.

REAL choices and tension Okay, this is a BIG one, folks. We need the chance to make real, important choices. Not who wins an election that has so far had NO real effect on the world. Choices that raise moral questions, and may not have a clear answer or winner. What if dragon minions or empowered krait were invading Lion’s Arch next year when Halloween rolls around, and the Mad King stepped out to say “Only I get to slaughter my subjects!”? Would you dare to side with him in the hopes of saving Lion’s Arch? If he offered you power, would you take it? Could you pay the price for your choice, which ever one it is? If enough people choose to ally with him, will that break another of the seals and increase his power? Real choices, with real fallout to deal with.

… okay, I think that’s it. I might have more to say on some of these subjects, but that’s a topic for another thread (or five).

PS: Devs, I hope you’re willing to talk directly to some of the people with good ideas, instead of only posting in this thread. I’m sure a lot of us are trying to keep our points somewhat brief, but I know a lot of us would love to go into more detail about some of what we’ve said. I’m sure you need only to ask.

I feel I may have been overly hostile in previous posts so I’d just like to open with an apology if so. Do know that my anger over the direction of the living story – which easily delves into my posts’ attitude – is because I have loved the franchise since I started playing in 2006, and I really hate seeing the quality of the lore drop. Whether it is dropping internally or not is not the problem – it is dropping externally. What the players see is dropping. And I hate seeing that. I do try to remain as cooperative as can be but being a person who is stressed out, there’s only so far I can go. This said, to the responses itself.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Regarding Cadence of release: This is not something we plan to change in terms of timing and I wanted to make that clear from the outset. However the points raised around achievements being too time consuming is something that I do acknowledge and something we have already taken steps to address both in terms of overall time to complete and the nature of the repetitive achievements. We will continue to make strides in this area and are aware that the current time requirement also cuts in to the player’s ability to achieve goals in other aspects of the game.

In regards to the achievements, I would really like to make the suggestion of removing the Historical category in the achievements.

I see no reason why I should be incapable of achieving Krait Bane after Tower of Nightmares has come and gone. I still do the related actions. The content that the achievements would have you do is still there. So why am I incapable of getting the achievement for not being around for the 2 or 4 weeks which the Living Story chapter is up?

By taking the Historical category and moving those in there back to Living World and a new “Special Events” (Halloween, Wintersday, SAB, and other re-occurring events), players would be less stressed for time on all the achievements. More so if the achievements which are related to temporary content are given timers, thus we would know they will go away while others will not (like the dailies).

This would really help people in their time management, and allow people who do not have a lot of time to play the game to do more of what they want, rather than what the Living Story chapter currently gives (if they hold any interest in the achievement rewards be it points or items for completing a specific achievement).

Chris Whiteside.6102:

A number of you mentioned consequences for failure. This is something we discuss a lot and is quite complex. I would ask that we continue to discuss this topic in the thread.

With this in mind I also want us to be delivering epic adventures, where we forge the future of Tyria and fight mighty foes. And whilst Bobby has and will continue to discuss the intricacies of this, I want you all to understand that this is very much part of the plan.

I think that the story itself is still a little too early for a permanent case of failure. Mainly because of the story exposition being so slow, but that’s another matter.

In developing Scarlet, in the now, I think that she needs to have fewer crushing defeats, without escaping upon the brink of supposed death. This can be done a flavor of ways – distracting “Xanatos Gambits,”: overall mind-tricks, Scarlet tricking us into doing her dirty work for her, etc. She needs to be believably capable of building her army and for us to see it – for this to happen we must be unable to counter her build-up, if not inadvertently aid it.

When it comes to failure – the failure must come either in helping the enemy unintentionally, or in that the enemy was too overwhelming. Both gets back to the previous paragraph. If Scarlet comes out of nowhere with an overwhelming threat, we’ll question “where was it hiding the whole time?” I know my guild had questioned repeatedly throughout Aetherblade Retreat why no one had noticed there was an airship dock in the cliffs just outside the most active sea port in all of Tyria, and easily visible by all we knew. Stuff like that needs to be countered before Scarlet becomes a serious threat by making us fail.

A good case of players failing would be The Battle for Claw Island personal story instance. The bad parts were how slow it was in playing through it until the final moment, how unthreatening personal story steps on a whole feel (because you just cannot fail them), and how fast we ended up retaking Claw Island afterwards.

To create an example scenario of making Scarlet a true threat… Let’s say we finally find out her connection to the steam creatures – she turns out to have been part of “The Conclave” that the future asura PC from the Infinity Ball storyline talked about. As such, the steam creatures immediately recognize her as one of their leaders. This gives a rather reasonable explanation for it – you can even bring in Shodd and find that they won’t attack him for the same reason (issue is you’d need to explain why they’re attacking the asura PC if they did that storyline). This also gives her an immediate army that can continuously grow and explains even more of her tech abilities (her portals). Use this then to overwhelm an open world location, a place we should want to take back. In the months leading up to this, there were new locations being added in, only some having to deal with the LS – most are added just as expansions to the living world with a few unrelations to the plot. One of these is a new sylvari settlement, and a large one at that – let’s say it is over Denravi and shares its name. Build it up to give people enough reasons to be interested in it. Then Scarlet attacks it as part of her plot (whatever it may be). Give the LS a bar like in Flame and Frost:Retribution, but insanely large. The bar goes down per server, as events are completed with it reaching 0 signifying Scarlet’s forces are gone for the server. Then when the LS is done, take how many servers completed the bar and how many did not – majority wins here. And if the bars weren’t complete, a new LS instance shows up where Scarlet’s just fully and utterly overwhelming and the town is destroyed. We can go back in the open world and find it in ruins, overrun by the enemy remnants and nearby NPCs talk about the failure they went through. Or if the majority of servers completed the bar, a similar instance where we manage to save the day against impossible odds. Either way, any nearby hearts and events change appropriately – new events added, old events become slower to reset or are outright removed (only if befitting), and NPCs in the area change – be it who they are, how they act, or what they say.

The open world would forever be changed by the players’ actions on a whole. We’d get an overall awesome climatic battle, and either come out as heroes or failed survivors who met our first defeat at Scarlet’s hands. It becomes a failure not because the plot demanded a failure, but because we, the players, failed. And the most important part… don’t tell us that completing the bar or not has such huge consequences.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Regarding accessibility of releases some great points were brought up ranging from ideas such as a scrying pool or Hall of Memories to get caught up on previous releases. We are very aware of the problems presented by having an ongoing arc and this particular area is an ongoing topic of discussion. Regarding achievements as a method of directing player’s to content, we also agree that there are better ways to do this and you will see with the latest release some innovations in this area.

What I would do is make a DLC.

Take the previous plots of the Living Story – The Lost Shores, Flame and Frost and thereafter – and turn the whole plots into a series of instances. You’d have to make some for The Lost Shores at least, perhaps one or two for Flame and Frost and Secret of Southsun, but after not so much – SAB, Halloween, and Wintersday (at least) can be ignored here; Tequatl Rising is questionable (I’d make an instance for that too but there was so little plot for it, it may not be worth it – or save it for when that plot furthers if it isn’t tied to Scarlet). Then bundle these instances into a single DLC release which initiates for players after the personal story (or parallel to once hitting a certain level/place in the PS/etc.).

You get money. Players get their plot. Returning players can see the story they missed. Everybody wins. There’d be people who complain, but there’d be people doing such for anything.

(sigh, Anet, please lengthen message body limit)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Some of you posted about your favorite releases and least favorite. It would be really cool if you have the time to post your single favorite and least favorite and the reasons why for each. This would help a lot and I will share my learning with you etc. from the posts.

My favorite would probably be Shadow of the Mad King. Main reason is that, other than delving into the history of Ozzy Thorn, we got permanent open-world content that was unrelated to Halloween (Vexa’s Lab, Modus Seleris, Skritt Thief, Forsaken Halls). It was also a single chapter but multiple releases that wasn’t time-gated via daily-requiring metas (a nice idea but I think I prefer doing things more like Winds of Change or War in Kryta from Beyond). The only downside for me about the update was that the metas weren’t very clear in what the plot was.

My second favorite was the Flame and Frost group – all four in one. The only downside was that I wish it was two months rather than four (the first two updates in one, the second two in another) – two chapters, The Gathering Storm and Retribution by names, and two updates that gave a little more over time just as the four did. The content was great, the reveal was great, the left-over plots were just enough to get us thinking. Honestly, the Molten Alliance only began to be criticized once we learned Scarlet was behind it, and because it was Scarlet (more of her development than it being someone of her stature (female sylvari into tech)) and we didn’t know how she managed to convince them to join.

My least favorite? I got two. The Lost Shores because the entire thing was squished together over a single weekend, and the amount of bugs that formed from it being so time restricting causing people to just swarm the NPCs which bugged them out. The lack of time for truly enjoying the content really hurt the impression on it. And how laggy the finale was because it was one-time and one-time only in the persistent world… but I LOVED the ending cinematic for the Ancient Karka, and the intro one too. So that’s a plus.

The other would be Super Adventure Box: Back to School. Don’t get me wrong, I loved SAB. It’s enjoyable. But it being made as joke content for April’s Fools then becoming canon… really hurt my view and enjoyability for it. I am a man of stories. I play games for stories first and foremost, so it is the lore and storytelling that I love most in games. I loved SAB but I was just so burned out in September from the constant achievement grind that I couldn’t enjoy SAB:BtS, and turning what was joke into canon just did it in for me. I barely got to enjoy it. And Tribulation mode was pure punishment, no challenge. And from a different story perspective… the sudden break from Scarlet just after her reveal was, IMHO, not a good move. I would have probably skipped SAB – leaving it for next year’s April’s Fools (though Back to School is themed well, such a kind of break in replacement of the main story? I’d have rather avoided). One of Scarlet’s downpoints is that right when she truly needed it – thanks to the reveal of nothing known about her followed by the short story which makes her seem Villain Sue-like (I don’t like using the term but it sadly fits my view of her from that short story), she truly needed more exposure before some break. And Twilight Assault gave too little as well.

If I had to list a third release I did not like well, it’d be tied between Cutthroat Politics and Blood and Madness. They’re tied for the same reason: there was too little unique content. Cutthroat Politics got two new instances, everything else was the support token and achievements which were fully “do this old thing, but with this buff that does nothing!” On the flip side, Blood and Madness also only had 2 new instances, with the Mad Realm stuff… but even less than last year – Reaper’s Rumble, the metas, scavenger hunt, and Ascent to Madness were gone. Two instances replacing a scavenger hunt, PvP format, a dungeon, and three open world metas? It feels cheating. GW1 did their holidays right – add to, don’t replace. While it would be odd to see the Lion’s Court bust up every year, Ascent to Madness could have been added via the Boatman in the Mad King’s Realm. There was no need to remove the metas other than plots. Reaper’s Rumble I see no reason why it needed removal as well. If the old stuff had been kept in some form, then I believe Blood and Madness would have succeeded greatly. The only thing that made some amount of sense to remove was the scavenger hunt, for plot reasons.

BobbyStein.2315:

Regarding GW1 lore in Living World and beyond, let’s just say we’re looking at all GW lore right now and picking out threads that we’d like to tie up. Ideas are welcome, as always.

I have always, prior to the Living Story, felt that the writers at ArenaNet would be best at deciding where to go for the plot. So I won’t make a suggestion on threads to tie up. I will make a request though: stop trying to tie everything together.

During the development of Beyond, John Stumme said that the team’s goal was to make the lore “wider not deeper.” However, since the release of Guild Wars 2 it feels like the direction of the lore has instead been intent with filling up that depth made – the depth of the lore related to humanity and the gods – and with the Living Story it began to feel like a new depth was made – one related to Scarlet. I really like the idea of “wider not deeper” lore but I hate the idea of redacting old lore – which it feels the new lore on the gods and Bloodstones has done, whether true or not – while making equal or more depths on other things that aren’t as believable. Why is there so much tied to a single sylvari? Why is there as much tied to this one sylvari as there was to a god? It makes little sense.

Having multiple, unrelated, plot developments is the way to go for making wider and not deeper lore. So please do not try to connect everything to the gods, Elder Dragons, or Scarlet – as that is where the lore has gone for a little too long, and sometimes (especially in the last sense) unreasonably so from the perspective of the players.

BobbyStein.2315:

nopoet.2960:

As a complete aside, I would love to see some experiments in dynamic events where failure doesn’t stall the event but progresses it in a different direction.

Interesting idea. Can you provide an example of how you would imagine it working?

I am no nopoet, but there is a limited version of this done already in the game – where you have to liberate/recapture a settlement or camp from enemy forces. It’s actually commonly seen in the centaur-related meta events, but it’s often overlooked because they repeat so often. Failure to defend the camp south of Fort Salma results in the fort being sieged, while success results in Seraph pushing the attack.

But to go in a different direction than taking/defending outposts… I’ll use Tequatl as an example.

Currently, failure results in mines around a location that wouldn’t be explored beyond the PoI except during the Tequalt event. So failure of the Tequatl event instead has him spawning Risen events all over the map, little by little, until he shows up again (this time landing from the air after being shot at by the canon instead of coming from the waters of Orr).

I could probably go endlessly on the possible add-ons to already existing events that can and cannot fail (for example, the Sinister Triad events in Brisband Wildlands – the one near Fort Vandal? Give it a timer, fail to kill them on time results in them assaulting nearby areas with combined forces).

(finally last post for now)

BobbyStein.2315:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Why are you sticking to the bi-weekly release schedule? If you know it hinders you, why keep at it? That makes no sense to me. I know you’re not the guy to set it, but I’m sure you know why it’s set there and who sets it and can explain to us this befuddlement – if not get the players’ opinion on it to the person or people who set the schedule.

That’s not my decision to make. That stated, feedback regarding the cadence is useful and constructive to others so I think it’s good for people to tell us how they feel about the release schedule.

I know it’s not your decision to make. What I was asking – and have since seen Chris avoid answering repeatedly – is why you stick to it, when you have said it hinders you and you know from this very thread that players want it longer. I no longer expect an answer to the question, but I am not asking for you (plural you – ArenaNet) to change it, but why you won’t.

BobbyStein.2315:

One huge challenge facing the Living World narrative, in my opinion, is guidance. Personal Story has the journal. Dynamic Events have the event UI. Until now, the Living World had: mails, achievements, and scattered icons. That’s all. There was nothing to guide you to the content directly. We never taught the player how to navigate the releases using these systems, which were never designed to be used in this way.

The first improvement to address this went live on 10/29. The special event UI now tells you where to go and in what order to experience the story bits. We have designs for another system that will potentially sort out the timelines and provide other mechanisms to enhance LW releases, but until it’s confirmed for a specific build I can’t divulge more specifics.

Out of curiosity… why couldn’t the Living Story use the Personal Story UI and system, without a journal tab (or even with). Mirror systems working independently? It doesn’t matter now that you have something working – though it doesn’t aid in past LS content – but I’m curious on the technical limitations there.

Now, another question I have about this timeline-separating bit. If you can succeed in this, would it be reasonable to request the old LS instances? Or would that, too, be a pipe dream?

What I am most curious about, however, is more in the realm of how you intend to reveal exposition to the players. I feel that this is what is needed most, and it is something purely – or at least vastly majorly – related to the writing team. I don’t really expect any answers since most would probably deal with divulging plot point spoilers. Though I still feel like asking.

More importantly, however, is this question: How will you make new players – or returning players who missed content – care for the story as it is now? Few people would enjoy going into a movie theater 30 minutes after the movie started, or pick up a book and read seriously from page 174 out of 432. But this is something that is being forced on players: stay tuned or miss out. How do you intent to fix this?

BobbyStein.2315:

nopoet.2960:

As a complete aside, I would love to see some experiments in dynamic events where failure doesn’t stall the event but progresses it in a different direction.

Interesting idea. Can you provide an example of how you would imagine it working.

I really like the implementation of events in Dredgehaunt Cliffs and Harathi Hinterlands. As you succeed in each event you unlock WP’s and eventually push the meta. If you fail the enemies push you back and you loose a WP (eventually all WP’s can become contested). I like this better than Orr because at the early stages the event chains can be pushed by one player.

To update my critique on Scarlet:
I agree with other posters who say on-screen Scarlet isn’t so bad (even if she’s bad as a “personal” nemesis), but it’s what she’s built up to be off-screen that makes her annoying.

Seriously, how did she co-ordinate the Molten Alliance? How does someone as insane as Scarlet, even have the charisma to unite dredge and flame legion?

Quite frankly, her actions do not match her personality.

Living story has the same cycle all the time:

1. Players need to gather some things x amount
2. they need to go around of the world find things
3. they need to kill x number of foes
4. they need to do some Jumping Puzzle
5. and all ends a dungeon.

Usually that Jumping Puzzle and Dungeon stop a good amount of players to see ending of a Living Story arc, so they start to care less and less about it, because they know they will not be able to finish it. They will never see the end of the current story.

Players start to complain everything, because whole Living Story is too forseeable. Rewards are mostly useless, and players feels that they have been cheated.

It seems that those teams who are working with Living Stories have same concept what they use to make Living Stories. Well, they have such a hectic timetable how they could even invent something new and innovative in that time. No one can do that, but in a way they are underestimate players and their intelligence by doing so.

Solution for this is that those teams who are making Living Stories, should have more time to do those Living Stories. Let them throw those ready concepts away and use their own innovation, let them have brainstorms, invent new things with writers and whole Living Story would become more interesting.

Many people said that Halloween wasn’t in a game what they expected. Why is that? It is because of Living Story. Game is now like child who has too many presents. Every giftbox looks the same and all those giftboxes have same item in it. All those special events like Halloween, Wintersday and so on will loose their glamour, they are just a ”thing” amongst another ”things”. All special events have suffer inflation because of Living Story.

Ilmatar.6709:

Living story has the same cycle all the time:

1. Players need to gather some things x amount
2. they need to go around of the world find things
3. they need to kill x number of foes
4. they need to do some Jumping Puzzle
5. and all ends a dungeon.

Usually that Jumping Puzzle and Dungeon stop a good amount of players to see ending of a Living Story arc, so they start to care less and less about it, because they know they will not be able to finish it. They will never see the end of the current story.

this- oh thank you!
I cannot tell you how much stuff in the LS I have missed because of exactly this.
So naturally gathering x amount for no reason except AP and killing z for same loses it’s appeal very quickly and at this point I don’t even bother

As a player who is firstly interested in the story- it is very disheartening

Ilmatar.6709:

Living story has the same cycle all the time:

1. Players need to gather some things x amount
2. they need to go around of the world find things
3. they need to kill x number of foes
4. they need to do some Jumping Puzzle
5. and all ends a dungeon.

Usually that Jumping Puzzle and Dungeon stop a good amount of players to see ending of a Living Story arc, so they start to care less and less about it, because they know they will not be able to finish it. They will never see the end of the current story.

This has been a consideration for me also. I’ve attempted those dungeons but haven’t completed any of them. Either they are too long (4 hours!!! reported for the last dungeon) or my group attempted it, sometimes more than once, failed, and then I never went back. This means I didn’t see the endings of those LS updates and now I never will.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

…
Then Scarlet attacks it as part of her plot (whatever it may be). Give the LS a bar like in Flame and Frost:Retribution, but insanely large. The bar goes down per server, as events are completed with it reaching 0 signifying Scarlet’s forces are gone for the server. Then when the LS is done, take how many servers completed the bar and how many did not – majority wins here. And if the bars weren’t complete, a new LS instance shows up where Scarlet’s just fully and utterly overwhelming and the town is destroyed. We can go back in the open world and find it in ruins, overrun by the enemy remnants and nearby NPCs talk about the failure they went through. Or if the majority of servers completed the bar, a similar instance where we manage to save the day against impossible odds. Either way, any nearby hearts and events change appropriately – new events added, old events become slower to reset or are outright removed (only if befitting), and NPCs in the area change – be it who they are, how they act, or what they say.

The open world would forever be changed by the players’ actions on a whole. We’d get an overall awesome climatic battle, and either come out as heroes or failed survivors who met our first defeat at Scarlet’s hands. It becomes a failure not because the plot demanded a failure, but because we, the players, failed. And the most important part… don’t tell us that completing the bar or not has such huge consequences.

One minor addition here: instead of counting completed bars, count efforts (like events) directly. There are two reasons for this:

• Overflows. With a bar to complete, overflows will be a problem. Do overflow servers count towards the end result? In that case the result will probably be failure as overflows get created and destroyed all the time, or simply won’t have the population to complete the bar in time. If overflow server do not count towards the end result, all efforts made by players on overflow servers will be for nothing. Simply counting events completed over all servers will give overflows meaning, even if they exist for just a few hours.
• With the concept of counting full bars per server, server that actually do a lot of participating will have filled the bar relatively early, making all further efforts useless. And in the end, the total event might up failing, having that server crushing the opponents while in the end we still have sad faces because failure. The other way around: a server that ignores the event will see cheering folks claiming they have crushed the enemy while not having done anything at all. No individual (and visual) progress bar to be filled will mean anyone can continue to help the event forward, while not creating any expectations by showing a filled or empty bar.

As for not telling us that there will be dire consequences, I don’t think this will work. We’re not used to content being able to fail, but we are used to doing the content till the meta achievement is complete and then leaving it at that. Not telling us there are consequences will have people leaving too soon, because they will still think it doesn’t matter if they’re there or not.

One thing I like to be discussed here is the actual implementation of consequences. Epic battles ask for epic consequences, and those take time to be developed. While 4 months is probably very fast from a developers point of view, for a player waiting 4 months to see results is way to long. Now, I can live with having to wait 2-4 weeks to see actual results (‘We are still catching our breath after that battle, but the next campaign will commence shortly!’). So, I wanted to know if you folks here have any ideas how to implement consequences to player choice/action that can actually be implemented within 4 weeks (so not even close to an entire development cycle). I’ll see if I can come up with something myself, but so far no luck.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Carelius.1430:

minbariguy.7504:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We are committed to quality not quantity.

Perhaps it would have been more accurate if I’d stated that you were prioritizing release dates over quality. I get that you guys have every intention to release quality content. You’re all very passionate and committed to what you do, and you obviously want to create things that people enjoy.

However, allow me to make an observation. I’ve noticed that when you discuss future content or features (other than Living Story), you never commit to a release date. My understanding was that this is because game design can be unpredictable: things change, features may not work exactly as you intended, bugs may pop up, or it may simply take more time to polish a feature for release than you intended. And you don’t want to release content before it is ready, hence…you never commit to a release date.

Except for when it comes to Living Story.

Suddenly, every two weeks, just like clockwork, there it is. Right on schedule. How, then, can it be that your priority is on the quality of the release, when you are committed to releasing it on a specific date no matter what?

If you are saying that you now have the ability to make sure that content is ready by a specific date, then surely you have the ability to commit to dates for all your releases (not just Living Story). But of course, we know that this isn’t the case.

So while you may want quality, it certainly isn’t your priority. It can’t be. Not on a specific release schedule. It’s impossible.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

This said there is a lot we can and are doing to meet concerns regarding the cadence and really polish the positives we have already achieved in this area.

I would be really interested to know what you guys are doing to meet my concerns regarding the cadence. Because I honestly have no idea how you can do that while simultaneously stating that the cadence will continue unaltered no matter what any of us says.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

The cadence is something we discuss frequently. We are a very collaborative team and do our best to never sweep anything under the rug (-:

I’m curious as to what these discussions are like. When you are having these discussions, does it ever come up that many people are vigorously opposed to it? Or is it the impression of the team that the current cadence is both popular and desired? If so, do you have any metrics to back this up?

Finally, a simple question:

Why are you unwilling to adjust the release cadence? What is the reason that it must continue, no matter what anyone says? Can you at least help us understand that?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. This right here – especially the last question. The sad thing is we’ll never get a real, honest answer. Right now this thread feels like a PR stunt. I hope I’m wrong.

I think it’s money. Every new LS there is Gem Store items linked to them. Most of all the Black lion clam tickets. I’m willing to bet Black lion keys make up the bulk of money that the game brings in. You get 1 from doing you PS if I remember right. And I have had one drop in the world the whole year I’ve played the game, and in my build of over 200 I think, I’m one of 5 people who have had them drop in the world, not from opening a Black Lion Chest.

Not that I will take your answer for grail, but if it did turn out to be money, then thats all I need to know about the game going forward. It would be deleted off my computer and erased on my ‘watch list’.

Quality should always be > quantity. And quality definitely > $$ if you want to win over the loyalty of customers.

Yes. That would be fantastic.

Raziel.4216:

Request: Questionarie at the end of every living story, like the ones you had in the open beta.
Reasons: You’d get more player feedback instantly, forums can never compare to that.

This guy nails it:

Nike.2631:

My biggest problem with the Living Story effort is the pace is simply abusive. If you were adding new permanent content every 2 weeks that would be amazing. But you’re not – you’re rotating it behind little 2 week or 4 week windows. It’s entirely too cynical (and blatant) of an exercise in operant conditioning. That the most visible permanent addition lumped under ‘Living Story’ banner is the debacle that is Tequatl is not helping either.

Then there’s Scarlet. Words do not convey my horror that a piece of character writing unfit for a 15-year old’s worst ego-projection power fantasy is being touted as the backbone for a multi-million dollar MMO’s evolving storyline. It embarrassing. You (collectively) should be embarrassed. You have capable writers, but somebody needs to be riding herd over them reining in the blatant Sylvari fetishism/favoritism (is there any NPC in the entire setting who doesn’t fawn over them?) and to pull the suck cord when an idea just isn’t going to build a stronger world setting going forward. This isn’t a cry for grimdark gritty-grit-gritism, but we shouldn’t be looking at your star attraction of the last year and thinking “that’s just absurd…” It’s not building good word of mouth for the game and it’s not the powerful force for retention that the Living Story could be. Many of us aren’t eagerly waiting to see what happens next (which we should be), instead we’re dreading the inevitable re-appearance of Little Miss Writer’s-Fiat and her next ludicrously implausible alliance…

I work rotaitonal. I’ve been gone since October 13th and I won’t get home until November 20th then back out November 25th. I will miss everything between October 13th to Christmas. Sucks. Would be nice if it was permenant so I could get the AP and stuff when I get back home instead of being completely SOL. Granted, I have a nice good paying job, which is paying for my new motorcycle that is making me play this game a lot less, when I’m not riding or into my cameras I would like to play some GW2 and not miss out on every thing.

cesmode.4257:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Carelius.1430:

minbariguy.7504:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We are committed to quality not quantity.

Suddenly, every two weeks, just like clockwork, there it is. Right on schedule. How, then, can it be that your priority is on the quality of the release, when you are committed to releasing it on a specific date no matter what?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

This said there is a lot we can and are doing to meet concerns regarding the cadence and really polish the positives we have already achieved in this area.

I would be really interested to know what you guys are doing to meet my concerns regarding the cadence. Because I honestly have no idea how you can do that while simultaneously stating that the cadence will continue unaltered no matter what any of us says.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

The cadence is something we discuss frequently. We are a very collaborative team and do our best to never sweep anything under the rug (-:

I’m curious as to what these discussions are like. When you are having these discussions, does it ever come up that many people are vigorously opposed to it? Or is it the impression of the team that the current cadence is both popular and desired? If so, do you have any metrics to back this up?

Finally, a simple question:

Why are you unwilling to adjust the release cadence? What is the reason that it must continue, no matter what anyone says? Can you at least help us understand that?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. This right here – especially the last question. The sad thing is we’ll never get a real, honest answer. Right now this thread feels like a PR stunt. I hope I’m wrong.

I think it’s money. Every new LS there is Gem Store items linked to them. Most of all the Black lion clam tickets. I’m willing to bet Black lion keys make up the bulk of money that the game brings in. You get 1 from doing you PS if I remember right. And I have had one drop in the world the whole year I’ve played the game, and in my build of over 200 I think, I’m one of 5 people who have had them drop in the world, not from opening a Black Lion Chest.

Not that I will take your answer for grail, but if it did turn out to be money, then thats all I need to know about the game going forward. It would be deleted off my computer and erased on my ‘watch list’.

Quality should always be > quantity. And quality definitely > $$ if you want to win over the loyalty of customers.

Do you think it’s a coincidence that every installment of the LW has a BLC dependent set of skins? People are paying ridiculous amounts of money to try and get one. What’s even worse, is that the game design for these skins is based off of Variable Ratio Schedules. Casino’s use this in their slot machines. It is the best, and most addicting form to get people to repeat a behavior (buying keys to open chests) for a reward (the LW skins). It’s intentional, and it’s abhorrent to me.

So, increase the frequency of the LW to a two week rotation (with new skins) and they are laughing all the way to the bank. That is why Chris won’t budge from the cadence.

Now, once I saw how the whole LW was panning out I quickly lost interest. Consequently, since all the focus was going to this and not the game itself, there wasn’t much of a reason for me to stick around. If Chris is suggesting that they are going to listen, not just hear, the players this time around going forward, well, let’s see how that pans out. So far, in the 22 pages of this thread, there hasn’t been anything that I would remotely call collaborative.

One thing I have to ask is, who is writing the LS storyline? Not the particular person, but the job title. Because if it’s Devs writing it, you should hire people who actually write stories for a living, as writing good stories is not a Dev’s strong point. It’s not what they are trained for and frankly, it shows. Or get a professional editor. The stories I’ve seen so far have lore illogical inconsistencies (such as the krait allying with non krait) or just need overall tightening. A good editor would be able to tell you that a maniacally evil person with no ingame background who makes large scale alliances appear out of nowhere with no obvious effort is not a good plot device.

When you started the Scarlet route, you could have, for example, given us instances where we were silent observers of her making these alliances. Where it is known that we are seeing this to explain and move the story along, such as the instance where Logan hires Marjory. Books do this all the time, the ‘fly on the wall’ scenes that move the story forward and explains it so the reader can understand. Doing this would have greatly improved the current LS and made it more palatable for many people.

Astral Projections.7320:

One thing I have to ask is, who is writing the LS storyline? Not the particular person, but the job title. Because if it’s Devs writing it, you should hire people who actually write stories for a living, as writing good stories is not a Dev’s strong point. It’s not what they are trained for and frankly, it shows. Or get a professional editor. The stories I’ve seen so far have lore illogical inconsistencies (such as the krait allying with non krait) or just need overall tightening. A good editor should be able to tell you that a maniacally evil person with no ingame background who makes large scale alliances appear out of nowhere with no obvious effort is not a good plot device.

When you started the Scarlet route, you could have, for example, given us instances where we were silent observers of her making these alliances. Where it is known that we are seeing this to explain and move the story alone, such as the instance where Logan hires Marjory. Books do this all the time, the ‘fly on the wall’ scenes that move the story forward and explains it so the reader can understand. Doing this would have greatly improved the current LS and made it more palatable for many people.

I agree. The lore inconsistencies are really painful to see.

Originally from the Unending Ocean, the krait rival even the charr for viciousness and cruel ingenuity. These intelligent creatures are vicious and xenophobic, attacking and enslaving all other species on sight.

Or what about the fact that the Nightmare Court was founded partly because Niamh refused to kill baby krait?

A question to the Dev team if I may as it’s one thing i’ve always wondered and I think has a bearing on the discussion.

One thing I’ve noticed is that you have about 5 days from release to get all the achievements done and then it becomes increasingly more difficult to get them as people’s interest seems to wane or they move onto another living story/part of the game.

Are you looking into how this can be rectified? or is it a user perception thing and the difficulty of completing the LW achievements doesn’t increase over time?

If you can’t change the 2 week schedule on new releases, you can at least lessen the problems related to them. Make them stick around for few cycles into the next set of LW, and make them smaller but more interactive (with players and with the other content).
This has probably been said before, but I’m just adding one more post on it to show to whoever is able to change it.

My overall thoughts:
1. New content should be permanent or at the very least recurring.
Successes: TA Aether path, Tequatl, Invasions
Offenders: Flame and Frost/Molten Facility, Aetherblade Retreat, Crown Pavilion/Queen’s Gauntlet(?)
2. Old content should be permanent.
Successes: Most standard content
Offenders: TA Aether path vs. TA forward/up, arguably Tequatl.
3. LW and its events should be acknowledged throughout the world.
Offenders: Flame and Frost (Dredge and Flame Legion elsewhere never mention each other at all), Invasions (the rest of the map essentially ignores the invaders)

4. LW should enhance standard content, not draw people off of it or outright replace it.
Successes: To an extent, some parts of Cutthroat Politics (do events in Kryta/Ascalon), Tequatl Rising (arguably, but unarguably regarding most boss updates)
Offenders: Clockwork Chaos invasions, Crown Pavilion farming

5. LW should use characters we already have, more than introducing more of them. We have a whole world of NPCs that could do stuff and show up in more than just their one event. Make Keeper Jonez Deadrun do something with his insufficiently explained knowledge of rituals besides cleanse (fail to cleanse) the Temple of Grenth. Make the Ulgoth do something with the centaurs he leads besides die in a single event in the corner of a map. Make Destiny’s Edge members, probably individually, show up as more important characters in the LW.

Hi,
So Ive posted more than my fair share in this thread, both asking questions such as “Arenanet, what are your thoughts on utilizing phasing technology” to answering each question/conversation directed statement from arenanet, as well as posting my own ideas, suggestions and criticisms. I think many have done this as well. I have also encouraged others who, early on, questioned the entire purpose of this thread when they have seen very little interaction from arenanet, to be patient in waiting for arenanet’s involvement.

While Bobby Stein has been the most vocal in this thread, I am a bit disappointed that other key folks chime in once or twice and then leave for a few days. The thread has been live for five days with very little interaction and collaborating. Unless the whole point was just to give us a place to collectively talk about one topic where you sit back and gather our opinions passively. However, to that I would simply say “read the forums a bit more, we talk about these this every day”.

Where is the collaboration portion from arenanet? You have our feedback, there are several hot topics that continue to recur such as :

1. Cadence of release too fast
2. Cadence of story too slow and disjointed from each release.
3. Little impact on the world of Tyria, and little impact on your character being a ‘hero’
4. Rewards
5. Success/Failure
—to list a few hot topics…—

Many of us have touched on each of these several times over and on a whole these are hot topics. I understand you are developing the game, but where is arenanets involvement? If you could not devote time to this initiative, better not to start it at all. Otherwise, it just looks like you are attemping to appease the masses by saying
“Hey, heres a thread where we will listen and collaboratively discuss”…Only, you don’t discuss. We do.

I’m not sure I can call this discussion ‘collaborative’ if mid-way through the thread a dev says cadence is non-negotiable.

Lunaire.5827:

I’m not sure I can call this discussion ‘collaborative’ if mid-way through the thread a dev says cadence is non-negotiable.

To me, it’s not so much that it’s non-negotiable. I can respect that if a developer has a set plan in mind for what they are doing and trying to accomplish, there are going to be core pieces to that puzzle that can’t be changed. However, if there was a plan in place and those core fundamentals were established, they would also be able to be discussed and detailed.

Look at Josh Foreman’s interaction with the player base over SAB W2 for a positive example. He had specific ideas in mind for what he wanted SAB to be, and there were specific limitations in place created by the GW2 engine itself that simply were there and could not be overcome. And so, when he was discussing SAB W2 with the players he was clear about all of that and why certain things players were taking issue with could/would not be changed. They were things that were “non-negotiable” in that case as well, but there was discussion and discourse over why they were that way and. as importantly, what the overall plan was.

StriderShinryu.6923:

Lunaire.5827:

I’m not sure I can call this discussion ‘collaborative’ if mid-way through the thread a dev says cadence is non-negotiable.

To me, it’s not so much that it’s non-negotiable. I can respect that if a developer has a set plan in mind for what they are doing and trying to accomplish, there are going to be core pieces to that puzzle that can’t be changed. However, if there was a plan in place and those core fundamentals were established, they would also be able to be discussed and detailed.

Yeah, I’m rather annoyed that arguably the hottest concern raised in this thread has been dismissed without any significant discussion or justification. If it is viewed as such an important idea, I’m desperate for someone to sell it to me, because despite reassurances to the contrary, I’m seeing a lot of quantity and problems in quality that I can only attribute to stretched resources (and have even been explicitly described as such in other thread, such as the restrictions on cutscenes/important storytelling polish).

I do not believe that the 2 week release schedule is healthy or beneficial for the game. Nothing said so far in the thread has convinced me otherwise. If there’s no chance in hell of it being changed, at least help us understand why.

int randInt return.3280:

If you can’t change the 2 week schedule on new releases, you can at least lessen the problems related to them. Make them stick around for few cycles into the next set of LW, and make them smaller but more interactive (with players and with the other content).

While sound in theory, this brings with it its own problems.

I noticed yesterday, actually, while working on some Tower achievements, that the whole thing felt messy with Halloween stuff still showing up at random. Pumpkins here, doors popping up there. I don’t really know how else to describe it except as messy and cluttered.

The biggest problem, however, is that the quicker players complete the latest achievements and then they abandon the previous content as soon as the next release arrives. People who couldn’t take part in Halloween until the late stages found content like the labyrinth impossible to tackle because everyone else had moved onto the Tower. The 2-week release cycle hurries players from one shiny new set of content to the next.

There’s a reason that old LW content that remained permanent became abandoned/unused, and it’s not always to do with problems specifically related to that content. Players have to hurry onto the next set of achievements if they want to do them. My guild leader got all of the Tower achievement done after a big, long session of grind a few days ago and then declared he wasn’t touching Kessex Hills again. I get the impression he hated every minute of it and just wanted to get the reward out of the way.

Honestly, I get very similar feelings about most LW releases. I feel pressured to complete the achievements ASAP so I can get on with the content I would rather be playing, if it weren’t for the fact that I’d miss out on a time-limited reward. I’m okay with skipping cosmetics I don’t care about, but utility stuff like home crafting nodes etc. I hate to miss out on. So I grit my teeth and grind to get them before I run out of time.

Faowri.4159:

I feel pressured to complete the achievements ASAP so I can get on with the content I would rather be playing,

This summarizes how I feel about achievements in the living story.

I think there should be less achievements (like 5-6) for the meta, and have a separate achievement category for doing LS dailies to earn a bi-weekly chest (just of like dailies and monthlies). This way, players who like to grind will still be rewarded, and players who only have 5 hours to spend can still complete the meta.

So, at some point, we had a television analogy and the features of television brought to Living World. With that said, I want to continue this metaphor with some great television plots to show just how important proper component building is.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 2 and 5 – These two seasons are generally regarded as excellent television. In Season 2, Angel’s buildup as a bad guy over two seasons. We knew he was bad. We knew he was evil inside. So when he was finally “turned,” the foils between him and Spike were clear — the inept wannabe versus the really is. Then Angel systematically harassed the person he loved. You could literally watch as Buffy, as a strong archetype, started to lose hold of that strength. This happened again with season 5 when Buffy came up against the somewhat mysterious Glory. We, as viewers, had seen her power. We knew that she wasn’t the normal woman. Some mystery existed as to her family’s involvement in the plot, but we could see that things weren’t good. Then, at the end, with everyone in fear but banding together, Buffy realized her destiny in a sense as she rushed to her inevitable death.

In neither of these cases did the villains of Angel or Glory cackle their way to evil as they somehow secretly and magically bested every knowledge and skill in the world. They didn’t unite factions. In fact, Angel only used vampires sparingly. Glory’s minions? Psychiatric patients and weak scab minions. Neither was a genius or a master of all things. They were just really good at one thing. For both, it was the systematic destruction of the hero who had to eventually overcome the devastation of loss to triumph through a theme, typically friendship.

Compare that to Scarlet who runs around, cackles, unites factions who don’t care about each other, mastered every single thing in Tyria, and then somehow went CRAAAZZY and we’ve been watching her essential ascension over the player character for, well, months.

Doctor Who, The Master – It’s my opinion that Scarlet’s “look into time and go crazy” is really a ripoff of The Master’s storyline. His motivation has always been to be the antithesis who undoes the Doctor’s work. He glimpsed into the whole of time and space and went crazy as he heard the tone put into his head by Rassalon. Why did this work? It was told in pieces. The Master appeared only as a capable adversary for the Doctor.

He did not appear on the screen cackling about how evil and CRAAAAZZY he is. Then, as his history unfolded, he became a sympathetic character. He didn’t ask for Rassalon’s schemes. He didn’t ask to see space and time. He didn’t ask for the insanity that followed. He became a tragic figure.

So, my point? The storytelling is weak in the Living Story. I do not know who wrote Scarlet and the Living Story to now, but it’s really weak writing. It appears to try to be both serial and episode-driven. It does neither exceptionally well because most don’t care who Scarlet is. We just know she’s better than us in every single way and is CRAAAAAZZY.

If you’re going to do that, take a cue from some of the great serials like Buffy, Angel, Battlestar Galactica, Walking Dead, Doctor Who, FlashForward, and others. Craft individual storylines that make the player feel like they’re more than someone chasing around a villain they don’t care about. Set the stakes early, introduce the villain clearly, and work through tension instead of working through “It’s another 2 weeks, remember Scarlet!?”

And if you want to go episodic with serial, let the players feel like they have more plot information than the NPCs. The player has to feel like they know the stakes. Frankly, I haven’t played GW2 in months because I just don’t care about the storyline. I also don’t care about the rewards. There’s nothing for me to play towards in GW2. When I became excited for the game years ago, I didn’t think, “Oh, boy, I can’t wait to fight some random villain who pops up and is better than me!”

I thought, “Oh, wow, Tyria was destroyed by dragons. I want to kick their butts. I want to kick their minion’s butts.” The Living Story and plot in general should have focused on the dragons building their minions. It should not have been kill the most powerful dragon with sparkly yellow shots, watch Trahearne take credit for everything, and then wait until Scarlet decides she’s better than you and is CRAAAAZZY and wants to…uh…whatever.

In Guild Wars 1, when the charr destroyed Ascalon, I cared. When Khilbron threatened to destroy Kryta, I cared. When the Great Destroyer threatened to destroy the world, I cared. When Varesh and Shiro acted for Abbadon, I cared. I even cared about Kormir.

I just don’t care about what happens in Tyria right now.

Finnway.2183:

Faowri.4159:

I feel pressured to complete the achievements ASAP so I can get on with the content I would rather be playing,

This summarizes how I feel about achievements in the living story.

I think there should be less achievements (like 5-6) for the meta, and have a separate achievement category for doing LS dailies to earn a bi-weekly chest (just of like dailies and monthlies). This way, players who like to grind will still be rewarded, and players who only have 5 hours to spend can still complete the meta.

I totally agree with this. This way achievement grinders can still have lots of achievements to earn, and people with less time to play can still get involved and earn the limited-time rewards without feeling rushed and pressured.

Here are my issues with the living world/story:

1. It has nothing to do with GW2:
Dragons are not present at all in the story. In fact they have been replaced by a horribly written villain with an effect on the world far greater than the forces of nature we have battled before.
The occasional distraction or event like halloween, wintersday and SAB are fine and good every once in a while but the living story feels disconnected, completely ignoring lore, history and the rules of the universe.
You have done your personal story, you have killed Zhaitan, destroyed hordes of dragon minions and now you have to deal with… Scarlet. A psychotic somehow in possession of an army, airships and incredible technology allying forces together that make no sense in the lore.
In fact you could say all of this content is just filler like in some long running anime series where the lead writer can not get out the story fast enough and the other guys had to come up with something to keep the thing running.

2. It doesnt deliver enough:
Compare the soon-to-be 1,5 years of GW2 to a GW1 campaign made in the same time. 30 something new areas, a new campaign, 2 new professions, hundreds of skills, a full new story, new characters, new gametypes… Yes the two simply can not compare in numbers.
I know there is a lot more work involved in making GW2s assets, maps, mechanics… but even so there is no wonder why people want a full fledged expansion.

3. It has a low replayability value:
Once you ve gone trough a part of this living story, there is no point in doing it again, that is if you even get to do it in the first place.
If you look at the game from a new players perspective what you get is barely anything more than what people got at release.
There is nothing wrong with changing and evolving the world and having a story but if that takes precedent before gameplay which you then have to fill out with grind and time sinks the whole thing just turns out cheap.

4. It forces players to play a certain way:
GW2 was to be all about playing the way you wanted to. Unfortunately when ANET decided to make achievements matter and with the introduction of ascended gear they presented the players with two options: play our way and be rewarded or play your way and get nothing.
Parts of the world are changed drastically while the rest of it stays the same, frozen in time. The open world apart from this directed play areas is virtually deserted even on the most populated servers.
Meanwhile the areas of interest are filled with players turning into zerg fests ruining the game (due to bad engine code and optimizations) for most people that are not running top of the line CPUs.

5. It is not going anywhere:
When GW2 launched the direction was simple: get to Orr and slay the dragon. With the living story we are hopping all over the world, making it seem small and infantile.
GW2 lacks proper villains in its living story and what real “villains” it does have it has been ignoring them in favour of Scarlet.
The games immersion has taken a nosedive and there are virtually no new experiences, just rehashed old content and a few dungeons that stay open for a month then disappear.
There is no direction, not just for the story, but for the game itself. It is stagnant and boring and many people i know are just waiting for the next big thing if they havent already left.

Here are my short thoughts on each update so far:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/Best-and-Worst-of-GW2-Releases-Year-1/2988117
For the new ones:
This years Halloween brought rather little new things but as a small seasonal thing it is ok.
The tower of nightmares however is an interesting idea but considering the lore i dont really like it. Also merging two foes has been done before and now it just feels gimmicky. Not to mention the whole thing smells of Scarlet.

I think many of these issues are very clear to the playerbase and have been vocalized many times. ANET really needs to start listening. I m sure they are creative enough to come up with solutions on their own and they will have to if they want to keep this game afloat.

Also, @Chris and Anet.

For what it’s worth, Guild Wars is the only MMO I’ve ever played where I actively see changes based on community request, discussions with the community, and company staff actively playing the game.

So while although some of my prior posts may have been critical, it is because I care about the game, and I want you to know that the efforts you have made are appreciated.

Positives:

Fresh content every 2 weeks, each with a unique theme.
New rewards and skins. It makes gw2 retain some freshness.

Negatives:

The living story mechanics feel a bit repetitive. While each release is different it always retain a similar pattern: Introduced to the new characters, plot and so forth through a cutscene or instance. Then you fight mobs over and over again until you get enough achievements to progress to the next portion of the story. Then you make it to the final portion to which you are left hanging.

The living story feels short on story elements. If Anet can somehow manage to get the short story elements posted on the official site weaved into the actual story telling in the living story. Then I feel it would be in a great place. There has to be a balance between combat and story telling. Right now, the story telling feels like its getting the short end of the stick.

Also, I think gw2 could use more dark and serious story lines. So far, the living story has felt rather light hearted in comparison to the themes found in gw1.

Overall, despite the flaws that exist imo. I find living story enjoyable and so do my friends who play with me.

SonicTHI.3217:

The tower of nightmares however is an interesting idea but considering the lore i dont really like it. Also merging two foes has been done before and now it just feels gimmicky. Not to mention the whole thing smells of Scarlet.

Most definitely it is related to Scarlet. It is her pale tree she is growing in there/ There is no tower, it is just a protection construction up until the tree is fully grown.

But moving on

There is a big problem with the LS. if it continues after the personal story people will feel forced to play it and many will rage against it.
It is happens in a parallel time with the personal story is has to be a story in its own. if this story involves dragons that we kill every 2 weeks then the Personal story will not feel so important.
So, A-Net has to decide if they want to have 2 stories in 1 game completely separate or only one story. They have worked too much for the personal story to throw it away just now even if my opinion is to “delete everything and start all over”

Scarlet… The first cutscene didn’t immediately impress me, it worked slowly and clumsily (engine limitations?) and some of her lines in it weren’t the best of her.
She then got better. Her lines, especially what little I saw of the playhouse (I watched a video afterwards since I didn’t beat it and it was seriously funny) were lot better, and what she is doing is interesting me. The short story kept me reading over and over again. What wassssss it…?
I do like her a lot.
(I see a mystery and I love mysteries)

I…certainly don’t much care to read some seriously hurtful comments that are in this thread.

Living Story
…It is impossible for me to keep up with the thread, even with the dev tracker, even if I’m pretty interested about others’ take on the LS. So I haven’t been really reading the thread.
I am also no writer… or english speaker. (Owww) I just need to complain, err, say something. I completely expect to be hurt with upcoming changes and I suffer already. -_-

At any case, I have been somewhat liking the living story.
Things happening keeps the game interesting to me, and I always look forward to the announcement of the next one and the patch days.
It is not a problem for me that it keeps going to places and being about different people, and things like SAB and halloween being in between.There are other things going on the world outside of the dragons, and it is good to see that. I want to see different things.
I’m also glad about the difference with the personal story and living story, one not requiring the other (I have seen calls for combining them for example), and the account wideness of the LS is rather comfortable. As is the chapters being somewhat self-contained.

I have been happily doing the achievements for the LS chapters I have found interesting. And I have also liked the story stuff being fairly light for each release. It is certainly not moving too slow for me… I am not really fond of doing too much of story heavy stuff in too little time, having to run around the world for story instances.
Neither do I like “high end” fighting, not for one bit. Including boss zergs. I prefer the fluffier achievements over these.

Ones I did like and ones I did not
This halloween update was great. To get one achievement item (candy corn mini <3) mid story was made pretty well. Though it was worrying me that it was unreachable without the dailies. I love the fluffy dailies for easiness since… I can play daily, but for others it might be rough… I was worried for others, what realm is this? :P
It was also short and sweet. Haha… sweet. * cough *
It felt very contained, instances being in one location. Bloody Prince was also just awesome.

Another I really liked was the Zephyr Sanctum one, but I didn’t really find the political background interesting. I skipped the election completely.

I have skipped Twilight Assault for the chapter being built of everything I don’t want to do. As was Teq. These two would be my choices for chapters I did… well, I did not hate them. I just saw them as unreachable for me.

I skipped the return of SAB because I was supposedly so busy with other things in game, I did want to go there though. I have also skipped the summer festival, and all Southsun things, not wanting to play that much at the time.
That is, ahem, almost all of them? Whoops. Well, I was already skipping Jubilee when it changed to Clockwork, but for some… unknown… reasons I jumped in at that point. I followed the story and achievements, got my rewards, and was fairly happy.

Short Stories
I have absolutely loved the website stories. I’d actually read the LS in novel form if I had the choice. :P
A concern is that people are driving the background bits in game in form of flashbacks or as in one case I once read, some kind of telepathy. Just… keep my characters normal and having to deal with the info that is available in game world. Background stories are for the players. The game has been doing that really well as far as I have seen.