Guild Wars 2

honestly i dont think we gona make some impact on the living story in generals if u ask me now what was living story before this i dont even remeber even do i have done all of them they are not that good to have that epic feeling and like i had when first time i kill some big raid boss lets sey in wow or in aion there is nothing that leaving impact for me personaly and i like that we have gazlion updates but they are just not good ,difrent arcs all story are epicly shallow its like worst tv show ever i still love gw , and i will always play it but not cuz the living story is good .
And i think its time to place some darkness into the game its to childish .just my opinion hi all .
Darko

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So with all of this in mind it would be cool to carry on discussing around this area in much the same form as Nike has. Specifically brainstorming on top of the foundation of known systems and functionality.

Chris

How about rewarding the players who do this brainstorming? Ok, suggestions may come free but brainstorming activities should be rewarded, right?

As far as I am concerned, GW2 is not a finished game and it will never be. it is just lingering around an open beta stage 2 phase where the players take the role of testers every 2 weeks. It kind of reminds me of Firefall where it is still in open beta only that those guys haven’t released 30 zones but only one

I haven’t been playing for long, but here’s my thoughts so far.

I have a friend that wants to get the game. I pointed her towards the game during a trial, and now she’s just waiting for real life to be more favorable towards getting it. I’m dreading the moment I have to explain the Living Story to her. There are a couple of reasons behind this. The first is that if she wants to do the Halloween events (say for the mini candy corn elemental), I have to tell her she can’t succeed at them. Mad King’s Labyrinth is in horrendous shape because it doesn’t realize there are only a few people there. People frequently leave after horror destroys groups at fairly minor doors. Lich and Viscount are also unbeatable as is.

The second reason is she has 0 knowledge of Kessex. The game does not properly support this:

“When entering Kessex Hills, players with an actual level higher than 25 will automatically be redirected to a story instance.”

It’s completely possible to get beyond level 25 in queensdale champ train or through following the story of another race. It’s really easy to be over the area level. GW2 keeps track of % area completion. That should have been used instead of level. In addition to that, a lot of the natural content in the map acts weird. Bandits fall from the sky without warning (the trees were cut down), one heart had it’s area cut by over half to make room for the toxic enemies.

In addition, my first encounter the kessex toxic instance by making a mistake and taking the wrong portal. It’s frustrating to be forced into an instance I wasn’t wanting to do then. Next time, ask first. It’s ok to ask before the game takes the person into Kessex, “Something has changed! Do you want to proceed?”

I dislike the pacing of updates, but hammering on that won’t do any good. Instead, I suggest mixing up how you handle the Living Story updates. I pay attention to Magic: the Gathering. One thing they do is they have two types of expansions: major and minor. Instead of having every Living Story update be about the same amount of changes/story, break updates up similarly. Have smaller Living Story updates to either build up to big changes or to follow up on those changes. By doing this, your teams have more time to work on the important content, and players have some room to breathe. For example, Tower of Nightmares under this:

Minor – Unknown monsters, with events, appear in Kessex (Hallucinations). A mysterious black energy swirls in the lake. Strange seeds are all over the place, and a small handful of obelisks are found. When fighting these monsters, strange cat noises are heard. (I like the sound effects on that effect.) (Edit: Krait, via events, could also focus on cutting down trees.)

Major – The tower has been revealed. The Toxic Alliance attacks! More obelisks are found, and perfect spore samples are now available. Instances are now available to explain what’s up. Achievements are now available. The toxin is in full force.

It flows a lot better this way. A lot more people can see something is going on in Kessex and get excited about it. In addition, people don’t have to rush to finish the halloween content. It also gives time to the developers to work on instances and cutsceens. In both updates, there is new content.

One final thing on major/minor updates. Magic the Gathering does not strictly follow it’s own update schedule. If they want to do Major/Major/Minor or Major/Minor/Major/Minor, they will do it.

There’s more I want to say, but I’ll hold off for a bit. I want to gather my thoughts.

Ronah.2869:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So with all of this in mind it would be cool to carry on discussing around this area in much the same form as Nike has. Specifically brainstorming on top of the foundation of known systems and functionality.

Chris

How about rewarding the players who do this brainstorming? Ok, suggestions may come free but brainstorming activities should be rewarded, right?

As far as I am concerned, GW2 is not a finished game and it will never be. it is just lingering around an open beta stage 2 phase where the players take the role of testers every 2 weeks. It kind of reminds me of Firefall where it is still in open beta only that those guys haven’t released 30 zones but only one

the reward is a better game

Is it ok to mention some thoughts on personal story here? Or should I save those thoughts for another thread/CD Phase?

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?

everyone keeps bringing up the release schedule even after you have said it is non negotiable this is the best written post expressing our concerns and questions about it.

When it comes to failure and events, you have to keep one thing in mind: populations change throughout the day. It wouldn’t be all that great, especially for those of us with limited time, for the entire meta across Tyria to be in “failed” status when we log in.

My suggestion for handling this: the most severe failure cases should be gated behind a previous success. Meaning: you successfully complete an event that “checks” to see whether you have a reasonable group with a chance to complete the meta.

Tequatl is a great example of how this doesn’t happen. TQ attacks no matter what. If, instead, you had to complete a “Draw Tequatl from the water” event first, you wouldn’t have such a huge mess in Sparkfly all the time.

(You can make a case for that being a good thing, and it can understand that. There are certain events which should not be hidden behind these gates, but it’s something worth considering if the plan is to increase the pain upon failure.)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I do also want to point out that someone mentioned (sorry i forget who) the ability to potentially build forts etc and then gain new events, goals and rewards from them by protecting and nurturing your land. Wouldn’t that be awesome!?

Chris

I haven’t been following this thread lately (been more active on the balance thread), but I did suggest something very similar to what you’re saying. Let me dig my post:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Collaborative-Development-Topic-Living-World/page/2#post3108370

Is that the one you were thinking of?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Cesmode,

You appear to be very combative in your responses and i would ask that you take a deep breath every so often and approach the initiative in the spirit it was created and take the time to actually read and think about what has been posted.

I say this because each of your points (aside from number 5 which was a request for more discussion and will be added to by me shortly) has actually had commentary on it.

1: I said we plan to move forward as we have been. I later said (and as with everything we do) we will continue to appraise quality of the releases as we continue to improve our deployment with the platform and that if through internal and external discussion we felt that the quality was not meeting the expected level then we would reappraise and evolve.

2: To this point i agreed in my main discussion post and talked about how we would solve this problem moving forward. Specifically by ensuring that LW was at the core of the majority of our releases and that we intend to ensure that arcs have little to no gaps in relation to the macro level story arc.

3: I also talked to this and made it clear that the platform is still in its infancy and that we have to move in a balanced development approach to ensure that we don’t start running before we can walk and that our main focus is ensuring quality and then moving up to the next level of sophistication in regard to what the platform is capable of. I also clearly stated that we want players to shape the world (physically and in terms of the evolving history) and that we needed to make the players more central to an epic story experience, where there needs to be more ‘meaningful’ connection to the world and what goes on within it.

4: Regarding Rewards i also spoke to this saying that we need to have more rewards that ‘celebrate’ the player’s accomplishments that are like rites of passage and that also meet the expectations of time vs. investment.

5: I will be posting on this discussion shortly now that i have had time to read and think about what the community has put forward.

Post like this Cesmode really don’t need to occur. Many of your questions can be answered by keeping up to date with the thread and understanding what the stated goals are of the initiative. I appreciate your feedback and some of your commentary but please understand that this slows the process down and can also derail extremely valuable discussion.

I hope you understand,

chris

I’d like to point out how aggressive people are or aren’t is in your own hands. Allocate time to post in this thread and people will be a lot more constructive. Regardless of that. Aggressive post shouldn’t be looked down upon or not replied to. People are passionate and tempers can fly high.
A lot of people start to feel ignored when the developers are not posting. You keep bringing up that you, anet, needs to be better at communicating back. Well that starts with making time to do so.
Furthermore do not dismiss items without giving a reason. The release schedule is a hot topic, but is being dismissed without giving a reason.

Nothing should be off the table. While you might not see it feasible to implement it right of the bat. A full discussion might spark ideas.

Something I would also like to see in the living story is more branching on choices you made in the past, specifically your order, and the influence of the orders in the living story. Sure we see vigil dudes/whispers agents and priorie scholars in events, but there is no real involvement from the orders, something of which I personally would love to see a lot more. Question is of course would this be best to put in LS or more in something like PS?
Also since so many people complain about the release schedule, I’m fine with it, it is nice to have new things to do every 2 weeks, but they should have a high enough quality and the achies should IMO not be such a meaningless grind

A good living world will be if the “medieval looking Tyria” will transform into a “modern day landscape”. so a player that has quit the game now and he will come back in a few years he will think he is in another game

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So with all of this in mind it would be cool to carry on discussing around this area in much the same form as Nike has. Specifically brainstorming on top of the foundation of known systems and functionality. I do also want to point out that someone mentioned (sorry i forget who) the ability to potentially build forts etc and then gain new events, goals and rewards from them by protecting and nurturing your land. Wouldn’t that be awesome!?

Chris

I d love to see big long campaigns against dragons or other powerful foes. Slowly building up NPC forces, fortifications, while being assaulted by minions then marching out to the next new area. Dealing with new threats slowly advancing toward a goal – a massive fight against a powerful enemy. The enemies could invade back. In fact the whole thing could start like that.
Southsun cove was kind of like this. The entire Orr area was supposed to be like this. Unfortunately the execution in both of them was very lacking. What was supposed to be end game PVE large scale fights turned into farming a chain of events with ease of access to almost all parts due to the personal story or a one time event full of lag.

Before any of that could happen ANET would have to solve the whole overflow/friends/server shards/performance/mob scaling problems that has been present in the game since the start. GW1s sytem of instances yet on a far larger scale would be a good solution. Letting the player play where they want and when they want is one thing you have not done enough for.
Incentivising players with rewards for the less visited areas could also help. Similar to the now almost forgotten mechanic of mob-time alive xp you could have better loot in areas that are virtually deserted. The same would also have to apply to the campaigns themselves. Loot in GW2 is downright horrible.

Conner.4702:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Cesmode,

You appear to be very combative in your responses and i would ask that you take a deep breath every so often and approach the initiative in the spirit it was created and take the time to actually read and think about what has been posted.

I say this because each of your points (aside from number 5 which was a request for more discussion and will be added to by me shortly) has actually had commentary on it.

1: I said we plan to move forward as we have been. I later said (and as with everything we do) we will continue to appraise quality of the releases as we continue to improve our deployment with the platform and that if through internal and external discussion we felt that the quality was not meeting the expected level then we would reappraise and evolve.

2: To this point i agreed in my main discussion post and talked about how we would solve this problem moving forward. Specifically by ensuring that LW was at the core of the majority of our releases and that we intend to ensure that arcs have little to no gaps in relation to the macro level story arc.

3: I also talked to this and made it clear that the platform is still in its infancy and that we have to move in a balanced development approach to ensure that we don’t start running before we can walk and that our main focus is ensuring quality and then moving up to the next level of sophistication in regard to what the platform is capable of. I also clearly stated that we want players to shape the world (physically and in terms of the evolving history) and that we needed to make the players more central to an epic story experience, where there needs to be more ‘meaningful’ connection to the world and what goes on within it.

4: Regarding Rewards i also spoke to this saying that we need to have more rewards that ‘celebrate’ the player’s accomplishments that are like rites of passage and that also meet the expectations of time vs. investment.

5: I will be posting on this discussion shortly now that i have had time to read and think about what the community has put forward.

Post like this Cesmode really don’t need to occur. Many of your questions can be answered by keeping up to date with the thread and understanding what the stated goals are of the initiative. I appreciate your feedback and some of your commentary but please understand that this slows the process down and can also derail extremely valuable discussion.

I hope you understand,

chris

I’d like to point out how aggressive people are or aren’t is in your own hands. Allocate time to post in this thread and people will be a lot more constructive. Regardless of that. Aggressive post shouldn’t be looked down upon or not replied to. People are passionate and tempers can fly high.
A lot of people start to feel ignored when the developers are not posting. You keep bringing up that you, anet, needs to be better at communicating back. Well that starts with making time to do so.
Furthermore do not dismiss items without giving a reason. The release schedule is a hot topic, but is being dismissed without giving a reason.

Nothing should be off the table. While you might not see it feasible to implement it right of the bat. A full discussion might spark ideas.

I agree with you but think we player’s should still strive to be polite. I think since this is the first time they misjudged the time commitment this discusion would take and seem to be taking care of it. If you want an example of dev’s not taking this collaboration seriously go check out the wvw version of this collaboration thread.

hi everyone!

i’ve really come to enjoy the living world concept, but looking at the GW2 game as a whole, arenet can do so much better!

you create interesting plots and different stuff every 2 weeks which is great in my opinion but the stuff there is to do is pretty much the same, for example in scarlet update there were the invasions, in this tower update the there are those toxic offshots, and everything know revolves around it.. i’m suggesting that you guys expand the time between releases, make it 1 month perphaps, and also add more diversity in each update

So, priorities are, in my point of view, of course:

1 – more diverse events, stuff to do in each update
2 – 1 month between releases, if you can make loots of different stuff every 2 weeks even better
3 – the meta achiev rewards need to be meaningfull like in this tower of mad update!

In the future:

- you create good plot stories, but not everytime know how to proceed from there, try to work on that
- the game has an awesome background lore that you could use in the living world
- if possible, those skin rewards we get from meta achiev stay in the Achievement panel like the zenith weapons.. im not asking for it to have infinite uses, just think people like to keep them all and it takes a lot of space from the vault, so it should be stored somewhere else until we use it.

thks for reading, this is my first post ever in 7 years of gw/gw2 hehe, just trying to be helpfull here, not complaining or anything because this is by far the best MMo theres out there..as for PVP and other aspects of the game, theres no need to say much, especially in pvp cause its very well balanced, for such a young game and of course, the mecanhics of each class are awesome!

keep up the good work! love this game and love arenanet

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So with all of this in mind it would be cool to carry on discussing around this area in much the same form as Nike has. Specifically brainstorming on top of the foundation of known systems and functionality. I do also want to point out that someone mentioned (sorry i forget who) the ability to potentially build forts etc and then gain new events, goals and rewards from them by protecting and nurturing your land. Wouldn’t that be awesome!?

Chris

Malchor’s Leap, Champion Risen Knight Event
Have three Pact members nearby, bickering over how to handle this foe.
- Vigil is a head first assault, much like it it now.
- Priory has some mystical potion which, if you complete a side event of collect 12 doodads, she gives you an environment weapon to put some massive debuffs on the knight.
- Whispers, on the other hand, knows of a cave nearby with a Troll/Grub/etc, which can come out and help attack, with the risk of having to kill both, much like in AC, where if the Troll spawns, you can have him and Kohler punch each other for a while.

Timberline Falls, Might Oouo
Alternative win mechanics:
- Be able to recruit/trick the grawl into attacking Fraiin.
- There’s a waterfall nearby, divert the stream to go through the skull for a bit. (Not sure how possible this is with current mechanics)
- Crawl up a hidden path (aka “jumping puzzle”) on the face of the skull, which takes you to a lever which makes the “Strange Energy” zap everyone inside.

A key thing these two ideas have in common is that it takes an event which currently requires a moderate group to complete, and while it’s up, it blocks people from progressing map completion. I guess the idea I’m going for here is that perhaps make several “group event” areas achievable solo though doing multiple side events. The two I mention above came quickly to me, as they have been a thorn in my side for zone clears on multiple occassions, forcing me to take Ash Legion Spy Kits, or bribe several guildies, just to get that last skill point.

I’m sure you keep statistics on which events get done how often, and how long they stay up. In particular, look for ones that ‘protect’ things someone solo would want to do. Start with those events, and find alternative solutions.

On “Failure Events”….
I’ve seen several comments on if you fail, the followup event should be harder.
I disagree. It really blows coming up on area, and seeing that the area is contaminated with the failure of some previous people, who have long since cleared out. You know that you could have cleared the initial event without much trouble, but this followup is too much hassle, so you move along and leave the mess for the next person, etc.
I’ve come across several events that spawned to a scale of a sizable group (things like “clear this village of Risen”), and then abandoned, only there’s still 5-6 veterns all on top of each other, which just isn’t worth it if you were just there for the merchant.

I would definitely not like it when all areas in Tyria would become flooded by new enemies. Yes, as for now, that may be great for farming purposes and looting, but I love queensdale, gendarran an I loved Kessex for their beautifull landscape and fantastic architecture. Please do not waste all that!

On the other hand, if you conquer Orr or Southsun, you see no ongoing changes. Cleaning or building Forts maybe great for warfare, but it would be precious if the landscape would heal too, so that you see a change over some days, like a a sprouting forest or fields of poppies …

What to my opinion was a great advantage of GW2 against other MMOs was the aspect of differing quests, like the hearts, which where not only collecting XY. I wish there was more of this funny ideas in the LS. Maybe that’s not such great event like an epic boss, but it was fun.
To force players to do this there should be an economic building-aspect too (build up a farm, a lumper-mill, a mine), so they should get some recognitable economic advantages, such as additional ressources (plants, ore, wood).

To the B-plan-ideas: Maybe if the player fails, another enemie-faction could get partial controll over the area, so that not everything is totally wasted by the same enemies. If this changes over time, that would be a Living Story too.
For example: If players fail to conquer the karka over longer time, another hostile or neutral faction like the tengu, some pirates, inquestur etc … do a partial invation instead build up their economy and so get more powerfull. So that there would be a system of changing political powers in Tyria.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So with all of this in mind it would be cool to carry on discussing around this area in much the same form as Nike has. Specifically brainstorming on top of the foundation of known systems and functionality. I do also want to point out that someone mentioned (sorry i forget who) the ability to potentially build forts etc and then gain new events, goals and rewards from them by protecting and nurturing your land. Wouldn’t that be awesome!?

Chris

I mentioned something like that on page 22 I think. But not sure if someone said it before me. My idea was for future LS content but would also fall in the the DE discussion. So I’ll lay out how I’d see it working the best I can. Forgive any typos framed and what not. I’m typing this out on a smart phone, and as we all know they like to change things at what seem at random sometimes. But anyway.

Ok so say the Pact are gearing up to attack a Dragon minion base. The first events could be an escort event and take and hold event as your have to hold the land until the supplie train gets to them so you can have a forward base or beach head to launch your attacks from. This could stop a zurg fest as the player base could be split over a few points of the map. If any of the take and hold events fail then the enamy would build defences on those areas which have to be retaken befor the event moves on. This would mean the escort even would have to restart, as you need to get supplies to the new sites. Once the supplies are at the sites that could trigger events where players have to fight off waves and help build the bases/seage weapons. These events could be like an all out war. Once you have secured the land out side the enamy stronghold you could attack it with cannons/catapults and what ever else the pact wants to bring to the party. While your attacking the base a new event would start where players have to fight off waves of enamy’s, start off with normal working up through Vets, Eliets, champs to maybe finally legendary. The event could end I one of 2 ways. You breach the walls/gate or you defer the legendary bosses. If you breach the walls the enamy waves continue in side the base from where you got too during the assault phase.( I don’t know if this is technacly possibly but I’m just spitballing here) once you finally brake the back of the enamy you take on the base commander in a world boss scale battle.

Ok so what do you guys and girls think?

BrotherBelial.3094:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So with all of this in mind it would be cool to carry on discussing around this area in much the same form as Nike has. Specifically brainstorming on top of the foundation of known systems and functionality. I do also want to point out that someone mentioned (sorry i forget who) the ability to potentially build forts etc and then gain new events, goals and rewards from them by protecting and nurturing your land. Wouldn’t that be awesome!?

Chris

I mentioned something like that on page 22 I think. But not sure if someone said it before me. My idea was for future LS content but would also fall in the the DE discussion. So I’ll lay out how I’d see it working the best I can. Forgive any typos framed and what not. I’m typing this out on a smart phone, and as we all know they like to change things at what seem at random sometimes. But anyway.

Ok so say the Pact are gearing up to attack a Dragon minion base. The first events could be an escort event and take and hold event as your have to hold the land until the supplie train gets to them so you can have a forward base or beach head to launch your attacks from. This could stop a zurg fest as the player base could be split over a few points of the map. If any of the take and hold events fail then the enamy would build defences on those areas which have to be retaken befor the event moves on. This would mean the escort even would have to restart, as you need to get supplies to the new sites. Once the supplies are at the sites that could trigger events where players have to fight off waves and help build the bases/seage weapons. These events could be like an all out war. Once you have secured the land out side the enamy stronghold you could attack it with cannons/catapults and what ever else the pact wants to bring to the party. While your attacking the base a new event would start where players have to fight off waves of enamy’s, start off with normal working up through Vets, Eliets, champs to maybe finally legendary. The event could end I one of 2 ways. You breach the walls/gate or you defer the legendary bosses. If you breach the walls the enamy waves continue in side the base from where you got too during the assault phase.( I don’t know if this is technacly possibly but I’m just spitballing here) once you finally brake the back of the enamy you take on the base commander in a world boss scale battle.

Ok so what do you guys and girls think?

this sounds alot like the temple of balthazar chain which i always enjoyed but it is a big time commitment and the rewards would need to be unique. people stopped coordinating for balthazar as much when you could get obsidian shards from other sources.

gidorah.4960:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So with all of this in mind it would be cool to carry on discussing around this area in much the same form as Nike has. Specifically brainstorming on top of the foundation of known systems and functionality. I do also want to point out that someone mentioned (sorry i forget who) the ability to potentially build forts etc and then gain new events, goals and rewards from them by protecting and nurturing your land. Wouldn’t that be awesome!?

Chris

I mentioned something like that on page 22 I think. But not sure if someone said it before me. My idea was for future LS content but would also fall in the the DE discussion. So I’ll lay out how I’d see it working the best I can. Forgive any typos framed and what not. I’m typing this out on a smart phone, and as we all know they like to change things at what seem at random sometimes. But anyway.

Ok so say the Pact are gearing up to attack a Dragon minion base. The first events could be an escort event and take and hold event as your have to hold the land until the supplie train gets to them so you can have a forward base or beach head to launch your attacks from. This could stop a zurg fest as the player base could be split over a few points of the map. If any of the take and hold events fail then the enamy would build defences on those areas which have to be retaken befor the event moves on. This would mean the escort even would have to restart, as you need to get supplies to the new sites. Once the supplies are at the sites that could trigger events where players have to fight off waves and help build the bases/seage weapons. These events could be like an all out war. Once you have secured the land out side the enamy stronghold you could attack it with cannons/catapults and what ever else the pact wants to bring to the party. While your attacking the base a new event would start where players have to fight off waves of enamy’s, start off with normal working up through Vets, Eliets, champs to maybe finally legendary. The event could end I one of 2 ways. You breach the walls/gate or you defer the legendary bosses. If you breach the walls the enamy waves continue in side the base from where you got too during the assault phase.( I don’t know if this is technacly possibly but I’m just spitballing here) once you finally brake the back of the enamy you take on the base commander in a world boss scale battle.

Ok so what do you guys and girls think?

this sounds alot like the temple of balthazar chain which i always enjoyed but it is a big time commitment and the rewards would need to be unique. people stopped coordinating for balthazar as much when you could get obsidian shards from other sources.

I’ve never done that event as I’m not a big fan of Orr. Maybe I was not being as creative as I first thought.

BrotherBelial.3094:

I’ve never done that event as I’m not a big fan of Orr. Maybe I was not being as creative as I first thought.

you really need to do the balthazar event then. it is almost exactly what you describe. maybe someone reading this is in a big guild and can help you out. while i think the game could use more events like it it is sometimes hard to find 100+ people who want to do it now that you don’t need balthazaar for legendaries. it would work great with the current living story model though as tons of people would rush to do it the first few weeks and it wouldnt sit unused for a long time. although with how buggy balthazar was i don’t know that the living story format would give them enough time to test it before they released it and it would be terrible if a bunch of servers couldnt complete it because of a bugged event in the midle of the chain or bad npc behavior.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

the ability to potentially build forts etc and then gain new events, goals and rewards from them by protecting and nurturing your land. Wouldn’t that be awesome!?

Personally? No. I’m not interested in being a nanny to an entire area. It also makes me worried it’d turn into the horror stories of past sandboxes. Entire maps filled with player-made buildings. All of them abandoned. The original beauty of the land had been lost.

My problem with events is variety. It’s rather annoying to know that the mother I rescued 15 minutes ago has gotten caught again.

Metroidvania aspects I can see being enjoyable. The whole “look around the map to find events, vistas and other interesting things” is similar to what metroidvania games are known to do. Maybe finding new paths to content with abilities from previous areas or class abilities gained from skill points. (There is an altar here… I got glyphs, cantrips, and conjurations. How can I use these with the altar to beat that boss?) Alternatively, finding lost relics and getting rewarded with lore for getting a certain amount of them.

Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any time lost due to tvtropes.

smitske.4912:

Something I would also like to see in the living story is more branching on choices you made in the past, specifically your order, and the influence of the orders in the living story. Sure we see vigil dudes/whispers agents and priorie scholars in events, but there is no real involvement from the orders, something of which I personally would love to see a lot more. Question is of course would this be best to put in LS or more in something like PS?
Also since so many people complain about the release schedule, I’m fine with it, it is nice to have new things to do every 2 weeks, but they should have a high enough quality and the achies should IMO not be such a meaningless grind

Do you actually want your previous choices to have an impact on your LW experience, or do you just want the Orders to have a larger role? I agree with giving the Orders and the Pact a more signicant role in LW, but I sure don’t want any choices I’ve made during PS to force me into a specific route now. If there actually will be branching content in LW based on the Orders (I’d rather there won’t, but that’s another discussion), at least acknowledge the fact that we are a Commander from the Pact and should be able to choose with which Order we go.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Yep the story needs to more ‘Epic’, meaningful and better at evoking emotion.

Chris

I am not sure if “more epic” is actually what you should be going for.
In fact, i think going to these “extremes” so that everything is more “epic” is the wrong way to go, since it usually wants to top each other in the end.
As far as i am concerned the living story is an interlude, between the actual events that happen in the world.
It should be a way to show players the world and not neccerily bring them one “epic” fight after the other.

However, it should connect to the player. It should get players to care about what is happening. Have meaningfull characters that you meet, that evolve and maybe die…
Have us see them develope alongside us.
Rox and Braham are great characters. They are great.
However other characters just feel thrown in (even Kashmeer and Majory, but they got some momentum with the last installment) and meaningless. Best example here the countless “technobabble” Asura. I like Asura, but they are sadly mostly reduced to this one role, so i hardly care.

So yeah. don`t go for “epic” but engaging story (which can bring us a different kind of epic of course). Give us something to care.
If you want epic, get us a dragon, because everything else is lackluster in compairson.

(and yes, i am aware that the plan with Scarlet is to create a threat to the world, that is “epic” enough to be a stand in for dragons till they are ready…)

Anyway, for events and on the matter of failure and rewarding.
Let`s start with something i would call: “missed opportunity”.

- Queens Speech/Clockwork Chaos: The invasions were a dealbreaker for me and bringing them over the world just didn`t fit. It devalued all characters you build up, making them not a thread, but piniatas and failure was meaningless.

Instead Scarlet could have taken over Divinity`s Reach (Personal Stoy spots could have been put at the city walls and be seperated from the events) with her taking the astrology garden as her “funhouse”. Players would have to fight off her troops in the street while breaking through her walls and forcefields till they could finaly access her domain.

- Bloody Prince: We saw him and the Mad King fight in the labyrinth, however it was just with words. In the end the whole “fight” was nothing more then their banter and we as player weren`t even involved or felt something changing.

It would have been much more interesting if players have been able to choose one side and by participating in events while representing one of them would have them gain more power over helloween, to the point where the looser could be defeated in an extra dungeon (think cuthroat politics), while the winner gets “next helloween”, allowing for the other to plot his “big” revenge till next time (that would be epic btw. and fitting for such an event).

Now, for DEs with failure and reward:

- Take of the soft gloves and go swinging. If players can`t hold a zone, there has to be punishment. Even if it involves “smaller” and “casual” players.
- That should go for all zones. If players can`t hold the centaur`s back in Queensdale, for example, they take over more and more of the map, the density of their forces rises and they might even take over villages (till the entrance to caudecus might even be blocked).
Each outpost that isn`t defended by the player, gives the centaures more territory, till they might even stay in front of the city in the end (a rare event i hope).

The forces will get stronger, however champions will only spawn in the last event, which pushes the forces back (to prevent farmer) and the amount of them is rising with each step closer to them beeing driven back to their place.

- Using the “patchday” as a “changeday.”
- We know you collect data all over the place in game. How about combining the data about the participation in certain areas with negative/positive consequences:

This would allow every “evil” force to be threat if not attended.
Example:
- After Patch X there was only a low participation in events against the Sons of Svanir in Frostgorge and below.
- Anouncement with Patch Y for the server where it occoured: “The Sons of Svanir rise in power. With only a handfull of warriors holding them back the last few days, their forces are now closing in on Hoelbark. We need everyone to help holding them back, or the city will fall.”
- If they fail to push them back till next patch: “The Sons of Svanir are sieging the City. We need all the help we can get to push them back.”

Of course it should not close off players of content entirely. Every Vista, POI, PS and Skillpoint would still be accessable, however you might have to fight your way through to it a bit more, or you have to sneak around a lot more enymies on the map. (the density is higher, but still avoidable. Think old Orr, where it was annoying, but managable)

gidorah.4960:

BrotherBelial.3094:
I’ve never done that event as I’m not a big fan of Orr. Maybe I was not being as creative as I first thought.

you really need to do the balthazar event then. it is almost exactly what you describe. maybe someone reading this is in a big guild and can help you out. while i think the game could use more events like it it is sometimes hard to find 100+ people who want to do it now that you don’t need balthazaar for legendaries. it would work great with the current living story model though as tons of people would rush to do it the first few weeks and it wouldnt sit unused for a long time. although with how buggy balthazar was i don’t know that the living story format would give them enough time to test it before they released it and it would be terrible if a bunch of servers couldnt complete it because of a bugged event in the midle of the chain or bad npc behavior.

Maybe it’s the problem with Orr (which I don’t like either for that reason) that you never get the 100+ people to do such an epic quest. But there is another example how it can work in the Traumanova Reactor – the quest with the hidden steam-ogre – you can do it daily, because you need only one person who takes the DE for getting the key, then all other people can do it. This should work in LS to: A special longer quest-row, done by one or a small group of “expert-players” and when its done, all players that are present can connect. That’s already working.

In the LS, the event-boss then should scale, depending on how many players participate. But the achievement should not scale depending on the number of players, but be a percentage of expenses (quests) the single player did to take part.

So profi-players, who did the preparatory work, get their “epic medal” and also casual players, who only slated the end-boss, get some gimmik for fun.

To get things not to buggy, they should be not too complicated. What matters is not, that the event is very complicated and lasts as long as possible, but to have as long as possible fun with playing it.

Maybe you get more fun with several smaller DEs, playable with smaller groups.

Inc.4753:

smitske.4912:

Something I would also like to see in the living story is more branching on choices you made in the past, specifically your order, and the influence of the orders in the living story. Sure we see vigil dudes/whispers agents and priorie scholars in events, but there is no real involvement from the orders, something of which I personally would love to see a lot more. Question is of course would this be best to put in LS or more in something like PS?
Also since so many people complain about the release schedule, I’m fine with it, it is nice to have new things to do every 2 weeks, but they should have a high enough quality and the achies should IMO not be such a meaningless grind

Do you actually want your previous choices to have an impact on your LW experience, or do you just want the Orders to have a larger role? I agree with giving the Orders and the Pact a more signicant role in LW, but I sure don’t want any choices I’ve made during PS to force me into a specific route now. If there actually will be branching content in LW based on the Orders (I’d rather there won’t, but that’s another discussion), at least acknowledge the fact that we are a Commander from the Pact and should be able to choose with which Order we go.

i want the pact choices to have more impact than just skins. but i am also pretty confused by why the pact is investigating the krait obelisks. they seemed to be pretty focused on beating the dragons and where no where to be found in prior updates now all of the sudden they care about scarlet and we have priory there for some unknown reason instead of seraphim investigators since the seraphim literally have a fort right there. There really isn’t any consitency and I would prefer they didnt use the pact for non dragon related things.

Ronah.2869:

How about rewarding the players who do this brainstorming? Ok, suggestions may come free but brainstorming activities should be rewarded, right?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Ronah,

Your idea of rewarding CD participation is interesting and we will discuss it in the next phase after the topic threads are closed.

Chris

Oh… now that one’s EASY, and again an example is already present in-game:

The fractal mid-boss Siegemaster Dulfy.

I will tell you true: if one of my specific examples for a second chance were to be implemented, I actively invite the Devs to browse through my stable of characters, find the name/look for one that seems setting-appropriate, and add them to the world somewhere. Major bonus points for using that name/look for an NPC in one of those events.

Being added to the game’s canon is high on my list of ultimate cool. Being added in a way that draws a direct line to how I pitched in? mega-transcendent cool

((Stares into the eternal alchemy… goes a little batty))

OfTheDunes.2307:

gidorah.4960:

BrotherBelial.3094:
I’ve never done that event as I’m not a big fan of Orr. Maybe I was not being as creative as I first thought.

you really need to do the balthazar event then. it is almost exactly what you describe. maybe someone reading this is in a big guild and can help you out. while i think the game could use more events like it it is sometimes hard to find 100+ people who want to do it now that you don’t need balthazaar for legendaries. it would work great with the current living story model though as tons of people would rush to do it the first few weeks and it wouldnt sit unused for a long time. although with how buggy balthazar was i don’t know that the living story format would give them enough time to test it before they released it and it would be terrible if a bunch of servers couldnt complete it because of a bugged event in the midle of the chain or bad npc behavior.

Maybe it’s the problem with Orr (which I don’t like either for that reason) that you never get the 100+ people to do such an epic quest. But there is another example how it can work in the Traumanova Reactor – the quest with the hidden steam-ogre – you can do it daily, because you need only one person who takes the DE for getting the key, then all other people can do it. This should work in LS to: A special longer quest-row, done by one or a small group of “expert-players” and when its done, all players that are present can connect. That’s already working.

In the LS, the event-boss then should scale, depending on how many players participate. But the achievement should not scale depending on the number of players, but be a percentage of expenses (quests) the single player did to take part.

So profi-players, who did the preparatory work, get their “epic medal” and also casual players, who only slated the end-boss, get some gimmik for fun.

To get things not to buggy, they should be not too complicated. What matters is not, that the event is very complicated and lasts as long as possible, but to have as long as possible fun with playing it.

Maybe you get more fun with several smaller DEs, playable with smaller groups.

i think its more a problem with the rewards. when the reward was unique it was still done despite the difficulty when they introduced obsidian from other sources even though the sources where not as efficient it stopped being done by most server’s . it is hard coordinating a bunch of players and there isn’t much more disapointing than doing your part right but having someone else fail theres either because they didn’t read chat to find out what to do or they where griefing. I do my best on tequatl but sometimes people operate turrets who don’t know what they are doing and we fail through no fault of the other 100+ players at the event. I think they can figure that part out though but i don’t think they can do a big epic event chain like balthazar with the living story setup because they won’t have the time to test it for bugs.

Due to holiday I don’t have much time to contribute as much to this thread as I’d like but here’s a few random things I’d like to say:

1) The living story should have PERMANENT and harsh consequences for success and failure. Preferably, these consequences should be on a per-server basis. So server A might have succeeded event X, and have a new fort built on a map somewhere, while server B has failed the event and now has a centaur camp in that location instead. In Ultima Online something similar was done, where invading demons would attempt to demolish a city. They could cause explosions that’d destroy buildings bit by bit. Servers that didn’t defend the city, well, they just had NO CITY for the next several years. Servers that did defend it properly did have (part of) the city left.

2) I’d like to further develop my character/account from each living story arc I participate in, in a way that goes far beyond wearables. Something over-arching. For example, I’d like to acquire reputation with factions of choice for each succesful event participation and after a few months I’d like to get awarded with a minor noble title with the faction I contributed most to, and get a side-questline for the personal story from that. Or get granted some land to have a new house. Or get henchmen, which I can customize and who will join me in future singleplayer parts of later story arcs.

3) I think the current stories have been way too linear. I’d like to see more branching and more meaningful choices for the players. Why wouldn’t it be possible for players to join the villains side? As limited as the Evon vs Kiel story was, I liked it, cause it was one of the few times players could make a choice to pick a side. I liked the whole Luxons vs Kurzicks in Guild Wars Factions extremely much too. Please, more of that stuff.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So with all of this in mind it would be cool to carry on discussing around this area in much the same form as Nike has. Specifically brainstorming on top of the foundation of known systems and functionality. I do also want to point out that someone mentioned (sorry i forget who) the ability to potentially build forts etc and then gain new events, goals and rewards from them by protecting and nurturing your land. Wouldn’t that be awesome!?

Chris

So where I think we are now on the subject of consequences to player actions:

We all seem to think consequences can be a lot of fun. There are three levels we are looking at right now:

• Events. Having more chances to prevent a reset on an event chain immediately upon failing a single event. Also adding alternative paths to give solo players a chance.
• Maps. The status of a meta-event-chain should be more noticeable around the map. Some options are the implementation of specific events, mobs taking over the map, amd cosmetic changes.
• Living World. Have players actually participate in building the world. (link to the post I think Chris referred to, specifically the ‘Living’ paragraph)

Arenanet has plans for this, but are taking it slow to first get all their mechanics etc. in place.

There are some things that were brought up that still require discussion:

• Scaling. Should a single player aiming for map completion be affected? Should a single player be able to liberate an entire map?
• Prevention of grieving. As giving players another possible route will actually give players a choice, there are bound to be some disagreements on which way the group should go.
• Long term consequences. How to make slaying all those Risen actually count without obstructing the PS.
• How to keep enough players coming back to the event. Rewards alone have their own problems, as we can see with the Scarlet Invasions and the Daily Chest Bosses.
• How to let players have direct influence on the direction of the game, without being dependent on a full development cycle to see it implemented.

(Will post my own thoughts when I have time, which may take a day)

Rewards for CD participation? Precursor plz! (Jk!)

I agree with Nike. If you use an idea from the thread, you should attempt to name an NPC involved in the event/story/whatever after the contributor. That’d be AWESOME.

Given that all my toons have the last name Karaoke and would be somewhat lore-breaking, feel free to add a Karaoke bar in LA instead. You can name it after my guild and call it the Mega Karaoke bar. ;-)

Jaken.6801:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Yep the story needs to more ‘Epic’, meaningful and better at evoking emotion.

Chris

I am not sure if “more epic” is actually what you should be going for.
In fact, i think going to these “extremes” so that everything is more “epic” is the wrong way to go, since it usually wants to top each other in the end.

I think this is a very good point, and is part of why the approach to Scarlet is failing amongst what appears to be a large portion of the player base.

If you go back to who Scarlet fairly obviously takes as inspiration, The Joker, you can see this clearly. Much of what the Joker does that really works is interpersonal engagement with Batman. It’s not really about his large schemes and plans for world domination, it’s about him messing with Batman on a lot more direct of a level. That’s what makes him a compelling and interesting villain, and that there’s sometimes a potential for much larger scale destruction is just something extra.

Epic is something that should naturally flow from the storyline, just as content should. Epic shouldn’t really be the goal because, as Jaken says, you just end up with a need to constantly top yourself. We’ve already seen this with Scarlet’s storyline (an important distinction there which ties very much into this issue).

Don’t shy away from Epic when Epic makes sense, but focus on making more interesting and smaller scale stories.

As Orders seem to be the topic of discussion right at this point, I would actually like to see a Month Of VigilWhispers/Priory set of updates. Focus a month long of storyline, with weekly progression (storyline progression, not major content patch), on something important to each Order with them at the core of the storyline. In fact, maybe even lock some specific content to those who are of that specific Order. The “rewards” could even be altered versions of the standard Order armour/weapons, with non-members of the Order getting toned down versions of the standard version and members getting toned up versions. Another option would be some sort of Order related skill or even finisher, since those are being used in PvE now. I see the Orders as one of the strongest parts of the GW2 “story” as it exists right now and they could definitely use some love.

BrotherBelial.3094:

I’ve never done that event as I’m not a big fan of Orr. Maybe I was not being as creative as I first thought.

Entirely the wrong thing to be concerned with . It’s not important that your proposed sequence be unique… It’s important that it be appropriate, both to the environment its in and the experience you want to evoke. It sounds like a solid, rational scenario. Layer it with a few branches/second chances and look to where you can incorporate event types that aren’t driven by combat in a few more places and I’d cheerfully log in to blow an hour or two on your scenario.

People regularly fall on their faces trying to be revolutionary, when what’s needed is solid evolutionary development.

The DEs that already exist offer a whole palette of tools. Combat is only the most common, and not always the most compelling. Check points. Timers. Working with a kit. Working while transformed. Defense of objects. Defense of NPCs. Harvest from nodes. Harvest from kills. Mounting a fixed weapon (catapult/trebuchet). Event the most linear meat & potatoes ‘fight scene’ can benefit from adding spice!

Established you side has dug in and begun bombardment? Make the heroes run forward to chip and dig their own cannonballs out of the ruble accumulating at the bottom of the wall to bring back and be fired again – and do it while a nearby tribe of skritt has suddenly burst onto the field, making it a race to grab all ‘the shinies!’

Shakkara.2641:

2) I’d like to further develop my character/account from each living story arc I
participate in, in a way that goes far beyond wearables. Something over-arching. For example, I’d like to acquire reputation with factions of choice for each succesful event participation and after a few months I’d like to get awarded with a minor noble title with the faction I contributed most to, and get a side-questline for the personal story from that. Or get granted some land to have a new house. Or get henchmen, which I can customize and who will join me in future singleplayer parts of later story arcs.

I really like this idea.

It would be a simpler way to continue the system of choice we made in the Personal Story without necessarily requiring personal Choice (with a capital C) since it appears that isn’t really supported by the LS system. It would just require removing the requirement to game the system like we saw in the Election or the return to Southsun, as in once you made a choice to support one faction or the other (maybe on a once per LS update rate), you could not support another. You could, if you wanted, choose to spread your focus around and switch allegiance with each update, but it would take you longer to reach those higher levels of reputation than someone who stuck with a certain one.

timmyf.1490:

Rewards for CD participation? Precursor plz! (Jk!)

I agree with Nike. If you use an idea from the thread, you should attempt to name an NPC involved in the event/story/whatever after the contributor. That’d be AWESOME.

Given that all my toons have the last name Karaoke and would be somewhat lore-breaking, feel free to add a Karaoke bar in LA instead. You can name it after my guild and call it the Mega Karaoke bar. ;-)

As much as I can see this being appreciated, I can see it starting just as many arguments and causing just as many problems. I could, say, take an example that I saw in a Suggestions thread months ago or in a year old WoodenPotatoes video and post it here then get credit for it if it were implemented just because I was the first one to post it in this thread. Or what if the vague general concept is used but really none of the specifics that I lay out? Should I still get credit for it if all they did is use the skeleton of my idea but maybe the details from another poster? Etc. Direct rewards of this nature for participation are problematic. Ideally, should this initiative lead to it, the reward should simply be a better game for everyone.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Internally for a while we now we have been talking about positive and negative consequences of completion or failure of activities and challenges within the game and more specifically around events. For example Jon Peters one of our Design Leads was putting forward the idea of the above rules/paradigms around TQ. So for example if the players are fail to take down TQ then this would cause a ‘Darkness’ to fall across the zone, perhaps where he would fly around attacking locations and creating new events. A second chance on TQ would therefore be to complete these events and then perhaps rally the NPC forces in the zone to help you take him down. A positive modifier could bring ‘Light’ to the land for example and lower cost on NPC traders, give greater rewards from events and perhaps even create new events. Of course this is all brainstorming but it is the natural evolution of our current platform.

This excites me. I’ve been advocating for sometime now ¹ that world bosses need to be on something other than timers and that player actions should contribute to how the ebb and flow of a battle in the zone works, and in turn what causes a world boss to take interest in the players actions and what doesn’t. Ideally, how the battle is going the world over should be done this way if effects could bleed over zones (they at least do for Temple Events and their effect on statues).

I think whenever possible world bosses should be off timers, though I imagine timers will have to play a role in some capacity down the line in the events that lead to their spawning, but generally; it should make sense and be hidden information. For example, players holding a resource too long that an enemy is interested in could be the impetus for a world boss entering the fray because his/her minions are failing at the task. I think The Campaign Against Taidha Covington is a good example of such an event as is Ogre Wars, in particular that there are two fronts to move on (though it’d be nice if both needed to be claimed to start the attack, not just one). These events are hardly done over the other world events though because they require effort to get going, and the other events are on predictable timers, so the player base gravitates to the path of least resistance for their reward; which is to watch Dragon Timers and then hop around the world as a zerg killing the bosses on timers. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve went through the effort to get Ogre Wars going myself, just to have a zerg show up when it finally pops on Dragon Timers to rush in and get the glory. The API is a wonderful tool for farmers, but it has revealed how uninvolved we are in shaping the world and instead shows how much timers dictate the flow of things.

What are some of the problems raised by the development team internally about giving more choice for players in shaping the world? I raised a point earlier about how if given too much control it can cause conflict (e.g., such as being able to prevent the shadow behemoth from summoning by disrupting a necrotic ritual its minions start). Is such control off the table for the team? If so, that’s fine. If not, there’s lots of ideas that could be implemented that make the world and player action more impactful (e.g., making it extremely difficult for centaurs to ever control Gendarran Fields by fortifying and improving the weapons at the various outposts, and disrupting centaur attempt to gather resources for their offensives).

¹ – Even in this very thread on Tequatl and the Karka Queen. If you have time see my post here.

Random brainstorm:

I would DEARLY love to have a map set up on a table or wall at Fort Trinity that updated after every chained-DE in the zone that told me how the assault on Orr is going – give me a one-stop sign post to where I can go to make a difference and do it with in-setting flare rather than as a UI overlay. If the Pact is supposed to be a competent military body, they need to look like it and they need to be able to direct special forces like returning players efficiently. Show us, rather than telling us.

I suspect there are other long chain events (not just in Orr) that could be the made the focus of similar dynamic maps. Each of the orders HQs could be made significantly more interesting with a map that guides you to the pivotal points in the action on their map (the Order of Whispers map would need to be in the cave leading to it rather than in the closed instance to avoid being kicked to overflow if the zone was full, but frankly putting that sort of guidance out for all to see, but only their agents to understand completely reinforces what’s cool about that group.)

Some feedback regarding Living Story/World, nothing to do with the ongoing conversation:

I would like to see us getting back to longer storylines/arcs like Flame and Frost. Even if FF suffered greatly from it’s slow update cycle and it’s content per release ratio wasn’t too great, it was given enough time to sink in. I’m not talking about the release cadence or lasting effects to the world itself, just the overall length of the storyline felt appropriate. I think a coherent, well written story spanning over 2-3 months could re-ignite at least some of my interest towards the Living Story.

As it happens, I find the current living story feeling quite rushed. We’ve had this model where every month something new is introduced and 2 weeks after that we have to beat the crap out whatever it was. 2 weeks after we are given a new enemy to crush, again. Scarlet might be behind everything and we are just taking steps to defeat her, but it still doesn’t feel right. I’m hoping that after defeating Scarlet, we can have a story that makes more sense.

I don’t really have too much complaints about the individual releases after we’ve started doing the 2 week releases (given that I’m not criticizing the story itself). I like the 2 week release cadence and bugs haven’t been that much of a problem. 2 biggest complaints would be the lack of story content and the excessive amount of zerg content, greater focus on the lack of story content. I understand that voice acting can be a costly process, but I would like to see more instanced story content per release. Currently we get 1-2 instances per release, I would like to see 2-4.

“Why instanced content?”, you might ask. Well it’s because I’d also like to replay those instances and (to my understanding) it should be easier to just take a story instance and put it into some sort of system where I can replay it as I please. It could also be used to backtrack some of the events you’ve missed. I think something like this is mandatory if you want to truly devote yourself doing Living Story. I also prefer using instances as it allows me to experience the story at my own pace.

What comes to topics we’ve had for LS, I’m not a fan of anything we’ve seen in the past. Something new is created out of thin air and everything introduced lacks depth. It’s nothing like that really, just wanted to keep this short. This is just my opinion, but I think Living Story should use more of the old (even GW1 old) lore and build on that. No more alliances. Also dragons.

Little off topic but even if you would fix everything I’ve been complaining about by tomorrow, I don’t think Living Story can hold my interest for too much longer. I can’t help to see Living Story as nothing more than a filler content, something little to do when I’m waiting for the next big thing. I do play through all of them but it’s still just content maybe for 2-3 days and then I’m back waiting. I hope that ultimately Living Story leads to a release of an expansion. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a boxed expansion just something that holds as much content as one, delivered in a single, big chunk.

I know that I’m mostly just repeating what others have said before me and devs have already commented on this stuff. Just wanted to do it anyway, hope you don’t mind.

Shakkara.2641:

2) I’d like to further develop my character/account from each living story arc I participate in, in a way that goes far beyond wearables. Something over-arching. For example, I’d like to acquire reputation with factions of choice for each succesful event participation and after a few months I’d like to get awarded with a minor noble title with the faction I contributed most to, and get a side-questline for the personal story from that.

Simplify, simplify, simplify.

A long-term way to build status within my chosen Order leading to a title I can proudly display after a substantial amount of service in line with that Order’s ways and means? Maybe even two or three levels of title/hierarchy to ascend over the length of a year or more for typical players? The whole initially gated behind a modest level of completion of the Personal Story arc?

SIGN. ME. UP.

Oh, and let us earn an account bound mini-pet of our Order Mentor, and then the Order Leader.

There are people who will climb over a mountain of broken glass on their lips to get a mini-Tybalt (not kidding). Miraculously neither the Mentors nor Leaders have been done as minis yet.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I am now going to take the family out for some swimming and some lunch and if i get time will get back into discussing these areas before tomorrow. If i don’t get the time today then i will pick it up tomorrow.

Thanks all,

Chris

Out of all the things to come out of this thread, I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the direct usefulness and indirect community building going on by simply leaving us these notes saying “Out for a bit, talk to you soon.”

We spend a lot of time completely in the dark about if you saw stuff and whether we’ll ever see a Dev post in that particular thread again. Right now I know I can spend time marshaling my thoughts and reasonably expect to have them at least glanced at by continuing to post them here. Because you left a note on the door. Its simple. But its also POWERFUL.

Thank you. Sincerely.

Nike.2631:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I am now going to take the family out for some swimming and some lunch and if i get time will get back into discussing these areas before tomorrow. If i don’t get the time today then i will pick it up tomorrow.

Thanks all,

Chris

Out of all the things to come out of this thread, I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the direct usefulness and indirect community building going on by simply leaving us these notes saying “Out for a bit, talk to you soon.”

We spend a lot of time completely in the dark about if you saw stuff and whether we’ll ever see a Dev post in that particular thread again. Right now I know I can spend time marshaling my thoughts and reasonably expect to have them at least glanced at by continuing to post them here. Because you left a note on the door. Its simple. But its also POWERFUL.

Thank you. Sincerely.

I think he just misjudged the amount of time it would take to have this discussion and has been freeing up his time when he realized it. However juxtapose it with the wvw version of this thread and you will see how much of an effort the living world dev’s have been making as they could very well have just visited the thread once and never come back.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

—snipped for brevity—

Post like this Cesmode really don’t need to occur. Many of your questions can be answered by keeping up to date with the thread and understanding what the stated goals are of the initiative. I appreciate your feedback and some of your commentary but please understand that this slows the process down and can also derail extremely valuable discussion.

I hope you understand,

chris

Chris,
I do not feel that I am combative in my responses. I have encouraged other folks to be patient with arenanet’s involvement in this thread early on. However, now that it has been 5 days, some of us are wondering when arenanet will become a bit more involved in this collaborative discussion. We just dont want this to become a one way street and turn into every other thread on these forums.

With that said, apologies if it at all detracted from the purpose of the thread. My intent was to try to get your attention so we can have more collaboration in this thread, rather than the players speaking their minds, to which we do every day. If there isnt going to be a lot of discussion between developer and player, then the initiative itself fails and this just becomes another thread. Which, in case, we can refer to the countless threads on the Living Story debate to get the players’ pulse on the subject.

I did see your responses to the numbered items in my post that you previously touched on in the thread, I was simply hoping for a little more back and forth to the main issues

Edit: It looks like theres been some real discussion today(I have been out all day). Good stuff.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lunaire.5827:

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.

I agree with this also. We are certainly trying to improve with our achievements in terms of activities, time requirements and rewards. I feel that we have been making good progress but we aren’t quite there yet. Soon though.

Chris

I wonder why acheivements come with every living story patch to begin with. What are your thoughts regarding intrinsic vs extrinsic rewards in a game?

Thinking back to a day where we played Super Mario just to beat the game, over..and over and over and over. How many hours did we put into games like Mega man. Not because we were being rewarded, but because the gameplay was fun! I believe you can shed a lot of the rewards in the game, even a lot of the achievements themselves, and still produce quality fun. People look at LS as another checklist of achievements so they acquire more AP and inch closer to the next threshhold of AP reward, and for titles/minis. I would rather just enjoy content. However, as human nature is, if you put shinies in front of me I must go after them. But I hate it!

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So with all of this in mind it would be cool to carry on discussing around this area in much the same form as Nike has. Specifically brainstorming on top of the foundation of known systems and functionality. I do also want to point out that someone mentioned (sorry i forget who) the ability to potentially build forts etc and then gain new events, goals and rewards from them by protecting and nurturing your land. Wouldn’t that be awesome!?

Chris

I had posted the opposite where, for example, if centaurs took over a camp, they gain a foothold and their overall presence in the area/zone is increased. After a shortwhile they attack a new town from these footholds, and so on and so forth.

This wouldn’t necessarily be a zone-wide event, but simply the ebb and flow of one small dynamic event that could have the potential to be disastrous for friendly NPCs. It is up to the players to push back the bubble of enemy NPCs and gain back some towns.

Rift sort of did this, and quite well. The only difference was that these were timed events that would happen zone wide. Mobs would spawn and run rampid through the zone, not simply stand there, attacking and taking over towns. You WILL lose your quest givers and NPCs if you do not defend and/or defeat the footholds.

I would take a slightly different approach in GW2 and make this part of a simple small dynamic event of centaurs, or renegades attacking a town. If they succeed, their presence grows and they continue gaining control in the zone. But all of this derives from a small dynamic event tucked away in the system, not some big zone alert saying ‘Attention! Invasion!!’

When you first spoke of living world, this is the first thing that popped into my head. Thats truely a living world because it really does depend on us being active in zones, interacting with the system, protecting, defending, attacking. If you wish, tie in some rewards for holding the entire zone from enemy onslaught some how.

cont’d on next post.

Continued: Picture this, a player logs into the game and chooses their favorite zone to play in. Oh no! It looks like 75% of the zone is red(enemy NPCs). Time to get to work and take back some towns! 20 minutes later, my daily is finished, I took back a few towns, and have fun doing it.

One more thing to consider… like WvW, you could give server-wide buffs or rewards for the players controling threshold percentages of the world.

For example:
-If the players control 25% of the world, they receive 2 gold at the turn of the hour
-If the players control 50% of the world, they receive 5 gold at the turn of the hour
-If the players control 75% of the world, they recieve 10 gold at the turn of the hour
-If the players control 100% of the world, they recieve 20 gold at the turn of the hour + some small additional reward.

This would REALLLY get players into ALL zones of the world, and not just congregating in one zone to follow the zerg around. You want your server’s PVE population spread out as much as possible so you can control as much of the world map as you possibly can to increase your reward. Thus, players choose their favorite zone! For me, it would be timberline falls or something. It is one of the least played zones, but I’d have a blast locking down that zone while other people lock down other zones like Kessex, Iron Marches, Ascalon, Metrica Province, etc.

What do you think?