Guild Wars 2

ColinJohanson.2394:

Our take on phasing, and why we never did it to begin with is: the world isn’t progressing, it’s just fake progressing for you and the person next to you isn’t seeing it progress simultaneously. One of the biggest things we wanted to accomplish with Gw2 is that the things that happen do matter, they happen for everyone, and everyone experiences them together. This is really putting the social aspect of the game and immersion, above the personal aspect.

That doesn’t make phasing wrong, but if you judge by the above pillar it makes phasing wrong for Gw2. Each design decision we make takes that into account as one of the games core pillars. When something in the open world happens, it needs to happen for everyone, and we gauge everything that way.

emphasis mine. Thank you, thank you, thank you for finally telling us what one the core game pillars is! In the CD topic request thread we asked you guys to tell us what your core game pillars were so we could understand the game from your perspective, before going into discussions. That never happened, to my knowledge.

I’ve been a fan of phasing the game ever since I was introduced to the concept, because it seemed like the perfect way to allow new players to get the full story, from the beginning, while still letting you evolve the world over the years. I couldn’t understand why you seemed willing to deny new players that ability. Now I get what you’re trying to do. You want changes to happen for everyone, at the same time, so phasing simply isn’t an option. If I miss the next release because of work or something, well, I guess my character was in a coma or something.

It’s a little frustrating that the LW will move on without my involvement, but I guess it’s not really “my story” anyway.

Any chance we could get a blog post outlining the core defining pillars of ArenaNet’s game design philosophy?

ColinJohanson.2394:

So how would you try and solve this? And a second question is how far would you like to see the impact of say a tower in Kessex be felt content wise? The balance here is of course total volume of work for those involved, to literally have the entire world react to what’s going on would take us 6+ months to build, which at that point isn’t actually meeting our goals of a regularly changing and evolving world.

I haven’t been much on par with this thread, so I’m not sure if this has been suggested already, but if it isn’t feasible for devs to make a living world at that scale, then why not give tools to players to do it themselves?

I’d say that for a truly living world mmo to be possible, it needs to be evolved by million of players, and not only by a few hundred devs.

Yes, I’m basically suggesting to add some sandbox elements into the game. Especially systems that allow the community to create some kind of meta-narrative within themselves. It doesn’t needs to be some drastic sandbox free-for-all style, because Anet could still dictate the starting point, the flavor, the climax and the ending point for each release, meanwhile players would have tools and systems to change or adapt the world around those pre-estabilished rules set by anet at the beginning of each release.

This is a very broad topic, though. It can go many ways. I’ve suggested at page 2 about a possible evolution to dynamic events with building, sieging, land ownership and dynamic land invasions with monster raids. If such systems were to exist, Anet could simply adapt them for each release. “For next patch, a dragon will start roaming this area, so guilds owning lands in that area will have greater difficulties holding them to the enemy”. Upon the defeat of the monster, it could unlock a new mini-dungeon or instance to which a more linear, estabilished story would be told (or concluded). But the players, themselves and their guilds, would estabilish the narrative until then. Instead of story characters trying to find ways to break through the tower, or investigating who the real culprit is, it would be the players doing so.

But this is a very complex topic, though. Basically, Anet could create specific systems, and then for each release estabilish “narrative precursors” and “narrative triggers” (something in-game that would start a new event), the playerbase would build its own meta-narrative using the systems build for such and based on Anet’s starting point events, and players would eventually unlock instances with “narrative climaxes” and “narrative conclusions” written by Anet.

Of course, such a system has a lot of potential beyond story-telling. It could be used to create a never-ending cycle of content for players and guilds.

EDIT: Like a posted said bellow my post, the systems behind GW2 so far lead to a very static game. Anet needs to expand its systems, especially the dynamic events, to change the static nature of the game to a more dynamic one. That means you need to take some inspiration from sandbox design, even if not completely.

Randulf.7614:

I still not sure why every content has to be 2 weeks though. It should last as long as it needs to progress the story.

Said another way…

We LOVE that you ADD content every two weeks.

We HATE that you often REMOVE roughly the same amount of content every two weeks.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Our take on phasing, and why we never did it to begin with is: the world isn’t progressing, it’s just fake progressing for you and the person next to you isn’t seeing it progress simultaneously. One of the biggest things we wanted to accomplish with Gw2 is that the things that happen do matter, they happen for everyone, and everyone experiences them together. This is really putting the social aspect of the game and immersion, above the personal aspect.

That doesn’t make phasing wrong, but if you judge by the above pillar it makes phasing wrong for Gw2. Each design decision we make takes that into account as one of the games core pillars. When something in the open world happens, it needs to happen for everyone, and we gauge everything that way.

Edited to add: This specifically applies to experiences in the open world, and doesn’t mean we couldn’t do things like letting you see moments in time in the past, or experience living world instanced (or “phased”) moments on their own timeline.

??

Really? That pillar is not really apparent in anything I can think of from release.

If anything should fit that bill it should be the Orr story and the defeat of Zhaitan. Yet, that storyline is effectively “phased” in that it doesn’t progress, it’s not a replay, and at any given point in time Zhaitan is both active and defeated depending on the character you speak to. (Schrodinger’s dragon)

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that sentiment (I don’t like the concept of phasing outside of very limited situations) and think that MMOs as a genre would be further along if it were more widely adopted, but to call that concept a pillar seems like wishful thinking more than anything else.

Guild Wars 2 as launched was obviously designed to be a static experience. Almost every system in the game is built to rely on things not changing. To get around that, I believe you are looking at a pretty fundamental rebuild of the levelling and progression system, the personal story, and the design of dynamic events, world bosses and other static / scheduled content.

Honestly – it’s such a daunting task that I don’t think it’s even possible to apply across the existing game world. It might be a worthwhile effort to design new zones around this new type of dynamic content, but the existing content would require such a rebuild as to be practically unfeasible.

WANTED: PIONEERS!
“It’s a new frontier out there, your Majesty, and people are going to get hurt.”
- Logan Thakery

Join us as GuildWars 2 opens a new zone in a special one-time multi-week Living World event… That Everyone can participate in. Travel beyond the northern reaches of the Harathi Hinterlands to a new and untamed land waiting for the footsteps of heroes. The Lion Guard plans to seize the initiative, preparing new fortresses and new farmlands from which to base an army to one day strike against Jormag, the Elder Dragon of Ice.

OPENING THE WAY
The new zone begins as empty wilderness, with only a single cleared glade under player control. This is the first settlement in its infancy, and you must protect it. Each minute the builders are left in peace adds to the progress. Heroes will have to fend off all threats from simple animals attracted by the smell of food to angry Grawl defending their territory. Progress will be suspended until these threats are driven off as builders take shelter. When construction time adds up to one full week, the settlement will be firmly established – Permanently – and pioneers can press deeper into the region to the next promising site.

But beware, the sounds of hammers and the smells of family diners have not gone unnoticed. Local inhabitants and a forgotten colony of things best left undisturbed have begun to stir. As each town is completed, the resistance to the encroachment of civilization stiffens. Once tranquil woods become filled with flickering shadows, shadows that hunger for easy kills and a return to quieter times. The need for strong arms and steady hearts will not diminish as you press deeper into the wild. New dynamic events will be added throughout the campaign as the land responds to your presence.

In all, six towns, training camps, and fortresses are planned in this campaign against the Ice. Fill in the map, adding hubs of permanent commerce and trade with a variety of vendor and services. With each great milestone taking no less than a week, opening the new frontier to it’s permanent state will take over a month of dedication, giving each server a chance to compete against the others and display their round-the-clock commitment to opening the way and taking the fight north. Heroes can contribute to the Lion Guard’s initiative with more than just the strength of their sword arm. Scouts are needed to sweep ahead, while crafters and wealthy patrons are welcome – once per hour characters can turn over contributions of processed Lumber and Metal in Lion’s Arch and other major cities to advance the construction effort ‘clock’ by precious minutes, making up for time lost to threatening events. Rare, random daily major events will be announced world-wide, allowing defenders from all around Tyria to gather against dangers so great that if they are not beaten back the current progress clock can actually lose hours with buildings flattened and settlers slain.

As towns are added, veterans move forward behind the front lines and new hearts and skill point challenges become available. As scout reports are gathered new places of power and vistas are identified ahead of the advancing wave, calling explorers to the fore. Check with roving scouts to keep up on the current pace of the march to the north. Watch the map evolve before your eyes as your efforts to prepare for the next great assault on the Elder Dragons unfold! And when the final fortress is built, you can be certain that JORMAG HAS NOTICED. Help your server to be the first to unlock a new permanent Dragon Lieutenant Boss-Encounter as the Sprit of Black Ice answers this great challenge to his power.

MAKE YOUR MARK – FOREVER
As each hub is completed, the builders will erect a permanent Pioneer Marker recording and immortalizing the character names of the top 10 adventurers and the top 10 crafter/supporters who contributed to that town on that server. Every Marker is unique! Further, the permanent NPC population of the town at the end of the event will reflect the ratio of races among those 20 characters. Want to see the Charr tear off a piece of the new meat? Bring your Charr and place your clawmark on the land! Certain that only Asuran brilliance can ensure the safety of the new lands? Bring your Asura and show the bookahs how its done!

((Coming Soon to a game that makes new zones truly an epic experience))

Or, in less flowery language. I thing we could see another Southsun Cove style zone event, but by stretching it out to weeks rather than hours, you create a process where one disconnection because EVERYONE IN THE GAME is in the zone with you doesn’t crash the script.

I also think there is REAL potential in creating a rally race through a sequence of distinct stages that allows servers to compete with each other. And the guesting system ensures players can guest to other servers either to ‘peek ahead’ or lend a helping hand on servers that are struggling.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Conner.4702:

To me none of the LV felt like it truly impacted the WORLD. Sure zones got changed, but the world stayed the same. Just look at the current LV there is a huge tower in the middle of a lake, but the humans and centaurs still have their petty land disputes..

So how would you try and solve this? And a second question is how far would you like to see the impact of say a tower in Kessex be felt content wise? The balance here is of course total volume of work for those involved, to literally have the entire world react to what’s going on would take us 6+ months to build, which at that point isn’t actually meeting our goals of a regularly changing and evolving world.

Well. That is actually your problem to be frank. You decided on this shedule, that is nothing we can really do there, isn`t?

We don`t force you to do anything, however you have a vision you want to come true. It is your baby. The living, evolving world, however it feels like you stand in your own way here most of the time.

If it really takes time to create an event (not a DE, i mean a story event, where the whole world reacts to) then take your time.

No one forces you to publish in the matter you are now. Several here ven begging you to slow down the pace.

You can still push out updates, events, etc. however if you create worldchanging events then take your time.

You have enough other things you can explore in the meantime. So many elements in the game untapped.
Every “alliance” you created could have been the second step and we could have explore each member throughly through indevidual events, before they are beeing mashed together for example.

You are so focused on immediate release (because it pulls people in, of course) that it feels like you don`t step back.

If possible i wish for the enxt release, have two of your LS teams just focus on one big event, that has a lot of story content, goes over wo months, with every step actually building up to the climax. This would be 4 acts. introduction, failure, comeback and final.

in the meantime, flavour events could happen. Even “small” things change the world. They don`t have to be all grand. However, they have to be entertaining.

ColinJohanson.2394:

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

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

In my opinion the Southsun Invasion was the wrong way to do Living Story. The whole event chain could have remained and repeat on a timer like The Shatterer or Jormag, it did not justify being temporary in my opinion, it had no impact and there were no consequences from the event (blowing up a lighhouse does not count!). Also the zone remaind more or less empty afterwards.

On the other hand I do think you got things right with Secrets of Southsun, the area changed visibly and there’s actually more content to do in the area now, and even the Karka queen is back. I think you pretty much fixed what went wrong the first time so kudos for that. Though I don’t think removing the instance there was necessary, just leaving it there so players can (re)play it would not have a negative impact on anything in my opinion.

Our take on phasing, and why we never did it to begin with is: the world isn’t progressing, it’s just fake progressing for you and the person next to you isn’t seeing it progress simultaneously. One of the biggest things we wanted to accomplish with Gw2 is that the things that happen do matter, they happen for everyone, and everyone experiences them together. This is really putting the social aspect of the game and immersion, above the personal aspect.

I think for this to hold true, the world needs to actually progress and evolve. Event is finished so it’s gone now is not progression, while Event is finished so here’s how things look now would be.

We blew up the molten facility so it’s gone, but there’s no sign of it ever being there to begin with so it’s a net loss. If it had been replaced with a new instance where players go through the ruins, or a jumping puzzle the above would hold true.

I would like to see LW rotate between creating new content for PvE, WvW and Spvp so each element of the game would see a change once every month and a half. That might be a lot easier than my previous suggestion.

Ideally, the LW changes would be content that involves a story (that is fun frankly) and would address an issue or add content.
1. For PvE new zones like Southern Cove that stay are nice.
2. For WvW, this is where you could get some great balance effects in or have new maps, structures, siege etc.
3. For sPvP, this would allow you to have new maps with new playstyles like capture the flag etc.

I’d also make the plot lines change more, personally. There is only so much Scarlett I can take. Best thought would be to run a plot line thru the cycle of PvE, WvW and sPvP and then retire it for the next one.

I think utilizing “extra” maps would bring some benefits, such as being totally destructible without hindering world exploration and simply removing dynamic events on a whim.

I had really enjoyed how southsun evolved, too bad it was left and the not really solo friendly events at choke points of the map made it undesirable for myself.

Other than that I think it has great potential, from building forts, to pirate attacks, to a volcano coming up, a crater leading to a dungeon etc etc. Heck, I don’t know if this is within the lore but a lesser dragon could scout the island for a nesting/resting place.

I could imagine rotating maps, meaning add two more themes to have a change from the tropical scenery. Food for thought.

That said I do like what has been done to kessex hill but obviously it comes with problems such as overlapping existing dynamic events, oblivious heart characters etc.

ColinJohanson.2394:

So how would you try and solve this? And a second question is how far would you like to see the impact of say a tower in Kessex be felt content wise? The balance here is of course total volume of work for those involved, to literally have the entire world react to what’s going on would take us 6+ months to build, which at that point isn’t actually meeting our goals of a regularly changing and evolving world.

I think it would be neat to see some of the centaur change. Meaning that maybe a centaur camp becomes friendly, have you team up with some centaurs to take down an offshoot with their catapults. You could also try adding some hallucinating centaurs into certain fights. Possibly have the nightmare court convert a centaur camp into a toxic alliance camp.

I am not saying that everything in Kessex would change, just new events or minor tweaks to things around the tower. Have them invade one of the towns or forts by the lake and do a defense event on it.

One outlandish idea would be seeing a new world boss in Kessex that is Toxic Alliance and you help centaurs take it down. That may be cool.

ColinJohanson.2394:

I think this raises an interesting question, what do you consider to be “temporary” content, and what qualifies (in your mind) as content that occurs and drives the living story forward it makes sense to have go away, vs. that which remains?

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

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

I liked the Southsun event and clearing the way to add new waypoints, break open the karka hive, etc.

I would think that new players and the community would also like these living world experiences to be caught up to speed on what happened. These are pieces of content that need to be replayed via fractals or a living world UI. Something along the lines of this: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/My-Story-Expanded-Living-Story-Concept/first#post2137462

There is a lot of experiences people are missing while the base game (every zone) is a snapshot in time. The holidays are understandable but what is the draw to go to Southsun? What is the draw to go back to Kessex once the Toxic Alliance is gone? What is the draw to go back to Diessa and Wayfarer now the Molten Alliance are gone? Maybe have a place of power (like a skill point) that shows something from then. A partially destroyed Molten Facility, a destroyed Aetherblade ship, the remains of the Kessex Toxic Alliance tower, the dead Karka boss from Southsun, a deactivated clockwork in Divinity’s Reach. Have these be entrances that players can experience these events from either a solo or group perspective.

Another point to consider re: pace of releases.

If ArenaNet wants the world to be dynamic, part and parcel of that would be the world reacting to the player and NPC actions.

Too many events are written from a standpoint of assumed success. Even though I have done exactly zero Scarlett Briar content, I know for a fact that she will eventually be defeated. The playerbase as a whole could trip over their own swords for 6 months and yet somehow the villainess will go down in defeat.

Writing it this way allows the team to work at the pace that has been set for them, but they have to write the story and then drive it as written because they need to stay ahead of the players by months at a time. In effect, the player characters are going through the motions while the plot leads them wherever, passive viewers waiting for the next instalment of the story.

MMOs and video games are an interactive medium though. It’s not very accurate to follow the same model of storytelling as a TV show or movie trilogy. To truly connect with the content, players need to feel they are an integral part of the content. To a certain extent the election in Lion’s Arch was the best example of the type of content you need to push IMO (if not the best implementation).

I think you should rework the story release schedule a bit. I think you need to block out a couple of months of events which are designed to require a choice, either success / failure or an A vs. B option (which would actually be better from a gamer psychology standpoint).

At the end of the block, the team tallies up the A’s and the B’s across the game and the result drives the direction of the next block. If players drive towards destroying Scarlett at the expense of ignoring Jormag’s activities (for instance), then that should have consequences that reach into the storyline in the future.

Honestly, I can get better storyline and dialogue from a lot of different entertainment sources. Only in video games (and MMOs in particular) is there the potential that I can personally interact with the progress of the story.

So, I think that GW2 is getting the other kinds of updates. It doesn’t really expand much of a content for more than maximum of a month and after that all that stays is to-three armour pieces, ridiculously hard-to-obtain RNG weapons and a couple of scars on map. Well I do hope that new Kessex Hills will stay and the tower won’t ruin down with 1 sword swings. However, I think we need more permanent content with new campaigns and personal story expansion. Yes, GW2 kinda really needs expansion. I am a fan of GW2, playing since launch. When LS began it was a bit more than what it is now, it was kinda more fun and exciting, now every other living story is just the same thing. I sort of think that Devs choose from two options, 1 dungeon with blues and greens in the end, ridiculous zerg farm event. That’s it, there is no fun in this anymore, at least from my PoV. I think we need more explorative site, like new map or we should uncover GW1 secrets and stories. What about everything that existed then, it doesn’t exist now, but its the same world. I also have forgotten what this game is about, or was about to be more precise, it was about Dragons that started war against other races centuries ago, but no no. Who cares about dragons, we have rotten salad girl to chase. We need more of GW1 content, what’s with Mursaat, whats with tons of other realms, whats with Tengu, whats with glint’s child. Whats with the White Mantle. Honestly I belive that during the Queen’s Jubilee update, White Mantle should have crushed the party as they are against Shining Blade, but it seemed like they never existed, and let some rotten salad girl do what they were trying to do. Too much has been forgotten. Could some non-farming people get love too and get new skills maybe.

I know the discussion is veering to DEs, but I wanted to add my thoughts on favorite releases.

Favorites:
Clockwork Chaos: I liked the story progression and APs. I really like how Countess Anise was used to thwart Scarlet. I also felt that Lord Faren’s role was clever. Having us rescue him and the council members from the Playhouse, which was well done, and then fight Scarlet head on was fun, even if she didn’t die. As I mentioned in another post, the APs related to Emissary Vorpp were well done. I did not find them tedious or overly burdensome to complete.

Bazaar of the Four Winds: I don’t think there was anything I didn’t like once I overcame my in-game fear of falling. It is second only because it didn’t have a lot of story progression.

I have enjoyed all the other releases too for various reasons, but I did rank them to find out my least favorites.

Almost Least favorite: Twilight Assault. Only because I do not enjoy dungeons. If I could have done it solo, it would probably be ranked higher. I found that I enjoyed the idea of the dungeon and the mechanics because I did do it with a pug, but it was far from fun.

Least favorites: SAB 1 & 2. This is because I didn’t have fun with them, each zone was too long to keep my interest. And although I did not really participate in 2 due to my experiences with the first, I did enjoy the time to do other things including more Teq battles.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Our take on phasing, and why we never did it to begin with is: the world isn’t progressing, it’s just fake progressing for you and the person next to you isn’t seeing it progress simultaneously. One of the biggest things we wanted to accomplish with Gw2 is that the things that happen do matter, they happen for everyone, and everyone experiences them together. This is really putting the social aspect of the game and immersion, above the personal aspect.

That doesn’t make phasing wrong, but if you judge by the above pillar it makes phasing wrong for Gw2. Each design decision we make takes that into account as one of the games core pillars. When something in the open world happens, it needs to happen for everyone, and we gauge everything that way.

Edited to add: This specifically applies to experiences in the open world, and doesn’t mean we couldn’t do things like letting you see moments in time in the past, or experience living world instanced (or “phased”) moments on their own timeline.

That does put you in a tough spot for handling Orr though. I would think that Zhaitan needs to be defeated and Trahearne has to cleanse Orr in the open world at some point. This could be part of a Living Story arc where you transition Orr into a new state post Zhaitan and cleansing. Hindsight is 20/20, but I would have never made such an important event part of the personal story, but rather a Living Story arc. In general I find the Personal Story, like most instancing, to be an obstacle to progressing the open world. It can be done, but I think it has to be with the understanding that anyone creating new characters, or doing the Personal Story event up to and including Zhaitan’s defeat are “reliving” those experiences, even if it is the first time they as players have seen them.

I would love to see a cleansed Orr in the Living World at some point, though I understand why you’d be hesitant considering the effort put into the temple and siege of Orr events, which are really fun. How would those work in a cleansed Orr? At least with phasing you could retain those and move the Orr storyline along.

Jaken.6801:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Conner.4702:

To me none of the LV felt like it truly impacted the WORLD. Sure zones got changed, but the world stayed the same. Just look at the current LV there is a huge tower in the middle of a lake, but the humans and centaurs still have their petty land disputes..

So how would you try and solve this? And a second question is how far would you like to see the impact of say a tower in Kessex be felt content wise? The balance here is of course total volume of work for those involved, to literally have the entire world react to what’s going on would take us 6+ months to build, which at that point isn’t actually meeting our goals of a regularly changing and evolving world.

Well. That is actually your problem to be frank. You decided on this shedule, that is nothing we can really do there, isn`t?

We don`t force you to do anything, however you have a vision you want to come true. It is your baby. The living, evolving world, however it feels like you stand in your own way here most of the time.

If it really takes time to create an event (not a DE, i mean a story event, where the whole world reacts to) then take your time.

No one forces you to publish in the matter you are now. Several here ven begging you to slow down the pace.

You can still push out updates, events, etc. however if you create worldchanging events then take your time.

You have enough other things you can explore in the meantime. So many elements in the game untapped.
Every “alliance” you created could have been the second step and we could have explore each member throughly through indevidual events, before they are beeing mashed together for example.

You are so focused on immediate release (because it pulls people in, of course) that it feels like you don`t step back.

If possible i wish for the enxt release, have two of your LS teams just focus on one big event, that has a lot of story content, goes over wo months, with every step actually building up to the climax. This would be 4 acts. introduction, failure, comeback and final.

in the meantime, flavour events could happen. Even “small” things change the world. They don`t have to be all grand. However, they have to be entertaining.

Hey Jaken, why would you want a 6 month content release schedule?? They would lose too many players to other games. 2 weeks is great, though monthly would also be fine. This makes the players feel like the devs are constantly trying to update the game with new content. The content isn’t perfect, but it’s better than not getting new content for six months. Besides the whole company isn’t working on a single content release for two weeks; after the Halloween release that group (the holiday event team) probably started on the Wintersday content (that’s a 2 month content release).

Maybe phasing makes the game seem more “living” to you, the developers, but to me, the player, its a more “living” world when I go from pre-searing to searing ascalon than when I defeat Zhiatan (despite the fact that I haven’t because it takes so kitten long) and the area stays the same.

edit: used the wrong word.

ColinJohanson.2394:

So how would you try and solve this? And a second question is how far would you like to see the impact of say a tower in Kessex be felt content wise? The balance here is of course total volume of work for those involved, to literally have the entire world react to what’s going on would take us 6+ months to build, which at that point isn’t actually meeting our goals of a regularly changing and evolving world.

Given those constraints? I wouldn’t. However, the criticisms over the 2-week cadence weighing you down rear their head again. If it’d take 6+ months and currently you have 4 months of development time between released; then halving your release schedule to every month would give you enough time. I’m willing to be patient for releases (even 3-6 months between them) if they give you enough time to add content that allows us as players to make meaningful impact to the world as well as a world where NPCs react to the new content additions.

Grimthagen.6019:

Honestly, I can get better storyline and dialogue from a lot of different entertainment sources. Only in video games (and MMOs in particular) is there the potential that I can personally interact with the progress of the story.

That’s very good and simple way to put it. I agree.

I think the tower in Kessex Hills was the first true change in the world except for discovering Southsun. It was very nicely executed with the “teaser” content where people started wondering why there was black smoke and trees were cut down during the patch before. It is really a major change, the whole zone is different.
It can’t revert to normal anymore and in a sense that’s a good thing.

Something that would be really nice was if Tequatl for example actually started doing something. Currently he’s just staring at a bone wall in front of an open empty field and then he dives back into the water.
Make the fight count.
If you can’t beat him, he moves forward instead of retreating. Say you have 15 minutes for beating him, if you fail he crashes the siege rendering it useless and then he starts going inland.
Have dynamic events to set up siege on his way.
If players fail, he continues north towards Lion’s Arch.
He becomes more and more worn out though so the timer increases as he moves forward, making it easier to beat him. But if he reaches Lion’s Arch, he starts sieging it. A mail goes out to every player on the server that Lion’s Arch is under attack and if he’s not beaten for a certain time, he enters Lion’s Arch and makes it his new home rendering it impossible to use asura gates, the mystic forge and everything in Lion’s Arch until he’s beaten back.

Make it count, he’s a dragon.
Could be done as a Living Story update and made permanent.
I know you don’t have the tech for it yet, but I also know that you can develop it and that I think it’s needed for a truly living world to work like this.
He and the other dragons are way too whimpy right now.
The other world bosses could work in a similar way but on a smaller scale, not going across maps.

I would like to see new quality content every 3 months, giving enough time for casual people to play that content , even is they only play for 1 or 2 months during that update. This also gives the player time for “normal” play not related to living story. A much more relaxed and enjoyable gaming experience.

Rushing to complete living story before patch day, simply isn’t fun.

Brimwald.5894:

Hey Jaken, why would you want a 6 month content release schedule?? They would lose too many players to other games. 2 weeks is great, though monthly would also be fine. This makes the players feel like the devs are constantly trying to update the game with new content. The content isn’t perfect, but it’s better than not getting new content for six months. Besides the whole company isn’t working on a single content release for two weeks; after the Halloween release that group (the holiday event team) probably started on the Wintersday content (that’s a 2 month content release).

That was not what i was implying.

I was saying that the “big content” that actually evolves the world. The big story parts, should only be released when the whole package is ready.

For that they should pull back their teams to focus on the big picture.
Right now they have four teams working at the same time on different projects under a deadline.

I never said that they should stop releasing content, but if they want to create this world changing events they should go with smaller “events” while creating a big one in the back.

The stand in releases don`t have to be massive, but should be able to advance the world and it`s narrative.

The two week content update is something they set as a goal for themselves.
Right now it is:
- features “when they are ready”
- new mechanics “wehen they are ready”
- etc.
wrapped into the “LS narrative”.

However since they bound their updates and patches to a consistent narrative, the later one is bound to suffer.

It is different to just push out new features and mechanics normaly, then also implementing it with a context.
They want to push out content every two week. The casual player will not mind. It is nice, always something new. etc…

However, it has an impact on the delivery, the size, the overall vision.

I ask you. Is this really a living breathing world? Or just a nice little bi-weekly roller coaster ride?
They say themselves that their current pace doesn`t allow them to work as efficiently as they would without that restraint.

The LW right now is not only story. It is synonymos for patches, new content, well everything expanding the whole game.
It is more then the world. it is different from the simple patches of old. it is a new and in my opinion, tricky concept, that might not work under the old rules, because it is something bigger then: “just a simple patch” every two weeks

SirMoogie.9263:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Our take on phasing, and why we never did it to begin with is: the world isn’t progressing, it’s just fake progressing for you and the person next to you isn’t seeing it progress simultaneously. One of the biggest things we wanted to accomplish with Gw2 is that the things that happen do matter, they happen for everyone, and everyone experiences them together. This is really putting the social aspect of the game and immersion, above the personal aspect.

That doesn’t make phasing wrong, but if you judge by the above pillar it makes phasing wrong for Gw2. Each design decision we make takes that into account as one of the games core pillars. When something in the open world happens, it needs to happen for everyone, and we gauge everything that way.

Edited to add: This specifically applies to experiences in the open world, and doesn’t mean we couldn’t do things like letting you see moments in time in the past, or experience living world instanced (or “phased”) moments on their own timeline.

That does put you in a tough spot for handling Orr though. I would think that Zhaitan needs to be defeated and Trahearne has to cleanse Orr in the open world at some point. This could be part of a Living Story arc where you transition Orr into a new state post Zhaitan and cleansing. Hindsight is 20/20, but I would have never made such an important event part of the personal story, but rather a Living Story arc. In general I find the Personal Story, like most instancing, to be an obstacle to progressing the open world. It can be done, but I think it has to be with the understanding that anyone creating new characters, or doing the Personal Story event up to and including Zhaitan’s defeat are “reliving” those experiences, even if it is the first time they as players have seen them.

I would love to see a cleansed Orr in the Living World at some point, though I understand why you’d be hesitant considering the effort put into the temple and siege of Orr events, which are really fun. How would those work in a cleansed Orr? At least with phasing you could retain those and move the Orr storyline along.

The problem with doing this in the open world is that for players that are new or have been taking their time to complete everything, cleansing the world or making any permanent changes to the open world hinders or outright prevents these players from catching up or completing the story altogether.

I don’t know the feasibility of it, nor the complexity of programming involved, but if the open world could be somehow split into parallel timelines, then in theory what you are saying could be possible without affecting players who have not caught up to that timeline. Let’s say the first year timeline has the content as it was originally released, minus of course any minor changes bug fixes, etc. that have no real effect on the story. Then the second year timeline shows those permanent changes that you suggested plus more. People who have not completed the story in the 1st timeline would still be in that world until they do complete it and could then move to the 2nd year timeline. People in the 2nd year timeline could flip back and forth as they choose so if they wished to go ‘back in time’ to help new players or friends, then they could do that. With each new calendar year, a new timeline could be added each with its own permanent changes. So in this respect, you could have it where the 2nd year timeline no longer has Tequatl, Claw of Jormag, or other such boss spawns as they have been defeated, and instead introduces new bosses and even new areas not accessible from the 1st year timeline. Lower level areas in fact could then all be made level 80’s with all new content and challenges within them. Now that would be awesome.

I’m sure this is something that would require more hardware on Anet’s part to be able to support, but it’s the only way that I can think of to both allow permanent changes to occur for players that have completed that content, while still allowing new players to have the same experiences as intended by the developers.

I’d be interested in hearing a developer’s thoughts on this idea, even if to just say it’s stupid. :P

ColinJohanson.2394:

Conner.4702:

To me none of the LV felt like it truly impacted the WORLD. Sure zones got changed, but the world stayed the same. Just look at the current LV there is a huge tower in the middle of a lake, but the humans and centaurs still have their petty land disputes..

So how would you try and solve this? And a second question is how far would you like to see the impact of say a tower in Kessex be felt content wise? The balance here is of course total volume of work for those involved, to literally have the entire world react to what’s going on would take us 6+ months to build, which at that point isn’t actually meeting our goals of a regularly changing and evolving world.

That tower is dangerous for centaurs too right? So why i dont see centaur fighting toxic aliance? They dont have to have aliance with humans, but they should certainly fight someone who is making their land one big poison :-)
If I would be centaur leader i would order my tribe to forget about humans for this time and focus on more dangerous enemy.

Edit: This could be also good start for something like peace treaty between humans and centaurs in possible future lore. Sometimes that war has to end, maybe it cant be sooner then in something like GW3 :-D but you had chance to use potencial of Living story for some future stories.
Anyway centaur fighting toxic aliance would make that update more live and real.

Brimwald.5894:

Hey Jaken, why would you want a 6 month content release schedule?? They would lose too many players to other games. 2 weeks is great, though monthly would also be fine. This makes the players feel like the devs are constantly trying to update the game with new content. The content isn’t perfect, but it’s better than not getting new content for six months. Besides the whole company isn’t working on a single content release for two weeks; after the Halloween release that group (the holiday event team) probably started on the Wintersday content (that’s a 2 month content release).

Most MMOs don’t release content patches much more than a few times a year. EVE Online for instance only does a Summer and a Winter release.

There are constant patches and changes and improvements between major patches, but the big ones only drop a few times a year.

There’s no reason other than philosophical that ArenaNet has to do releases at this pace.

In my opinion, you should try to keep the Living Story as the driving force behind Living World. What I mean by this is that Living Story should direct our focus to specific areas of the game (much like how it does currently) ultimately leading to changes in the open world itself. Most significant change to current system would be that more time is given for each story step to play out. I don’t mean slower releases I mean longer storylines and more individual releases within them. You shouldn’t rush story, ever.

How this translates into releases is that anything major happening in the world is first introduced in living story instances. Lets say we have a Living World storyline involving the brand. To keep this short we fast forward to the point where we have a release that reworks Shatterer. When we first enter the zone we will be put into Story instance with Rox and Braham, for example. To flesh out things a little let’s say that we’ve given a mission to secure a supply line to the Steeleye Span. We start working our way through branded from the Span to nearby village. When we get to the village we might have to defend a packdolyak while the villagers pack the supplies. After defeating the larger wave of branded everything seems fine and we’re starting to move back to Span. Before we get to leave however, lighting clouds start to gather and from the clouds comes the Shatterer. This is the first time ever where we’ve seen Shatterer attacking something outside the brand and the NPCs also show their surprise yelling and screaming that this isn’t normal. So we gather the troops we can and start to fight back. As the leader of the pact me, the player, is given the task to lead this assault (together with Rox and Braham). And so we fight, shoot the dragon with cannons, dodge his deadly breath and force him to eventually retreat. But he won’t go peacefully. As he rises to the sky he wipes the village to the ground with his tail. Many die and my group is mortified by this sudden attack. After a while we get a messenger to told us that Shatterer is seen flying all around the Ascalon and we eventually leave the instance.

Now when we return to the open world the things we’ve learned from the story instance can be seen. Shatterer is attacking villages around Ascalon, branded are continuing their spread from the brand. Steeleye Span is desperately trying to fight back but is in constant need of supplies which are brought with caravans that need defending, the destroyed village from the instance remains destroyed in the open world and has some DEs happening around it. All over Ascalon villages are being reinforced so that something as horrible what had happened wouldn’t have to happen again.

The thing I’m trying to tell here is that even after the Living Story moves on, we are still left with the story instance. This instance holds everything we have to know about what have happened and making it replayable allows people who missed the event to still experience that. I think we should have more of these instances per release so that the story is properly fleshed out. In this context it would be nice to see another instance about Steeleye Span and maybe even something tying things back to older GW1 lore with an instance about Searing Crystal. Key here is that everything of importance (especially things that aren’t left behind when the story moves on) are told in these instances.

Oh man; I never login or post here but I had to login to say that your post sounded amazing; I would totally get excited for content like that! This needs to happen.

Taushullu.6180:

In my opinion, you should try to keep the Living Story as the driving force behind Living World. What I mean by this is that Living Story should direct our focus to specific areas of the game (much like how it does currently) ultimately leading to changes in the open world itself. Most significant change to current system would be that more time is given for each story step to play out. I don’t mean slower releases I mean longer storylines and more individual releases within them. You shouldn’t rush story, ever.

How this translates into releases is that anything major happening in the world is first introduced in living story instances. Lets say we have a Living World storyline involving the brand. To keep this short we fast forward to the point where we have a release that reworks Shatterer. When we first enter the zone we will be put into Story instance with Rox and Braham, for example. To flesh out things a little let’s say that we’ve given a mission to secure a supply line to the Steeleye Span. We start working our way through branded from the Span to nearby village. When we get to the village we might have to defend a packdolyak while the villagers pack the supplies. After defeating the larger wave of branded everything seems fine and we’re starting to move back to Span. Before we get to leave however, lighting clouds start to gather and from the clouds comes the Shatterer. This is the first time ever where we’ve seen Shatterer attacking something outside the brand and the NPCs also show their surprise yelling and screaming that this isn’t normal. So we gather the troops we can and start to fight back. As the leader of the pact me, the player, is given the task to lead this assault (together with Rox and Braham). And so we fight, shoot the dragon with cannons, dodge his deadly breath and force him to eventually retreat. But he won’t go peacefully. As he rises to the sky he wipes the village to the ground with his tail. Many die and my group is mortified by this sudden attack. After a while we get a messenger to told us that Shatterer is seen flying all around the Ascalon and we eventually leave the instance.

Now when we return to the open world the things we’ve learned from the story instance can be seen. Shatterer is attacking villages around Ascalon, branded are continuing their spread from the brand. Steeleye Span is desperately trying to fight back but is in constant need of supplies which are brought with caravans that need defending, the destroyed village from the instance remains destroyed in the open world and has some DEs happening around it. All over Ascalon villages are being reinforced so that something as horrible what had happened wouldn’t have to happen again.

The thing I’m trying to tell here is that even after the Living Story moves on, we are still left with the story instance. This instance holds everything we have to know about what have happened and making it replayable allows people who missed the event to still experience that. I think we should have more of these instances per release so that the story is properly fleshed out. In this context it would be nice to see another instance about Steeleye Span and maybe even something tying things back to older GW1 lore with an instance about Searing Crystal. Key here is that everything of importance (especially things that aren’t left behind when the story moves on) are told in these instances.

Couldn’t decide between a /bow, /applause, or /slowclap… Anyway, I was extremely excited reading what you wrote, and hope it gets in game.

I loved the story mission for tower of nightmares.

From the massive amount of issues at play here, I do fear that the LS has turned into a impossible puzzle.

The story integration is in itself, unsolvable in regard to giving rich narratives (in the games current state). To give either PS or LS style of story telling the best chance you need to delete the other. Unless you provide new maps to deal with big events like dragon killing or Orr cleansing, but then that’s spreading the player-base thinner and thinner as time goes on and giving less reasons for players to revisit areas.

Getting a clean, working LS that gives a rich and beautiful story over time is one heck of a challenge. One I don’t think many people (including myself at times) have appreciated when criticising.

Im gonna go out on a limb here. If your serious about presenting massive world changing events in the open world LS (one in which all players currently playing experience TOGETHER cohesively), and If you want to make the LS work to a hardcore fans perspective in the future, my opinion would actually be something I suggested a long time ago;

Rebuild the Personal Story

Sounds crazy I know. This topic is about the LS i know. Just bear with me m’kay.

Recreate the PS and make it TOTALLY about the players character. Expanded on the first half of the current PS it is about decisions that effect your character, its chosen order and its role within your home instance. Some amazing ideas are already out there for using this as a player hub of personal quests, housing and social features. Make the entire personal story about this home instance and your chosen order. You can still provide a decent narrative with interesting twists and turns to hook the players interest. Might not be counted as epic, but lets face it, neither was the current PS.

This frees up the LS to concentrate on world changing things. Maybe even completely revisiting the events that lead to zhaitan’s demise.

I was going to add some other ideas to this topic, but I needed to put this out first as I hope anet are thinking about this and the effect its going to have in the future. ESPECIALLY new players. Imagine a year down the line when the LS is handling amazingly interesting things like new lands or new dragons (fingers crossed anyway). The new player has the PS to introduce them to GW2, and its only going to annoy them if the current PS is out of whack with the LS, especially if they are not leveled enough to join in the LS fun.

Edit; I would also be in the ‘NPC historian’ camp in regards to handling the way content SHOULD be repayable as my suggestion would need this feature. I saw a decent suggestion regarding the Towers of Nightmares first instance as a good example of how content could easily be replayed, without destroying the sense of ‘I WAS THERE’.

ColinJohanson.2394:

cesmode.4257:

ColinJohanson.2394:

I think this raises an interesting question, what do you consider to be “temporary” content, and what qualifies (in your mind) as content that occurs and drives the living story forward it makes sense to have go away, vs. that which remains?

Hi Colin,
I wanted to quickly respond to this, then I will read the rest of your post. Have you guys considered using phasing? Keep the content in the game for everyone and use phasing to phase the world into the different changes that the Living Story dictates.

For people that are playing alts, if they have unlocked the last, or most current phase, of the Living Story with a previous character, they have a choice to kick off the LS from the beginning or at the current point in the story.

Are there technical difficulties to this to wihch GW2 and Phasing don’t mix? This would seem to solve your problem of content that should be temporary and content that could stay. It would also fix the problems that are in the game, such as undead in Orr still chanting Zhaitans name when he has been defeated by many.

Thoughts?

Our take on phasing, and why we never did it to begin with is: the world isn’t progressing, it’s just fake progressing for you and the person next to you isn’t seeing it progress simultaneously. One of the biggest things we wanted to accomplish with Gw2 is that the things that happen do matter, they happen for everyone, and everyone experiences them together. This is really putting the social aspect of the game and immersion, above the personal aspect.

That doesn’t make phasing wrong, but if you judge by the above pillar it makes phasing wrong for Gw2. Each design decision we make takes that into account as one of the games core pillars. When something in the open world happens, it needs to happen for everyone, and we gauge everything that way.

Edited to add: This specifically applies to experiences in the open world, and doesn’t mean we couldn’t do things like letting you see moments in time in the past, or experience living world instanced (or “phased”) moments on their own timeline.

I kind of see what you’re saying here but I at least partially disagree- not in the sense that I think phasing is necessary or even the best way to accomplish your goals, but in the sense that I don’t think it’s as necessary for immersion as you think it is to make sure everyone is experiencing content in the same way at the same time. The player has the knowledge of unfolding events regardless of when they do or don’t play through the content. In fact, it’s arguable that you actually lose immersion by disengaging the player/character from the narrative.

What you’re essentially doing is forcing the content on players at specific times and if they can’t participate, forget them. I disagree that that’s good for the game in any way. I would argue it’s much more important to let players experience content on their own schedules rather than force it on them. It also adds richness to the world by letting new players experience it as an unfolding narrative specific to their characters.

Please read my post above for what I feel to be the best way to approach the Living World and the Personal Story, because the current disjoint between these two is ruining the game.

Parlourbeatflex.5970:

Rebuild the Personal Story

Sounds crazy I know. This topic is about the LS i know. Just bear with me m’kay.

Recreate the PS and make it TOTALLY about the players character. Expanded on the first half of the current PS it is about decisions that effect your character, its chosen order and its role within your home instance. Some amazing ideas are already out there for using this as a player hub of personal quests, housing and social features. Make the entire personal story about this home instance and your chosen order. You can still provide a decent narrative with interesting twists and turns to hook the players interest. Might not be counted as epic, but lets face it, neither was the current PS.

This frees up the LS to concentrate on world changing things. Maybe even completely revisiting the events that lead to zhaitan’s demise.

I was going to add some other ideas to this topic, but I needed to put this out first as I hope anet are thinking about this and the effect its going to have in the future. ESPECIALLY new players. Imagine a year down the line when the LS is handling amazingly interesting things like new lands or new dragons (fingers crossed anyway). The new player has the PS to introduce them to GW2, and its only going to annoy them if the current PS is out of whack with the LS, especially if they are not leveled enough to join in the LS fun.

hrm. Tying into the phasing conversation earlier, what if the world changed, but you can still complete the original Personal Story instances? Or replay old ones by visiting a Historian at your Order?

For players who have finished it, we get a new story… battling Primordius! Hooray! Orr starts to clear up! etc.

For players who come into the game, they can “relive” the events when they pop into instances.

EVERYBODY gets to experience the current content as it happens.

I guess it brings up this question: is it worth limiting the current state of the game for the hundreds of thousands of people who want the world to actually change in order to keep things pristine for players who will buy the game in the future? That’s a tough call.

ColinJohanson.2394:

So how would you try and solve this? And a second question is how far would you like to see the impact of say a tower in Kessex be felt content wise? The balance here is of course total volume of work for those involved, to literally have the entire world react to what’s going on would take us 6+ months to build, which at that point isn’t actually meeting our goals of a regularly changing and evolving world.

I think that when a major change like the Tower is introduced, the content should focus more on the zone where it happens. Right now we are being sent all over seeing these toxic events appearing in different zones but none of the NPCs in the other zones are reacting to events and that dilutes the sense that there is any threat.

Don’t spend time making events in other zones when the attention should be on the Tower. Concentrate on the Kessex zone and show things like the NPCs like the centaurs getting sick and fighting the events themselves.

In contrast, Scarlet’s invasions did not dilute their threat by appearing in different zones because they were quick and there was no central zone of focus in the first place. Plus any particular zone might not see an invasion for days, so it’s easier to accept the NPCs not changing much save to attack the invaders when they occasionally appear.

The toxic events will go on in the same zones for weeks but none of the NPCs in Queensdale and the others so much as acknowledge them, so it makes the players feel a bit silly for being the only ones seemingly worried about them.

Previous events when things were happening all over the world had the same issue where only the players seemed to be aware of refugees or other constantly occurring events. This did not make the world feel more alive, it just made it feel like we were being sent around to different zones as a kind of content padding to take up time.

That’s not to say you can’t send players to other zones. The scavenger hunt for krait shards works well, the shards might have been hidden and only just were uncovered. NPCs would not react as much to that as events constantly spawning mobs for weeks.

Keeping a focus of content more in a single zone would mean you would only need to worry about NPCs in the zone of the change. Medieval/Renaissance people were notoriously provincial. It’s not hard to imagine of Queensdale shrugging their shoulders at ‘silly’ talk of toxic towers over in Kessex. Changing text of some of the more obvious NPCs in the other zones could provide a bit of flavor for that.

The updated events in Kessex like protecting the quaggen village were a very nice touch and I think that could be a very effective way to show how the story is affecting the NPCs. Players may have run such events already and now they not only get to see it in a new light but see how the NPCs are reacting to the changes.

By focusing content in Kessex rather than making events in other zones, you could more easily show the players that NPCs are being affected and reacting to the event and that is critical to give the feel that it is a living world. The NPCs are part of the world and they need to be a part of the change for the world to seem living.

timmyf.1490:

Parlourbeatflex.5970:

Rebuild the Personal Story

Sounds crazy I know. This topic is about the LS i know. Just bear with me m’kay.

Recreate the PS and make it TOTALLY about the players character. Expanded on the first half of the current PS it is about decisions that effect your character, its chosen order and its role within your home instance. Some amazing ideas are already out there for using this as a player hub of personal quests, housing and social features. Make the entire personal story about this home instance and your chosen order. You can still provide a decent narrative with interesting twists and turns to hook the players interest. Might not be counted as epic, but lets face it, neither was the current PS.

This frees up the LS to concentrate on world changing things. Maybe even completely revisiting the events that lead to zhaitan’s demise.

I was going to add some other ideas to this topic, but I needed to put this out first as I hope anet are thinking about this and the effect its going to have in the future. ESPECIALLY new players. Imagine a year down the line when the LS is handling amazingly interesting things like new lands or new dragons (fingers crossed anyway). The new player has the PS to introduce them to GW2, and its only going to annoy them if the current PS is out of whack with the LS, especially if they are not leveled enough to join in the LS fun.

hrm. Tying into the phasing conversation earlier, what if the world changed, but you can still complete the original Personal Story instances? Or replay old ones by visiting a Historian at your Order?

For players who have finished it, we get a new story… battling Primordius! Hooray! Orr starts to clear up! etc.

For players who come into the game, they can “relive” the events when they pop into instances.

EVERYBODY gets to experience the current content as it happens.

I guess it brings up this question: is it worth limiting the current state of the game for the hundreds of thousands of people who want the world to actually change in order to keep things pristine for players who will buy the game in the future? That’s a tough call.

Also a question of;

Is anet prepared to re-evaluate and rework massive portions of the game so that in the future, both types of players are happily playing together, while the mechanics of the PS and LS are harmonious instead of disjointed?

And I do not think phasing in the answer. Not in a game that allows you to level up in any way you want and certainly not in a game where the first 80 levels worth of story does a terrible job of conveying a interesting narrative.

The one good thing about the LS and its temporary nature is the fact Anet can experiment with story telling techniques and not worry about them creating a permanent blemish on the game.

Parlourbeatflex.5970:

Is anet prepared to re-evaluate and rework massive portions of the game so that in the future, both types of players are happily playing together, while the mechanics of the PS and LS are harmonious instead of disjointed?

And I do not think phasing in the answer. Not in a game that allows you to level up in any way you want and certainly not in a game where the first 80 levels worth of story does a terrible job of conveying a interesting narrative.

But because the Personal Story happens within instances, I think they can keep the existing Personal Story in the game without resorting to phasing. You exist in the real-time world, but when you go into the instance, things may… uhh… “revert” a little.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Now before folks get excited in terms of this being a statement of attention

It’s a statement of awareness. I’ll take it .

timmyf.1490:

CONFIRMED BY DEVS: NEW ZONE NORTH OF HARATHI HINTERLANDS COMING NOV 26 PATCH

Jerk. …But I did laugh really hard.

I just wanted to say WANTED: PIONEERS is mostly a riff on things said in this thread. I don’t have a working solution for players going out and launching settlements willy-nilly, but I think there are frameworks they could become invested in that would do the same thing narratively, but always ultimately resolving to a common, sustainable outcome.

While the event was running it would have to exist somewhat of a vacuum – while some servers might finish the march against Jormag in the strictest minimum time, others would have to be allowed up to maybe as many as 4 months to get there, and the zone really couldn’t be subject to further alterations until the catch up. Its a problem, but I think a small price to pay, and an opportunity to encourage guesting over out of goodwill to challenged servers.

While WANTED: PIONEERS! comes off as a slick 1-page advertisement, I have no illusions that it would represent anything less than a metric butt-ton of work across nearly every development department I can think of. It mostly draws on existing systems and existing assets, but stringing them together in the framework of a seven-stage campaign with only the final stage being kept as the permanent state of the zone… grueling. You’d kill months putting this thing together, and I mean month more than just building a zone in the traditional fashion must require.

One thing I will point out as a contrast to many things discussed so far: its incredibly light on rewards. No new gear. No cosmetic goodies. The reward it does offer though is one I think people would battle for passionately: PERMANENT RECOGNITION. While the Pioneer Markers as I first envisioned them would record the top 10 in two tracks of contribution, I think it would be amazing to have a second dialogue options when clicking on one that opens of a “Many thanks” page that lists maybe the top 1,000 participants – their efforts didn’t directly shape the town’s population, but they are still acknowledged for their play.

I also wanted to say I was a participant in the original big Southsun One-shot. I had a great time, even with the lag, the invisible beasties, and the occasional crash (thankfully mine were early so I got back in). But my roommate couldn’t make it that day – I have a pretty close up perspective of how unfortunately exclusive it was. This campaign is at its core that sort of event stretched out for an entire week, and then repeated with only minor variations FIVE MORE TIMES to give the best chance that the most extremely casual players still have a chance to at least look at a zone in flux, even if from a practical standpoint they were never in the running for a place on the top 10 lists.

In any event, thank you for reading . I thought it would be an entertaining extrapolation on a number of concepts put forward here.

timmyf.1490:

Parlourbeatflex.5970:

Is anet prepared to re-evaluate and rework massive portions of the game so that in the future, both types of players are happily playing together, while the mechanics of the PS and LS are harmonious instead of disjointed?

And I do not think phasing in the answer. Not in a game that allows you to level up in any way you want and certainly not in a game where the first 80 levels worth of story does a terrible job of conveying a interesting narrative.

But because the Personal Story happens within instances, I think they can keep the existing Personal Story in the game without resorting to phasing. You exist in the real-time world, but when you go into the instance, things may… uhh… “revert” a little.

Yea but its definitely immersion breaking. Especially considering you usually have to go out to the area to start each instance, and for new players, the PS is the first tour around the known world.
I would be content if it were contained within this historian NPC, or trahearne himself retelling HIS story… as long as its suggested to the player that each area might have changed through time, and after then im still unsure on how it would effect a new player experience.

I dunno, I can see the reasoning of keeping it, but dont you feel like its patchwork or tacked on again? Im fed up with anet sticking a plaster over mistakes. It would still feel completely disjointed.

Chris,

What do you and the other Devs think about the idea of having a static server that people are transported to for their personal story? People could play on their main server with all of their friends and participate in the LS, while still being able to complete the personal story as intended. It would also give you guys the freedom to change the world as you see fit, without being anchored down by the Personal Story.

The switch could be something simple like the NPC is the Mad King’s Labyrinth, where talking to him transports you to the Inquisition or Clocktower.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Now before folks get excited in terms of this being a statement of attention, hold your horses! I am simply calling out that Nike has clearly displayed one of the directions we could go with the platform but more importantly he has proven out how Collaborative Development can work without having to be told exactly what we are working on now or in the future.

I can say however, that this is a direction we have discussed and that i have discussed in public before.

Chris

And he managed to do it without adding:

“Defend the forts in order to collect achievement points which will give you a unique pioneer backpack item!”

I don’t see why we cant just use Karma and Gold…

:angel:

Nike.2631:

While WANTED: PIONEERS! comes off as a slick 1-page advertisement, I have no illusions that it would represent anything less than a metric butt-ton of work across nearly every development department I can think of.

I imagine the living story could make drastic changes like this over the course of time. i.e. In every bi-weekly patch there would release 4-6 goals that collectively take just under two weeks (less for high populated servers) to accomplish. After your server completes their set of bi-weekly goals you could unlock a new temporary meta-boss to beat up until the next patch.

I guess in a way, this isn’t too different from what they’re doing in Kessex right now (presuming the tower lasts for 3-4 patches).

Chris Whiteside.6102:

This is exactly the kind of thing the Living World platform was designed to do and every evolution of it gets us one step closer. Kudos to your sir for taking the time to think about our direction and what the constraints of the platform are in its infancy and what it will be able to do moving forward.

Hi,
I hope this sort of thing is where LS will go. Opening up new areas, giving us new renown hearts, vistas, skill points to get to, etc. This is all good stuff. And hopefully it remains perma.

But up until this point, nothing about the living story resembles this. Its more of several plugs into the existing world, and occasionally taking out some plugs. In the current iteration you are plugging things into existing areas, where we would like to see a lot more additional content instead

I hope this is one positive thing to come out of this thread. Additions to the game, new zones, new things to do. Not plugging content into zones with achievements to grind.

Nike.2631:

“It’s a new frontier out there, your Majesty, and people are going to get hurt.”
- Logan Thakery

Join us as GuildWars 2 opens a new zone in a special one-time multi-week Living World event…

I made this exact same suggestion weeks ago in an LS brainstorming thread, except mine was the Sylvari and Asura pushing to the west in hopes of finding signs of the second pale tree, eventually leading in to the conflict with Mordremoth.

Again, the LW should not be focused on changing the world, it should be focused on expanding it. I think that’s the key piece that keeps getting lost. Unite the Living World and the Personal Story into one upgraded Personal Story concept. Make new instances and dungeons permanent (including retroactively adding back ones that have been removed with new triggers). If you alter existing content, make it temporary and only do it for special events that are disconnected from the larger plot of the game like holidays/festivals and the occasional side story.

You ultimately gain little and lose much by changing what’s in place already versus just adding on to it. I don’t see any reason why you need to dramatically alter zones or dungeons to fit with lore instead of just opening new zones and dungeons. It really doesn’t make much sense. The narrative of the game should be driven by the player/character, not by Arenanet. The latter just results in players becoming disengaged from the world and losing interest in the story through a lack of immersion.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Conner.4702:

To me none of the LV felt like it truly impacted the WORLD. Sure zones got changed, but the world stayed the same. Just look at the current LV there is a huge tower in the middle of a lake, but the humans and centaurs still have their petty land disputes..

So how would you try and solve this? And a second question is how far would you like to see the impact of say a tower in Kessex be felt content wise? The balance here is of course total volume of work for those involved, to literally have the entire world react to what’s going on would take us 6+ months to build, which at that point isn’t actually meeting our goals of a regularly changing and evolving world.

Just as you say there are clues to be had, our sense of commitment to the story sometimes relies on the smallest of flourishes.

In this case, I think just setting all the ambient (non-event) centaurs in the zone to neutral/yellow nameplates for the duration of the event would have a powerful impact on player perception of the importance of events.

I know if I were a Dev, I’d love to see a snippet of zone-chat saying:

“Why is this Centaur just standing here? He’s not attacking…”

“Did you not see the tower in the middle of the zone? Even the Centaurs see the threat! Centaurs (&*@#^&ing HATE US, and they’re playing it cool towards us for the duration of the crisis. That is SO AWESOME.”

The 2 week LW pace “rewards” the “hard core” PvE player base, not the casual player. IMO that’s good, “hard core” player should be rewarded with achievements (unlike just more inv items). You’re on every day? Here ya go !!! You can’t get it done in time? There’s something else on the way. The approach creates incentive & fluidity (not continuity).

With that said, in my general experience, I find that LW content gets “jumped on” by the hordes on the first day or 2 of the release. After that, participation drops off appreciably. So, If you’re not on within 1st 48 hrs of LW chapter launch, it can be real challenge to complete the content. For example, most recently the Aetherpath is a challenge to even attempt because it’s currently impossible to find a PUG to do it & those players that have “been there done that” aren’t “in the mood” to do it again. Also, I think back to last xmas and remember how much more difficult it was to find a toymaker PUG near the end of the event than it was on the day the airship landed in each main town, or how empty the jubilee was after part 2 of that LW chapter came out, or finding a team for the T2 candidate trials a week after that chapter was launched, etc…

Time gating the LW chapter content similar to the ascended mats or home instance nodes model would force players to space out their participation to do the LW chapter grind. Flip side: it might also make it harder to complete the grind since the “surge” would be suppressed. If time gating were implemented, I would lobby for a reduced grind accordingly because of the lost opportunity. This structure could also divert LW player base to other venues (wvw, pvp, TP, etc…) during gated down time.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Conner.4702:

To me none of the LV felt like it truly impacted the WORLD. Sure zones got changed, but the world stayed the same. Just look at the current LV there is a huge tower in the middle of a lake, but the humans and centaurs still have their petty land disputes..

So how would you try and solve this? And a second question is how far would you like to see the impact of say a tower in Kessex be felt content wise? The balance here is of course total volume of work for those involved, to literally have the entire world react to what’s going on would take us 6+ months to build, which at that point isn’t actually meeting our goals of a regularly changing and evolving world.

First monthly release: Once we defeat the toxic alliance/Scarlet, we participate in DEs designed to help restore Kessex hills. Maybe we have a DE chain in Caledon forest to bring trees to plant in the now barren areas of KH. Events to remove stumps and clear out roaming hordes of TA. NPCs discuss what will happen with the obelisk: it will be studied. Arguments can ensue as to why it should just be torn down, etc.

Second release: the obelisk would be studied by the Durmand Priory. Any characters in this Order can participate in specific dynamic events that allow them to find out more about the obelisk. If you are in a party with a member of the DP, then you could participate as well. (Same with DEs for the other orders). This would lead to the discovery that the Oratuss has a way to communicate through the obelisk to other Oratuss. This leads to discovering just how many exist, which is far more than believed, some seem deep in the oceans. After a few days, NPCs now provide information to characters in other orders about what is being learned.

Second monthly release: The Order of Whispers gets involved sending out spies to locate these obelisks. Through a series of Whispers specific DEs, we learn more information and find out that there seems to be a consensus that prophets will rise, but the locations of the obelisks remain hidden. Did the krait capture a Mesmer or learn from Scarlet how to cloak their obelisks?

Fourth release: One of the obelisks is located, although it remains cloaked. The Mesmer is found in a hidden area, imprisoned. He reveals disturbing information on the rise of the prophets. There are 4 obelisks, two in inland lakes and two in deep waters. You must free his family as well, before the obelisks can be revealed. This leads to a new Jumping Puzzle in KH which will provide a map to the location of the Mesmer’s family.

Third monthly release: The escape of the Mesmer prisoner causes the krait to grow violent. The Vigil is prepares and makes assaults throughout Tyria on krait. Characters in the Vigil gather in Lion’s Arch for assignments to areas with Krait which lead to DEs to capture, kill, or defend areas with Krait. The DEs are around the locations of the obelisks.

Sixth release: The krait are pushed back, but barely. The events occur with less frequency. Now, use DEs to get races in the areas, like Quaggan, Centaur, to join forces to completely destroy the obelisks and take back the areas. It might take bribery or threats. Which will work for each race? Your choice will determine whether if fails or succeeds. If you know enough lore, you could find just the right bribe or threat.

Fourth monthly release: In the end, all three Orders band together with multiple races to destroy the four obelisks to prevent any possibility of prophets coming to Tyria. This is the beginning of the final battle where we are rounding up the participants for the battle and two new legendary weapons are introduced – Staff and Scepter. Obelisks become underwater ruins with new vistas and POIs.

Eighth release: Final epic underwater/land battle with krait witch in KH where it all started. Dungeon with NPCs from all orders and some of the races for a soloable instance, or enter with a party.

Fifth monthly release: At the end of the assault, they celebrate…

Tenth release: Krait Prophet fractal added. Continuation of celebration, of course, but wait, a Canthan staggers in, on the verge of collapse (but not death, he will lead the armies to Cantha later in the LS), to the festivities and reveal a krait prophet has arrived and they need help before its armies kill every last Canthan…

Conncept.7638:

I made this exact same suggestion weeks ago in an LS brainstorming thread, except mine was the Sylvari and Asura pushing to the west in hopes of finding signs of the second pale tree, eventually leading in to the conflict with Mordremoth.

Signs are good that this is the place to bring it .

I like your structure in the Pale Trek – it’s well grounded in setting and connects the dots to a larger plot goal nicely. I also think its interesting that its works via subtraction – you Start with all the marbles, and you try to prevent losing them.

Sadly, I ultimately think its untenable for one unfortunate reason:

I believe we have to be EXCRUCIATINGLY CAUTIOUS about deviation between servers. For your model to pay off, the stakes are that the players can influence which settlements survive. Even with the assurance that there will be a set number (4), the zone is basically dead after the event because Devs can never easily come back and build on it because every server’s version of it is potentially wildly different.

Its one of those ‘drop an atomic bomb with a whisper’ line in the PIONEERS proposal – that the settlements would have a cultural mix based on their Pioneer Marker – just to be clear, by cultural mix I mean there are exactly 20 nameless “citizens” that wander around each town that map to the races on their marker. I literally don’t dare introduce anymore Server-to-Server deviation than that. I wouldn’t even be comfortable re-skinning the vendors for fear of the cascading maintenance issues.

How would you handle the differences in progress across servers?