Guild Wars 2

I think part of the problem with Scarlet is she’s the only enemy we have faced for the whole year (Living Story), she’s been behind everything.
I think it would be more enjoyable if she had a few episodes and was defeated letting a new enemy come in for a while. Scarlet could make a return at a later date.
They are also unveiling her story too slowly and not explaining stuff she already did.
Scarlet being the only enemy we’ve faced in LS, her arc moving slowly and not explaining her past endeavors, that combination has damaged her character.
I think LS would work better if they expand on their enemy list and complete their arcs faster, to continue later when they return or are a one time enemy arc.

I’m going to list my favorite and least favorite, but also rate the other releases with some pros and cons if that’s ok.

Favorite: Shadow of the Mad King (Halloween 2012)
SotMK had this gradual progression of the story, split into acts — where each act added more to the story and additional things to do were unlocked. There were multiple rewards — good at jumping puzzles? you got a treasure chest for it (would’ve been cool if there was unique skin for it back then, but I digress), a reward for killing the big bad boss in the labyrinth (see above), two backpieces which had decent hints at where to find the pages to make them, a title for the meta and title for a side achievement.
The most amazing part of the story was when the Mad King blew up the statue and we got a dungeon out of it — with a chance at weapon skins should you not be someone who enjoys crafting.
It did start a little slow, but there was plenty to do by the end of the week. Also, as mentioned I think it would’ve been cool if there were special Mad King skins at the time for doing the jumping puzzle. There were also only one or two achievements that were optional for the meta back then, but this has been remedied with latest additions.
All-in-all though, I think this was a solid content patch with multiple things to do, a great of sense of story through each act, likeable characters, and optional content that had rewards should you be brave enough to venture through it.

Least favorite: [Tie]: The Lost Shores (Nov. 2012) and Last Stand at Southsun (May 2013)
I can’t really differentiate between either Southsun releases, they both bother me and leave sour tastes in my mouth.
LS has come a long way and has learned from past events, but I still have to mention that I hate the exlusive one-time events that happened when it came to the original Southsun. I had a terrible experience, in an overflow, laggy as all hell and having a hard time “defending” LA from Karka. As well, the Ancient Karka was an equal nightmare. I had an unexpected event come up and was fairly demoralized to log in when I realized I was late for the Ancient Karka, but I did log when my friends told me it was still going on. I get into an overflow only to deal with another laggy encounter that lasted 3 hours. My reward was random greens, blues, a bag, and a trash +all stat ring?
Karka are obnoxious to fight, in the sense that they have large health pools and the time it takes to kill them doesn’t justify the reward they give (nothing or grey items). As well, the second update has similar problems, its hard to keep the settlements defended, because they are contested again within minutes. The reward for killing the karka queen is not very good for all the work it takes, plus its hard to get back out there when all the settlements are contested again, and the vendor that sells armor is ridiculous — 70 shells + gold on to of that is outrageous. I always dislike having to do guild rushes out here because the settlement near the end of the rush is a death trap.
I really don’t remember the characters of the story. I vaguely recalled Canach in the first installment, but his motives weren’t clear to me. With the second installment, I felt deja vu just because I think Canach was the one that had angered the wildlife before? There didn’t really feel like there was much development with the second installment, besides the fact the Consortium had hired the refugees from F&F.
The dungeon in part 2 wasn’t very good. Crab toss wasn’t very enjoyable either, I find both dungeon and activity chaotic.
On the flip side, I like that we were given a new zone, we got some goods rewards in the second Southsun LS, with the two backpieces we could pick from and a couple titles (although majority came from Crab toss)
We also got Fractals in the first Southsun, which was a fun addition.

Other LS arcs, Part 1:

Wintersday: 4/5
+ I liked making minis from those special components, it’s a nice blend of easy to obtain via gemstore or requires a little work if you dont buy via gems
+ Tons of activities and things to do (jumping puzzles, mini-games, dungeons)
+ Likeable characters
+ Multiple rewards (skins, tonics, minis)
+ Multiple achievements to finish the meta
+ Ability to replay should you have missed a day

- Dungeon was buggy, sometimes it wouldn’t switch to a new day
- Dungeon was sometimes long and reptitive (I think some of the problem was from bugs)

All Flame and Frost: 3/5
+ Gradual story, sense of progression
+ Decent amount of things to do
+ Multiple rewards for various tasks
+ Plenty of NPCs to interact with about the story and what to look forward to (we first learn about someone else pulling the strings behind the alliance!)
+ Great dungeon with interesting encounters

~ Good rewards for the dungeon, but not really the best in terms of time it took. Jetpack was a nice incentive.

- Long, could have been done within 1-2 months instead
- A lot of temporary content
- Big finale reward was a little anticlimatic (I’m talking about the bonfire)

Dragon Bash: 3/5
+ Decent amount of things to do (Moa Races, activities, pinata smashing)
+ Both exclusive rewards for being there and non-exclusive rewards (dragon helm was exclusive, wings non)
+ NPCs to interact with
+ Decent story

- Felt a lot like “Collect X items” for a lot of the achievement
- Dragon Ball promoted AFK with its achievements and the fact AFKers weren’t removed from matches
- Grindy — Holographic dragon wings just weren’t worth it via Jorbreakers. You were better off buying them for cheap or getting lucky with drops. (Achievements, as mentioned above).

Sky Pirates: 2.5/5
+ Decent mix of temporary and permanent content (New jumping puzzle) (Don’t know if its still around, but the SoS scavenger hunt)
+ I like the optional challenge-mode feel to some of the dungeon achievements (defeat final boss in 15 mins, do laser boss without getting laser’d)
+ Good amount of achievements to do to finish the meta

~ An ok dungeon, with ok encounters. I think mechanics were over thought and too much was shoved in.
~ As with F&F rewards were ok, Monocle is an ok reward, but I don’t think there was much beyond that in terms of time it took to do the dungeon.

- Holograms having a 50/50 chance for aetherblades made it feel grindy, as well as most of the achievements just being “Kill x in this zone”
– Deja vu in the terms of achievements, due to them using some of the dragon bash stuff
- Not much in terms of reward

Bazaar of the Four Winds: 4/5
+ Good mixture of permanent and temporary content (Blecher’s Bluff, but the title can’t be done anymore? Memory is fuzzy)
+ Fun, new place to explore
+ Special powers add a new layer to jumping puzzles
+ Achievement overhall adds incentive to do them
+ Lots of things to do (activities, events, gathering stuff, exploring)
+ Armor/backpieces are priced well enough

~ Ok rewards. Personal Quartz is an interesting addition, zephyrite model is meh, a title which is only available if you like the activity.

- Not really feeling a lot of the story about the Bazaar, feels hidden.
- A lot of “find a kite out here” achievements

Other LS arcs, part 2:

Cutthroat Politics: 2/5
+ Really seemed to bring out something in the community
+ Gave us a hand in choosing future content

~ No real sense of candidate loyalty with the ability to play both sides
~ Nothing unique for the achievements on either side
~ Ok rewards, in terms of two minis and backpieces

- Activities were buggy, leading to frustration (mainly looking at Southsun Survival)
- Story feels weak, it seems a bit hidden
- Reasons to vote for one candidate over the other were weak, still hoping to see a big impact on my choice later in the months besides the fractal choice
- This didn’t happen to me, but I had friends who had problems with the Aetherblade defense game; this favored certain classes.

Queen’s Jubilee: 3/5
+ Multiple rewards
+ Additional challenge mode via Queen’s Guantlet that provides additional rewards on top of this.
+ Decent, gradual story
+ Plenty of stuff to do, new rewards from champion overhaul

~ Vendors way of selling items is really goofy, please make all the special golden items sellable through all vendors, with unique race weapons and recipes staying as is

- A lot of killing in the name of X city
- The cost of skins that weren’t the special new golden skins was a joke (they can be bought cheaper off tp)
- Gauntlet had its fair share of bugs that made certain encounters harder than needed
- Account bound tickets made me a sad panda when I had a large collection on low-level alts

Clockwork Chaos: 2/5
+ Birthday gifts
+ Interesting ‘story dungeon’

~ Story was a bit so-so. It had ok parts, but other areas were lacking/felt hidden.

- Grindy… 5 45 minute events to progress the story?
- Failure is more profitable than winning. If you didn’t do you 5 portal closing achievements in the beginning, you were out of luck. Failing the Aetherblades and zerging for more champs gave you more loot than letting the invasion run its course.
- Tonic has that long cooldown

Tequatl Rising: 3/5
+ What a giant dragon fight should feel like

~ Rewards are ok

- Story is almost non existant. Rox is just… there, Teq is suddenly stronger out of the blue. There is really nothing to indicate why he’s stronger, it just happens.
- Fetching dragon teeth and scales is not clear, and it just further adds to questions about why its relevant to the LS
- While I think dragon fights should be epic, I can understand it does suck not having enough people to do the fight.

Twilight Assault: 2/5
+ Dungeon has interesting encounters

~ The additional after dungeon tasks are decent, but there is no real interesting reward for it.
~ Rewards are meh, a slick pack and a mini, a slim chance of recolored Nightmare weapons

- Not feeling the story, almost non-existant and leaves so many questions.
- Aether caches are a joke, super rare key pieces unlock nothing but greens and blues.
- Puzzle encounters seem to favor certain compositions and can make the dungeon take longer than needed. (Mainly the ooze gear part)

Blood and Madness: 2.5/5
+ I like all the costume choices this year
+ Bloody Prince is a likeable new addition to the Thorn line
+ Introduction story was great

~ Ok amount of rewards. Candy corn mini is pretty much mandatory to finish the story. It’s good to see new rewards for the jumping puzzle.

- Story feels weak, we get a little bit of it then I felt like I hit a wall because it was a bunch of achievements until I got a candy corn mini.
- Anticlimatic story, in addition, it just feels like the Bloody Prince was barely around before we lock him back up. He’s there for a little, and then back in the box he goes.
- Grindy weapons. I had stockpiled for Arachnophobia last year, only to find out I need so much more to even get it. I don’t feel the grind justifies it for the skin, it’s not a legendary, it doesn’t do anything super flashy. I crossed it off my wish list because my resources are better focused elsewhere.

Tower of Nightmares: 2.5/5
+ Introduction story was fantastic
+ Hallucinations are interesting
+ NPCs are likeable

- Story feels a bit hidden, we only get a little bit of information
- Fetching shards is unclear
- The whole killing spore champions is silly; a rare chance on an event mob for 25 mobs in total? To me it felt like it promotes running with a zerg to get it done (best chances are from queensdale champions). All-in-all this achievement felt grindy.

I’ll try to keep this relatively short, as I’m sure what I have to say has been discussed to some extent already.

First, just to get this out of the way, there are many, many issues with Scarlet. The biggest is the same issue that plagues Trahearne: positioning within the context of the story. I think you’ve gone to excessive lengths to try and make these characters seem impressive and important to us (the "graduated from all Asura colleges, greatest disciple of every race, etc. for Scarlet, and every character in the personal story tripping over one another, including our own PC, to shower Trahearne with undeserved praise and adulation). It’s over-the-top, and the absurdity of it makes these characters into a bad joke. We can’t take them seriously, and when the story calls for us to, it falls flat on its face. One eye roll after another turns into resentment, and it isn’t particularly surprising to see such violent backlash from the players regarding these characters being forced on us. I’m not going to harp on the Scarlet and Trahearne stuff though, because I’m sure you’ve all heard the feedback on them loud and clear. I just think it’s important to continue restating it, because unfortunately, it’s mistake that’s been made multiple times now.

Now, on to the bigger issue.

One of the biggest things holding back both the living story and the personal story is a lack of ongoing character interaction between us and the characters that populate these stories, combined with a lack of ability to actually roleplay our characters. The best way to get us caring about the stories is to get us caring about the characters involved, and the best way to get us caring about the characters is giving us the ability to have meaningful interactions with them.

How are we supposed to really foster any attachment to the characters in the story when the extent of our interactions with them is asking questions for clarification of the task at hand? I think most players would agree with the sentiment that as a player, it kind of feels like we’re just along for the ride. Let’s get some meaningful character interactions going that actually have an effect on the relationships between our characters.

Let’s have some charr characters who won’t give you the time of day if you’re a human. And let’s not forget about the completely underutilized personality system. You could try and placate them (Charming, Captivating), appeal to their sense of duty (Militant, Diplomatic), goad them on by being smarmy rogue, possibly resulting in receiving no help at all (Scoundrel), or even beat them into cooperating/simply out of spite (Brute). Give us options. And make these options actually matter. Now, that’s just a quick one-off kind of example.

(Continued in the next post)

(Continued from previous post)

If we’re going to have recurring characters in these living stories, we need to have ongoing relationships with these characters.

Examples:
Lord Faren is a fun character and our own characters can react to him in a number of ways. Maybe your character is totally into his antics and is happy to be his wingman and would jump at the chance to hit the tavern with him to try and score with some ladies. Maybe your character finds him disrespectful and wants to voice disapproval, possibly working towards turning him into a proper gentleman. Maybe your character wishes he’d show the same interest as he does in other women to her. Each of these approaches opens up a lot of possibilities for meaningful character interactions that would make us actually care about Faren more, and by extension, any of the stories he’s involved in.

How about Anise? She’s a pretty interesting character, and as the head of the Shining Blade, she’s got all sorts of potential. In the Queen’s Jubilee, she and Logan had a disagreement on how things were handled. Where does your character stand on the issue? Why not let us talk to Logan about it, agree with him and let him vent his frustrations? Or try to convince him to see her side, and that it was the best call? She’s a very secretive type; maybe if we had been given the chance to get to know her better throughout the personal story and living stories up to that point, there could have been more to that event for us as players. She was awfully flirty in the personal story; if we had had the option to flirt back, could we have gotten closer to her over time and been able to get more information out of her? Or if her manipulative nature had turned our characters off from her, she may have cut back on how she interacted with them.

Hopefully you guys are getting the picture. I understand what I’m proposing is a lot more work than has been put in up to this point, requiring a lot more variables and persistence when it comes to NPC interaction. However, I think it’s necessary to get us really caring about the living story.

To summarize, we want to feel like we play a part in the story, and not just one dictated for us. Give us the ability to play our characters the way we want to play them. We want to feel like we actually make a difference in the story, and aren’t just along for the ride. NPCs shouldn’t just be information dispensers who drive the living story forward when needed, they should have meaningful, ongoing interactions with our characters. “I remember you from Southsun,” isn’t enough. No more forcing our characters to regard other characters the way the story dictates. No more 20 questions with NPCs without any branching dialogue whatsoever. This would be a huge step forward for the living story.

And thank you very much for this collaborative development initiative. I hope a lot of good comes out of it.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

I have some observations about this after doing other meta events, past living stories, and seeing how many people do which Tower of Nightmares events in Kessex Hills.
I have noticed that the events which do not show up on the map/mini-map, like how the Offshoots do, are rarely done. In part I guess this is because the casual player from the other side of the map has no indication that there are events their (or knows that the event is active). Take for example the event Clear Toxic Alliance forces from Eukaryan Caves. This event does not show up on the map to everyone, unless they are near it, like a normal event. Now its true you can see from far away one of Scarlet’s Clockwork portals over the area, but that doesn’t do a whole lot to get people’s attention to there. The Toxic Champion events players know are up because the waypoint they spawn at becomes contested (with the exception of one).

On a similar note, the event for Recapture Mudbay Digs before the Lionguard are defeated or forced to retreat does not show up on the map, the NPC to start the event is nearby the Overlord waypoint, but since its off to the side most people don’t notice it. (for this event it would be good to have the event display with something like “Speak with NPC to begin the attack”.Similar reason for the 2 escort events nearby there.[url= http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Escort_Lionguard_Daan_to_supply_Overlake_Haven_against_the_Toxic_Alliance]Escort Lionguard Daan to supply Overlake Haven against the Toxic Alliance[/url] and Protect Jun Brightclaw as he resupplies Ireko Tradecamp. I like the Overlook Haven escort event because of how it gives a Lionguard bonfire for a short time there, giving the Toxic Kraitbane buff of +10% vs. Krait.

In short I think it would help if you had all Living story Dynamic Events all show on the map, and to always show up (in the top right corner) to nearby players in the case of events that have to be manually started by players (event NPC’s with the star/orange wheel icon above their head).

BobbyStein.2315:

Half Tooth.1867:

My experience of the LS can be summed up with: Everything feels random and meaningless. Events and villains come out of nowhere and then vanish into the ether. You don’t get time to get to know a character before they turn up so I literally don’t care about them, their life or their story.
They don’t linger either after the update so I feel no inclination to involve myself emotionally with the LS.

Part of the reason we’ve been including Scarlet in multiple releases is so we can build on her character. It’s kind of funny that we routinely get two types of feedback on the Living World story. From some people it’s, “Stuff feels random. I don’t know these characters.” From others it’s, “Stop using X character. I don’t like them.” So we’re presented with two competing bits of feedback (usually from different people but it’s hard to track opinions on a forum).

I do think we can do a better job at connecting the releases by having some characters stick around who have conversations, scenes, and maybe some tasks on them, kind of like what we’re trying with Marjory and Kasmeer at the camp this month. It’s something that we’ve been working to improve lately. Part of the issue here is that content that bleeds from one release to another doesn’t automatically have an “owner” in terms of which team builds it and/or maintains due to where it falls in the build schedule. That stated, Steven Waller, Angel, and I have been working with folks to bridge releases with this sort of lore-building stuff.

Expect more of that in the next few releases, and by all means I would encourage you and others to let us know how you feel about it.

A few people have already commented on this, but to add my own 2c on this, in the case of Scarlet I think the two complaints you mention are complimentary rather than being as contradictory as they first appear. The Scarlet content seems shallow because after nearly a year on Scarlet-related stuff, we’ve been given so little on her ultimate motivations or how and why she does the things she does that it seems like she’s just there to string random events together. This may be an illusion and, like the optical illusion created when viewing water from above, her story probably is deeper than it appears, but as players we can only really work with the perspective we receive.

As a consequence of the perceived shallowness of her storyline, people have latched onto her as a symbol of what’s disappointed them with the storytelling of the LS. From my perspective, a lot of people calling for her removal are doing so because they’re hoping that her replacement will lead to a story they find deeper and more compelling (and, to mix criticism with praise, creating deep and compelling storylines is something that you’ve shown yourselves capable of doing in the past – to my observation, many of the strongest anti-Scarlet sentiments have been expressed by some of the people who have shown the most enthusiasm and investment to previous storylines).

Essentially, they are two sides of the same coin. Lack of known information on the characters, Scarlet in particular, makes them feel shallow, and that perceived shallowness after nearly a year of updates is why some people are tired of seeing them.

Having said that, your having brought it up has reminded me: The various ambient discussions around the camp have definitely been one of my favourite parts about the Tower of Madness update, and I think they do a great job of fleshing out the characters and the dynamic between them (Meeow!). As Cliff said, though, it would be a great next step if we could have some opportunity to actually participate in some similar forms of back-and-forth with the NPCs ourselves – at the moment, our only real interactions with most NPCs are, as Cliff put it, playing twenty questions to pump them for information.

About Dragons…. All the dragons out there that we see are currently corrupted in some what. I wonder, what does an uncorrupted dragon looks like? (yes, Glint is there somewehere in my mind) Is it perhaps even good? Is it as big as a corrupted one? Or are all Dragons corrupted.

Ar there other Dragon-LIKE beings (wyverns, wyrms… or anything) out there that cannot be affectet by the corruption? What are they like? Smaller? Friendly? God, they could be made looking awsome, so Beautiful! Are there ppl worshipping them like some sort of good Dragon-diciples? Can they offer Blessings? Can their Juveniles be tamed by rangers? Can their hide/thorns/ horns/bones etc be used for crafting things?

(rewards could be: Materials, weapons with certain design, pets found in the area, tonics, Recipiec avaliable from local NPC’s -for even cooler, better weapons/armour – maybe unlockable as with the spore thingie, Town clothes…). Interacting/helping the locals with the issues at hand will give u rewards making u more “part of them”.

Imagin ppl trying to capture these “dragons” for evil purposes… Trying to stop that would be someting (head on fights , destroying facilities/Equipment, setting “Dragons” free, a new dungeon instance in the new map etc…..). Maybe a part in the ongoing adventure/journay to stop some greater evil….

I find myself mostly enjoying the characters that aren’t forced to be the center of the story. Braham and Rox were fun, because they both had some small content tied to them, but became more like background characters later on. Kasmeer and Marjory also work, because again they aren’t forced to steal your spotlight (unlike Destiny’s Edge or Trahearne). It’s nice to see characters you know and like, pop up occasionally, without being forced upon you by the writers.

I think Moshari had some really good points 2 pages back, so I hope those points don’t go unnoticed. The reason why a lot of people dislike Scarlet, is because we are not given any motivations, nor reason why people would follow her. But I personally think there’s another reason, and that’s the fact that a villain needs to have a compelling reason to be a villain. At some level I feel the player needs to understand the villain, because that creates a sort of connection. It allows a villain to become more than just a walking cliche.

This is off topic. But I just realized there was a CDI thread for ‘game modes’ that I completely missed!! Oh no!

I would have some good ideas for those!

BobbyStein.2315:

Half Tooth.1867:

My experience of the LS can be summed up with: Everything feels random and meaningless. Events and villains come out of nowhere and then vanish into the ether. You don’t get time to get to know a character before they turn up so I literally don’t care about them, their life or their story.
They don’t linger either after the update so I feel no inclination to involve myself emotionally with the LS.

Part of the reason we’ve been including Scarlet in multiple releases is so we can build on her character. It’s kind of funny that we routinely get two types of feedback on the Living World story. From some people it’s, “Stuff feels random. I don’t know these characters.” From others it’s, “Stop using X character. I don’t like them.” So we’re presented with two competing bits of feedback (usually from different people but it’s hard to track opinions on a forum).

I do think we can do a better job at connecting the releases by having some characters stick around who have conversations, scenes, and maybe some tasks on them, kind of like what we’re trying with Marjory and Kasmeer at the camp this month. It’s something that we’ve been working to improve lately. Part of the issue here is that content that bleeds from one release to another doesn’t automatically have an “owner” in terms of which team builds it and/or maintains due to where it falls in the build schedule. That stated, Steven Waller, Angel, and I have been working with folks to bridge releases with this sort of lore-building stuff.

Expect more of that in the next few releases, and by all means I would encourage you and others to let us know how you feel about it.

You’re forgetting the people who truly love the unique characters in the living story and are on the edge of their seat with anticipation to see what happens next with them! =)

Some major reasons why people don’t like Scarlet Brair

1. Scarlet Briar is a Sylvari. After the pushback about Trahearne maybe this was not the best development path to follow? But hey, that is somewhat Specieist so lets move to the next key item below.
2. The timeline just does not make sense. Let us just take a basic look at the time allotment of Scarlet’s lifetime.

We don’t know what Scarlet’s birthdate is but here is some possibilities and her proposed age.

• 24 years: 1302 – 1326 Firstborn. She is not listed amongst the firstborn but she could be (back written) to fill out the list of 12 Firstborn.
• 18 years: 1308 – 1326 Secondborn. More likely due to above.
• 17 years: 1309 – 1326 Thirdborn. Another more likely possibility but the difference between Second and Thirdborn is only a year so not really important in the guesstaquation. So for all intensive purposes lets consider Scarlet Secondborn.

So if Scarlet is a Secondborn and 18 years old, let’s take a look at what she is documented to have done and apply some purely subjective numbers to it. Please note the word subjective as I have no actual documented numbers to work with. These are my guesses on how many months it would take to complete each phase. (This info was pulled off the official Wiki)

• 6 months – Founder of the Molten Alliance
• 6 months – Leader of the Aetherblades
• 1 month – Theo Ashford’s assassination
• 1 month – Mai Trin’s subsequent attempt to ascend to the Captain’s Council
• 1 month – Hijacking of the humans’ Watchknights
• 2 months – Attempt on the life of Queen Jennah
• 4 months – Using Steam creatures
• 96 months – Eight years studying in the Grove
• 4 months – She spent a winter learning metallurgy as an apprentice of Beigarth the Smith
• 24 months – Two years studing firearms and artillery with the Iron Legion gladium Asagai
• 54 months – Excelling in the colleges of the asura in Dynamics and Statics, completing special study that proved she could handle the college’s coursework,¹ in under a year, as the highest-ranked member of her class
• 54 months – It was the College of Synergetics, under the tutelage of Headmaster Omadd, with which she took her time, becoming fascinated with the idea of the Eternal Alchemy and believing it to be something to be mastered rather than simply understood.
• 2 months – Inquest. She spent a brief time with them
• 5 months – Several months of wandering, she settled in the Michoan Marsh and studied the alchemy of the hylek
• 6 months – After months of preparation, the experiment was ready to begin to see the Eternal Alchemy

So if you add that up it comes up to about 266 months or 22 years. Please allow me to reiterate, these monthly figures are guestimates, anyone could argue that any of the numbers I presented are wrong and I won’t dispute that possibility. I only present them to give a relative timeline.

Soooo if Scarlet is 18 years old and has 22 years of achievements since she popped out the pod, believability comes into question.

Your Supervillain who seems to be a conglomeration of Lex Luthor, The Green Goblin and Poison Ivy has also apparently mastered the ability to manipulate the Space/Time continuum.

Today’s Release – The Nightmare Within: Our villain develops a new power!

During the experimental testing of the Eternal Alchemy machine, scientist Ceara rushes to save her mentor Omadd who has stumbled into the testing field; Ceara pushes Omadd down to save him, but is herself hit with the blast, absorbing massive amounts of gamma radiation…errrr, Scarlet SMASH

edited for typos

Jamais vu.5284:

All I can really say is that you, ANet, shouldn’t be afraid to introduce new areas because of a potential pop spreading.
The fact is that most areas are already fairly deserted. If you add a new one, you should not fear to delete or physically merge an old region.
And let’s be real, the current areas are rather boring from both a gameplay standpoint (event chains that are just defeat X waves and don’t matter, and yes, lack of actual quests) and from a graphical point of view (lack of biomes other than jungle, mountains and temperate woods/pastures; enemies extremely samey. You fight Skelk or Flame Legion or Earth Elementals from Level 2 to 78, for example).

You might also rethink the philosophy that maps should be homogenous difficulty wise (and the general philosophy that overworld = casual, dungeons = hardcore, the latter of which didn’t materialize). Why not an ominous corner of a map, or a whole zone even, that is exceedingly more difficult, with mobs 5 or more levels above you? Things like that enhance the thrill of exploration. It keeps you on your toes.
Everyone is always talking about UW or FoW when they mean that, but no need to look at those dedicated raids for an example. I got the same feeling from fighting through the insanely strong overworld-mobs in the Realm of Torment in Nightfall. Or the War of Kryta, remember? It was awesome.
Actually, what is probably the most talked about piece of overworld content (outside Orr)? The Fort full of level 80 mobs in Brisban Wildlands. Do something with that.

Last but not least, I do hope you will add Cantha and eventually Elona. You should push to open up one big new region per year. 2014 perhaps we’d get the Isle of Janthir and Northern Shiverpeaks, 2015 maybe Cantha, 2016 Elona and the Crystal Desert, etc.
If you do that, one map at a time would be horrible horrible horrible. Please listen to that.
Take your time. Do batches of subregions at a time. They have to “flow” into each other, to harmonize. People don’t want a hundred bread sticks, they want one big roast beef. That doesn’t stop you from continuing your bi-weekly Living Story events within those sub-regions.

Despite my late reply, I hope it still is given some thought to.

This is a fabulous post. I’m glad to see that Chris has taken note of it, because it truly nails many issues. Having regions come out all at once really breathes new life into a game far more than small (or even medium-ish) updates every two weeks. New dungeons would rock, and I’m not saying otherwise, but new and difficult lore-ridden areas or corners of areas would rock too. A lot of the population is very good at the game now and we need some content that offers a good challenge, both in instances and in the open world.

Also, I’m in favor of Living Story that adds new permanent content to existing zones. That’s why I like Southsun Cove, and the Bazaar, although I wish they were connected to existing land mass (missed opportunity there).

The Scarlet invasions, and the corruption of Kessex Hills, are great examples of new events being added to existing zones. This will help breath more life into explorables that feel a bit dead. I also think Tequatl was a great update (but he needs to scale better with lower numbers of players).

Frostfang.5109:

About Dragons…. All the dragons out there that we see are currently corrupted in some what. I wonder, what does an uncorrupted dragon looks like?

It would look… SHINY!

I really hope we get a chance to find Shiny someday. He’s there, somewhere, locked away in the Dasha Vestibule, sleeping on that mound of treasure that I was never able to properly loot. sigh

Nostalgia is sometimes a good thing.

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

Some major reasons why people don’t like Scarlet Brair

1. Scarlet Briar is a Sylvari. After the pushback about Trahearne maybe this was not the best development path to follow? But hey, that is somewhat Specieist so lets move to the next key item below.
2. The timeline just does not make sense. Let us just take a basic look at the time allotment of Scarlet’s lifetime. -

snip-

So if you add that up it comes up to about 266 months or 22 years. Please allow me to reiterate, these monthly figures are guestimates, anyone could argue that any of the numbers I presented are wrong and I won’t dispute that possibility. I only present them to give a relative timeline.

Soooo if Scarlet is 18 years old and has 22 years of achievements since she popped out the pod, believability comes into question.

Your Supervillain who seems to be a conglomeration of Lex Luthor, The Green Goblin and Poison Ivy has also apparently mastered the ability to manipulate the Space/Time continuum.

Today’s Release – The Nightmare Within: Our villain develops a new power!

During the experimental testing of the Eternal Alchemy machine, scientist Ceara rushes to save her mentor Omadd who has stumbled into the testing field; Ceara pushes Omadd down to save him, but is herself hit with the blast, absorbing massive amounts of gamma radiation…errrr, Scarlet SMASH

edited for typos

And that nails one of the biggest problems with Scarlet. I assume most players didn’t actually count all these months, but the sheer amount of things she achieved in her short lifetime just seems so extremely over-the-top, even to the casual observer. Sylvari might be “born” as adults, but their minds are still like that of a child in the beginning. It takes time for them to understand the world. Even if she’s more mature than other Sylvari, she just seems too almighty, too powerful… Too mary-sue-ish. To me, she is the incarnation of what you’re not supposed to do with your character in a text-rp-forum, a mistake made by the newest and youngest writers mostly, and seeing that kind of writing in a word-class MMO is… Embarrasing…

This is why people want you to remove her despite calling for more continuity and permanent characters. Putting it simply, she’s just a bad character, we want to follow good characters.

Despite the harsh words, I’m very, very grateful that you took your time to start this initiative and also actually stuck around this thread. It felt good to see the community and the devs interact and to get responses and get the chance to thoroughly explain directly to you what our issues with the game are, because we, or at least I, can see the potential in this game and I really want to see it improve!

One of the things they could do to improve Scarlet’s writing, is to give us more motivations in-game (and not on the website), and to add plot twists to the story. I would like the writers to ask themselves “is this predictable?”. If the answer is “yes”, then you should steer the story in a different direction. But unlike an average episode of Lost, it should all make sense at the end.

I originally had a master list of how I felt for every event.
The thread first asked for 1 good and 1 bad review, so I complied.
Now it seems that some of us are posting reviews on all of them, so here are mine.

Here are my votes for “Great!” releases:
Bazaar of the Four Winds
A new spot in the map, a fun series of competitions, great music, and you managed to expand on the Glint and the Brotherhood.
This is yet another great example that you can honor the GW1 stuff while putting your own GW2 energy into it!
I was overjoyed to hear that they may come back again.

Flame and Frost (All four parts)
Individually they were weak, but together you created a story introducing two new characters and concluded it pretty well.
I’d go so far as to say if the Molten weren’t allied with Scarlet this would have still been good on its own.
Since you won’t change the cadence at least have a series of releases close enough to encaspulate the story being told.
The Prelude was boring, but eventually the players were given a great dungeon and good back and forth between Rox and Braham with the last one.

Queen’s Jubilee
A Human celebration, with fun, activities, Hobo-tron, a new zone, and away from Lion’s Arch!
Oh sweet blessed Six I was thrilled to finally have something away from that city.
The Gauntlets were fun, the champions around the map were fun, and I even hunted them down after I completed their achievements.
However once the party was over our lovely new zone was worthless. It still is pretty, but now dead, and that’s a shame.
Also it didn’t make sense to have a mini Lion’s Arch (you are charging for access) in DR when we can just zone to Lion’s Arch for free via PvP swords button.

(continued…)

Here are the events that were “Good”:

Sky Pirates
Heck yeah Pirates! The Dungeon made me want to hate it, but I couldn’t say no in attempting it.
This was a fun sequel to Dragon’s Bash and it was at this point I thought that Scarlet wouldn’t be too bad.
There was a slight problem though, I honestly don’t know if she founded the Aethers first or the Molten.
Hopefully it was the Aethers first, we’ve had established GW2 evidence of Bandits and Inquest working together in Brisban Wildlands.
It looked like you (ANet) were working on expanding what has already been made, good job!

Cutthroat Politics
Good but weak, because we don’t know what Keil is doing now.
Yes she’s part of the Council, and I’m glad we were given the voting ability, but now she seems to have disapeared.
One thing here I didn’t care for was the Aether skins only accessible via BLTC tokens.
I don’t mind it per se but it would have been better if we also had the ability to buy the skins via Gem Store.
We (the players) know you can put out skins via Gem Store, Wintersday was a great example of that, so why not allow us the chance to buy them directly?

Secret of SouthSun/Last Stand
A nice way to explore the fate of those in Flame and Frost.
We were given more to a dead island, we were also given boosters based on who we backed, and Keil starts to take form as a hero figure.
Good start, but after blowing up the contracts what have we done with the refugees?
Technically they can leave, but right now they are “stuck” in the game.
I think this would have been better had we (the players) were given a choice in the fate of the refugees.
Much like Cutthroat Politics did in the future, have folks play as refugee supporters or Consortium.
Based on how we play the refugees’ fate would be in our hands.
Yet we didn’t do anything like that. I’m glad we expanded on the land, but saddened by the loss of opportunity.
Though I like the idea of a single player dungeon, the minesweeper game with Canach wasn’t really inspiring.
Yet you did give us another world boss and I’m happy about that.

(continued)

Here’s what “Needed work”, not bad but still I question why certain things went how they did:

Clockwork Chaos
Okay it is the big moment to take down Scarlet.
We’ve been pumped up to finally see this vicious villain.
And….her invasions practically do nothing when they win.
I did like how she took over the celebration and we had to fight her in order to win them back.
I did like how you used Faren and Hobo-tron for humor.
I did like the massive battles open world for the invasions.

I don’t care much for the fact I now have about 8 queen jennah minis and I can’t do anything with the surplus.
I don’t care anymore about the Scarlet invasions because even if she wins the map is just the same.
I don’t really remember why Scarlet went trolololo to the humans at that time.
Was she trying to test the Humans? Kill the Queen? Just there to steal the clockwork?
Is my confusion brought about because we actually stopped her from completing her plan?
Because if so I’ll gladly step back and let her win something just so I can see why she’s doing half this stuff in the first place.

Super Adventure Box Back to School
The levels needed some work, but you gave us Tribulation mode and I’m happy!
You (ANet) could have put Season 1 stuff in the Gem Store, but nope and so folks that never experienced this had two weeks to basically play two achievement ladders.

Lost Shores
I didn’t play this one too much either, once again real life does beckon me, but I’m glad we had Fractals thanks to this.

Tequatl Rising
I did play it and I’m glad you have more patches which make certain bosses get a revamp.
Have we ever found out why Tequila Sunrise got bigger and beefier?
You know what would have made this even better? Fail conditions for the Scarlet assaults added here.
Teq has one, why not give the invasions one? Ah one can dream.

Twilight Assault
Good, we are given another update to something existing (the dungeon) but yet again get strung along with Scarlet.
Now the idea of her having a secret is nice, that shows something more to her, but still this one wasn’t too exciting or rage inducing.

Tower of Nightmares
Speaking of rage inducing I have never found a release which excited me so much and yet bored me at the same time.
Exciting:
-New Skill! YES you can do such things!
-We have altered Kessex! Holy Six this is awesome and now it feels like the Living story is altering and growing things!
-My fave lady team up Kasmeer and Delaqua are starring this one. Good to see this because they needed another case.
-A big tower which looks like the Krait’s doing, Oh yes I’m so excited!
-The Krait, a minor villain in GW1 and GW2, looks like they might be making a power play!

Bored:
-Oh. Wait. It’s Scarlet’s doing huh? (Sighs) Okay let’s see how she managed to convince xenophobic sociopathic religious snakes to follow her.
Apparently we can’t have anyone try something on their own unless she’s behind it, and it looks like the next release isn’t looking good either since she’s on the preview thumbnail. What’s the big motivation for yet another alliance? Will she make a hybrid, leave holo clones of herself, and get away scott free once more?! Because I’m predicting the next release to be that.

(continued)

(Final set of reviews, honest)

Here are my take on the Holidays and special events that will cycle again:
Shadow of the Mad King 2012 and Blood and Madness
I didn’t get to fully experience this, real life issues, but the idea of ANet bringing back Halloween with Mad King Thorn was welcomed.
You (ANet) brought back something from GW1, something the players loved, and updated it to fit GW2 without completely alienating it.
Good job!

Wintersday 2012
I did get to experience this more than Mad King ‘12 and it was fun.
The event rotated to all the racial cities(not just Lion’s Arch), the art was wonderful, the workshop mission was fun, and it seemed like every race was getting into the spirit of the Holidays.
Once again Good Job.

Super Adventure Box #1
Fun, innovative, nostalgic, and another good expansion on the possibilities of the GW2 world.
All of this wrapped up in a simple April Fool’s joke, brilliant.

Dragon Bash
Loved it and yet it still was weak in spots.
I loved the event itself. The fact that, once again, you took something from GW1 and put a GW2 spin on it was great.
However if I see another Pinata again I’m joining big Z’s army in Orr and will kill every hero in the Pact.
Plus we get a murder mystery to do, but what was Scarlet’s reason to kill Ashford?
Once again this is one of those failing moments in the storytelling. We don’t know her motives.
After looking in the wiki I noticed that Mai Trin was supposed to be the usurper, but honestly I didn’t even notice that.
That was story telling which needs improvement. So the event itself was memorable, but Scarlet’s reasons obviously weren’t.

(Concluded)

BobbyStein.2315:

Direksone.3867:

My comments about the Living Story.

I totally understand what ANet is trying to accomplish: create a living world. To some extend it does happen. My ‘issue’ is with the story we have been presented. The story has gotten better and better over the course of the year, Scarlet is a decent villain, but not every time was the story written properly. This is no new feedback however. Personally I think having story arcs like this are fine from time to time, but I personally would like to see new regions be added and the current story continued. There’s so much to work with: the Norn and their quest to reclaim their homeland and defeat Jormag and the Sons of Svanir. The Charr and their ongoing battle with both the Flame Legion and the Ghosts of Ascalon, also a bit of a political drama going on. The cleansing of Orr?

There’s a lot of existing lore to work with and expand upon and I personally would like to see that happen, perhaps with some filler arcs here and there like Scarlet.

When you say, “current story continued” do you mean “extend your personal story” or something else?

I think what he means is, something I pointed out before too, that he does not understand why you decided to make a completely new villain and a story that for the most part is completely unrelated with the story we get throughout the game. This while there are so many stories on which you could have build on to that are already in the game. For example Kodan reclaiming their lands, tengu seeing the need to open up and combine powers with the current races to fight the evils, still many dragon bosses to defeat. Zhaitan may have fallen, but he other ones don’t seem to do anything at all.

Dragons being one of the big enemies but there are also smaller ones, like the corruption and battle for power between different groups that we often see in the first part of the personal stories, why doesn’t anything seem to happen there?

Reuses of Braham and Roxx is nice, but often I feel like they are just put in so that people recognize them but they play no real role, they have no real connection with the story they just happen to show up. I mean we can see them with the current one where they replace one of the vigil/whispers agents at the destroy the spore events, but they have no real use there. They seem to be just dragged in out of nowhere and that is just silly.

BobbyStein.2315:

Sondergaard.8469:

Firstly, the audience, or in this case, the player needs a character, or a group of characters they can relate to and develop a personal bond with. This is usually done in novels through a series of introductory events that showcase the main characters and their personalities. This helps the reader to develop a much more intimate understanding of the people involved in this story. The same is true with movies. With games you get the best of both worlds. You have the ability to access the meta information that novels provide, while showing a visual story as movies provide.

Personal story and dynamic events are a great way to introduce and build on characters so the players can develop a deeper connection to the storyline and the events happening in the world. There’s a very strong disconnect from the characters and the players though. When I log in and I see the next part of this story, my first thought is, “Who is this, and why should I care?” That shouldn’t be the case if proper story telling mechanics are implemented.

Flame & Frost introduced Rox and Braham in March. We’ve reused them throughout the year (April, August, October, etc.). I guess what I’m saying is that we’re doing this, but if you’ve missed some releases then I completely understand why you may not know them well.

I played Flame & Frost, and I completely forgot about those characters.

Perhaps the poster’s first statement should have been written with emphasis:
Firstly, the audience, or in this case, the player needs a character, or a group of characters they can relate to and develop a personal bond with.

The only character I’ve seen in this game I felt a ‘bond’ with was Tybalt Leftpaw. All the others fall quite flat, including Rox and Brahm.

BobbyStein.2315:

smitske.4912:

I think what he means is, something I pointed out before too, that he does not understand why you decided to make a completely new villain and a story that for the most part is completely unrelated with the story we get throughout the game. This while there are so many stories on which you could have build on to that are already in the game. For example Kodan reclaiming their lands, tengu seeing the need to open up and combine powers with the current races to fight the evils, still many dragon bosses to defeat. Zhaitan may have fallen, but he other ones don’t seem to do anything at all.

Dragons being one of the big enemies but there are also smaller ones, like the corruption and battle for power between different groups that we often see in the first part of the personal stories, why doesn’t anything seem to happen there?

Reuses of Braham and Roxx is nice, but often I feel like they are just put in so that people recognize them but they play no real role, they have no real connection with the story they just happen to show up. I mean we can see them with the current one where they replace one of the vigil/whispers agents at the destroy the spore events, but they have no real use there. They seem to be just dragged in out of nowhere and that is just silly.

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

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

This is one of the reasons why “Living” Story has not been successful, how can you create a TRUE Living Story when you deliberately limit yourself to characters and storylines. You have us go through a story from 1-80, then forcefully remove us from that story into a completely random storyline and random characters that nobody cares about.

Living Story MUST continue from where the Personal Story left off, you can NOT have two separate storylines, this is your biggest mistake with the Living Story.

I like Queen Jennah, but i wish she had died during the Queens Speech… oh but wait she is bound to the personal story so she has immunity.

Slight change of topic, dont be afraid to learn from other MMO’s. I say this because Blizzard announced there next exspansion and have clearly copied a number of Guild Wars 2 features. I think Guild Wars 2 can learn allot from WoW when it comes to managing and implementing a story.

The reality is World of Warcraft has a significantly superior living story to Guild Wars 2, they only have patches every few months yet the story grows and the world changes accordingly, there last patch had an entire zone destroyed.

You dont need two have patches every two weeks to have a epic story.

BobbyStein.2315:

smitske.4912:

I think what he means is, something I pointed out before too, that he does not understand why you decided to make a completely new villain and a story that for the most part is completely unrelated with the story we get throughout the game. This while there are so many stories on which you could have build on to that are already in the game. For example Kodan reclaiming their lands, tengu seeing the need to open up and combine powers with the current races to fight the evils, still many dragon bosses to defeat. Zhaitan may have fallen, but he other ones don’t seem to do anything at all.

Dragons being one of the big enemies but there are also smaller ones, like the corruption and battle for power between different groups that we often see in the first part of the personal stories, why doesn’t anything seem to happen there?

Reuses of Braham and Roxx is nice, but often I feel like they are just put in so that people recognize them but they play no real role, they have no real connection with the story they just happen to show up. I mean we can see them with the current one where they replace one of the vigil/whispers agents at the destroy the spore events, but they have no real use there. They seem to be just dragged in out of nowhere and that is just silly.

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

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

I still don’t understand why the personal story holds so much weight. It’s time-frame and relation to the rest of the PVE world is not something that is set in stone, which means that the lore surrounding it could easily be placed in the same category, lore-wise, as the dungeons or fractals. “Slivers of history replayed in time”.

You could literally state that now and continue on the progressing story.

BobbyStein.2315:

Can you provide an example where you felt a dialog exchange between two or more characters in the Living World story sounded forced, was written too formally, or the performance didn’t fit the situation? We strive for natural sounding dialog (in an unnatural world) and we hold table reads in advance of every recording session, so we have the process you’re describing already in place. Granted, dialog is often subjective and what sounds natural to you doesn’t to me and vice versa.

I know this was not a question for me, but as I have been thinking a lot about similar things I thought I’d chime in.

For me the problem with for example Scarlet is not her actual dialog, it is in your mixture of archetypes. The reactions of the other characters just don’t make sense on a grand level.

For example, I am assuming that at heart, Scarlet is the mad genious archetype. If one goes by the short story detailing her background, and the various advanced technologies used. It also fits the way she was driven insane by her visions, and her whole work with portals. In fact, her whole ‘allying of complimentary forces’ feels very much like alchemy, trying to create new things in order to influence reality to do what she wants (free the Sylvari from their enforced fate?). That is all fine and well, BUT…

Here comes the problem. You have taken the mad genious archetype and fused it with the madly giggling chaosbringer (like Harley Quinn or the Joker). This archetype has an entirely different feel, and is almost never seen doing those kind of grand designs. A little crazy is fine, but people are more prone to accept it if it is more on a Dr Doom level of crazy grandstanding, if she behaves and talks like a manic ten year old girl, people will be expecting Harley Quinn with a cartoon hammer to bonk people with.

Which adds yet another problem. her manipulative skills. When rumours started to spread about her, we were first (in flame and frost) led to believe she was a manipulative sweet-talking plotter who worked behind the scenes. Then, in the Aetherblade content, we were hinted that she was a thoroughly dangerous person who could easily threaten people with death if they crossed her. The Aetherblades were implied not to follow her from love, or for profit, or because she had given them awesome tech, they followed her from fear.

And these things do not add up. I applaud you for trying to make complex characters, but this is a videogame. You have a VERY limited amount of time to make an impression, and you have to front load a lot more things. Not the story development, but character strength. Right now my personal reaction to Scarlet went like this:

1: Oh, scheming mastermind, I wonder who it is. Is it someone we already have met?
2: So the pirate leader is afraid of her? Cool! She must be awesome, I love strong female characters.
3: At the queens jubilee: What? She’s basically Harley Quinn? Who has studied at all the Asura colleges? And can fight that well? WTH? She’s a Mary Sue!

So yeah, for me at least you set up one impression and then broke it in a million pieces. And I don’t even hate the character, I am just… sad she was not better.

Continued from above:

So what should you have done?

Well, if it was the insane genious you wanted to go for, then you should have given that impression from the start. You should have had people refer to her as that, and not as a sweet talker, which gives an entirely different impression.

Secondly, you should have had the Aetherblades have another reason than fear for following her. Has she helped them with tech for their ships? Led them to new plunder? Promised them things she now has to deliver? Have an Aetherblade Captain that works WITH her, not FOR her.

Thirdly, if you want to make her unhinged, then make her really unhinged. Make her talk about things that are not there Make her actually care about the things we have stopped and ruined, right now it is like nothing can make her mad and that’s just boring. Also, remember that we take NPC talk for granted. If you want to sow doubt about whether something improbable, then have both opinions there.

For example:
Asura 1: “I hear she studied at all the Asura colleges.”
Asura 2: “If by studying you mean quit when things got too complicated.”

That way you give people the option of forming their own opinion, instead of having the characters tell us what to feel.

I can understand if you wanted to put in all roles in a single character to make things more efficient story telling wise since you do not have a lot of time in the game, but this is not the way to do it. You have created a character who is good at everything, and the way you show it is by having all the other characters telling us that she is good at everything. That is not the way to do it, you made that mistake with Traherne once.

If there is any interest I can write up a through analysis of dialogue and what might have worked better, for both Scarlet and Traherne. Just have to find out whether there is a full dialogue script somewhere. I obsess way too much over these things daily (I’m a published writer).

But anyway, love this discussion, has not jumped into it before since character/dialogue analysis seemed to be a bit of derailing.

Yeah, I agree – find a way to separate the Personal Story timeline so you have more creative freedom. It’ll be worth it.

BobbyStein.2315:

When you say, “current story continued” do you mean “extend your personal story” or something else?

I think he means the stories that are allready presented in-game should be continued. He gave some examples and i agree. With the release of the game you set a world, you showed us a lot of things going in the world. You used DE`s to tell the story of each region, however this was never expanded upon.

Right now we got a lot of “static” szenarios, where we see no change, aka the world itself.
Right now neither the LS or the PS are touching on these storylines around the world.
The PS is your characters story in a traditional way, which guides you through the world to a “finale” in Orr.
The LS which doesn`t know what she wants to be, since it is a “timeline” mess/problem which has to be solved.
Right now many people rather want their story (PS) to continue, instead of the unfocused LS, which “doesn`t” expand on the allready established stories in the world, but instead threads new ground.

While this is a nice thing to do and creating something “entirely” new is much more interesting for you as a writer and creator (since you should mostly know the stories and ideas that we are waiting for allready, since you have to have them ready somwhere. You have to be ready to expand in every direction, don`t you?), it doesn`t answer our desire to see the world beeing expanded.

I mentioned before somewhere, but you missed a step as you went with the alliance route in your storytelling. While you used groups and enemies that are presented in the world, not everyone was neccesaryly introduced to them.
It is like reading comic books and suddenly there is a crossover and the enemies are from their respective own comicbooks.

It would have been better if every faction had it`s own time to shine, to give them more weight and get everyone on the same page.

Right now you have people who are confused, because some alliances are questionworthy or because they have only a few background information about these factions (because their PS didn`t get in contact with them, they don`t care so much about the story or weren`t able/interested in the areas where their background can be found) and the people who just accept that: “cool two enemies working together.”

The world itself had a lot of stories. Many unfinished or on hold. It is a shame that we didn`t see these beeing expanded upon till now. (well to be honest,… Helloween and Zephirites were actually the only LS so far, which build upon existing lore comming from GW1, everything else was new.)

Arnath.2319:

This is one of the reasons why “Living” Story has not been successful, how can you create a TRUE Living Story when you deliberately limit yourself to characters and storylines. You have us go through a story from 1-80, then forcefully remove us from that story into a completely random storyline and random characters that nobody cares about.

Living Story MUST continue from where the Personal Story left off, you can NOT have two separate storylines, this is your biggest mistake with the Living Story.

I like Queen Jennah, but i wish she had died during the Queens Speech… oh but wait she is bound to the personal story so she has immunity.

Slight change of topic, dont be afraid to learn from other MMO’s. I say this because Blizzard announced there next exspansion and have clearly copied a number of Guild Wars 2 features. I think Guild Wars 2 can learn allot from WoW when it comes to managing and implementing a story.

The reality is World of Warcraft has a significantly superior living story to Guild Wars 2, they only have patches every few months yet the story grows and the world changes accordingly, there last patch had an entire zone destroyed.

You dont need two have patches every two weeks to have a epic story.

Even worse, such a stance doesn’t only limit the characters you can use. A self imposed limitation like this means that we won’t get to see a cleansed orr, since for the purpose of the story Zhaitan has to be both still alive and yet absent. Taken to the extreme this would mean that along with countless existing story threads and plot hooks that have to remain static, we won’t get to fight Jormag or the other elder dragons since they have to be alive for those just starting with GW2? That would pretty much kill any potential for story telling GW2 has.

BobbyStein.2315:

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

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

One other problem (which you mostly fixed right now) is that your presentation was not up to par wth your vision.
Best example would be the story of Canach.
Here you had technological limits, which devalued his character.
I couldn`t remember him from the lost shores, since for me he was “just an NPC”. The bigger evil for me was the consortium (which thankfully is taken a backseat. please don`t expand here more then neccessary. We don`t need an industry-fight if we fight dragons and crazy plant people.)

Now in the current state these characters are better “framed”. they are the focus of a cinematic, of an instance, beeing voiced, etc.

Subsequently, they have more value and connection for us as a player.

Comming back to Canach. It was really disheartening to look around forum posts to find out who he is again.

So yeah, you are doing a great job.

However, there is still a catch:
As we now have characters to follow and value as something to care about you have to be carefull how you use them.

I love Rox and Braham. Many in the comunity say that they enjoy their banter.

However you don`t have to put them everywhere.
QJ: It made sense and their dialog was explaining it.
Tequatle: Not so much. “Rytlok send me here”. Even if you label it as a “LS” it is still more a game mechanic. If felt forced.
Tower of Nightmares: They are running around here… why? fanservice? (well we have to see with the nightmare within, but for now kinda meh)

As for your comment about breaking the PS. No you don`t. It is quite easy to get around that particular problem, since you are playing with three storylines:

1) The world itself. Every region has a story, told by the DE`s.
2) The PS. Told in instanced areas and Orr. So as long as you don`t mess with orr, everything is fine (or destroy story places)
3) the LS, which is the weird thing, that messes everything up because it had no real place in time and space and likes to vanish after it is done right now. I may sound bitter, but you can easily use it to expand upon the world (1). There is no reason holding you back. Put in a new area where we fight the Flame Legion to push their lines further back, or let us siege their “headquarters”, i don`t know.

I feel like you build yourself a cage and are afraid to get out. The door is open. She was never closed, but you feel you could break something if you step out.

BobbyStein.2315:

Can you provide an example where you felt a dialog exchange between two or more characters in the Living World story sounded forced, was written too formally, or the performance didn’t fit the situation?

Questions like this are plagued by personal opinion, but in the spirit of constructive criticism here’s mine:

Kasmeer: “and it came down like a … like a”
Marjory: “like a Norn fart at a moot”
Kasmeer: “Marjory!” giggle

The joke itself? Marjory could just be that kind of person, the character who says inappropriate things at weird times. That’s a great character to have. It’s the reaction that doesn’t fit. We’ve just discovered a secret base writhing with evil energy, populated by creatures whose entire cultures’ revolve around torture and whose pastimes involve dragging men, women and children screaming from their homes into the murky depths and then eating them alive. And Kasmeer’s response to an inappropriately timed joke? Giggling like a schoolgirl.

I feel like the only “straight man” in the cast is me, the player, which puts me in a weird place. Chiefly, that I look around and all I can think is “By the Six Gods, you people are all insane!” Scarlet is insane, Marjory and Kasmeer are making cat noises, and no one in sight is exhibiting any particular fear of their imminent, painful death. You’ve got the quirky down, but the regular classic fantasy to contrast it against I feel is far too minimal.

I rarely find that the dialogue thus far sounds forced or too formal, but that it often does not fit the situation.

BobbyStein.2315:

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

Nike.2631:

THE QUEEN’S JUBILEE: AN ALTERNATIVE

I was wondering if you could comment on the above post (the user name in the quote above will act as a link to the full post). I think that episode was a useful example of where pointing to a central, established character robbed the story of impact. I agree ‘name dropping’ must be challenging, as some characters are secure in ‘the present’ because they must be around for new players to encounter ‘in the past’.

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

Like different types of gameplay, part of the trick may lie in how the world is partitioned. Characters like Marjory are free to move about more because they have no permanent open-world address players expect to find them, as opposed to Logan Thackeray and his office. While she’s present in Kessex Hills, there’s no question of why she’s also present in Divinity’s Reach… because there’s no expectation she should be there.

The world is rich and wide – I think there are plenty of stories to tell with new characters Like Rox and Kasmeer that don’t have to constantly cross paths with Destiny’s Edge or the major rulers to have impact. And as demonstrated with character’s like a Tarrek Linmoor, you can threaten permanent fixtures like the Queen of Kryta by moving the stakes just slightly adjacent to them .

BobbyStein.2315:

smitske.4912:

I think what he means is, something I pointed out before too, that he does not understand why you decided to make a completely new villain and a story that for the most part is completely unrelated with the story we get throughout the game. This while there are so many stories on which you could have build on to that are already in the game. For example Kodan reclaiming their lands, tengu seeing the need to open up and combine powers with the current races to fight the evils, still many dragon bosses to defeat. Zhaitan may have fallen, but he other ones don’t seem to do anything at all.

Dragons being one of the big enemies but there are also smaller ones, like the corruption and battle for power between different groups that we often see in the first part of the personal stories, why doesn’t anything seem to happen there?

Reuses of Braham and Roxx is nice, but often I feel like they are just put in so that people recognize them but they play no real role, they have no real connection with the story they just happen to show up. I mean we can see them with the current one where they replace one of the vigil/whispers agents at the destroy the spore events, but they have no real use there. They seem to be just dragged in out of nowhere and that is just silly.

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

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

I can understand your point that you need continuity and therefore cannot do whatever you want, like for example kill of Queen Jenna, but there are a lot of story lines left still in game that are not bound by what happens in the personal stories too.

Jamais vu.5284:

You might also rethink the philosophy that maps should be homogenous difficulty wise (and the general philosophy that overworld = casual, dungeons = hardcore, the latter of which didn’t materialize). Why not an ominous corner of a map, or a whole zone even, that is exceedingly more difficult, with mobs 5 or more levels above you? Things like that enhance the thrill of exploration. It keeps you on your toes.

I just have to say I cannot disagree with this concept of zone design strenuously enough.

One the best things about GW2 or any MMO is the choice they offer. You can choose if you want to do the casual content or the hardcore content and more importantly you get to choose when you do it. A hardcore challenge doesn’t suddenly drop on top of you out of nowhere. If you are in a zone and things are going fine and then suddenly everything starts to kill you, this is not entertaining, this is unbalanced.

Players need to know where the challenges are so they can willingly go to them when they want. Challenges shouldn’t be thrown on them without warning.

Warhammer Online tried some of these kind of ‘surprises’ and it was one of the many disasters with that game. I still remember getting killed trying to read my mail in the capital city because someone had kited a high level mob to the mailbox. Yes, cities in WAR had mobs that attacked players . That may sounds great on paper and fit with your concept of ‘keeping you on your toes’ but it proved to be a failure in practice because the game was dropping challenges on players when they didn’t want them. Mythic had to fix it so that stopped happening (one of the few things they did fix with that game).

GW2 lets you choose Story mode or Explorer mode on dungeons. It lets you choose when you enter WvW or PvP. It lets you choose if you want to go to a zone with higher level mobs. The game should never take that kind of choice out of player’s hands.

Personally, I’m waiting for the coming thread that deals with the successes and failures of the Collaborative Development Initiative. I have a few things to say on that, but anywho..

DJSushi.5406:

BobbyStein.2315:

Can you provide an example where you felt a dialog exchange between two or more characters in the Living World story sounded forced, was written too formally, or the performance didn’t fit the situation?

I feel like the only “straight man” in the cast is me, the player, which puts me in a weird place..

This is actually a very interesting point, and it’s one I can’t really argue with. Just over the past few minutes after reading this post I’ve been trying to think of a LS character that I don’t feel like the straight man next to, and I’m not sure I can come up with one except maybe Canach. Everyone, from the heroes to the villains, come across as a bit of a joke. Even characters that have tragic backgrounds don’t really have an appropriate sense of gravitas. I’m certainly not implying that the story needs to be grimdark. In fact, some of my favourite moments from the Personal Story revolve around the lighter moments. The problem is that in the PS it wasn’t constant humour and the humour that was there felt appropriate and earned. The stakes still felt real, and this was paid off in real moments of loss. The LS, on the other hand, never manages to really get off the ground because, ever since just prior to the conclusion of Flame and Frost with it’s power rangers boss finale, it’s felt largely slapstick. Even when dealing with some real tragic and negative moments and themes, it’s always come across as having been played off as something of a joke.

BobbyStein, you are talking about books for learning about old lore that has gone past. Alot of us play games because we’re too lazy to read books (although I did read the GW books and they were good I must admit).

I have another idea that is a sort of personal take on some discussion that has been around. Basically it involves copypasting rather than writing books.

(snipped from my post in suggestion forum since it fits here pretty well now I think).

Currently Fractals of the Mists consists of a series of unstable fractals that you’re supposed to stabilize. You get a random set of 3 each time you enter.
These fractals supposedly show (a version of) the past, and can if I’ve got it right show the present and future too.
But yes, fractals show the past and thus “fractal research” could be done to find stable fractals that retell the story that has gone past. For example the aetherblade retreat or the molten facilities.
So as these fractals are stable, you don’t get to them when you are stabilizing fractals, but instead, Dessa has created an archive of stable fractals that you can choose to visit in order to learn more about the history. That way they can be much longer and have different set of rewards compared to unstable fractals. It also wouldn’t make much of a sense to have them as unstable random fractals when you’re supposed to be able to replay them to learn more about the events.
Some rewards can be incorporated into this, like mist essence and fractal relics. Add back rewards such as the crafting recipes as drops from appropriate places.
To naturally fit it in with a living world… and with your development constraints… Ellen Kiel has revealed that fractal research towards a set goal is possible, and not just random search for unstable fractals. Thus it would be possible to do fractal research towards the lost living story parts. However, they can’t just come all at a time both for story reasons and development constraints. Incorporate them once in a while with living story releases with a note that Dessa has discovered a new stable fractal.
Simply rebalance the rewards for doing the content, add some commentary from Dessa or another special history researcher to tell what has happened. Then you can in alot of the cases just add the whole thing in just like it is.
.
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You could also use this to create hardcore (and rewarding!) “endgame content” that is designed to be of a certain difficulty as opposed to unstable fractals that are of a progressing difficulty and thus can scale weirdly.
I would personally like to see the Thaumanova fractal made in this way, but I do understand that development has already started for that and maybe you’ve thought of this idea already and are making the Thaumanova that way, or not.
Either way, if Thaumanova is introduced as a short, unstable fractal, you can later have Dessa discover a stable, longer version of it, telling more of the story.
And don’t forget the Abaddon fractal! We want it and you want to make it and we both know that
.
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Another note is that stable fractals could be used to recreate popular content from Guild Wars 1 in a new interesting way. Sure you can argue that "just go back and play Guild Wars 1 if you want to see it. But it would be interesting to play the content with 5 players in a rebalanced way as hardcore endgame content and that could also teach new people that haven’t played Guild Wars 1 about the stories from 250 years ago.
.
.
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So basically the stable fractals idea can be used as a platform to create both endgame content and to teach people about the history of Tyria from both long ago and from recent events.
My personal thought is that this would probably be the most interesting way of retelling the story and I think it would really fit with the world as it is now.

BobbyStein.2315:

Direksone.3867:

My comments about the Living Story.

I totally understand what ANet is trying to accomplish: create a living world. To some extend it does happen. My ‘issue’ is with the story we have been presented. The story has gotten better and better over the course of the year, Scarlet is a decent villain, but not every time was the story written properly. This is no new feedback however. Personally I think having story arcs like this are fine from time to time, but I personally would like to see new regions be added and the current story continued. There’s so much to work with: the Norn and their quest to reclaim their homeland and defeat Jormag and the Sons of Svanir. The Charr and their ongoing battle with both the Flame Legion and the Ghosts of Ascalon, also a bit of a political drama going on. The cleansing of Orr?

There’s a lot of existing lore to work with and expand upon and I personally would like to see that happen, perhaps with some filler arcs here and there like Scarlet.

When you say, “current story continued” do you mean “extend your personal story” or something else?

based on what he said immediately after “current story continued”, i would think he meant, “tie up the loose ends of the story opportunities presented within the personal story and within the quests of the zones themselves, and also of the general lore of the game and the races.” the several examples he gave i think clarify that.

the cleansing of Orr would be a direct sequel to the personal story, as would the political drama (treaty between ascalon and kryta, presented in the vigil order story parts, or even Caudecus (sp) who was part of the human noble story, CM story, and order of whispers story) he also referred to overall story arcs mentioned by ANET before GW2 went into beta: lore of the norn fighting the dredge and Jormag (definately part of the personal story of the norn) and the charr fighting for their homelands against the shatterer and the chosts of ascalon.

there are PLENTY of loose ends to be explored.

“current story continued” referring to the overall story of guild wars, started in guild wars 1, continued through the books, and then into guild wars 2. the story of the humans, charr, norn, asura, sylvari and their struggles to survive. the story of Tyria.

Crazy idea for LS meta achievement…

Progress Bar
Not just any progress bar, but a ‘heart quest-like’ progress bar where anything you do that is related to the current LS gets you closer to the meta-achievement and reward.

Play how you Want and eventually get the meta. Even if all you want to do is fight toxic alliance over and over again, eventually, you will get it.

Two things suck the life out of the releases for me.

1. Repetition of Content
“These offshoot events are kinda fun. How many more do I have to do? FIFTEEN? Gah….” Now it’s not fun anymore.
Or alternatively, “I have to find how many mobs with the silly buff? Why do I care whether they have the buff or not?”

2. Have to do everything whether I Like it or Not.
Current alternative being doing dailies and taking an extended amount of time to do the meta. That leaves me with the following choice: “Find and kill 50 creatures with a silly buff that I do not care about, or take an extra 24 hours to get the meta award.” And the daily could just as easily be something I would rather not be doing.

Progression: One step forward, two steps back

First you made the meta require only %75 of the achievements so that people weren’t “forced” to do content they didn’t like. This was a great idea.

Then you added dailies to the mix as a means of progression. This was also a great idea.

Then you lowered the number of available achievements so now all the achievements + multiple dailies are now *required to get the meta. (the afore mentioned choice between completion, or “sorry, come back later.”)

It’s like going to a new city and being asked to wait in line for 5 hours just to get that cheap post card to prove you were there. Sure you want that meta reward, but hardly any more than you want that 25c postcard. Just being there to get that postcard was half the reward. You don’t want to wait in line, or travel to the other side of the city, just to get the postcard. You’d end up just skipping the postcard eventually.

But you do want to make the journey. You don’t want the post card handed to you without even leaving your home town. You just don’t want to to go out of your way to get it. It should come along with the trip, not be a driving force behind the trip.

Better Idea (actually from the game itself)

I would love to log into a Living Story release and just do whatever the heck I feel like doing and have a progression bar up in the corner moving towards completion. That’s what made leveling and exploring the world fun. The combination of events and heart-quests. Events made the world feel alive as I was progressing through it. Heart quests made the progression feel more intuitive and, well, more progressive.

personal note
Orr, to me, lost that sense of progression. I haven’t been to every corner of the maps in Orr looking for stuff because there doesn’t “feel” any sense of progression going through it. Temple events have their own sense of progression, sort of. But not really. Half the formula is missing.
/note

I miss Heart Quests

“I’m tired of killing these mobs, I’m going to help this NPC do this random stuff instead.”

With the current system in the LS I just stalled my progression on the kill ten rats achievement, and I’m soon to find out I have to help the NPC 250 times. And eventually finish killing the ten rats.

When I was a young warthog, I could do whatever I kitten well pleased and still see visual, and tangible progression. For Heart Quests and Events, as long as I was doing something there was progression. This was one of the most unique factors to Guild Wars 2 PVE. Something that many other games are now emulating. But LS completely breaks it.

Completing LS achievements should work like events do with heart quests. Bigger progression jumps, but not at all required.

Complete an achievement in the LS: “Now what? Can’t do that anymore, have to pick another achievement to grind.”

Complete an event at a Heart Quest: “Nice, that just got me closer to completion!”

See the difference? The first one ends that method of progression and forces you to choose another. The second one is a bonus on top of the progression you were already making.

(Of course, SAB, and any other “eventually will be permanent” content should maintain a special reward and title upon completing all achievements. No added daily or progression bar.)

DJSushi.5406:

BobbyStein.2315:

Can you provide an example where you felt a dialog exchange between two or more characters in the Living World story sounded forced, was written too formally, or the performance didn’t fit the situation?

Questions like this are plagued by personal opinion, but in the spirit of constructive criticism here’s mine:

Kasmeer: “and it came down like a … like a”
Marjory: “like a Norn fart at a moot”
Kasmeer: “Marjory!” giggle

The joke itself? Marjory could just be that kind of person, the character who says inappropriate things at weird times. That’s a great character to have. It’s the reaction that doesn’t fit. We’ve just discovered a secret base writhing with evil energy, populated by creatures whose entire cultures’ revolve around torture and whose pastimes involve dragging men, women and children screaming from their homes into the murky depths and then eating them alive. And Kasmeer’s response to an inappropriately timed joke? Giggling like a schoolgirl.

I feel like the only “straight man” in the cast is me, the player, which puts me in a weird place. Chiefly, that I look around and all I can think is “By the Six Gods, you people are all insane!” Scarlet is insane, Marjory and Kasmeer are making cat noises, and no one in sight is exhibiting any particular fear of their imminent, painful death. You’ve got the quirky down, but the regular classic fantasy to contrast it against I feel is far too minimal.

I rarely find that the dialogue thus far sounds forced or too formal, but that it often does not fit the situation.

Actually, people facing death in the face are often the people most likely to crack and laugh at a joke, as long as they don’t think they have enemies immediately in earshot – largely as a means of relieving the tension.

Just wanted to mention that I’m enjoying the Nightmares Within – at least in terms of gameplay. I particularly like that the meta-achievement can be done entirely with the set tasks/achievements, with the dailies acting as an additional buffer (letting you swap a daily for each fixed task you don’t want to chase after). It’s a good balance.

The Scarlet re-cap video made me want to claw my eyes out, but I’m a lost cause on that front. “Look how amazingly clever I am – doing so many, many things that are in no way appropriate to my apparent demeanor!” Still, some of the individual Nightmare chambers use her dialogue blurbs reasonably well to be creepy. And it’s nice to see the rest of the cast back. I particularly liked fighting Garm and Eir. It makes me look forward to opening the remaining chambers beyond the achievement incentives.

Mega-points that I haven’t had to group up once, thought clawing your way through the third floor does favor finding a zerg.

A slight diversion, but still relevant I feel is the design of most of the LS content in terms of difficulty as time goes on. For example. The Labyrinth. Easy as pie early on when zergs were aplenty, now practically deserted so the LS achiv’s for the meta are practically impossible.

In ToN we’ll see the same. Unless you get the stuff done within the first few days the content will become harder and harder as people just don’t bother coming back once they are done. When the zergs dry up it’ll become harder and harder to reach the top thus leaving late comers (I.e those who didn’t get it done in a few days) effectively stranded.

Basically the LS is designed to create and maintain ‘locust’ style gameplay and behavior. Something which just can’t be good for the longevity of the game, nor well-being of the community.

I realize it’s player driven behavior, but as designers the content put in place goes a long way to govern that behavior. I.e
1: Don’t rely on zerg sized groups of people to do content. Zergs <> community.
2: Gradually roll out the achiv’s over the course of the 2 weeks, so as to encourage players to keep coming back
3. Make the scaling better with smaller numbers of players.
4. Encourage co-operation not mindless zerging. For example, in ToN barely anyone stops to res, everyone runs in a lemming rush to the top. Provide waypoints and checkpoints such that people can easily get back to where they were rather than being penalized heavily.

Basically, think about the whole player experience from the birth of the LS chapter to the end not just in game play but it’s knock on effects in the medium and longer term

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

Some major reasons why people don’t like Scarlet Brair *snip

• 6 months – Founder of the Molten Alliance
• 6 months – Leader of the Aetherblades
• 1 month – Theo Ashford’s assassination
• 1 month – Mai Trin’s subsequent attempt to ascend to the Captain’s Council
• 1 month – Hijacking of the humans’ Watchknights
• 2 months – Attempt on the life of Queen Jennah
• 4 months – Using Steam creatures
• 96 months – Eight years studying in the Grove
• 4 months – She spent a winter learning metallurgy as an apprentice of Beigarth the Smith
• 24 months – Two years studing firearms and artillery with the Iron Legion gladium Asagai
• 54 months – Excelling in the colleges of the asura in Dynamics and Statics, completing special study that proved she could handle the college’s coursework,¹ in under a year, as the highest-ranked member of her class
• 54 months – It was the College of Synergetics, under the tutelage of Headmaster Omadd, with which she took her time, becoming fascinated with the idea of the Eternal Alchemy and believing it to be something to be mastered rather than simply understood.
• 2 months – Inquest. She spent a brief time with them
• 5 months – Several months of wandering, she settled in the Michoan Marsh and studied the alchemy of the hylek
• 6 months – After months of preparation, the experiment was ready to begin to see the Eternal Alchemy

Its a valid argument but consider a few things.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nike.2631:

Just wanted to mention that I’m enjoying the Nightmares Within – at least in terms of gameplay. I particularly like that the meta-achievement can be done entirely with the set tasks/achievements, with the dailies acting as an additional buffer (letting you swap a daily for each fixed task you don’t want to chase after). It’s a good balance.

The Scarlet re-cap video made me want to claw my eyes out, but I’m a lost cause on that front. “Look how amazingly clever I am – doing so many, many things that are in no way appropriate to my apparent demeanor!” Still, some of the individual Nightmare chambers use her dialogue blurbs reasonably well to be creepy. And it’s nice to see the rest of the cast back. I particularly liked fighting Garm and Eir. It makes me look forward to opening the remaining chambers beyond the achievement incentives.

Mega-points that I haven’t had to group up once, thought clawing your way through the third floor does favor finding a zerg.

I agree, however we see something wrong with the LS here allready:

great set up, weak payoff.

Now don`t get me wrong. The video was… funny, i guess and it got everyone up to speed, however as an end to the “tower of nightmares” it was just an exposition dump, with no answer given to the player.
In the end we learned nothing.

The only “interesting” sidenote are the nightmare chambers, where we fight “losses” from our characters past.

Cool idea, but i don`t like it here. It would have been a great oprtunity for the “return of zaithan”, or something along the line.
For this storyline it was more like you blew it too early, so if you wanted to use it again it won`t have that much of an impact.

The nightmarechambers. I am on edge with them. Having to wait for them to open feels like you artificialy expand on this content and that is something i don`t like.
For someone to run around and find these in the hazordous enviroment, only to find that it closed is a let down.
On the other hand it guarantees that people will run around later on, but i don`t think that is the way to go.

Instead you should create content that is itneresting for a long amount of time, instead of artificialy extending your content.

That is the reason people think your two week shedule is shallow.

So yeah, Tower Nightmare Within:

+ Great content
+ interesting mechanics, even if it might be a bit zergy at some points (bosses at the end of each lvl), but manageble with a simple party, or after the way is cleared by the zerg
+ cool skins
+ story summary
+ able to kill Trahearn
+ easy to obtain goggles
- (maybe it bugged out for me) only a summary of past events
- nothing new in terms of story developement
- no explanation, insight about what is going on
- Story instance without explanation or anything: “here, fight a hybrid” (maybe bugged for me, but no context here, thus uninteresting)