Guild Wars 2

Elaron.8150:

This tread is for suggestions?I will make mine.People want reward for hard content,and hard content by itself.Make real hard bosses (in mini dungeon maybe?)Make them drop not tradable weapon skins.(boss hp/attack/drop rate flexible for balance).Make them not required for general living story.Rewarding,hard,simple.If i would see someone with “living story weapon skin” i would know,“this person done something,when there were crait invaision.” And not just bought it.

Hi, just some feedback to your post. To be taken serious I would rewrite it as follows:

‘I want reward for hard content,and hard content by itself.Make real hard bosses (in mini dungeon maybe?)Make them drop not tradable weapon skins.(boss hp/attack/drop rate flexible for balance).Make them not required for general living story.Rewarding,hard,simple.If i would see someone with “living story weapon skin” i would know,“this person done something,when there were crait invaision.” And not just bought it’

It is one word different, but it shows respect with people who disagree with you.

For the rest, I understand where you are coming from but it is much more complicated. You are saying that having a skin should mean something. I remember from gw1 that event skins like these would be missed by future generations, even though people didnt need to do anything but being present.

Further more. If you go through the walls off text here you can see that a decent amount of debate is that parts off the rewards are too grindy. People who only have some amount off time each day and cant grind to their reward. They really feel left out. My proposal is to make a general reward that satisfying for all, and a more elite reward for those that grind a lot. But feel free in telling how you would make the living story interesting for all players, off course including yourself.

This is a chapter of my Living Story compilation

… previous part of ‘Natural World’

There are already some examples in the game which shows that some creatures try to flee your grip if you hurt them enough. But in this cases it’s depend to much on the damage done to the creature and the actually effort to run from you while only one more hit is missing to fall down is also quite futile. Why does the a Moa fight me only the turn tail on me right after my hammer tickled it a bit? It isn’t even running just make one or two useless steps away from me before i strike it down. So even if we have some values to determine the condition of creatures we need to make sure that the shown reaction makes also sense. I don’t mind if the Moa thinks it can take me on but it should really fast understand that I’m some numbers above him. Because just turn around and start running is to simple and dumb. The creature need to make sure to get away from me what implies that it has to save up some skills to block, blind or cripple me for a short Moment so it has a chance to slip away.

There a more kinds of enemies than feisty animals but also some minor and mayor races which should hold some higher level of intelligent than a Wurm. When I talk about intelligent it’s means not only some level of smart reaction toward my actions, also I want to imply some character. Grawls e.g living in tribes leaded by single characters to cope the hardships of live together. So why are do they come alone when they spot you? They should call other members of there family to help when facing some threat. When talking about intelligent behavior I also mean to show of relationships between creatures. So if a Grawl wander off only be surprised by some players while alone he would not dare to charge you but rather turn around to warn his kind about the new danger. Not only should they search for the group but also must gain some strength from being together with his allies. There for a moral would much more practical so it can rise it with the number of members the mob has. This also means each loss would mean a lower of stability of the remaining enemies until the group breaks apart. It would be cool if you can decide a battle not only by killing everything off, but also by push them really hard so they flew. You could still chase them but this is in your favor. There a many things you could vary here like adding different effects to the loss of allies like a rise in anger so with every dead member your enemies group has to deal with they get more furious. Or you add some leader characters, which would show different behavior to match their rank and get skills to buff their allies, but also instantly drop the moral of the mob when killed.

A next step would be some decent behavior for kinsmen of the mayor races. Stepping into a pirate-base should not mean that they start to rush me down. Why should they? First of all how do they expect to have to face some outsider in there base? Why aren’t they shocked as I when accidentally drop from a beam I tried to sneak over? They should show emotions in this like astonishment or be shocked about my appearing, but also they should be able to deal with the situation. E.g when i come straight at them from some distance they should spot me really fast. But before they actually fight me of they would start to mock and taunt me. They should be intelligent enough to know the value of being part of group and how great it is to be respected in their ranks. As long as they have the time they should use it to enjoy them selfs and joke with their comrades until it comes to a fight. Also some of them could try to sneak up on me while I listen how warmly I’m welcome here. Well in the generally following fight it wouldn’t hurt when they would show some team-play or better it should hurt me when they team up and try to time their attacks. This would also mean that everyone saves some skills until they get the chance while I’m maybe invulnerable or blind so their next combo would beat me up quite badly. If you work on this you would be able to show of all the characteristics described by the great lore. The greatest example of this dynamic would be Skritts. Facing a single Skritt wouldn’t be more than fighting against a scared deer or goat. But if he fled and gather up with a handful other Skritt they would behave like a pack of wolves, not fleeing but also not rushing in alone. If by any chance they would still rise in numbers their behavior would transform in to a Grawl-like one to face you as a united pack. Ultimately by further increasing their numbers they would act like mayor-races.

… continue part 4

copied my post from the suggestion forums, someone said it would be relevant here

Let me start by saying, im just about 2 months into this game, and I do enjoy it, probably better then most of the MMO’s out there. I love the “adult” feel of the game, it doesnt feel like a child’s game like WoW did when I first started playing that many many years ago (which i eventually gave up on after 6 months of life sucking game play). However I feel the game is lacking in most respects compared to what it is hyped up to be, mainly in 3 major category that I think need to be seriously re-evaluated and modified to at least some extent to extend the life of the of the game.

1) Living World: I love the concept of living world updates and the continually updated storyline, however for both living world updates i have been around for, I felt they were severely disconnected from the rest of the game and the content itself was just weak. Both the LS tower of nightmares updates I was able to complete in a matter of 4-6 hours, with minimal effort and minimal reward (even though by some miracle I managed to get an RNG drop ascended weapon on the end of the first tower of nightmares mission). This storylines i feel are very very weak, they need to be more like the personal storyline missions in the sense that they have at least some what of a plot line, connect with the rest of the world on some deeper level, and take more then a few hours to complete. I could go on to elaborate but I feel that there has been such a rejection of this latest update that its almost like beating a dead horse here, which brings me to my next point….

2) Expanding The World: So here we drive to the heart of the issue, the game has been out for over a year, and there is no word on when we will get a major update to allow us to explore new zones, get new dungeons, or new bosses to fight. You write into the main storyline of the game 9 different elder dragons, and yet people are only able to fight 1 of them, in an absolutely HORRIBLY put together and written final story personal story mission, with nothing but CRAP rewards for taking the 2 hours to complete this mission. While there is alot to this game as it is, after a while it does eventually start to feel repetitious if you are not interested in WvW or PvP. You are either fighting a world boss, doing a dungeon, playing the very short living story lines for all but a few hours, or…doing what drives me to my final point….

3) Content, in particular ITEMS: Yes and here we get down to the singular driving purpose of “end game” with GW2, and thats ascended weapons. A 6 month to year long quest to craft 1 weapon out of probably 10 overall and that is literally the singular focus of what everyone strives towards after they exhaust every other avenue of the game. There is no grinding for weapons or gear, there is no great areas to farm for loot to sell to drive the economy, its all centered around “skinning”. There are a set few weapon classes with specific weapon characteristics, and then you pick a skin and “transmute” to get your character appearing a certain way.

This is probably the single biggest issue with the game more then anything. Yes you can say, well thats the way the game is supposed to be, but then we come back to the living world situation, which is what people are complaining about. You grind out the living world update for a few hours if that, you get to the top, you beat the boss, its all crap drops, and you complete the achievements and get a skin. Meanwhile the actual cool skins you have to BUY with cash money on the auction house. This is, a fatal flaw to the games continuity to be successful. And the biggest problem with this is the fact that there literally isnt enough variety in the items (weapons/armor) to support RNG drops to make the effort in these things truely worthwhile. If you werent interested in the gas mask skin, you did it because you needed the gold, why, because you are saving to craft and ascended!! lol

As much as I hate referencing WoW, the thing that drove the game for so long is literally how much STUFF there was in the game. You had a 45 man raid in a dungeon which took 2 hours to fight a boss, and everyone was chomping at the bit to get their hands on like 2 epic drops that could be only distributed over the 45 people. This was the system that drove the game, you consistently had to come back to get the cool gear, and grind, and fight to get it.

Now im not saying that GW2 needs to turn into WoW by no means, but a page needs to be taken out of that book to actually give this game some purpose and some life, otherwise, i have a feeling these living world updates, if they continue to be this bad, arent going to keep peoples attention span long enough before the next MMO comes around.

About the Living Story’s “story”… (Maybe it’s already been suggested, in which case I apologize).

I would like to see journal-like entries that record the events that the character went through, much like we have for the personal story. It’s sometimes hard to keep interest in the story when we get small pieces here and there, this way it can be more eloquently written/bundled and make the story a bit more interesting again.

Something like this seems so obvious, that maybe a similar thing is already implemented and I just overlooked it. Sorry if that’s the case. (Not talking about the ingame mails that call you to where the living story takes place, although I like those mails from npc’s as well)

If villains and heroes had a few episodes out of the year in LW/LS(using different parts of lore of GW2 would need different villains/heroes that are connected to that bit of lore) and returned at a later date, old players would need to get them self refreshed on that character’s past deeds. People in this thread have talked about the need to replay old episodes and I think it would fit great. It would be nice to decide if we wanted to play a short “key points” only or the full story with out the weapons and goodies that came with the live update (as already stated). Not only would players who missed an update or are new to the game, but players needing to be refreshed on a character would use it.

To me the LS and LW are the same thing, I saw someone say it was very different to them. I would like to know how it’s very different.

Midnight Gypsy.9360:

To me the LS and LW are the same thing, I saw someone say it was very different to them. I would like to know how it’s very different.

To me, Living Story content is the one-use limited time content, advancing a plot across multiple regions/maps and expiring after a limited period. It is character focused, can take advantage of both episodic and serialized storytelling techniques, and can chain together activities and rewards to give a grand, sweeping feel.

Living World content is material that adds to the permanent pool, increasing the richness of an area or activity forever, but not necessarily able to evoke the same sort of urgency or “I was there when…” war-stories associated with Living Story episodes. Its components are often strictly episodic and quite a bit more localized in their impact. Intimate rather than grand in many cases. Something to stumble over or work out for yourself rather than referencing an online guide since there is no particular time pressure, and something you later bring to friends and guildmates and ask “so, have you seen this?”

It’s the difference between the Molten Alliance dungeon in its original, limited-run incarnations, and a new fractal that will be part of the roster forever. Both have value and specific advantages. I just feel some 2 week releases should be dedicated to Living World Releases, and in particular to releases that are designed to function enjoyably after the novelty has worn off. Plus living World Releases create opportunities for foreshadowing LS releases, building the drama/tension.

Both could take the focus of a 2-week release, but they contribute to the overall experience very differently. So I keep them separate in my head and in my posts.

if you guys ever will decide to introduce heroes in GW2, this is what they should evolve into http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy7g2DAUNDw and how an epic battle against evil foes should look like
Here is a 16 players co-op gameplay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qcG5Umy1aw

Nike.2631:

Midnight Gypsy.9360:

To me the LS and LW are the same thing, I saw someone say it was very different to them. I would like to know how it’s very different.

To me, Living Story content is the one-use limited time content, advancing a plot across multiple regions/maps and expiring after a limited period. It is character focused, can take advantage of both episodic and serialized storytelling techniques, and can chain together activities and rewards to give a grand, sweeping feel.

Living World content is material that adds to the permanent pool, increasing the richness of an area or activity forever, but not necessarily able to evoke the same sort of urgency or “I was there when…” war-stories associated with Living Story episodes. Its components are often strictly episodic and quite a bit more localized in their impact. Intimate rather than grand in many cases. Something to stumble over or work out for yourself rather than referencing an online guide since there is no particular time pressure, and something you later bring to friends and guildmates and ask “so, have you seen this?”

It’s the difference between the Molten Alliance dungeon in its original, limited-run incarnations, and a new fractal that will be part of the roster forever. Both have value and specific advantages. I just feel some 2 week releases should be dedicated to Living World Releases, and in particular to releases that are designed to function enjoyably after the novelty has worn off. Plus living World Releases create opportunities for foreshadowing LS releases, building the drama/tension.

Both could take the focus of a 2-week release, but they contribute to the overall experience very differently. So I keep them separate in my head and in my posts.

Ah so LS is here today and gone tomorrow whereas LW has changed the landscape or character beyond that episode.

Jaken.6801:

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.

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.

This person is exactly correct. The Living World, the way it has been done until now, is just not right for the game. You have two things in the game working harmoniously and one thing creating a disconnect in the whole system that more or less ‘breaks’ the game -

Personal Story, which is world-scale and character driven
Dynamic Event system, which is zone-scale and world driven
Living World, which is world-scale and development-driven

The LW could potentially work if you didn’t have the other two systems built into the game already, but IMO it’s just not as good a concept as you guys think it is to frequently disrupt, alter, or remove existing content to make the world feel ‘living’ (not the best way to create a world that feels dynamic and alive). You’d be better off focusing on the first two.

So, you should transform the The Living World to support the other two rather than being its own thing. You can use the Living Story to bring focus to a particular zone (existing or new) for a month to spotlight events happening within that zone without tampering with the larger, world-scale saga that fits more into the PS. You can use some temporary content to support this, but it wouldn’t be hugely significant content (such as storied instances and dungeons) and would just serve the purpose of enhancing player immersion of the story that’s playing out in the zone.

Other updates pertaining to events unfolding in the larger narrative of the world should be implemented as expansions to the Personal Story. These would be mostly permanent additions that can be experienced as part of the narrative told from the player/character perspective. You could also throw in the occasional temporary side story used to enrich random bits of lore, spotlight NPCs, or just tell a fun independent story. This should go along with updates to the PS to replay missions, enhance your home instance, and possibly recruit NPCs to travel with you in PS instanced content.

Technical question: can the completion of a dynamic event be used to trigger the sending of a piece of mail (w/ attached rewards)?

For example, if an event sent you out to protect lumberjacks, could success trigger a letter being sent 30-60 minutes later that said thanks for the help and included some small number of wood planks (“Please take a few of the offcuts. Without you assistance we wouldn’t have any lumber at all…”)

Time for my two cents then: Living World updates have two sides: Writing and Mechanics.

I’ll start with the writing: You have three kinds of stories:

1. Hero stories where you are not the main guy. (AKA Trehearne)
I will use Mister “Claw Rye Land” as an example, but since there will be other stories like this no doubt, it should be useful anyway. There are two simple rules:
a) Make abundantly clear why I am not the boss man.
As it was laid out on the forum, it makes utter sense that Trehearne is the leader of the pact. He is a scholar of Orr with experience, has good standings with all order Big Wigs and is yet not tied to one order more than the other.
Frankly: You should have stubbed our noses into it more.
Have him say wise things about Orr now and then, have the Big Wigs once or twice flat out say: “He is a very reasonable choice to plan our moves into Orr because he has great experience with that and knows Orr better than anyone else.” (Only less bluntly, of course.)
This would have created some antagonism towards him (…well, more) since the player would have felt even more unimportant, which brings us to rule #2:
b) Make abundantly clear why the boss man’s success solely hinges on me.
From what I read it was supposed to be like this:
Trehearne is the most reasonable choice to lay out plans for moving in(to) Orr because he knows most.
He is a hesitating scholarly guy and hence relies on you (the battle-hardened adventurer) to pick the option most effectual and then lead it to success. The field commander, the Iron Fist of the Pact on whose shoulders the outcome of all those make-or-break missions rests.
…
Profit.
This could have worked perfectly if the dichotomy of The Thinker (him) and The Maker (you) would have been more clear. Then it would have been a sign of now-it’s-all-or-nothing when The Thinker went to battle with you on the final assault. (Rather than the glory snatching it seems to have been perceived as.) I think people can accept not being The Head of the whole thing as long as they are brought to understand that they are The Honcho.

2. Hero stories where you are the main guy.
No problem there.

3. Non-hero stories (AKA Zephyr Sanctum)
What I saw in reactions all were positive towards this release and I liked it most myself too. There was no task, no quest, no threat, I was just given a very interesting and genuinely new (design, location, background) place to explore and play with.
Which is because and brings us to the design bit…
For which I will use a separate post.
Those features (new design and background etc.) was also well done in the Tower of Nightmares, it was like nought we saw before.
ps.: A bit more of a tie-in into the Personal Story would be nice. I understand you want to establish separate storylines from the main one, but rather than having it be me, some Random Dude Who Is Sort Of Busy Leading The Pact, going “Jim Dandy to the Rescue”, it should be something along those lines: The disturbances in that area require the local Vigil soldiers to protect it. That prevents them from moving to Orr as reinforcements. Please see if you can sort it out because you are the 2nd in command for the Pact and all that, you know.
That kind of tie-in.

On the topic of quest design:

The Sanctum offered a genuinely new game mode (Sprint), that was good.
It added a novelty feature (3 aspect skills), which had quests designed around it.
That was good too.
And I think on the Quest-side of the Living Story, there is one thing that needs to be either reworked or cut:

Quests of the sort of “Touch 50 X”.

In their worst form, they are a tedious grind that has you run across maps randomly in order to tag the thingies you need to touch. The crystals in the sanctum, however, were actually fun, because of simple reasons:

1. The area has to be limited.
You did not have to resort to the wiki to find out on which of the 50 maps you had to seek, you knew they were there somewhere.

2. There needs to be a high density of the objects.
You always would find a new one after a few minutes, so you had a constant stream of moments of success.

3. You have to be able to find the locations by thinking.
You knew the crystals had to be in high places or places that are hard to access and the narrowness of the area made it simple to check your assumptions, it did not consume much time either.
This is also somewhat true for the Krait Obelisk Shards. It requires you to think (They have to be where krait are), to know the game a bit (where are krait?) and then they are scattered a bit. I could live with them being less scattered, but that might be personal taste.
This rule is utmost important. Nobody enjoys running through the cities 20 times to kill the same old piñatas, nobody enjoys to randomly run through maps to find effigies to light. That is grind.
Going Sherlock Holmes and using given informations to deduct your traget…that is fun. (It also allows you to not apply rule #2.)

Summary: People will like the Living Story updates more if the quests (“achievements”) are not the ones they did a dozen time with just another skin.

Elaron.8150:

Make them drop not tradable weapon skins.

No please. No. No more rewards account/soul bound until there’s a PvE locker. I don’t know where to stuff all those skins I don’t like anymore. And it seems a shame to just delete them.

Einlanzer.1627:

Personal Story, which is world-scale and character driven
Dynamic Event system, which is zone-scale and world driven
Living World, which is world-scale and development-driven

The LW could potentially work if you didn’t have the other two systems built into the game already, but IMO it’s just not as good a concept as you guys think it is to frequently disrupt, alter, or remove existing content to make the world feel ‘living’ (not the best way to create a world that feels dynamic and alive). You’d be better off focusing on the first two.

So, you should transform the The Living World to support the other two rather than being its own thing. You can use the Living Story to bring focus to a particular zone (existing or new) for a month to spotlight events happening within that zone without tampering with the larger, world-scale saga that fits more into the PS. You can use some temporary content to support this, but it wouldn’t be hugely significant content (such as storied instances and dungeons) and would just serve the purpose of enhancing player immersion of the story that’s playing out in the zone.

Other updates pertaining to events unfolding in the larger narrative of the world should be implemented as expansions to the Personal Story. These would be mostly permanent additions that can be experienced as part of the narrative told from the player/character perspective. You could also throw in the occasional temporary side story used to enrich random bits of lore, spotlight NPCs, or just tell a fun independent story. This should go along with updates to the PS to replay missions, enhance your home instance, and possibly recruit NPCs to travel with you in PS instanced content.

I think so too. The dynamic events system is currently under used in post release content. It should be the driving force behind open world “living world/story” content. Right now they’re more used like “here is stuff to kill in that spot with a specific objective”. Like the toxic offshoots, invasion portals, champions in the Jubilee arena, etc. It’s a weak implementation of an otherwise great system. As per the personal story system, I thought it would be built upon as well with the ongoing releases. A shame it is not.

Hi, I had created another thread but figured I’d put this here instead…maybe a dev can respond.

Curious why develop direction and the main focus has turned to living story, instead of making the world seem alive, as was the goal? If you visit any zone that is not connected to the current Living Story, you find an empty zone. You find events failing, dead friendly NPCs, towns taken over…You find a dead world. Which is the opposite of what the Living World is supposed to be. And I think the main cause is the Living Story, which takes us out of these zones and funnels us into a select few.

I am curious why arenanet thinks the development direction needed to go the living story route, instead of giving us a real reason to play the game in these zones, when the whole idea was to create a living world. I truly feel that Living Story has had the opposite effect on the game. I am currently standing in Fireheart Rise, I see no one. I see events kicking off, expiring, failing.

I know arenanet has much invested in living story, but my ultimate wish would be to dismantle the Living Story as we know it, and get us into zones to play the content thats already there. We dont need a story or breadcrumb achievements to chase after. We just need to play the content thats there.

If I am not logging in to run with the zerg in Queensdale, or in Kessex, the game feels like a single player game and I get the urge to quickly log out. Thats not right.

Its sad to see such fantastic open world potential and dynamic content that is already developed go to waste.

Does this thread mean all very useful comments in the many many other threads that are about this subject are going to get ignored. Because there are some very useful ones and not everybody is going to put there input on this thread again.

That said. The living story makes the game feel like a job. Temporary stuff.. yes even if you leave in some of the content, the achievements and rewards are still temporary.

If you want a living world make little changes like you guys did before when building up the tower the Karka destroyed and so on. Have a story unfolding itself without achievements or rewards and then end that story with a big new chuck on content. That content can then have achievements and rewards linked to it and that can stay forever.

The excuse that it has to be temporary to be a living world / story is total nonsense. You should see it as when they guild a new cinema in your neighborhood. The building process is the story, the cinema is story towards it and the having the cinema is the content that stays behind. And geuss where the reward is, when the content / cinema is there. That the cinema maybe go’s away 25 years later would be one of the negative side-effects of life. Luckily in a game you don’t need to have those side effects so when then focusing on those negatives and creating exactly that into a game.

Part of the reason is of course the gem-store focus. Anet switch from a company that generates it’s main income from expansion to one of the many micro-transaction based games generating most income from that. That mean you need to get people to log in and buy items. Make it temporary so they can’t earn the gold and to create a sense of urgency. Do that every two weeks and on paper you should be guaranteed to a steady flow of income.

That in fact people will get burned out and so in practice it does not work like this is pointed out by many many many people on these forums months ago. Of course the numbers are now also showing that. That could have been prevented if Anet would have listened to there player-base months and months ago.

Just have a good living story that is no grind, no temporary content, achivements. Rewards and base your income mainly on expansions so you are also not forces to make those decision based on creating gem sales in stead on based of having a good game / selling expansions. Because in the end decision based on having a good game or selling expanions is better for the game then decisions based on making gem-sales and because it’s better for the game it is also better for Anet or Ncsoft’s wallet in the longer run while focusing on gem-sales destroys the game and so only works on th short run. Once again, just like many people said many months ago and I am sure Anet and Ncsoft will be seeing in the numbers now.

I would like to end with an addition to the start of my post. I referred there to the many other threads about this topic and if they would be getting any attention. However while this Collaborative Development Topic might seem great at the same time you need to to back 7 pages on the general discussion forum to see a real contribution from Anet personal. Not including admin. So if this thread means any other thread now really are forgotten I am not so sure this is a good thing and posting something on the forum seems to become less and less useful and that while many of the problems now could have been solved if topics would have been taken more serious.

Wasn’t said by the devs, that this discussion ends today and that they start today with the next step? Step 2 ?
Why is this thread still open? I thought that they want to go further today in the progress of the discussion letting us hear something about the results so far what they are planning to do in the near future with the Living World, letting us being part of the next step of the discussion around this topic for what Anet is intending to do soon…

Or did I misunderstand there something and next week’s monday was meant maybe ? xD

Forst.5863:

1. Hero stories where you are not the main guy. (AKA Trehearne)
I will use Mister “Claw Rye Land” as an example, but since there will be other stories like this no doubt, it should be useful anyway. There are two simple rules:
a) Make abundantly clear why I am not the boss man.
As it was laid out on the forum, it makes utter sense that Trehearne is the leader of the pact. He is a scholar of Orr with experience, has good standings with all order Big Wigs and is yet not tied to one order more than the other.
Frankly: You should have stubbed our noses into it more.
Have him say wise things about Orr now and then, have the Big Wigs once or twice flat out say: “He is a very reasonable choice to plan our moves into Orr because he has great experience with that and knows Orr better than anyone else.” (Only less bluntly, of course.)

While I agree in principle, I don’t think your approach is the right one. The last thing Trahearne’s part of the story needed was even more dialogue shoving that he’s the best person for the job, for all his flaws, down our throats.

And I say this as someone who likes Trahearne (although not so much the voice acting). Those that are going to recognise that there’s a reason he has the top job already have, and those that resent him are, as you say, just going to resent him with greater intensity if they get it force-fed to them even more.

I think what would have worked better is to stress the reasons why we don’t actually want the top job. Have him mention how he’s spending long hours reviewing logistics while we’re out earning glory. Give him a comment, during one of the times he’s out with you, about how much of a relief it is to take the fight to the Risen personally rather than pushing markers around on a board in the war room. Have a Vigil warmaster remark to the PC about how (s)he pities Trahearne being stuck in a meeting full of Priory windbags discussing some recent find and its possible importance and how it’s much more satisfying to be personally leading troops in the field and smashing Risen face.

Okay, some of us would gladly trade places with Trahearne on that last, but most of the lore community has recognised aren’t among the Trahearne-haters to begin with.

Essentially, this ties in with your second point. The gist is to stress that, as much as a non-government paramilitary organisation like the Pact has one, Trahearne is the civilian leader, while we’re the highest-ranking officer in the field – the Patton to Trahearne’s Roosevelt, the Montgomery to his Churchill – the Erich Hartmann to his Adolf Galland, to give a more obscure but probably better fitting example, since the generals would have also likely spent a lot of time on paperwork. He’s not stealing our spotlight, he’s taking care of the administration and other behind-the-scenes stuff that needs to be done so we can get on with the heroics.

BobbyStein.2315:

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).

This is disingenuous, as it’s very much not conflicting.
People say “Stuff feels random” because you have bizzare lore-breaking conglomerations of certain enemy factions joining because of a character that came from nowhere is attacking two other characters that came from nowhere that we are instantly supposed to care about how it effects them. It also feel random because with the gaggle of far-cooler enemies you could have used from GW1 you went with a new one.
People then say “Stop using X character” because you bash us over the head with the worst character we’ve yet to have in GW being responsible for everything in the LS in the same ridiculously impossible way every time.
There is nothing conflicting about it.

Had already posted some ideas on immersion but not said something. (because I think few would have given importance to this).

The respawn!! GW1 seems much more a Living World without it. I know it’s impossible not having respawn in GW2, but the way how the enemies spawn could be changed.

I liked the way that Aetherblades spawn, but not all enemies can spawn this way … What I would propose is to make all foes that do not have portals or do not come from the ground (Ghosts, Risen, Devourer, Destroyer) spawn outside the map (where are the portals to change map) and run (perhaps much more quickly than normal) for their areas. They could respawn 1 second after dying, the map would never be empty.

I’m just saying this because many have already bought the game thinking it would have something like that, foes always coming from somewhere and pushing through the map, on every map… but for you (ANet) to do it in the form of dynamic events on every map would be difficult… I think that if we see foes coming from “other” map would already be something cool and a sign that there are people on the map killing things, you can follow a foe as he returns to his natural area and then have the chance of meet a player.

I know a lot of people who thought that the game would have something like that because I’m moderator of a forum and adm of a GW2 fanpage on Facebook (Guild Wars 2 Brasil) and always appears people talking about it before release… I do not know if someone lied to them, they say that ArenaNet lied but I know you never promised that. MMO Manifesto left many people confused, but I know you explained everything after on the blog.

I think we cannot deny that this concept is good and looks like another game will do that… eversomethingnext… but I just believe after I see it. It seems that people want more sandbox MMOs nowadays without even having time to play, they want to get into the game and see that things were built/destroyed… I do not care much for new buildings every time i log in unless they are magnificent (like the tower of nightmares) and because of that i will never leave guild wars 2… I could not even go to my favorite places of GW1, then the future of the game for me has everything to be better… you passed the test to impress players with map design, now need to focus on the gameplay and story of LS…

…but in addition to focus on that… would be interesting to make NPCs go to sleep at night ^^ Maybe create a more real night http://imgur.com/a/g7yrx …This album is old and was not done by me, but I never forget it. Dark Jumping puzzles are so cool, if that night was in the game we could even get a bonus chest after do normal JPs during the night. A UI clock like in Zelda Majora’s Mask would be interesting ^^

While I know that the two are not apples to apples there were some mechanics in Guild Wars 1 that could really shine in Guild Wars 2. One of those being how the story missions were handled.

The ability to go back and replay story elements in Guild Wars 1 gave everyone the ability to jump into the story at any time and catch up on key story plots they might have missed otherwise. I’ve read that you guys are looking at ways to address this, and I’m really looking forward to hearing your ideas on how you plan to do so.

I mentioned earlier some of my critiques of the current story in the game, and I would like to say that a majority of those are directed towards older content. I have missed large portions of the more recent story arcs and I’m feeling disconnected from the current story.

I see how you are trying to tie in Scarlet with the previous plots, but what ties Scarlet to the existing lore in GW2? I have an interesting twist that could bring it all together and tie it back into the core plots that brought many of us to GW2. The jungle dragon.

From what I understand, her character story in brief is she was a brilliant scientist who went psycho. What if she went psycho because of some run in with the jungle dragon and now she’s one of his minions? Now that would be a neat twist that would make a lot of players go, “Oh… I get it now!”

Personally, I don’t necessarily need to be able to PLAY through past content to get a good picture of what’s going on in the world and who these characters are. A lore book, something to keep track of the story and key players, maybe a link to cut scenes in there. Something like what we have for keeping track of the personal story.
This would really help to keep me in the loop on the growing history of the game when I encounter periods where I’m sometimes unable to play the game for more than a few hours in a month due to college workload.

BobbyStein.2315:

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.”

Hello Bobby,

Let me ask a question (in several parts ):

Without revealing future plot twists, do you think it’s possible to comment on the writing process that created Scarlet?

Is the a specific reason the central menace of the current Living Storyline is a she, a Sylvari, or an Engineer? Should we be looking for greater meaning in these choices or was it more of a dartboards and dice process? Do you have inspirations you want to call out? Is there a good story lurking behind how she got her unique ‘hair’?

Is there anything you can tell us that would help us relate to your motives for this character? Something that will let us set better expectations and maybe give better feedback?

Nike.2631:

BobbyStein.2315:

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.”

Hello Bobby,

Let me ask a question (in several parts ):

Without revealing future plot twists, do you think it’s possible to comment on the writing process that created Scarlet?

Is the a specific reason the central menace of the current Living Storyline is a she, a Sylvari, or an Engineer? Should we be looking for greater meaning in these choices or was it more of a dartboards and dice process? Do you have inspirations you want to call out? Is there a good story lurking behind how she got her unique ‘hair’?

Is there anything you can tell us that would help us relate to your motives for this character? Something that will let us set better expectations and maybe give better feedback?

A lot off info bout the writing process/meaning/ideas bout scarlet can be found in this interview:
http://www.wartower.de/artikel/artikel.php?id=740

This podcast starts in german but changes to english very soon.
(keep in mind this is taped early after Scarlets real introduction and before the big storm off criticism started off). But it helped me a lot in actually liking Scarlet. It also shows that the writers had a very clear idea bout the how and why she is who she is.

I touched on this earlier, but why not take the chance:

Most favourite release: Bazaar of the Four Winds
1. It added a new area to the game. (…that sadly disappeared again.)
2. That area was also new in that it looked like nothing else in the game before.
3. That area had tie-ins to original GW in it was clearly Kaineng ported to GW2.
4. It added features (aspect skills) that were completely different from what we had before. (I do not even mind that they went again, they were fun while there and went before they got stale.)
5. The quests were more varied, partially due to better design, partially due to the new Sanctum Sprint adding more options for achievements.

Least favourite release: The 2nd Southsun Series
1. I did not get to participate in the first Southsun stuff, so I had no idea what’s up there.
2. It was SCARCE on information. I went to Carnac’s (however he’s called) Lair and killed him. YET, I have still no idea who he is or why I did attack him… (He seems to have rallied the beasts, but how and why and why do I even care, being busy fighting dragons?) … nor why we knew where his lair was, nor who Kiel was, nor what the Consortium is about and why people settled there….
3. I cannot even remember either the rewards nor the required achievements, so they cannot have been very interesting either way.

Now, I’m sorry for the team who got to do the work on this, but it simply didn’t grip me at all in any way. That is a shame, the Southsun area is VERY interesting, the Consortium is VERY interesting. I’d like to see a future release that roots both better in the world and gives them a proper outlining and outfleshing, so they can have a transition from Content Of The Week to Part Of Lore. Everyone loves exotic places and seafarers. Build on that.

(And if you ever have far far far too much time on your hands, add “Lion’s Arch” as a sixth race, i.e. you can pick any race but get L.A.-stuff for a personal story.)

BobbyStein.2315:

So you’re talking about a time delay between completing a renown heart (or event) and receiving the letter rather than getting it instantly?

Sorry, I guess it was two questions (thinking fast ).

1. Can success on a Dynamic Event (not a renown heart) trigger sending a piece of mail?

2. Can you control the delay between a ‘mail trigger’ and the mail being sent?

Bonus question: If 1. is yes, can you send different mail messages/attachments based on the bronze/silver/gold lever of success?

Basically, I’m looking at ways to make DEs more immersive and to potentially mix up the rewards to be more contextual both to the event and to the player’s involvement. Understanding what the engine is capable of would make it more likely we can share good ideas on ways to specifically use it .

BobbyStein.2315:

Nike.2631:

Technical question: can the completion of a dynamic event be used to trigger the sending of a piece of mail (w/ attached rewards)?

For example, if an event sent you out to protect lumberjacks, could success trigger a letter being sent 30-60 minutes later that said thanks for the help and included some small number of wood planks (“Please take a few of the offcuts. Without you assistance we wouldn’t have any lumber at all…”)

So you’re talking about a time delay between completing a renown heart (or event) and receiving the letter rather than getting it instantly?

Adding a variable delay would certainly make it feel a bit more like a character is actually taking time to write you a letter, rather than sending out form letters with payment to every passing adventurer.

I’ve often found it humorous that I’ll kill some enemy, pick up an item or something and immediately get a letter stating “Our town is doing just swimmingly now! Thanks for doing whatever it was you did! I guess I should pay you now, have some silver…” even though their town is clearly still on fire and full of monsters due to some event. Clearly, they must have started writing before I actually finished helping them. Pretty optimistic.

I really like Nike’s example of giving some planks to the player for doing a logging event. I know I’d be more willing to stop and complete an event if I knew I might get an actually useful reward sometimes.

Having heart-specific rewards show up in the heart reward mail would be really great too. I’d even accept vendor trash worth the usual reward price if it fit the situation better. Often times I’ve felt it a little strange when a Skritt would give me 2 whole silvery small shiny things, and a whopping thirty-five orangey small slightly-shiny things for killing a dozen spiders he and his Skritt buddies were handling pretty well already. Awfully generous. Also, where does an Ettin get 4 silver, and why would he give it to me? Does the Tyrian Chamber of Commerce distribute “Adventurer Reward Packages” to Renown Heart NPCs?

I would say that renown heart reward mail could sometimes include a random karma item from that heart NPC’s vendor inventory, as those items have some of the best flavour in the game IMO (and they’re already event-specific, how ’bout that? ), but I can see that being complicated due to the usual problems with karma items and whatnot. At least it might get those items noticed by players more, as some of them are really great.

One last thing about mail delays: If anyone is concerned about “making people wait for rewards”; really? It’s a few silver. To me at least, Waiting several minutes (or even an in-game day) is the least of my worries. Plus, unexpectedly receiving a mail is almost always exciting, even if there’s nothing important in it.

Has there been a discussion about respawn timers? I really like the hearts and dynamic events, however it makes it feel like I have less of an effect when monsters are respawning on top of me as I am clearing out an area. Maybe a distance check at the end of the respawn timer for the player that killed the monster? And if they are still nearby (say 2000), restart the timer (but this time without a distance check)? That way you can feel a sense of accomplishment for clearing out a cave or Sons of Svanir hovel, and if you’ve moved on, they can respawn for the next player or if you are taking too long (afk or whatever).

BobbyStein.2315:

Nike.2631:

Is there anything you can tell us that would help us relate to your motives for this character? Something that will let us set better expectations and maybe give better feedback?

I started to reply to each question in your post but ran out of time today. SPOILER: I was in meetings.

Questions like these may be more suited for an interview since the answers can be rather long when discussing the creative process, project constraints, etc. I would like to share some insights on Scarlet and other Living World characters but I’m not sure the forums are the best place. Let me think on that for a bit.

Methinks we need to have Nike host a “State of the Living World” with y’all, then.

Nike.2631:

Is there anything you can tell us that would help us relate to your motives for this character? Something that will let us set better expectations and maybe give better feedback?

BobbyStein.2315:

I started to reply to each question in your post but ran out of time today. SPOILER: I was in meetings.

Duty calls. Perhaps later .

Questions like these may be more suited for an interview since the answers can be rather long when discussing the creative process, project constraints, etc. I would like to share some insights on Scarlet and other Living World characters but I’m not sure the forums are the best place. Let me think on that for a bit.

I’d like to think this would be an excellent venue. “Creative Process” is at the heart of the CDI as I understand it. Our ignorance of “project constraints” is probably one of the biggest stumbling blocks to players bringing you workable suggestions. The untold story of creating the common thread running though so many of the Living Story episodes would be immensely revealing about the non-story demands a character like Scarlet has to rise to.

((Oh, and while its in another thread, your mini-game joke made me laugh quite hard. A good sign that talking about Scarlet doesn’t always have to be so serious!))

BobbyStein.2315:

Nike.2631:

Is there anything you can tell us that would help us relate to your motives for this character? Something that will let us set better expectations and maybe give better feedback?

I started to reply to each question in your post but ran out of time today. SPOILER: I was in meetings.

Questions like these may be more suited for an interview since the answers can be rather long when discussing the creative process, project constraints, etc. I would like to share some insights on Scarlet and other Living World characters but I’m not sure the forums are the best place. Let me think on that for a bit.

Maybe a livestream?

This is a chapter of my Living Story compilation

… previous part of ‘Natural World’

Until now all the suggestions aimed to add specialized interactions for creatures and finish this up by creating some areas for friction between different kind of NPCs. This alone only places creatures towards other characters like Players or other NPCs. It lacks some connection to the world around you like wind, heat and cold, or the players bane gravity. Of course there are no influences like this in the game or at least there are not there “naturally”. Guildwars2 offers a great set of conditions you can inflict on other creatures and characters but also have to burden. It doesn’t make much sense why you burn a moa with your spells and skills, but it still sticks with it’s plan to pick out you eyes, like nothing happens around it. Why is everything so uncaring? When they burn shouldn’t they try to put the fire out? Or run inordinate? When you inflict bleeding it should fire them up and rise their anger because they feel how you threat their life. If you chill them it should creeps in their mind and degenerate their moral.

On the first blink it sound like some other point to create interaction between players and creatures, but because we imagine our characters to be part of a world similar to our own real world we think they holding abilities and skills fitting for this place, we can use this as a replacement for real natural influences. Sure this can’t compare real effects like burning fields or chilling winds but by adding more response to conditions let the world looks more lively where you need it … in front of the player. Well and point with the winds and fires – it can’t hurt to spread some “common” AOEs around the world which buff or debuff the player and creatures.

If we combine all this at once we still stand in front of the problem that all the different zones are still closed up. Sure it looks weird to leave a desert only to enter a snowy mountain but there is nothing but common sense that hold the game back to do so. What is necessary are events to link nearby areas. This could be of course the movement of your wandering creatures like the pack of wolves going from the scarce mountains down into the valley to hunt something tasty. For this you could add some more hidden portals to travel between the zones, which of course would be used by creatures as well. Every kind of monster or animal should have some range of environments they are used to, so they don’t run around aimlessly. Another possibility would be natural events like avalanches, floods or forest fires and so on. The meaning of this is that you can start one of this in a zone but it don’t want to stay in this area. As an example: There is a dam build by some Dredges as their base. With all the possible quests in or around this structure there are some that lead to a interruption in the operating schedule or destroy the dam completely. In the end a decent amount of water runs down the stream only to flood flowing zones as well. I’m sure that this would mean a big change and I only want to show how far this can go if you are really up to it. But of course even without the last point there is enough to replace so the World feels more alive.

By building up links between the areas our world get some need for necessary regions how this could looks like you can see at the end. But still something is missing to obtain and sustain the world of GuildWars2 we have now, what lacks is the story and lore.

Next chapter Living Story

This is a chapter of my Living Story compilation

“Living Story” – why the world is how it is.

In the previously chapter ‘Natural World’ I wrote about the topic of more lively areas with advanced behavior of creatures and combining single zones to overall region by adding events and crossovers. Whit this our world gets some structure, which itself can be explore – not only for awesome landscape but also for the rules behind it’s life. Anyway we changed nothing about the game-play so our world would still be completely fine with a side-wise orientation aligned by the level-range. I want to make sure that I love the down-grading-system of Guildwars2 and it’s obviously the best mechanism in the whole game. But it’s still lacking some adjustment to work probably. Like the game works in the meantime the most parts of the player-base is wandering off into areas of higher level or camping in front of dungeons. The reason is easy be found … farming, looting, grinding. Actually every MMORPG even Guildwars2 has to deal with a static non changing world where the only thing you can do is go around and finish the Story-line or grind some gear to look awesome. Its only natural that the most players go there where they find the most profit, what is also a part of the game (like it is in real life). Sure you could come now and add a better reward-system to the down-grading but this wouldn’t assure that every area would be populate, but just the one where it will be faster to gather rewards. If you try again to adjust some areas you get stuck in the equality-mill, which grinds your world till the boring-state where everything is the same.

So it has to be something different from the “natural world” and the game-play, where we come to the point to talk about the lore. Even without the prequel Guildwars2 has an enormous potential to run a “living story”. We have different mayor and minor races each with a great number of subfactions. We have military factions, trading companies, a scholarly order, pirates, separatist, fire-loving-fanatics, undead, Kingdoms, Empires, Dragons and of course Quaggans and Grawls. Also the world of Guildwars2 is a the stack of being completely corrupted by almost almighty beings, which hunger for destruction. So from this on there is enough stuff what could be happening right now. The current main plot is still to finish your little “personal” story and afterward go out and work for the order you chosen and then lose you’re leadman. While in the absence of a nice buddy you swap over to Trahearne so you have at least one “important” person to talk to. So you help him to gain fame and power while he fond the Pact to center him even more in the middle of the story-line. Ah yeah and then charge at Orr and beat some Dragons. If I forgot nothing this should be the fix main-plot for every current player and anyone who enter the game later. Every other example of “Living Story” we got until yet, is just the attempt to keep people busy, who already finish the personal story and can’t grind much more gears or need help with it, without changing the original World so far that newcomers are missing much of the past. The problem with this is quite simple: We are expecting the next Story coming up and mostly we get it right after the last one barely finished. Like with a “Living World” a “Living Story” has to grow as well and not just get thrown at you. There have to be well known events and objects in the world, which can more or less suddenly evolve to something more bigger and interesting.

… continue part 2

BobbyStein.2315:

A mail delay is an interesting idea, at least for roleplay immersion. I’ll have to ask a designer on that. Bear in mind that there might be reasons in place why we don’t do it but I’ll ask just the same. I’m curious just as you are.

I personally do not like the idea of a mail delay. To give you a few scenarios where this could run astray, say a player is playing on a limited timeframe and they go through the content, complete it, know there is supposed to be a reward but then check their mail and see no reward present.

The first thing they are going to do is email your customer support and complain that the event/heart/achievement bugged out. This creates extra workload for your customer support who is already stretching thin with more serious and legitimate issues than ones created by a design decision like this.

The second reason I would not like this change is the disconnect between completion and reward. Say I complete 2 or 3 things and the mail isn’t scheduled to arrive for an hour or two. I’m one of those players with a limited timeframe to play. I log out, and I might not log in for a few days. When I come back, where those rewards came from might not be as obvious as they would if they were delivered in the moment.

It’s a minor gripe, but the disconnect between understanding what I’m being rewarded for thanks to the time gap would be enough to be a frustration for at least a few of your players. Beyond that though, I’ve already had to wait for my reward. All the hours invested prior into achieving it should be enough. If I’m doing all the grind to get an item, I don’t want to have to wait an additional arbitrary period ‘for immersion’ to receive my reward.

tl:dr don’t fix what isn’t broken.

I dont think many people are actually reading the mails. They just take the rewards – sometimes more in a row because they don’t bother open every time each one of them – and not care why/who what the mail was about. It is a wall of text for God’s sake

I would rather give the rewards directly to the account wallet and if, only if the player is talking to the heart NPC, he will have an option to read that text what is now sent by mail. It is more natural like this and not some mail in an virtual mail box

Part 1

I’ve been struggling to maintain interest in GW2 lately, but threads like this one give me hope that GW2 is a game I will continue to enjoy for a long while yet. Thank you for starting this thread and having this discussion with us.

I’m going to focus my comments on story, with a couple of detours.

1. Love the Living World concept. I really like that the setting is a living thing that will continue to develop constantly with or without me. I know that that means I might miss stuff sometimes, and I’m totally okay with that. I don’t feel the need to do all the things.

1. My favorite LW update was Bazaar of the Four Winds. Zephyr Sanctum was a cool new area to enjoy, with lots of neat mini-games and “easter eggs” to find and… well… kill. Also loved that I got a “souvenir cut-scene item” that I can take out and share with others to relive that time. It seemed like the perfect mix of exploration and play, with the Election Campaign storyline running “quietly” in the background.

1. My least favorite LW update was Tequatl Rising. You honestly broke Tequatl in that update and it’s never been the same. It’s gotten better as people have adapted to it, but it’s currently a major world event that gets ignored more often than not because it just isn’t possible to casually show up and participate with any hope of success. Are you guys okay with Tequatl being ignored roughly 10 out of 12 spawns a day? Though, honestly, I’m not sure what the fix is.

1. I feel like you guys have a pretty good handle on the mechanics of the Living World story development, but there is room for improvement in the presentation. It’s a storytelling issue. The story part is good, the telling part needs some work. Think of it like this: Plot and Story are two different things. Plot is things happening. Story is why we care about the things that are happening. You guys are nailing the plot! Story… needs some TLC. Plot can come from literally anywhere, but story only ever comes from characters. The cut-scenes we’ve enjoyed are awesome, and very enjoyable, but they aren’t enough to carry Story by themselves. We need more interaction with NPCs is what it really comes down to. We need to see consequences (good and bad) reflected in the people of the world if we are to care about the story.

Part 2

1. Story bridges. I think you guys may have bitten off a little more than you can chew with the current LW story arc. It’s super huge and that makes it a poor trial run for a new game element like LW. I can’t identify a common story thread that connects the LW content we’ve had since August. In retrospect, I can see the Scarlet thread, but that doesn’t account for everything that’s happened (or at least doesn’t seem to). It’s very important that players be able to identify how current story developments come from previous story elements, and lead to future elements to establish continuity. When we think about the story, we need to be able to sense the shape of it, even if we don’t know what all of the pieces are, or what’s going to happen next. When the next “episode” of the show comes out, make sure it follows what has come before it in a recognizable way. And, when possible, make sure the resolution of the current “episode” sets up the next piece, so we can experience a sense of expectation and have fun speculating about what might happen next. (That’s how you build tension into a story.)

1. Give us 3 Acts in each episode. So far, you’ve been pretty good at exposition and really good at the complications in Act 2 (where all the action is!). But it seems like we’re missing out on Act 3 every time. We are confronted with a new development that needs our attention, we engage the conflict in battle, and… then… we are confronted with a new development that needs our attention. No Act 3. To reprise what I’ve said above: Act 2 is great! Act 1 and 3 need some attention. From a storytelling point of view, I really think that developing the third act of each episode is going to net you the best return for your efforts at this time.

1. Previously, on Guild Wars 2… Episodic storytelling needs the occasional recap. Especially when the subsequent episodes can be over a month apart in some cases. We need some record of the current story arc’s progression. I think the Priory is the best place for this to happen. It is their job, after all, and they already have the facilities to make it happen. That Place of Power in the heart of the Priory? That can be the nexus where the “story so far” is accessible for review. Whatever form the recap takes, the Priory is the most appropriate agent for such a thing.

1. I very much enjoyed the roll out of the current “Tower of The Nightmares Within” episode. The foreshadowing prior to the roll out was really cool. The initial instance and the subsequent cut-scene were perfect exposition of the current episode. Honestly, guys, you nailed it there! Act 3 was better, too, because we understood that there was a Tower of Nightmares over there, and that we were working towards getting inside to put an end to the conflict. I would have liked to have seen the action of Act 2 lead to a firmer resolution, though. Nightmares Within begins with a team inside the base of the Tower. Would it have been possible to end The Tower of Nightmares with an instance where the player helps breach the Tower? Even a small instance that would have bridged the action of Tower of Nightmares to the exposition of The Nightmares Within?

Overall, I think the ANet team is doing a fantastic job working towards some very ambitious goals. Although my interest has been waning lately, I have great confidence that GW2 is headed in the right direction with a great team of people working really hard to create a truly unique MMO experience. I may step back from the game some in the coming weeks and months, but I won’t stray far if I do, and I will definitely be keeping an eye on how the game develops.

Thanks again, for all that you do!

Shriketalon.1937:

ColinJohanson.2394:

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

It’s a quote from a ways back, but it’s the best way to frame my response. I hope you don’t mind.

A good show must find a balance between building lore, establishing characters, indulging in instant gratification, and setting up long term investment. In many ways, a television show is an apt comparison to MMOs. They require an initial hook to get the player interested combined with long term reasons to get committed to regular viewing. In addition, they cater to many different individual’s personal tastes; viewers will get attached to certain characters, become invested in the plot, or simply enjoy the wit and banter to bring them back again and again. At the moment, however, the Living Story feels like a poor spinoff due to the overemphasis on the Saga of Scarlet. In order to achieve a solid viewing audience, the Living Story needs to find balance.

I have a thread over yonder where I go into more details, but here is a simple example of a Living Story arrangement designed to appeal to a wide audience. The idea is to reserve long term campaigns that take months of content for the most important things going on in Tyria (which are dragons, not redheaded Sylvari reverse engineering bloodstones). These fit into the January-to-May block very easily, since there are no holidays during that time frame. Meanwhile, the rest of the year is devoted to creature features, lore delves, one shot stories, and the introduction of new races in order to indulge a diverse audience. The combination of hardcore campaigns and whimsical/wonderful oneshots should satisfy the audience and keep them entertained for years to come.

If it is not to presumptuous, here is a hypothetical TV Guide To Tyria to demonstrate what the Living Story could be.

Hire this man I read the whole thing, commented on his thread and I love it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/To-Merge-the-Personal-and-Living-Stories/first#post3084588

Sirendor.1394:

Hire this man I read the whole thing, commented on his thread and I love it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/To-Merge-the-Personal-and-Living-Stories/first#post3084588

I want to say again that I respect Shriketalon for taking the time to develop his idea so thoroughly. But the idea absolutely destroys Living World as a game element and I hope it doesn’t happen. If we need to fix the conflict between PS and LW, I hope we fix Personal Story instead. Let ANet continue to develop Living World to it’s full potential.

Just a few quick words [edit: or not, I tend to use too many words], I didn’t read the whole topic but I assume things like some kind of recap or replay systems have been brought up and discussed.

When it comes to living world it has two kind of related problems pacing (or lack of tension and urgency) and continuity, you try and build up tension for something but in the end it just deflates by the time the actual release that the tension is supposed to lead into comes out.

I am not saying release more frequently, what I am saying is consider pacing by gradually unlocking story content throughout the patch (last years Halloween did something to this effect with a single patch made up of four gradually opening acts, also the gradually deteriorating statue was a nice touch). Right now the living story’s story elements seem to be either mostly be the very first thing you see or the very last thing you see after experiencing most of the gameplay once already. It makes the story be fire and forget. When you have access to everything at once. It is kinda like a little kid trying to not eat candy when there is a sack of it in front of him, he won’t stop before he is sick of it (or rather sick from it, I guess, or both).

For example during the build up to the current release (Nightmare Within) the story was delivered as the very first thing we did… after that nothing and then when the patch hit the Tower was suddenly just open there was no noticeable progression to the tower opening which made it seem a little anti-climactic. Likewise when Scarlet walked off at the end of the tower I wanted to run after her then and there… but after all this time (during which the tower has remained unchanged) I am indifferent about it and as such I am also little less invested in getting rid of her.

As for continuity right now is that there are at least three bigger more or less loose ends right now. 1) Scarlet 2) Tequatl 3) The weird story thread with Super Adventure Box.

Loose ends and multiple stories are fine, but when the situation ends up being that the week before we had Scarlet, then SAB, then Zhaitan’s minion suddenly growing in power and only after that are we getting back to Scarlet and her strange fascination with forging alliances. Well lets just say that is enough time to pretty much forget about Scarlet entirely.

In the end of the day, while I think both SAB as well as Cutthroat Politics and Zephyr Sanctum in general were great patches (not only because of the idea that players had a choice to make) but I would have rather had the Scarlet story more close knit much like Flame and Frost (it may have been slow starter but it was continuous in terms of story), which ultimately lead into Scarlet as we found out much later.

Right now it is pretty hard to remain interested in Scarlet when we are shifting gears and returning to Ellen Kiel all of a sudden and by the end of it most likely I will not even remember Scarlet before you tell me that it is time to remember her again for whatever reason

Like I said fire and forget, which is unfortunate because the Tower was fun but not gripping, it didn’t really progress the story just recapped (which probably was needed to be fair). But I am left with the feeling that I have to constantly be prepared to jump ship from one story to the other.

BobbyStein.2315:

Some of the releases have a looser connection to the Scarlet thread than others. Some of that is due to messaging and story/character presentation in the game, and the rest is due to how we, as a group, decided on the location and gameplay needs of each release. Finding that balance of multiplayer-friendly gameplay, satisfying rewards, challenge, and captivating, character-driven story is very difficult especially when you have four teams running at once. This has been the focus of a lot of my meetings as of late. I’m working on a proposal to address the story concerns in the new year.

I’m curious if you have reasons we are missing for NOT doing smaller arcs? Maybe 2 months/8 episodes as an average. I feel like maybe the Frost and Flame arc would have been stronger if, even with unresolved questions, it hadn’t been tied to the mega-arc you’ve been building. I was actually saddened to see Molten Alliance pop up in the invasions – it largely invalidated my previous sense of accomplishment in shutting down that threat.

It seems like shorter story runs would allow for more limited – and plausible – central villains. For more regular pays offs of satisfaction for players at the resolution. For chances at genuine surprise at the occasional unexpected villainous comeback.

One of the best received elements of the LS both posted and in my personal experience have been the undocumented bits of foreshadowing. The unannounced changes in the map that our dedicated corps of Player-Explorers stumble over and bring to the broader public’s attention. These might be made even more effect as catalysts for speculation if we really didn’t know who the next major villain was going to be for the next couple of months.

Nike.2631:

I’m curious if you have reasons we are missing for NOT doing smaller arcs?

BobbyStein.2315:

Having smaller story runs with a more focused narrative is something we’re discussing. One thing that we’ve learned throughout our first year of Living World updates is that the pacing of the overall story was too slow for most people.

So this first (very long) storyline is the product of grand ambitions . I’m good with dreaming big but I’m glad the alternative is being examined as your teams acquire experience. If scattered elements and features that were high-points of the last year become more of an ‘excellent norm’ for future episodes, the prospects for the LS could be very bright indeed.

BobbyStein.2315:

Nike.2631:

I’m curious if you have reasons we are missing for NOT doing smaller arcs? Maybe 2 months/8 episodes as an average. I feel like maybe the Frost and Flame arc would have been stronger if, even with unresolved questions, it hadn’t been tied to the mega-arc you’ve been building. I was actually saddened to see Molten Alliance pop up in the invasions – it largely invalidated my previous sense of accomplishment in shutting down that threat.

It seems like shorter story runs would allow for more limited – and plausible – central villains. For more regular pays offs of satisfaction for players at the resolution. For chances at genuine surprise at the occasional unexpected villainous comeback.

One of the best received elements of the LS both posted and in my personal experience have been the undocumented bits of foreshadowing. The unannounced changes in the map that our dedicated corps of Player-Explorers stumble over and bring to the broader public’s attention. These might be made even more effect as catalysts for speculation if we really didn’t know who the next major villain was going to be for the next couple of months.

Having smaller story runs with a more focused narrative is something we’re discussing. One thing that we’ve learned throughout our first year of Living World updates is that the pacing of the overall story was too slow for most people.

EDIT: I just want to clarify I mean the pacing of the story and not the release cadence.

In the case of slow paced story release, I feel it would help considerably if we were able to revisit past story(living story instances) at will.
I can always catch an episodes of a show I missed or want to re-watch at a later date, why can’t this be the case for the LS instances?
Same can be said for personal story missions.

Okay, here we are. At first please stop reading if you don’t want to be spoilered about the end of the GW2-storyline.

I apologize for possible expression or grammar mistakes.

Yours sincerly,
Connor Guild Wars fan since 2006.