Guild Wars 2

This is a very general question but I’m genuinely curious. Here are some more specific questions that I would like answered if I am going to even give this game another shot:

1) Is Trahearne in it?
2) Does it have legitimately good writing?
3) Does it involve interesting game mechanics?
4) Does it have an enticing story driven by genuinely well written characters?
5) Are the rewards fun? CAVEAT: I don’t want to pay for rewards… I want a good story first and foremost.
6) Is there an actual expansion with game content in the works?
7) Is it worth the money?

For the amount of money that I would spend to catch up on Season 2 (from the beginning) I could buy a couple of fantastic books or buy a game that focuses on interesting mechanics that play into an interesting story. Why should I give my money to Anet who has never convinced me that they have competent writers on staff? Why do they even focus on “Living Story” content when it was generally accepted that the main story was poorly written and wholly uninteresting?

There is no objective answer to this, but please try to explain your subjective answers so that I can make a more informed decision. Also, has there been any NEW (free) content added to the game in the last year? Are classes more reasonably balanced? Is WvWvW still a zergfest? Is the meta still “zerker or GTFO”? I played this game a ton when it released and quite a bit on a few different occasions since then, but I’ve not been a fan of the route that Anet has taken in developing content. I’m also disinterested in getting any form of legendary. I just can’t be bothered.

Nope its not, forgettable characters and terrible dialogue as always. Trahearne is in it but he doesn’t play a huge part and thank god for that. There are some nice mechanics here and there though.

For the living story stuff, I’m just going to save you the effort and tell you that, while the episodes can be an “okayish” 30-60 minute distraction from the game when free, they are in no way worth dropping gems on. Especially if it’s coming out of your actual wallet.

I say this because, to me, they are instances with a focus on story than gameplay. If you’re a someone who prefers running dungeons or party-centric PvE content, you’re not going to like them.

And while the writing’s not terribad, it’s only lukewarm at best. I feel like I’m watching filler for some fantasy soap opera on TV, in which each show ends with yet another cliff hanger that isn’t guaranteed to be resolved anytime soon. We’re 8 parts into it so far, and I just no longer care to complete them, and really wish they would get on with the main plot so that the actual world zones can be developed more.

Main draw for coming back for the season 2 stuff would lie in the two new zones, Silverwastes and Drytop. But they still feel like a work in progress, and are small compared to Frostgorge Sound and Orr.

As for an expansion, there’s still hopeful speculation from players, but ultimately no definitive word from ArenaNet whether one is in the works.

If you want my advice, I’d suggest checking back when LS season 2 is finishing up, where hopefully some big bosses will be revealed.

Or, safer still, just straight up wait how many months/years for an expansion to be released, as this game, in its current state, really needs some new meat-and-potatoes content for players to sink their teeth into.

I think the story is interesting. I wish I was here to play the previous season of living story, but I hear they’re gonna re-release them at some point. Hopefully it won’t cost too many gems to unlock them.

If you weren’t too impressed by what you left the game with, then go on youtube and watch some of the beginning of the living story season and see if it interests you.

If the youtube videos interest you, go for it. If not, just play the stuff that’s going on right now for the rewards it gives you.

Mo Mo.1947:

I think the story is interesting. I wish I was here to play the previous season of living story, but I hear they’re gonna re-release them at some point. Hopefully it won’t cost too many gems to unlock them.

If you weren’t too impressed by what you left the game with, then go on youtube and watch some of the beginning of the living story season and see if it interests you.

If the youtube videos interest you, go for it. If not, just play the stuff that’s going on right now for the rewards it gives you.

I refuse to come back to this game to simply collect rewards from boring content. As the poster above stated “meat and potatoes”, not a glass of water.

I couldn’t be less interested in Living Story, to be honest. You’re BARELY a main character yourself (a sidekick at best, despite Teen Destiny’s Edge’s insistence to call you “boss”), and the ACTUAL main characters are largely forgettable, with even MORE forgettable villains, and a fairly predictable story to boot.

The concept of Living Story is pretty cool, but I just can’t get myself engaged in the plot. I just do it out of habit, really. For those that love it, all the more power to ya. I’d rather write my own story for my characters while adventure across Tyria, instead of being an errand-boy while Destiny’s Edge 2.0 gets all the credit.

Seabreeze.8437:

I couldn’t be less interested in Living Story, to be honest. You’re BARELY a main character yourself (a sidekick at best, despite Teen Destiny’s Edge’s insistence to call you “boss”), and the ACTUAL main characters are largely forgettable, with even MORE forgettable villains, and a fairly predictable story to boot.

The concept of Living Story is pretty cool, but I just can’t get myself engaged in the plot. I just do it out of habit, really. For those that love it, all the more power to ya. I’d rather write my own story for my characters while adventure across Tyria, instead of being an errand-boy while Destiny’s Edge 2.0 gets all the credit.

This is what I was worried I would hear. I can’t believe that they have the gall to sell 60 minutes of bad storytelling for actual money. Someone can always say that “they worked on it and they can’t work for free” but I don’t pay for bad products. If your main focus in developing an MMORPG is to provide incredibly small chunks of story, and that’s it, then you better hire George R. R. Martin to do it and make him deliver on a very quick schedule. ArenaNet/NCSoft, can you please sell the rights for Guild Wars to a competent development/marketing/writing team so we can get a good Guild Wars game again?

Actually everyone gets it for free who logs in when it’s current. Most of us got it for free. Those who don’t have the option to pay for it.

And some people do like the Living Story, OP, though I suspect you won’t be one of them.

1. yes a little
2.not The best in The industry, but I enjoy it a lot. Can’t wait to see what happens next. The story is fairly interesting and has some unexpected plots ( who expected the Zephyr Sanctum to crash?)
3. Yes, they change it up a lot (I actually died a couple of times)
4. I mostly get driven by the events occuring, but there are some interesting characters.
5. The rewards are meh
6.unknown
7.depends if you like it
8.yes new content has been added (2 maps, wardrobe, couple of new traits, etc.) Meta is still zerker but 6/8 professions are wanted in dungeons. Wvw never was a zergfest. Get on voice chat or out of your low tier server (or jq)

@wouw
Ummm ok… Though I will attest to WvW being a zergfest forever…

What is on the two maps? More DR effected mob grind? I love the wardrobe changes but I definitely don’t see that as a reason to return.

SWTOR story vs Living Story?

@Vayne
I definitely do not agree with the notion that it is free if you were there but is overly costly if you weren’t. How long are these chapters? There are 6 out right now that I would have to buy and each is 200 gems. It seems like $15 for 6 hours of mediocre storytelling. I’ll just pay less and get more everywhere else. That and of course I already bought this game and have dumped a few hundred on it already… I don’t see why I couldn’t get access to this content for free.

All of this paired with the fact that they don’t seem to be catering towards my playstyle tells me that I shouldn’t be supporting them. What they do now is very niche, which isn’t a problem, but if you go niche then you better be good at it and not ok. I play games for mechanics and hope that they tie into a great story, but it doesn’t appear that they are all that interested in making gameplay any more interesting with their changes to leveling.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

@wouw
Ummm ok… Though I will attest to WvW being a zergfest forever…

What is on the two maps? More DR effected mob grind? I love the wardrobe changes but I definitely don’t see that as a reason to return.

SWTOR story vs Living Story?

@Vayne
I definitely do not agree with the notion that it is free if you were there but is overly costly if you weren’t. How long are these chapters? There are 6 out right now that I would have to buy and each is 200 gems. It seems like $15 for 6 hours of mediocre storytelling. I’ll just pay less and get more everywhere else. That and of course I already bought this game and have dumped a few hundred on it already… I don’t see why I couldn’t get access to this content for free.

All of this paired with the fact that they don’t seem to be catering towards my playstyle tells me that I shouldn’t be supporting them. What they do now is very niche, which isn’t a problem, but if you go niche then you better be good at it and not ok. I play games for mechanics and hope that they tie into a great story, but it doesn’t appear that they are all that interested in making gameplay any more interesting with their changes to leveling.

How long the chapters are actually depends on how good you are at doing achievements and how much time you spend on sites like Dulfy (which means you find the easy fast way that everyone is doing it and you don’t actually win on your own terms).

The thing is, the story itself isn’t challenging, but some of the achievements have been.

I don’t necessarily think that charging people for LS was a great move on Anet’s part…but most people don’t seem to have a problem with it.

The percentage of posts we’ve had complaining about it have been very few. And if there’s one thing MMO forums are good at it’s complaining.

1) Is Trahearne in it?
Yes, but only briefly so far. Interestingly enough, his brief appearance has him acting like a competent military commander for a change. Mostly, though, he’s there to show you that the Pact is still intact, and to say “I trust you know what you’re doing, so go do it.”

2) Does it have legitimately good writing?
… no. To be fair, you can see the story they want to tell, but it’s not coming through. It’s buried under too much clutter and the characters.

3) Does it involve interesting game mechanics?
Some of the new enemies are interesting. However, you don’t need to pay for the past LS parts to face most of them, just check out the events in the two new zones.

Other than that, I’d say “Hidden Arcana” is worth a look, because there’s some interesting mechanics to the fights there.

4) Does it have an enticing story driven by genuinely well written characters?
No. I’d have to say that the characters are poorly written, with no good motivations for what they’re doing (especially the player character and why they’re hanging out with the Scooby Gang), and your character is frequently forced into bad choices and/or outright criminal levels of stupidity.

5) Are the rewards fun? CAVEAT: I don’t want to pay for rewards… I want a good story first and foremost.
Some people may say that the backpack you could assemble during the first part of Season 2 was fun, others hated it. Other than that, there’s weapons and armor to gain, but you don’t need to actually do the story for them if you don’t mind grinding the events in the new zones. The backpack was the only interesting reward, though. Armor and weapon skins are just that in the end, which isn’t really what I’d call ‘fun’.

6) Is there an actual expansion with game content in the works?
No, and no one can prove otherwise.

Even if ANet was working on an expansion, they’ve made it quite clear that things they’re working on are subject to change, revamp, or being scrapped without warning.

7) Is it worth the money?
You might find one or two of the parts worth buying, but not all of it. I REALLY don’t like to say that, because I’d had such high hopes for Season 2 when it seemed to start off so well, but it’s not lived up to it.

Other than that, Berserker got a slight nerf that hit some other stat sets as well, so it’s still Berserker in the lead. Leveling in general took a hit, and the trait system has been rendered into a lump of crap that even Olestra wouldn’t make passable. But you can see all that for free if you patch up and log in, and it won’t affect a pre-existing level 80 at all.

Since you are not interested in rewards, you can play all of the previous episodes at no cost whatsoever. You can party up with anyone in-game that has them unlocked, and experience the full story. The only thing you purchase is the ability to unlock the rewards, and achievements.

Everything else released with each patch is available and free of charge. You’ve paid for the game, it is up to you to take advantage of what is offered.

Good luck.

Is it worth the money?
Seriously… it costs less than a Starbucks coffee per episode and lasts longer, so yeah, I’d say it’s worth it. Considering that most people can probably scrounge that money together by checking their couch cushions, I don’t get the angst over being charged IF you don’t log in and get it for FREE. If it’s not worth it to you, move onto doing something else. Very few people will notice that you’re no longer playing the game.

You say that you’re genuinely interested in discussing whether the living story is interesting but this doesn’t come across as sincere since, by your second paragraph, you seem intent on pointing out that it isn’t. If you’re not enjoying the game, don’t play it. But stop with the thinly veiled troll posts. If you have some genuinely interesting comments to make about the game, that haven’t been made 1,000 times by other equally hard-done-by people on this forum, then by all means make them. Otherwise, this just comes across as another whiny post about how this game isn’t the game YOU want to play, along with the respective entitled belief that the game developers should cater to you.

The story isn’t perfect, but if you log in every two weeks it’s FREE, and for free game content, I’d say it’s pretty good. This game has cost me about 20c/hour and I can’t think of a single other form of entertainment that is cheaper and still manages to be entertaining more than a year later.

/rant

It is interesting,i love Marjory and Kasmeer but Taimi is the best !.Story is vary interesting as well,I wait each weak to see teaser trailer with hype !It sux that it comes only once per 2 weeks and usually dont deliver much content.
I have really fun playing LS each ep…but after a hour or 2,after its done,i have nothing to do again.

WalkinGoon.2408:

I say this because, to me, they are instances with a focus on story more so
than gameplay.
(…)
And while the writing’s not terribad, it’s only lukewarm at best.

The above sums up my feelings about the LS pretty well.
I’m not a big fan of the concept.

If you’re looking for a good story or good storytelling (especially compared to a book) then absolutely do not buy. Anet’s never been great at storytelling — even in the glory days of GW1 — but the LS has been just awful.

I suppose it’s now a bit better now than during the days of Scarlet, but that’s not saying much.

My opinion, of course.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

1) Is Trahearne in it?
2) Does it have legitimately good writing?
3) Does it involve interesting game mechanics?
4) Does it have an enticing story driven by genuinely well written characters?
5) Are the rewards fun? CAVEAT: I don’t want to pay for rewards… I want a good story first and foremost.
6) Is there an actual expansion with game content in the works?
7) Is it worth the money?

1. Trahearne is just a visitor, but he was still better written than any of the characters involved in season two. Did I hate Trahearne? Yes. He had personality though. Do I hate the season 2 characters? No. But the reason is, I do not care about them at all. If they all died tomorrow, I wouldn’t care. It is a result of really terrible character development.

2. The writing is as lame as the characters. It feels like it was done to give a reason to travel through the maps for moving from point A to B. It doesn’t give you the feeling that you are needed there, more like “hey you are done here, go there”. Pretty much like working off quest hubs in other MMOs. There is no real depth, no progression.

3. They went with the old-fashioned dungeon system of older MMOs now. Learn the mechnanics from the trash and use them at the boss. Unfortunately, that is fairly boring for a single player game. Everything becomes very predictable, which gets old fast.

4. As explained in 1. and 2. a clear “NOPE”. The story is so shallow that it hurts. The single episodes are extremly short, so there is actually very litte space to fit story in them, so that might be a reason too.

5. You still get a great amount of trash, which feels as rewarding as a getting a full dust bin for your birthday. At the end of the later episodes, you get a piece of armor only useful for visuals.

6. No official announcement for an expansion, so probably not in the next 12 monthes.

7. I would never pay money for what we got with the LS. But this is your choice.

the ls… well where to start..

You are a tag along char in your own story basically that sometimes speaks up a bit..but otherwise just waddles along with a doormat charr from the blood legion, a hipster norn with mommy issues, a juvenile deus ex machina asura and her golem mech suit and a couple made of a mesmer that most of the time does stuff she shouldnt be able to and actually makes you look weak and a greatsword swinging necro, yea.. a necro with a nodachi posessed by her dead sister (thats kitten but not helping). They adress you as boss, use skills and stuff thats usually not available to their classes and evolve.. but that does not count in ANY way whatsoever for you, no matter what class you are. You tag along with them on the eternal quest for the allmighty cliffhanger and observing their actions…since you got zero say in any matter…cept if some enemie pops up…then its up to you to battle. To a-nets defence.. they clearly put some thought into their latest bosses and i appreciate that a lot. After an hour or so its over and you stand there with some greens and blues (or some nice things like the caprax skins and the recent free key) infront of a closed door or watching somebody take off with a plot point, you learned nothing, resolved nothing and actually didnt do much either…cept what you usually would do. Maybe you command your “destinys edge v2” to do something without having any options to choose and then you just leave. It feels empty. Of course the true hero of tyria.. trahearne shows up but fortunally doesnt do much. I do hope you like to focus your LS on sylvari…cause thats pretty much it for the moment. Caithe, the pale tree, the plant dragon, in the past scarlet, during the 2nd half of your personal story it was trahearne and you playing little helper on his quest to save tyria… i really dunno what to do with the LS… imo its sylvari cyrclejerking and observing a couple of guys and gals kitten ing about that call you boss with a glint of envy in your eye cause they can do stuff you cant do (or even weaving you stuff like the blowtorch into the face and you cant use it cause would make too much sence to give a skin like that to the engi class). Oh yea and rytlock poofed to god knows where doing god knows what and no word about that either after a kitten poor easy scavenger hunt for a relic that got a ton of lore and legends attached to it and the re-used boss from the charr tutorial “fight” (in quotations cause of the NPE). To me LS is like a donut, ya know.. one of the pink ones with rainbow sprinkles, sitting there and looking all good, sweet and nice… but there´s a catch to it, everytime you bite into it you get anything else but a sweet taste. One time it doesnt taste of anything, the other time its sour like a lemon, then you get a bite thats actually sweet…but the next bite makes the donut go sentient and break your thumbs before kicking you out from a car into a rainy dead-end street while a bum in the corner laughs. Yet i come back to it.. hoping that your crew is one time like " ah yea boss? There, take that hammer (engineer player..dont ask), i show ya how to use it or “look boss, there is everything we need to know to wrap up the plot point from the last episode”…but it will with 100% certainty never be like i want it to be. Basically making your char progress, getting better, stronger, more skilled while beeing the boss rather then an observer and fighting along with the pact against dragons, their minions and other menancing dangers tyria has to face… still gonna take a bite everytime they relase the next episode in hope this time the donut doesnt break my thumbs again…im just a glutton for punishment.

In my opinion:
LS is realy nice, I get hooked in the story for every new LS chapter but the bad thing about it is that it is to darn short. But that won’t be a problem for you as you have missed a whole lot of it but my advice is to wait until the season is compleate before you play it to maximize enjoyment and not to forget what happened last time… But remember to always log in a second every LS update so you have the story for free, it isn’t that hard.

So I am gonna give some feedback at the same time;
- A little longer chapters, last LS was almost shorter than a TV-show to see. And to leave us out in the dessert with a very bad cliffhanger just like that was a little wierd (it can’t be good every time).
- Please a way to choose if you want a little quick “This has happened movie” would be nice, it is a pain reading or playing through the LS every two weeks :P
- Please make instances a little longer, I like the fighting instances but they are over way to fast and there is too little fighting most of the time. I hope that in the future they can be long like dungeons and even be enough to take their place.

The writing for the LS is subpar which bothers me because the lore content in the base game is amazing. We got an immersive world and personal questline with memorable characters then came the living story that introduced an NPC team so cliche I’m suprised there isn’t yet a Hollywood movie in production about them.

The social outcast? Check.
Homosexual couple? Check.
Inspirational disability? Check.
Single parent household? Check.
Interracial(species) relationship? Check.
Ragtag band winning against all odds? Check.

It’s like they went on tvtropes.com and picked out every major trope that could be crammed into this ordeal.

@Lomopop
I am biased against the concept of living story, but I am/was interested if it was a good STORY. I don’t think your Starbucks coffee point is any good because I would rather buy a few good coffees (I wouldn’t go to Starbucks in the first place) that only lasted 30 minutes than buy 30 to 90 minutes of bad game. I’ll say it again, if you plan on focusing almost solely on story, then you better do it very well. At this point I couldn’t see myself playing these unless I was absolutely desperate for more GW2 specific mechanics, and with all of the great games out right now I’m just not.

To everybody else who answered my questions and gave good feedback, positive or negative, I am very grateful. I’ll pass for now based on what I’ve heard but if they ever release content that actually interest me as a gamer then I might come back.

And yeah, I do wish the developers would cater to me because I’m a selfish human. We all do it. I might start up some GW1 because, imho, it is still a better game with a smaller player base and fewer updates.

1. sometimes
2. sometimes
3. sometimes
4. sometimes
5. sometimes
6. nobody knows, but IF it is, it’s made by the same people, and directly follows the events of the LS, so you should play through it regardless
7. at that low price, absolutely.

If you don’t want to spend the money (or are simply unsure yet) and don’t care about the rewards that much, play it for free by entering a party member’s story instances (most of us have all episodes unlocked and would be happy to give you a ride). Then you can judge for yourself. If you want the rewards and/or achievements later, you can stiil buy the episodes at anlater point in time.

I think for me, my biggest issue is with how content is delivered. Living Story has been a horrible content delivery system. Why do I say this?

I’ve enjoyed Season 2 so far, though some episodes are far and above better than others. Frankly I found episodes 6 and 7 to be pretty “meh” whereas episodes like 1, 4, and 5 were quite good and fun in my opinion.

So my biggest issue is this. I’m sick and tired of these long breaks in the middle of the season. The really long break between episodes 4 and 5, not to mention the shorter, but still long break between episodes 7 and 8. Its frustrating.

As a veteran GW1 and GW2 player, I get holiday updates and why they don’t do story updates during them. I totally get that. But this is the point where I’m continually wishing more and more for an expansion of larger and grander scale then these small updates every couple of weeks that they then take breaks for all the time to do WvW tournaments (which a lot of us would not even be interested in), PvP tournaments (same as WvW), and holiday events. If I play GW1, I could do Wintersday stuff and then when I am done, go back to playing a campaign. Now in GW2, I have nothing else to do but Wintersday stuff until the next episode releases.

I think I am at the point where I just don’t believe in the Living Story as a content delivery system anymore, not that I ever embraced it to begin with. For a 2 1/2 year old game, its too slow (because they are using it for everything, pve, pvp, features, wvw) and everything waits on everything else hence these long breaks between certain types of updates. I feel like we should be so much farther along then we are.

I get that development time is a point here. I’d argue that Episode 5, after the long 2-3 month break has been the best update in Season 2 so far with its story/lore richness and how it advanced how it setup the rest of the story and how it was going to progress. By comparison, episode 6 was extremely short and overall “meh” and the last episode was all flashbacks, but in my mind didn’t really advance the story that much and now we have to wait till January. At this point I’d rather just have ANET devote a good amount of time to develop a full on expansion to the same quality and richness of episode 5.

I don’t know. I have a love/hate relationship with GW2 at this point. Pretty much always have. I only have love for GW1…

1) Yes but only because he’s the figurehead in charge of the Pact even though it’s really the player.

2) I haven’t found many issues and it’s better than what I saw in GW1.

3) Yes, the mechanics are interesting.

4) Some characters could be fleshed out more but overall, they’re pretty good. I can see they have improved since the first game.

5) It all depends on what rewards you are looking at and how quickly you expect to have them. If you’re part of the “I want it right now” group then you’ll be disappointed at some of the rewards.

6) It’s anyone’s guess but they have stated in the past that they currently had no intentions at that time to do expansions and were focusing on the living story expansion model.

7) Yes.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

Mo Mo.1947:

I think the story is interesting. I wish I was here to play the previous season of living story, but I hear they’re gonna re-release them at some point. Hopefully it won’t cost too many gems to unlock them.

If you weren’t too impressed by what you left the game with, then go on youtube and watch some of the beginning of the living story season and see if it interests you.

If the youtube videos interest you, go for it. If not, just play the stuff that’s going on right now for the rewards it gives you.

I refuse to come back to this game to simply collect rewards from boring content. As the poster above stated “meat and potatoes”, not a glass of water.

Then don’t, no is making you since there is no subscription fee and good chance you don’t buy gems (aka supporting the game) to help Anet make more FREE boring content you’re not adding anything to the game.

Also name 1 online MMO that after you complete the main stuff the game doesn’t dissolve into “collecting” things.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

This is a very general question but I’m genuinely curious. Here are some more specific questions that I would like answered if I am going to even give this game another shot:

1) Is Trahearne in it?
Yes, don’t matter
2) Does it have legitimately good writing?
its ok, I wouldn’t compare this to GOT like I have seen employees try to do, or the free stories of swtor
3) Does it involve interesting game mechanics?
same ol same ol pretty much
4) Does it have an enticing story driven by genuinely well written characters?
Sylvari stuff
5) Are the rewards fun? CAVEAT: I don’t want to pay for rewards… I want a good story first and foremost.
You get Carapace for just doing the personal story part, Luminescent if you enjoy grind farming, & a back
6) Is there an actual expansion with game content in the works?
Who knows, Anet doesn’t share that kind of info
7) Is it worth the money?
Login and you get it for free. I would never pay for LS. If you just wanted to knock out all of LSs2 personal story part (no farming grinding zone areas) it would take you about 4h casual play. Farm out gold and buy the LS through ingame currency if you really want to give it a shot.

For the amount of money that I would spend to catch up on Season 2 (from the beginning) I could buy a couple of fantastic books or buy a game that focuses on interesting mechanics that play into an interesting story. Why should I give my money to Anet who has never convinced me that they have competent writers on staff? Why do they even focus on “Living Story” content when it was generally accepted that the main story was poorly written and wholly uninteresting?

LS is another item they can stick in the cash shop

There is no objective answer to this, but please try to explain your subjective answers so that I can make a more informed decision. Also, has there been any NEW (free) content added to the game in the last year? Are classes more reasonably balanced? Is WvWvW still a zergfest? Is the meta still “zerker or GTFO”? I played this game a ton when it released and quite a bit on a few different occasions since then, but I’ve not been a fan of the route that Anet has taken in developing content. I’m also disinterested in getting any form of legendary. I just can’t be bothered.

Zerker meta is still there, few qol updates (gem conversion , npe, daily/monthly, wardrobe), rehashed holiday events, mega server, eotm farm stand out

Players w/a similar point of view are still playing because of the foundation of GW2, beautiful art/game, great at the core combat, WvW, lore, and community…not necessarily the direction over last few years, the game is that good.

Everything in the last year plus can be found here in detail http://dulfy.net/category/gw2/

I think that season 2 was interesting. I enjoyed it and am looking forward to its continuation.

Was it a great piece of cinema, nuanced storytelling of the highest caliber, or a modern classic of digital literature ?

Of course not. This is an MMO. Still worth logging in for IMO.

Season 2 has been good so far. Like how it follows one story line instead of jumping all around and coming together at the end of Season 1 and the new maps and what not are always good.

What I don’t like, since new maps and other stuff are being made and added in Season 2 the actual story missions in each episode have suffered as a result.

Take the last 2 episodes, I was done with the story missions in about 15 mins.

When Anet decided to make new areas and new things to do in the new areas they should have drop the 2 week releases and gone to what I have suggested and others have agreed, a once a month release schedule. That would have given them more time to work on the new maps and work on making the LS missions longer or at the least make more of them.

Hopefully Anet will do something like this for Season 3 but I’m not holding my breath.

joshc.3129:

DaedalusDragon.3754:

Mo Mo.1947:

I think the story is interesting. I wish I was here to play the previous season of living story, but I hear they’re gonna re-release them at some point. Hopefully it won’t cost too many gems to unlock them.

If you weren’t too impressed by what you left the game with, then go on youtube and watch some of the beginning of the living story season and see if it interests you.

If the youtube videos interest you, go for it. If not, just play the stuff that’s going on right now for the rewards it gives you.

I refuse to come back to this game to simply collect rewards from boring content. As the poster above stated “meat and potatoes”, not a glass of water.

Then don’t, no is making you since there is no subscription fee and good chance you don’t buy gems (aka supporting the game) to help Anet make more FREE boring content you’re not adding anything to the game.

Also name 1 online MMO that after you complete the main stuff the game doesn’t dissolve into “collecting” things.

I’m just leaving this thread alone after this as I got all of the information that I needed, but I did want to say one thing. I have put HUNDREDS of dollars into this game. I’m one of those people that they should try to cater more towards because I would still be giving this game my money if they gave me a good reason to play again and good things to buy. I want an expansion. It isn’t fair to compare this game to GW1, but I’ll probably play it again this weekend because every aspect of that game is better imho (excepting the graphics, a spring chicken it is not). I do like the combat of this game and the wardrobe system is an incredible addition, but I’m no longer interested in their “end game” and I am not particularly interested in competitive pvp.

Thanks for all of the help and thanks for being objective and not simply flaming this thread. I hope everyone has fun with whatever they are playing. I’ll play some swtor (and sub) to experience the story and then probably play some GW1.

Not a fan of it, I see it as content ‘on the cheap’. Lore is all well and good but it’s just…words, a story. Like newspapers produce every day.

1) Trahearne – Eventually, though only as a support character at best.
2) Writing – Better then Season one. ‘Legitimately good’ is a matter of debate.
3) Mechanics – yes, actually. Most of it is in the new maps though that can be accessed without purchasing the story instances. There’s some cool stuff in there as well though.
4) Characters – It’s the same characters from Season one, but they are getting better at writing them. See answer 2.
5) Rewards – GW2 is kitten about rewards. It’s designed that way. How players still haven’t figured this out after 2 years is a mystery. There’s a new armor skin that you may or may not like, and a somewhat cool back item with a fairly interesting mode of assembly.
6) Expansion – That’s the big question. They keep teasing big things coming after the current season, but we’ve heard that before.
7) Money – This one is hard to say actually. If you only had to catch up on 2 or 3 episodes, I’d say sure, just a few gems. For the complete season, that might be a bit much. Remember you can play the story episodes in a party with someone else who has them, without needing to pay for them. You just won’t get the achievements and rewards that way.

Yes, I think it is. And I think it’s worth the money. Just start buying the 1 or 2 first episodes, and you’ll quickly find out if it’s your cup of tea or not

DaedalusDragon.3754:

This is a very general question but I’m genuinely curious. Here are some more specific questions that I would like answered if I am going to even give this game another shot:

1) Is Trahearne in it?
2) Does it have legitimately good writing?
3) Does it involve interesting game mechanics?
4) Does it have an enticing story driven by genuinely well written characters?
5) Are the rewards fun? CAVEAT: I don’t want to pay for rewards… I want a good story first and foremost.
6) Is there an actual expansion with game content in the works?
7) Is it worth the money?

1. Yes he is, sadly. Luckily only as a bit player.
2. The writing is a tiny bit better than first season, but it’s still simple and cliched. I skip everything I can in NPC interactions, but it’s not possible to skip cut scenes any more.
3. Surprisingly, in this latest episode, yes. You play Caithe, and get the skills of a ridiculously over powered thief. It’s been made a bit too easy with her skills, but it was fun.
4. [young cat] no. It’s the usual random unconnected rubbish.
5. Nope. There were some interesting reward mechanics introduced and a defend the forts group of events in the latest zone. If you want all the rewards you have to grind a ludicrous amount of tokens to get them. Trouble is the interesting new mechanics are simplistic and very repetitive. After a few hours you may be totally bored of doing the same few things over and over and over. Only another 4,000 tokens left to collect… Still lots of RNG in there. Nice ascended backpack you can make that can eat bloodstone dust daily, but that’s another lengthy grind (or spend gold).
6. As far as we can tell, no. No new dungeons or fractals planned either.
7. Depends. For me, no. 2 hours and you’ve done all the content and achievements of each chapter. If you want the rewards, perhaps. If you don’t find the new zones repetitive and boring, yes. Of course you can get most of the rewards and all the zone without unlocking the story chapters.

1) yes,but thankfully not too often.
2) Occasional good moments, but also alot of dull parts.
3)On and off, Some bosses have interesting mechanics, but by and large the mordrem mobs are mostly annyoing rather than interesting.
4)No,it’s mostly the same bunch of reserve characters we had following us around at the end of season 1. Doing the same rather disjointed episodic content invarably involving backtracking all over the place at random,and then having a short boss fight at the end of each act.
5) Not really, most of the rewardsare time gated and requre farming a lot of new stuff. The Luminous armour looks ok,if you want to glow blue,but requires you to complete all the story achivements in the episodes they are connected to, which are a pain to do.
6)Maybe A-Net knows,no one else does.
7)Not really. If you really want the new armour, or the dry top backpice buy the relevant parts for those, and leave the rest.

By the tone of the OP’s post, it’s obvious he’s made up his mind and isn’t seeking legitimate feedback, otherwise i would’ve answered.

nexxe.7081:

By the tone of the OP’s post, it’s obvious he’s made up his mind and isn’t seeking legitimate feedback, otherwise i would’ve answered.

Indeed. He got the answer he wanted.

If anyone genuinely wants to check out the story before deciding on buying or not, I can take another run through. Contact information below.

Syzygy.5031:

The writing is a tiny bit better than first season, but it’s still simple and cliched. I skip everything I can in NPC interactions

Hmmm… :P

Titus.4285:

Syzygy.5031:

The writing is a tiny bit better than first season, but it’s still simple and cliched. I skip everything I can in NPC interactions

Hmmm… :P

I have, at various times, tried to give the story a chance. It’s poor and disjointed. Characters come from nowhere and go with no significance or development. There’s no consequence to any of it. If it were a book, I’d not finish it. Especially now we’re forced to sit through those unskippable scripted parts multiple times to do achievements, it’s very difficult to completely avoid and form opinions. :p

Others do seem to like it, and that’s fine.

1) Is Trahearne in it?
Yeah he is. There was one point where where my brother and I were doing a mission and he heard one of Sylvari plainly say something during a desperate scenario. My brother sarcastically said “Wow… that guy sounded like he was REALLY into it.” He looked again and noticed it was Trahearne.

2) Does it have legitimately good writing?
It goes back and forth. Note, this is speaking purely from opinion. I think a lot of people and me are really having a hard time connecting with most of the Sylvari characters, yet they keep becoming the focus. There was one part which had most of us GW1 fans excited, but it quickly got snatched away by a Sylvari. We’ll see what happens when the story gets back around to it.

3) Does it involve interesting game mechanics?
Well the new zones are very cool, they are a neat look on open world cooperative content, they are permanent and they look nice. The story missions themselves are fun. The challenge mission achievements for replaying them are great too.

So YES.

4) Does it have an enticing story driven by genuinely well written characters?
Like I said, there was part that enticed a lot of GW1 players. As far as the rest, _again, my opinion, most of it I’m just in for the gameplay and could take or leave the story itself.

I think most Asura characters in GW2 have been well written. Tiami is no exception. Now we have this other asuran who everyone HATES right now, but they hate this character for a good writing reason, not for a bad writing reason.

All in all, I willingly pay attention to the dialogue and am curious what happens next.

5) Are the rewards fun? CAVEAT: I don’t want to pay for rewards… I want a good story first and foremost.
Yes they are. Don’t let other people discourage you on this one. This stuff is permanent so not everything is meant to be 100% completed in 2 weeks. So finally we have neat stuff to work toward and we don’t have to rush it.

6) Is there an actual expansion with game content in the works?
Not that we know of. LS2 is a big step toward expansion-like compared to LS1, but it’s not quite there.

7) Is it worth the money?
How much is it? I got it free because I was lucky enough to be active during its uptime.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

@Lomopop
I am biased against the concept of living story, but I am/was interested if it was a good STORY. I don’t think your Starbucks coffee point is any good because I would rather buy a few good coffees (I wouldn’t go to Starbucks in the first place) that only lasted 30 minutes than buy 30 to 90 minutes of bad game. I’ll say it again, if you plan on focusing almost solely on story, then you better do it very well. At this point I couldn’t see myself playing these unless I was absolutely desperate for more GW2 specific mechanics, and with all of the great games out right now I’m just not.

To everybody else who answered my questions and gave good feedback, positive or negative, I am very grateful. I’ll pass for now based on what I’ve heard but if they ever release content that actually interest me as a gamer then I might come back.

And yeah, I do wish the developers would cater to me because I’m a selfish human. We all do it. I might start up some GW1 because, imho, it is still a better game with a smaller player base and fewer updates.

I get that spending any amount of money on a truly bad story is not worth it, but I doubt that anyone can answer the question “is it Interesting to you?” It sounds, from your original post, that you don’t think it’s worth it, and that draws people who don’t like the story which is only going to confirm what you believe already.

In any case, I didn’t really want to rant at you. I’m just tired of the attitude that nothing is ever good enough. There have been amazing parts in this story, and there have been weak moments. if you want perfection, the story will never be for you. But if you’re willing to overlook some of the weaknesses for the moments that really shine then it’s worth it. The build-up where we could see the vines spreading across Tyria, our introduction to Dry Top, seeing the Eternal Alchemy and running through Glint’s Lair, seeing the Priory library,, all of these were amazing. And while some of these things happen in the open world (e.g. the spreading vines), they all contribute to the overall effect of the story. So for me, I definitely get more than 200 gems worth of enjoyment out of the stories.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

Seabreeze.8437:

I couldn’t be less interested in Living Story, to be honest. You’re BARELY a main character yourself (a sidekick at best, despite Teen Destiny’s Edge’s insistence to call you “boss”), and the ACTUAL main characters are largely forgettable, with even MORE forgettable villains, and a fairly predictable story to boot.

The concept of Living Story is pretty cool, but I just can’t get myself engaged in the plot. I just do it out of habit, really. For those that love it, all the more power to ya. I’d rather write my own story for my characters while adventure across Tyria, instead of being an errand-boy while Destiny’s Edge 2.0 gets all the credit.

This is what I was worried I would hear. I can’t believe that they have the gall to sell 60 minutes of bad storytelling for actual money. Someone can always say that “they worked on it and they can’t work for free” but I don’t pay for bad products. If your main focus in developing an MMORPG is to provide incredibly small chunks of story, and that’s it, then you better hire George R. R. Martin to do it and make him deliver on a very quick schedule. ArenaNet/NCSoft, can you please sell the rights for Guild Wars to a competent development/marketing/writing team so we can get a good Guild Wars game again?

I don’t want to be misinterpreted that I think this isn’t a good Guild Wars game. Quite the opposite, actually. I’ve never found myself more hooked on a game than this one. Despite its shortcomings, this is easily my favorite game to play.

I’m merely saying that I think the Living Story is very weak. GW1 had a MUCH more engaging story that focused far more on YOU, the player, instead of playing second fiddle to a teenage sitcom group (bleh, Destiny’s Edge 2.0).

I’m not hating on the game, by any means . I’m just not invested in LS, unfortunately.

If I could get what I want, anet shouldn’t focus so much on storytelling. Give us some good replayable content instead. Dungeons/world bosses/pvp modes etc.

The zones added with the Living Story is greatly appreciated, but still lacks dungeons/world bosses.

I would recommend only getting chapter 6 (Tangled Paths) so you can get BL keys for all 80’s you have. That chapter is so short you can do it in 30 min after just running it once (in the second instance be sure to grab the flamethrower behind you where you enter, in the third instance grab the mesmer girl (yeah I really forgot her name, that’s how good the characters are) so you have some light). But don’t spend your hard earned cash on it, just convert gold for that chapter only. The rest of the LS is really not worth the gold/cash you have.

Nope.

15 char…

nexxe.7081:

By the tone of the OP’s post, it’s obvious he’s made up his mind and isn’t seeking legitimate feedback, otherwise i would’ve answered.

Just because you don’t agree with the feedback given doesn’t mean it isn’t legitimate. I would say he got plenty of legitimate feedback and made a decision based on it.