Guild Wars 2

CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR SEASON 2, DON’T READ IF YOU HAVEN’T PLAYED IT.

As i recently played trough the living story season 2 again because a friend just started playing the game and finished the personal story, and asked me to tag allong, i noticed a big gap in information that i had to fill in for him. Basicly at the start of living world season 2 you have this whole new group of people that just came out of nowhere and call you “boss” and everywhere you hear about scarlet. Yet you have no clue who she is.

Now i know living world season 1 would be way more difficult to bring back. But at the start of the first mission of season 2, there should at least be a cutscene about what between the defeat of Zaithen and the start of season 2. I had to fill in many for my friend, and when the name Mordremoth was first mentioned, he asked me about that, and just to check up so i wasn’t telling him anything wrong about the dragon, i looked at the wiki page, and saw that it already said the sylvari were intended to be his minions, wich is a major spoiler for season 2…Same with marjory, if you look up her wiki page you see her sister dies in LW: S2. We need something ingame just telling players what happened. It can be basicly voiced over concept art of the previous living story episodes. Right now a new player who isn’t playing with a friend, is lost in that part of the game, and if he/she tries to find info about it, that info will basicly spoil the entire story wich they payed for… I know this may not be a priority, but i think it should be, even if it’s in some minimalistic form, that would help, for example if it links to a youtube video by arenanet where Collin Sohandsome just talks about it and explains what happened right when you buy it from the gem store so you have at least someone that will explain to you what you need to know without getting any spoilers for the further story.

Making a cutscene would probally take some time and effort, but making a youtube video, or even asking woodenpotatoes or some other guildwars 2 lore nerd youtuber (no offense i love you WP) to do it, and just including the link when you purchase the season 2 story, should be fairly simple to do, and would be such a good thing for new players.
This should be a priority if you want to attract new players to the game, cause they will feel lost without it, or they will have their story spoiled by looking up certain things online, and that’s not the way you want new players to experience the game.

i agree. This needs to happen. LS1 set the stage for LS2 and without that background, it would be extremely confusing.

I’d also advise finishing your personal story before starting the living story, just because everyone in the living story acts like you already have. so if you’re stuck on the battle of claw island and all these pact soldiers are congratulating you on your defeat of Zhaitan, it can be a bit immersion-shattering

“Last time, On Hero of Tyria”.

Narrrz.7532:

i agree. This needs to happen. LS1 set the stage for LS2 and without that background, it would be extremely confusing.

I’d also advise finishing your personal story before starting the living story, just because everyone in the living story acts like you already have. so if you’re stuck on the battle of claw island and all these pact soldiers are congratulating you on your defeat of Zhaitan, it can be a bit immersion-shattering

Yeah, i personally think accounts should have at least 1 main char completing the personal story before being able to buy the living one.
But the information is the most important, maybe just include that in the youtube video, if you haven’t finished the personal story, go do that first or smth.

starlinvf.1358:

“Last time, On Hero of Tyria”.

Sounds silly but we really need it.

Wait for people who pick up hot, and dont feel they want to pay for ls2 until they have played around. Imagine how lost they will be.

i’m really hoping they decide to include a full LS2 package with at least one of the HoT purchase options.

I came back after a 1 1/2 year break and don’t have Living Story season 2. I find the price to be somewhat extortionate for the content it promises, which is how I feel about the HoT expansion as well. People have been telling me that before the Lion’s Arch update and new skills (needed for HoT), there hadn’t been any significant updates since January.

So they basically just took the resources they once used for content financed by the gem store and made an expansion they’ll now charge $50 for? I can’t be the only player who finds this approach to be something that will fragment the story for different players. If you add that to the cost of the Living Story season 2, it’s quite the investment when you then also add any gem store purchases on top of that.

Furthermore, I found that some achievements aren’t locked either but still require Living Story season 2! I started working on the luminescent achievement, only to realize too late that the ascended items required to complete these are behind a gem store pay wall. This whole business about using in-game gold is nonsense; the time required to earn a sufficient amount of gold (which then can’t be used for other things) far exceeds that needed for the direct cash cost. In addition to that, there is no way to get the first season either which must be a bummer to some players.

The lore, story, game flow, events, and so on are just all over the place. Look at the mash that is the achievement panel. It’s like there is no red thread. No consistent modus operandi. Some people may enjoy the eternal experimentation, but it leaves a lot to be desired in regards to aesthetics and people who don’t play all the time.

Agreed, just collect and put the still graphics from season 1 together with a nice caption will do.

Narrrz.7532:

i’m really hoping they decide to include a full LS2 package with at least one of the HoT purchase options.

Oh they already do, buy the ultimate and you get 4k gems you can spend 2k of them on the ls2

Yep, this is needed desperately. It’s one of the big oversights that hasn’t been addressed yet.

Kosmo.5187:

~snip~

And then people realize for the first time, apparently, that all future releases are also going to require having access to the areas HoT has, including free LS seasons.

Narrrz.7532:

i’m really hoping they decide to include a full LS2 package with at least one of the HoT purchase options.

I think they will not do that because they can’t give out gift without players
starting to cry for refunds because they already have that or don’t want that
or whatever else.

While not ideal this isnt really a new problem if a problem at all. Thing is all MMOs in existence have lore that predates the events in the game. What LS did differently as such is we got to play the lore leading to the events in the next chapter of the story.

Its pretty much the same thing for people who started gw2 without playing gw1 before in a way. Gw1 is a big lore chunk that relates directly to events in Gw2.

Destroyers, Elder Dragons, searing coldrin, The races of tyria, dwarves and specifically Ogden, Orr, ascalon, and pretty much everything else in the game had backstory that you would get if you played Gw1. But not knowing any of that makes you wonder whats going on? no because the story is laid in such a way that not knowing the details doesnt stop you from enjoying and you’re always free to go read up all the details to your heart content. In anycase its impossible to put in all the lore readily available to players in game. These are not things you can easily put in game.

Even if we simply take scarlet there is so much material that a cutscene to cover it all would need to be hours long. (what scarlet saw short story, a summary of all the living story episodes she was involved in, an explanation on what she was trying to accomplish and why, the thaumanova reactor fractal summary, Her journal. Then there is the background lore you need to fully explain her origins. The pale tree, the dreaming, the soundless, the eternal alchemy etc… A cutscene wouldnt do it, you’d need a movie if not a trilogy of them.

that’s a problem keeping me from purchasing LS season 2
i take a long long break before LS even introduce and come back just less than a month
i enjoy personal story, i m not asking for SWTOR level of personal story, but i dont want to read up a missing episode which have spoiler for the Season 2
that’s what happen when i try to read through wiki about the background of Scarlet, it just show everything including Season 2
i wanna fill up the gap between Season 1 and 2, but in a way which there are no spoiler for Season for that i can fully enjoy LS Season 2 playing and match with HoT

They need to just bite the bullet and find a way to rehash LS1 or recreate a condensed version to tie everything together. This is however under the assumption that they plan on continuing the LS going forward.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/

Scroll to the bottom. Watch the videos and the recap. Probably avoid the Season 2 stuff, but what you’re looking for is available.

I agree. I want to and need to play LS1 if I want to understand HoT.

OP, spoiler alert next time please. Your thread title may lead new players to read it and you just shout out the spoilers with no warning! Haha, they don’t need to bother visiting the wiki page you complain about as they can just read your post instead.

Kal Spiro.9745:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/

Scroll to the bottom. Watch the videos and the recap. Probably avoid the Season 2 stuff, but what you’re looking for is available.

Having to rely on out of game information to explain the gaps within the ingame story is bad by design. In the same way a minority of players visit the forums, a even fewer number actually look through the site.

But +1 for the info regardless.

Whatever info is out there (the releases are hardly enough info imo) the real problem is that there is no link ingame to it, wich leads to google searches and being spoiled. There needs to be at least something.

Spirited Was Eceni.3869:

OP, spoiler alert next time please. Your thread title may lead new players to read it and you just shout out the spoilers with no warning! Haha, they don’t need to bother visiting the wiki page you complain about as they can just read your post instead.

Adjusted the first post for it, you are correct.

Kal Spiro.9745:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/

Scroll to the bottom. Watch the videos and the recap. Probably avoid the Season 2 stuff, but what you’re looking for is available.

No, actually, it isn’t available. Yes, the link claims to be a recap trailer, but it isn’t. It’s a teaser trailer that doesn’t actually tell you anything. All you get out of it is that you missed blowing up some giant clockwork things and that there is an evil, female villain.

ekarat.1085:

Kal Spiro.9745:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/

Scroll to the bottom. Watch the videos and the recap. Probably avoid the Season 2 stuff, but what you’re looking for is available.

No, actually, it isn’t available. Yes, the link claims to be a recap trailer, but it isn’t. It’s a teaser trailer that doesn’t actually tell you anything. All you get out of it is that you missed blowing up some giant clockwork things and that there is an evil, female villain.

Yeah i agree it’s really unclear.

i thought it would be nice to have a book about all events in LS1 in the Durmand Priory and/or the library in Divinity’s Reach, so when people are interested they can read what happened out of the view of a scholar.
Or you have one NPC in the cities tell you the whole story, when talking to them.
I think it is far easier to make this than make videos with actual voice acting about it, to inform the new or returning players.

Oreithyia.3064:

i thought it would be nice to have a book about all events in LS1 in the Durmand Priory and/or the library in Divinity’s Reach, so when people are interested they can read what happened out of the view of a scholar.
Or you have one NPC in the cities tell you the whole story, when talking to them.
I think it is far easier to make this than make videos with actual voice acting about it, to inform the new or returning players.

That’s actually not a bad idea!

If they’d just get on making s1 living story replayable, this wouldn’t be an issue.

Fox.3469:

Oreithyia.3064:

i thought it would be nice to have a book about all events in LS1 in the Durmand Priory and/or the library in Divinity’s Reach, so when people are interested they can read what happened out of the view of a scholar.
Or you have one NPC in the cities tell you the whole story, when talking to them.
I think it is far easier to make this than make videos with actual voice acting about it, to inform the new or returning players.

That’s actually not a bad idea!

Iunno, reading a book about a game inside the game to find out what’s already happened in the game…

apart from anything else, this game doesn’t have a very good ‘book’ interface built in, and it would be likely a reasonable amount of work to implement one.

The video cutscenes in this game are mostly static images as is, they could do one of those to quickly run through the events of s1, or at least the important bits which the LSS2 ties back into.

of course, i can’t guess how easy or difficult it would be but it would mostly be an art team thing, which maybe? is easier to pull off at this stage of development of the expansion?

Narrrz.7532:

Fox.3469:

Oreithyia.3064:

i thought it would be nice to have a book about all events in LS1 in the Durmand Priory and/or the library in Divinity’s Reach, so when people are interested they can read what happened out of the view of a scholar.
Or you have one NPC in the cities tell you the whole story, when talking to them.
I think it is far easier to make this than make videos with actual voice acting about it, to inform the new or returning players.

That’s actually not a bad idea!

Iunno, reading a book about a game inside the game to find out what’s already happened in the game…

apart from anything else, this game doesn’t have a very good ‘book’ interface built in, and it would be likely a reasonable amount of work to implement one.

The video cutscenes in this game are mostly static images as is, they could do one of those to quickly run through the events of s1, or at least the important bits which the LSS2 ties back into.

of course, i can’t guess how easy or difficult it would be but it would mostly be an art team thing, which maybe? is easier to pull off at this stage of development of the expansion?

I mean’t that’s a good idea that wouldn’t cost to much time and can go really into detail if you want. Of course youtube video would be better. Ingame cinematic would be even better.