My Greatest Fear Plotline

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Posted by: Joesus.6371

Joesus.6371

I’ve been playing since launch (hell, I was playing since the BETA events), and this was probably the worst move Anet could have done for the PS, period. I’ve taken the changes to the trait system in stride, even enjoyed it sometimes considering it’s pushed me to do interesting events I never would have bothered with before. I can even live with the scrambled restructuring of some of the later chapters (even if I believe story should always come first, THEN mechanics like level gating). But I can never accept the outright butchering Anet did to the Personal Story by removing the Greatest Fear segments.

I was lucky enough to play through all three, and they were all easily the part of the Personal Story I looked forward to the most. Not joining an Order. Not working with master of monotone Trahearne. Not even killing an Elder Dragon. I wanted to see fallibility in my characters to really connect with the game, and the Greatest Fear segments were one of (if not the only) parts that actually did that for me. Losing Tonn, Apatia’s death and the shock of discovering I took a mortar to my own troops helped cement the notion that my character was capable of making mistakes, and as Commander of the Pact the consequences of those mistakes could be huge.

This is a massive chunk of content removed for not only new players, but veteran players like me who want to continue making characters and enjoy the full experience the game previously had to offer. I can’t even find a substantial reason why they would remove the content (And no, making the PS fit better into a new and largely unnecessary level gating system is not a substantial reason).

Given Anet’s 5-month failure to shed light on the issue, I’ve started to doubt their claims to being committed to their own story or to what’s proven to be a loyal community of players. This is the type of blunder that makes me want to use my limited power as a consumer and file a report to the Better Business Bureau (under the argument of removing substantial content I originally paid for at the game’s launch). I know it probably wouldn’t lead to much if a single report were filed or even be a legally strong argument, but I’m not sure what else I can do if Anet refuses to listen to their own forums.

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Posted by: beBlueberry.8610

beBlueberry.8610

My biggest issue with the removal of the Greatest Fear storyline is that there is a “Hero” achievement that is no longer achievable, which is a huge annoyance if you’re like me and enjoy completing things like that.

Has ANet made ANY sort of statement about this, other than “we know it’s an issue but it would be really hard to fix”?

I am relieved to have found this thread and to learn that it wasn’t just me not paying attention during the Personal Story when I was interacting with NPCs that I didn’t remember meeting in the first place (Sayeh al’Rajihd, for one).

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Posted by: Mental Paradox.3845

Mental Paradox.3845

So the PS is still ruined? They still haven’t even had the guts to admit it’s a bug or it was intentional? Come on, really? Is this incompetence, ill will, or is NC Soft making them act like this?

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Posted by: Yrsa.2356

Yrsa.2356

I purchased this game because it made claims about being story-driven and casual. This isn’t a game for power gamers – it’s touted as being for the casual player. Why was this part of the story gutted? I keep seeing reference to “confusing players” – if that was why it was removed I find that to be pretty offensive. I’m an adult with a college degree, I assure you that I am capable of grasping video game mechanics (having the reflexes to actually make them work is a whole other issue, lol) and story intricacies.

I’ve gotten one character through the level 70 (new chapter 7) quest and it was disjointed and was confusing, because I kept being told “hey, good to see you again” by NPCs I’d never met, there were important plot items I’d never seen before but was supposed to know what they were, and so on. It makes me feel like I did something wrong, missed a step somewhere. My husband is still working through Ch. 8 and is so jarred by the inconsistencies in the dialogue that he stopped working on it and doesn’t want to go past Claw Island on any other character. I’ve gotten the one through Ch. 7 and am in the same boat – I don’t want to go past Claw Island.

I’ve got issues with Claw Island as well, but that’s mainly due to the stupid suicide (cough sacrifice) that my order mentors do. I mean, all of them just walk in and die to the Orrians, presumably to come back as a zombie to fight me (I mean seriously, it’s told to us that Zhaitan gets his intel from the minds of the fallen that he converts, so by my mentors committing suicide they are actually helping Zhaitan a HUGE amount, did no one think of this?!), and it doesn’t even help us proceed to escape the island and you still have to come back and re-take it. Pointless death.

Since we’re new we’ve missed the boat on LS part 1 and there too is another example of NPCs talking to us that we have no idea who they are, or references to NPC we will never meet.

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Posted by: BobbyStein

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BobbyStein

Guild Wars 2 Narrative Lead

Next

I just wanted to provide an update since it’s been a while.

  • We are currently working to restore the Greatest Fear storyline to the live game. I can’t provide a release date at this point.
  • In addition to restoring the Personal Story steps to their original order we’re making some minor improvements where possible (e.g. recording new VO or updating certain conversations, etc.).

We’ll provide additional details closer to release. Thanks much for your patience.

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Posted by: Ashen.2907

Ashen.2907

I just wanted to provide an update since it’s been a while.

  • We are currently working to restore the Greatest Fear storyline to the live game. I can’t provide a release date at this point.
  • In addition to restoring the Personal Story steps to their original order we’re making some minor improvements where possible (e.g. recording new VO or updating certain conversations, etc.).

We’ll provide additional details closer to release. Thanks much for your patience.

Thank you very much for the update. It is greatly appreciated.

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Posted by: Einlanzer.1627

Einlanzer.1627

I just wanted to provide an update since it’s been a while.

  • We are currently working to restore the Greatest Fear storyline to the live game. I can’t provide a release date at this point.
  • In addition to restoring the Personal Story steps to their original order we’re making some minor improvements where possible (e.g. recording new VO or updating certain conversations, etc.).

We’ll provide additional details closer to release. Thanks much for your patience.

Thank goodness! Reorganizing the story may not have been so bad if time had been taken to ensure that nothing was lost and it remained coherent, but alas! On the plus side, I’ll say that I prefer the chapter based organization that makes it more cohesive with the Living World.

It’s not necessarily appropriate for this topic, but I think there are several relatively minor things that could be done to greatly enhance the PS experience, like the removal of the dialogue cut-away sequences (sorry, they just don’t really work for immersion!), addition of NPC/organization bios, and the ability to replay chapters. Is there any chance we’ll see things like this in the near future?

(edited by Einlanzer.1627)

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Posted by: Torsailr.8456

Torsailr.8456

Thanks Bobby.

Can you give us a general time frame on it? IE, is it an imminent thing or more like later in the year kind of thing?

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Posted by: Merus.9475

Merus.9475

The potential for improved writing in the back end of the campaign is very appealing. The fight against Zhaitan feels surprisingly weightless, something I hope the writing team are itching to fix.

Hopefully alongside this there’ll be some changes to Traherne’s AI – I think players would be more favourably disposed to him as a character if he was capable of reviving players, for instance. Currently, what players see is a ‘companion’ character who doesn’t care if they die.

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Posted by: Stormdancer.4972

Stormdancer.4972

I just wanted to provide an update since it’s been a while.

  • We are currently working to restore the Greatest Fear storyline to the live game. I can’t provide a release date at this point.
  • In addition to restoring the Personal Story steps to their original order we’re making some minor improvements where possible (e.g. recording new VO or updating certain conversations, etc.).

We’ll provide additional details closer to release. Thanks much for your patience.

Oh, bless you.

The personal story is one of the first major things new players encounter, and as it stands now it in no way represents the current quality of the game. Or even the quality of the game at launch.

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Posted by: Ryuu.5608

Ryuu.5608

I just wanted to provide an update since it’s been a while.

  • We are currently working to restore the Greatest Fear storyline to the live game. I can’t provide a release date at this point.
  • In addition to restoring the Personal Story steps to their original order we’re making some minor improvements where possible (e.g. recording new VO or updating certain conversations, etc.).

We’ll provide additional details closer to release. Thanks much for your patience.

Ty x 9999

Just got a couple of friends to play GW2 with me, but had to tell them to wait a bit on their personal stories til we had a proper fix for the final chapters, glad to know that this issue is getting fixed.

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Posted by: Sublimatio.6981

Sublimatio.6981

Hyped, so I will play whole PS again after all!

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Posted by: Malkavian.4516

Malkavian.4516

I just wanted to provide an update since it’s been a while.

  • We are currently working to restore the Greatest Fear storyline to the live game. I can’t provide a release date at this point.
  • In addition to restoring the Personal Story steps to their original order we’re making some minor improvements where possible (e.g. recording new VO or updating certain conversations, etc.).

We’ll provide additional details closer to release. Thanks much for your patience.

That’s all well and good. Nice to know you are getting down to fixing it. Now, that just leaves the issue on characters who have been through the botched PS. Will you by some chance, make it replayable like you did with the Living Story? Because if I have to grind my charr character just to see the fixed version, that’s just bullcrap. :/

FOR SKYRIM!!!!!

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Posted by: Malkavian.4516

Malkavian.4516

The potential for improved writing in the back end of the campaign is very appealing. The fight against Zhaitan feels surprisingly weightless, something I hope the writing team are itching to fix.

Hopefully alongside this there’ll be some changes to Traherne’s AI – I think players would be more favourably disposed to him as a character if he was capable of reviving players, for instance. Currently, what players see is a ‘companion’ character who doesn’t care if they die.

To be honest, I don’t think they would actually fix the Zhaitan fight itself but rather restore the story chapters to what it once was.

FOR SKYRIM!!!!!

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Posted by: SlayerGT.6805

SlayerGT.6805

I just wanted to provide an update since it’s been a while.

  • We are currently working to restore the Greatest Fear storyline to the live game. I can’t provide a release date at this point.
  • In addition to restoring the Personal Story steps to their original order we’re making some minor improvements where possible (e.g. recording new VO or updating certain conversations, etc.).

We’ll provide additional details closer to release. Thanks much for your patience.

[x]

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Posted by: ShroomOneUp.6913

ShroomOneUp.6913

I just wanted to provide an update since it’s been a while.

  • We are currently working to restore the Greatest Fear storyline to the live game. I can’t provide a release date at this point.
  • In addition to restoring the Personal Story steps to their original order we’re making some minor improvements where possible (e.g. recording new VO or updating certain conversations, etc.).

We’ll provide additional details closer to release. Thanks much for your patience.

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YEEEEEEEEEES GOD kitten YEEEEEEES
YES
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

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Posted by: Maxwell.7843

Maxwell.7843

I just wanted to provide an update since it’s been a while.

  • We are currently working to restore the Greatest Fear storyline to the live game. I can’t provide a release date at this point.
  • In addition to restoring the Personal Story steps to their original order we’re making some minor improvements where possible (e.g. recording new VO or updating certain conversations, etc.).

We’ll provide additional details closer to release. Thanks much for your patience.

That’s great news!

Thank you for the update!

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Posted by: BrettM.9062

BrettM.9062

Fantastic! It is much easier to be patient now that we have a firm yes-or-no answer on whether the storyline will be restored. Though I’m very (very!) glad the answer is “yes”, I had gotten to the point where I was willing to accept “no” just to have some closure. It’s the uncertainty that drives one mad.

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Posted by: naiasonod.9265

naiasonod.9265

I just wanted to provide an update since it’s been a while.

  • We are currently working to restore the Greatest Fear storyline to the live game. I can’t provide a release date at this point.
  • In addition to restoring the Personal Story steps to their original order we’re making some minor improvements where possible (e.g. recording new VO or updating certain conversations, etc.).

We’ll provide additional details closer to release. Thanks much for your patience.

Oh sweet. Now I can look forward to doing the PS again sometime. Thumbs up

One is only the smartest person in the room if they are alone.

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Posted by: lakdav.3694

lakdav.3694

I hope it will include a replayability option. I made the mistake of moving ahead, and my guardian’s story is missing way more than just the greatest fear plotline. She never cleansed Orr with Treharne… but her next mission after escorting the tanks to Cursed Shore is to kill Zhaitan…

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Posted by: Illecandra.3219

Illecandra.3219

I just wanted to provide an update since it’s been a while.

  • We are currently working to restore the Greatest Fear storyline to the live game. I can’t provide a release date at this point.
  • In addition to restoring the Personal Story steps to their original order we’re making some minor improvements where possible (e.g. recording new VO or updating certain conversations, etc.).

We’ll provide additional details closer to release. Thanks much for your patience.

Thanks for the heads up!

I’m keeping my next character on standby before I play through the Personal Story the second time. Imo the Personal Story is more important than the Living Story is, for new players.

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Posted by: Merus.9475

Merus.9475

To be honest, I don’t think they would actually fix the Zhaitan fight itself but rather restore the story chapters to what it once was.

I should clarify; I meant the campaign in Orr, not the Zhaitan fight itself. Sadly, I don’t think we’ll ever see that fight polished.

Obviously there’s huge issues with Traherne, where his loyalty’s not earned, but I never cared for how the PC’s command comes out of the blue, either. Defeating Zhaitan always seemed inevitable, despite some of the dialogue, because we never get a good sense of how futile it is to go up against Zhaitan and how the rest of Tyria – or even the Pact – feel about trying to kill an Elder Dragon. We mostly get it from Traherne, and so he sounds like a wet blanket instead of a pragmatist saying what everyone else is thinking. It cheapens one of the best things about the Elder Dragon characterisation, that they’re less like dragons and more like forces of nature.

I want to hear muttered dissent in the ranks. I want to hear skeptical civilians. I want people to make analogies about punching thunderstorms. I want the Captain’s Council to assume Risen attacks are just the new normal now. I want to hear the mentors in the racial storylines hope that one day future generations may work out how to resist the elder dragon’s forces for good. I want to join the Pact as captain and get promoted up to commander. I want to get to know Traherne before we’re assumed to be partners. I want the Pact to stumble and falter and believe that they’re going to their deaths, and then it starts working and they start to get minor victories and the PC is getting things done and the Pact starts to believe that they might actually be able to pull this off – not just push the Risen back, not just win some fights in Orr, but do the impossible and take out an Elder Dragon for good.

Honestly though I reckon making the Zhaitan fight exciting will happen before all that.

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Posted by: Danikat.8537

Danikat.8537

Thanks for the update!

I’m really glad to hear this hasn’t been forgotten and is being worked on! I’ve got 4 characters still going through their personal story and I’ve had to put them all on hold since September because I didn’t want to play the story as it is now.

Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).

“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”

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Posted by: derekgrant.6504

derekgrant.6504

Maybe it will get rid of the really bad cut scenes/dialogues and make them all like how the living world works. I know they wanted to get rid of the old conversation methods.

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Posted by: Bathos.6341

Bathos.6341

I’m really glad to hear that the personal story is being restored. but kitten why didn’t you wait until the new version was ready BEFORE deleting the original one? That’s like selling your old car 3 months before you’re ready to buy a new one.

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Posted by: Atlas.9704

Atlas.9704

I just wanted to provide an update since it’s been a while.

  • We are currently working to restore the Greatest Fear storyline to the live game. I can’t provide a release date at this point.
  • In addition to restoring the Personal Story steps to their original order we’re making some minor improvements where possible (e.g. recording new VO or updating certain conversations, etc.).

We’ll provide additional details closer to release. Thanks much for your patience.

Since we’re in the Chinese New Year I’ll get those Lunar fireworks and set them off.
This is great news!

Elona, Land of the Golden Sun….and undead…and poison. The travel brochure lied okay?!

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Posted by: MithranArkanere.8957

MithranArkanere.8957

It’ll be even better if you put personal story more in line with the rest of the journal.

You know, making the story replayabable, achievements in ‘core’ chapters shared between all stories (things like kill some giants during the assault on fort trinity, defeat the dragon at claw island under X time, not getting hit by bullet hells in cleansing, etc)

Some streamlining makes things better.

SUGGEST-A-TRON says:
PAY—ONCE—UNLOCKS—ARE—ALWAYS—BETTER.
No exceptions!

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Posted by: Straylight.7529

Straylight.7529

Awesome! I’m so glad I held off playing the personal story on my twink.

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Posted by: BobbyStein

Previous

BobbyStein

Guild Wars 2 Narrative Lead

Next

I just wanted to provide an update since it’s been a while.

  • We are currently working to restore the Greatest Fear storyline to the live game. I can’t provide a release date at this point.
  • In addition to restoring the Personal Story steps to their original order we’re making some minor improvements where possible (e.g. recording new VO or updating certain conversations, etc.).

We’ll provide additional details closer to release. Thanks much for your patience.

That’s all well and good. Nice to know you are getting down to fixing it. Now, that just leaves the issue on characters who have been through the botched PS. Will you by some chance, make it replayable like you did with the Living Story? Because if I have to grind my charr character just to see the fixed version, that’s just bullcrap. :/

The Personal Story was never designed to be replayable on a single character, so making a change like that would involve a lot of revision (updating and testing hundreds of story steps). It’s simply out of scope.

The updated story steps will start with A Light in the Darkness.

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Posted by: Joesus.6371

Joesus.6371

I just wanted to provide an update since it’s been a while.

  • We are currently working to restore the Greatest Fear storyline to the live game. I can’t provide a release date at this point.
  • In addition to restoring the Personal Story steps to their original order we’re making some minor improvements where possible (e.g. recording new VO or updating certain conversations, etc.).

We’ll provide additional details closer to release. Thanks much for your patience.

Thank you so much for this! With the new expansion coming out soon, I was worried any issues with the original Personal Story would be overlooked and forgotten. I can’t stress enough how interesting the Greatest Fear storyline was when I first played it through, and I’m glad we’ll all get the chance to continue those missions.

Also, kudos on recording new VO! I’ve heard updating dialogue with new material can be a lengthy and expensive process, and it really shows some commitment to the game’s existing content to take those steps while tackling an expansion.

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Posted by: Jaken.6801

Jaken.6801

I just wanted to provide an update since it’s been a while.

  • We are currently working to restore the Greatest Fear storyline to the live game. I can’t provide a release date at this point.
  • In addition to restoring the Personal Story steps to their original order we’re making some minor improvements where possible (e.g. recording new VO or updating certain conversations, etc.).

We’ll provide additional details closer to release. Thanks much for your patience.

That’s all well and good. Nice to know you are getting down to fixing it. Now, that just leaves the issue on characters who have been through the botched PS. Will you by some chance, make it replayable like you did with the Living Story? Because if I have to grind my charr character just to see the fixed version, that’s just bullcrap. :/

The Personal Story was never designed to be replayable on a single character, so making a change like that would involve a lot of revision (updating and testing hundreds of story steps). It’s simply out of scope.

The updated story steps will start with A Light in the Darkness.

So it is not on the table period, or just not feasable for the moment?

I know you want to push the game further, instead of hanging around the old stuff . (Though revamping it for the journal like S2 in combination with Archievments, could be pretty awesome and would give the one chance nature of the PS (aside from new characters), which in turn would be able to give players some new things to do)

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Posted by: Drow.2081

Drow.2081

Why is my plant person such a suck up? Why does he have such a whiny good-boy voice? Why am I a grown plant man calling some woman “mother?” I don’t want to join the rtrds serving the nightmare but I don’t want to be a prissy do-good either. Oh, well, at least there is an actual story in this game which is better than what most mmo’s give you. Well, a story that makes sense, unlike Asian mmo’s which make no sense at all but look really cool.

I also post on guildwars2guru.

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Posted by: Celtic Lady.3729

Celtic Lady.3729

It’s great if they bring back the original personal story plotlines. Also, it would be good if they made the story make sense again since all those changes to it made it essentially make no sense from an organizational view.

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Posted by: Malkavian.4516

Malkavian.4516

I just wanted to provide an update since it’s been a while.

  • We are currently working to restore the Greatest Fear storyline to the live game. I can’t provide a release date at this point.
  • In addition to restoring the Personal Story steps to their original order we’re making some minor improvements where possible (e.g. recording new VO or updating certain conversations, etc.).

We’ll provide additional details closer to release. Thanks much for your patience.

That’s all well and good. Nice to know you are getting down to fixing it. Now, that just leaves the issue on characters who have been through the botched PS. Will you by some chance, make it replayable like you did with the Living Story? Because if I have to grind my charr character just to see the fixed version, that’s just bullcrap. :/

The Personal Story was never designed to be replayable on a single character, so making a change like that would involve a lot of revision (updating and testing hundreds of story steps). It’s simply out of scope.

The updated story steps will start with A Light in the Darkness.

So it is not on the table period, or just not feasable for the moment?

I know you want to push the game further, instead of hanging around the old stuff . (Though revamping it for the journal like S2 in combination with Archievments, could be pretty awesome and would give the one chance nature of the PS (aside from new characters), which in turn would be able to give players some new things to do)

With the way the Living Story and Personal Story instances are organized into chapters, I can definitely see this happen. Though yeah, one can argue that the Personal Story is not linear as you can choose what your next instance will be every now and then. The reason why I desire the PS to be replayable is that one of my characters has experienced the botched version of the story and as someone who is concerned about story and lore, this disturbs me more than any balance issue. If it IS out of scope on Arenanet’s part for them to make the Personal Story replayable, then there is one option left available which I think may be more of a workaround: compensate players WHO REQUEST FOR IT (sorry, don’t know how to do italics) by giving them the same gear (if they customized their character thru a self-style kit, they could be given one as well), trait guides, and tomes for free to get them to max level immediately so they can start fresh without certain players feeling that what they have done has been a complete waste. That is only if they can’t make the story replayable at all.

FOR SKYRIM!!!!!

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Posted by: Pifil.5193

Pifil.5193

The Personal Story was never designed to be replayable on a single character, so making a change like that would involve a lot of revision (updating and testing hundreds of story steps). It’s simply out of scope.

The updated story steps will start with A Light in the Darkness.

Will it be possible to choose to have our characters “reset” to this point if we’ve gone past them or will this just be for characters who haven’t reached that stage in the PS yet?

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Posted by: Jade Arkadian.9280

Jade Arkadian.9280

I just wanted to provide an update since it’s been a while.

  • We are currently working to restore the Greatest Fear storyline to the live game. I can’t provide a release date at this point.
  • In addition to restoring the Personal Story steps to their original order we’re making some minor improvements where possible (e.g. recording new VO or updating certain conversations, etc.).

We’ll provide additional details closer to release. Thanks much for your patience.

That’s all well and good. Nice to know you are getting down to fixing it. Now, that just leaves the issue on characters who have been through the botched PS. Will you by some chance, make it replayable like you did with the Living Story? Because if I have to grind my charr character just to see the fixed version, that’s just bullcrap. :/

The Personal Story was never designed to be replayable on a single character, so making a change like that would involve a lot of revision (updating and testing hundreds of story steps). It’s simply out of scope.

The updated story steps will start with A Light in the Darkness.

A possible solution to include replayability without messing with previous character path could be that options that involve a chapter choice could be locked on a second playthrough.
This way, your personal story would be replayable.
If by any chance you want to try other paths or order, you should create a new character.

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Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Konig Des Todes.2086

I just wanted to provide an update since it’s been a while.

  • We are currently working to restore the Greatest Fear storyline to the live game. I can’t provide a release date at this point.
  • In addition to restoring the Personal Story steps to their original order we’re making some minor improvements where possible (e.g. recording new VO or updating certain conversations, etc.).

We’ll provide additional details closer to release. Thanks much for your patience.

Thank you for the update, and I would like to state that I HIGHLY recommend two things:

  1. Lock out Chapters 7 and 8 for the time being. This should have been done a long time ago, tbh, because you just receive a larger influx of new players going “wtf” over the storyline everytime there’s a game sale. This has happened already for both game sales sense September. Thus, no grandfathering in when the new system comes in. It’s not a great move – the best would be to put the update in ASAP – but it’d help players from missing out on the proper story and thus becoming exceedingly confused.
  2. Please, please, please make this update happen before HoT – same goes for the trait system update that Colin mentioned. You will see another influx of players during HoT, no doubt, and as such it would be best to ensure they get the proper experience they can.

I do have a question, though:

Will the “minor improvements” include a revamped Zhaitan fight?

And for that matter (yes, I know more than ‘a’ question now): Will the improvements span more than just the final two story steps and, if so or even if not, can we make suggestions on where improvements are needed?

I see a lot of people complaining that the PS writing is bad, but whenever I ask them to explain why, they are often talking about the scripting, not the writing, of the PS (I hope I’m using the right term; by scripting I mean when things happen and how, whereas writing is the words). And the scripting of the game improved drastically with Season 2 (most apparent in Episode 1 and 4, 5, and 8, imo). So if you make “minor improvements” to the scripting (and in some cases -coughTrahearnecough- the voice acting), I think that the PS can become as best as one can expect it to be without unreasonable workload added.

The Personal Story was never designed to be replayable on a single character, so making a change like that would involve a lot of revision (updating and testing hundreds of story steps). It’s simply out of scope.

The updated story steps will start with A Light in the Darkness.

So… revamped Blightghast fight? Please say yes, that fight is dreadfully boring (as is the last portion of The Battle for Claw Island before the retreat – that seemingly 5 minutes of holding the line… without end in sight… -yawns-). Especially compared to fighting the Shadow of the Dragon.

Shame the PS will never be repeatable. I rather hoped it would be. Even if choices are locked in place or it is a 100% reset beyond biography. Still would be nice to be able to have a one-time choice to reset to A Light in the Darkness so that people who don’t want multiple characters and only experienced the botched storyline can experience the fixed storyline.

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

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Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Konig Des Todes.2086

(Sorry for double post, this is unrelated to above)

There’s still a story issue that hasn’t been addressed yet: Personal Story and Dungeon Story Mode relations.

Currently, you’ll get a “introduction” by the Herald at level 25. At level 30, you get a letter about Ascalonian Catacombs story. However, at level 40 you have the Destiny’s Edge meeting in which Eir talks about going to Ascalon Catacombs indirectly. And at level 50, you get a letter from your iconic talking about events at AC, TA (level 40 dungeon), and CM (level 50 dungeon).

IMO, the “easiest solution” if the changes to levels of the Personal Story remains unchanged (something I personally don’t mind, though I’m unsure about the “locked until level” part) would be to raise the dungeon levels. Make AC story level 45, TA level 50, and CM level 55 – leave the rest as is, and raise explorable to an appropriate story level+5.

My “preferred solution” would having all explorables at level 80 (makes cross-dungeon balancing easier), have AC story at 50 and each subsequent story dungeon 5 levels higher (TA=55; CM=60; SE=65; rest as is)

Whatever the solution, just figured I’d bring this up on the topic of Personal Story fixes.

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

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Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

The Personal Story was never designed to be replayable on a single character, so making a change like that would involve a lot of revision (updating and testing hundreds of story steps). It’s simply out of scope.

Ah, that’s really disappointing! It’s a shame there’s nothing the episodes could easily inherit that says “if players have done this before, they don’t get rewards and no choices get recorded” and display a pop up explaining this each time you select an already played chapter in the journal.

Thanks for letting us know it’s not really on the table atm and for communicating about Greatest Fear :) I’m looking forward to playing the reworked version on my new alts.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

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Posted by: Aethgar.1784

Aethgar.1784

.. this is great, exciting news! HUGE kudos to Anet for giving us an update, making the right choice, and taking the time to perhaps go back and use some of the things they’ve been excelling at in LS2 to improve bland or odd steps in the PS.
I ran through every permutation of the PS on my first few characters, loving how each variation interwove to explain things. The Apatia thing explained where the orb came from, Tonn the bombs, and so on. I remember going head over heels fangirl when Tonn’s wife didn’t forgive my character.. what a gorgeous, beautiful, superb decision for the writers to make!!
I’m married, and you know what? Some one time being saved by someone doesn’t outweigh – couldn’t – the loss of my spouse. By NOT taking the easy, Disney, everyone happy path, ANet cemented my enthusiasm.
So with that in mind.. if you do go back and revise or rethink things.. please, PLEASE keep that hard hitting power. Don’t give us the easy outs. Give us moral quagmires and emotional traumas, because they make a storyline vibrant and real. You guys know this.
It shouldn’t matter that it wasn’t our character’s active decision to do harm – harm happened, and our character being held to account is excellent. My only mourning after the Greatest Fear was, after seeing all 3 options (though I never got ALL the branches afterward. The one where I chased Syska down and ended up in a field frantically butchering animals and believing they were Flame Legion even though I KNEW I was being mind-controlled… kitten , that one gave me such shivers of epic awesome!).. I mourned not having more powerful moments like those in the rest of the story.
If you do revamp things, never ever, PLEASE never ever.. give us the pretty flowers and unicorns option.

Tarnished Coast| House Corvidae
Lord Ahrwit Valdyr/Isambard FitzValdyr/many more…

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Posted by: voxana.6312

voxana.6312

Any chance of making the Zhaitan fight soloable? It’s crazy that you can solo ALL the personal story instances except for that one. I could understand if there were fights that you had to group up for along the way, but to make only the final one that way is so strange, especially when it’s my PERSONAL story. Why does it have to become a group story suddenly? One of the things that I love about GW2 is that I don’t have to find groups or be in a guild to be able to play with people. Not everyone wants to do dungeons or instances.

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Posted by: Torsailr.8456

Torsailr.8456

The Personal Story was never designed to be replayable on a single character, so making a change like that would involve a lot of revision (updating and testing hundreds of story steps). It’s simply out of scope.

When LS season 2 came out with it’s revamped episode structure it was mentioned that Season 1 wasn’t able to be included at that time but you were working on a way to make it happen. Is there any chance that the PS could be included in that revamp?

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Posted by: Quistlimn.9513

Quistlimn.9513

- Greatest fear storyline will return. (and plots are in originally sequence)
- PS does not designed replayable before(and It will be) but Some stories will fix to be able to replay from A Light in the Darkness(only some chapter 6 and whole chapter 7, 8) like living story season2.

Do I understand correctly?

I could not recognize this issue before so I already proceed chapter 8(with 2 characters)…
Anyway, I’m sooooooo happy to hear this update.

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Posted by: Zaxares.5419

Zaxares.5419

This is fantastic news, Bobby! Finally, I’ll be able to proceed with my characters that have been sitting, frozen, on their Personal Story ever since the change went live.

I do have one question though. What will happen to those characters who already started the Greatest Fear plotline, but have yet to finish the arc? For example, I have one character who started Greatest Fear, but stopped on the old PS progression after starting the mission to free slaves from the Krait. Another two characters completed Forging the Pact, but I stopped when I realised that it had jumped them straight to Battle of Fort Trinity. Will these two characters be able to backtrack and do the Greatest Fear storyline? Or are they still stuck?

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Posted by: Thia.4891

Thia.4891

Thank you so much! You have no idea how much this means to mean. Guild Wars has been a huge part of my life and I was hurt behind words by the changes to the Personal Story. I’ll admit, I had given up hope of ever seeing the changes reverted and set right. This goes a long way to me restoring my faith in ANet.

(Sigurdas MoonEyes and Ronja) (Myrin Crowneguarde) (Yarza Steelfang) (Luqq) (Nevnia)

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Posted by: LunarNacht.8913

LunarNacht.8913

Good! Now, I just got hit by nostalgia. Is someone already working on a LS season 1 journal edition?

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Posted by: Malkavian.4516

Malkavian.4516

The Personal Story was never designed to be replayable on a single character, so making a change like that would involve a lot of revision (updating and testing hundreds of story steps). It’s simply out of scope.

The updated story steps will start with A Light in the Darkness.

Will it be possible to choose to have our characters “reset” to this point if we’ve gone past them or will this just be for characters who haven’t reached that stage in the PS yet?

I asked support about that to see if this is possible. Sadly, they couldn’t rewind a character’s story progress, let alone reset it.

FOR SKYRIM!!!!!

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Posted by: AirimirOfGondor.9081

AirimirOfGondor.9081

I just wanted to provide an update since it’s been a while.

  • We are currently working to restore the Greatest Fear storyline to the live game. I can’t provide a release date at this point.
  • In addition to restoring the Personal Story steps to their original order we’re making some minor improvements where possible (e.g. recording new VO or updating certain conversations, etc.).

We’ll provide additional details closer to release. Thanks much for your patience.

This is amazing and fantastic news!

I’m going to tell everyone I know that while they still have to wait to play personal story, the wait time is no longer “forever.”

Once this fix is actually live, I think I can start recommending GW2 to new players again as well. This was a really glaring problem, and I’m so happy it’s finally getting fixed! I’m sure everyone will be excited to find out this is getting fixed now!

Thank you Bobby Stein!

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Posted by: BobbyStein

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BobbyStein

Guild Wars 2 Narrative Lead

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(Sorry for double post, this is unrelated to above)

There’s still a story issue that hasn’t been addressed yet: Personal Story and Dungeon Story Mode relations.

Currently, you’ll get a “introduction” by the Herald at level 25. At level 30, you get a letter about Ascalonian Catacombs story. However, at level 40 you have the Destiny’s Edge meeting in which Eir talks about going to Ascalon Catacombs indirectly. And at level 50, you get a letter from your iconic talking about events at AC, TA (level 40 dungeon), and CM (level 50 dungeon).

IMO, the “easiest solution” if the changes to levels of the Personal Story remains unchanged (something I personally don’t mind, though I’m unsure about the “locked until level” part) would be to raise the dungeon levels. Make AC story level 45, TA level 50, and CM level 55 – leave the rest as is, and raise explorable to an appropriate story level+5.

My “preferred solution” would having all explorables at level 80 (makes cross-dungeon balancing easier), have AC story at 50 and each subsequent story dungeon 5 levels higher (TA=55; CM=60; SE=65; rest as is)

Whatever the solution, just figured I’d bring this up on the topic of Personal Story fixes.

I’ll add this to the list of things to investigate. It might just be an issue of changing when we’re triggering the sending of those mails (or how they’re worded).

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Posted by: Pifil.5193

Pifil.5193

I asked support about that to see if this is possible. Sadly, they couldn’t rewind a character’s story progress, let alone reset it.

Ah thanks, that’s fair enough, I suspect it involves far more than simple database manipulation.