Guild Wars 2

BobbyStein.2315:

Malkavian.4516:

BobbyStein.2315:

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.

Sweet! Thank you for the update. Looking forward to finish the PS on my characters once the update is released.

BobbyStein.2315:

Malkavian.4516:

BobbyStein.2315:

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 does this mean that anyone who have completed up to the “light in the darkness” is stuck on the botched personal storyline? Or can we still experience the content we paid for even if we have completed the “light in the darkness” mission as it stands now and nothing else?

My character has completed all the way to “forging the pact”, before I put the story on hold till it gets fixed. Would the new changes be unavailable for all of my characters? Not trying to be mean or snarky but I’m really digging my characters ps and it kills me that a significant chunk of it is denied to them.

Cacharadon.5681:

So does this mean that anyone who have completed up to the “light in the darkness” is stuck on the botched personal storyline? Or can we still experience the content we paid for even if we have completed the “light in the darkness” mission as it stands now and nothing else?

My character has completed all the way to “forging the pact”, before I put the story on hold till it gets fixed. Would the new changes be unavailable for all of my characters? Not trying to be mean or snarky but I’m really digging my characters ps and it kills me that a significant chunk of it is denied to them.

I was just worrying about this too! I have a character right up to The Battle of Fort Trinity, which was technically after the fear arc originally. I would really like to be able to go through that arc with her though! I’m not going to play her PS at all until this gets fixed, here’s to hoping the quests get inserted in front of her current one, so to speak…technically if she was playing the old PS, then she WOULD be on those quests…

But also thank you, Anet, for listening. Hearing that these questlines will come back has made my night.

Cacharadon.5681:

BobbyStein.2315:

Malkavian.4516:

BobbyStein.2315:

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 does this mean that anyone who have completed up to the “light in the darkness” is stuck on the botched personal storyline? Or can we still experience the content we paid for even if we have completed the “light in the darkness” mission as it stands now and nothing else?

My character has completed all the way to “forging the pact”, before I put the story on hold till it gets fixed. Would the new changes be unavailable for all of my characters? Not trying to be mean or snarky but I’m really digging my characters ps and it kills me that a significant chunk of it is denied to them.

My worry lies in one of my characters in that I completed his story (despite the technical problems the patch provided). It’s safe to say that if you have characters that have yet to do A Light in the Darkness or Forging the Pact, you’d be able to play them just fine. Whereas those who have made it past those instances. Well, chances are you may have to do that story all over again. I’d be okay with starting fresh myself but considering how much I invested in terms of gear, I am not willing to farm more gold just to re-gear my character from scratch. Here’s to hoping that Anet’s support team comes up with a workaround for this as they have been kind to me in the past.

BobbyStein.2315:

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.

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).

Could you clarify, for absolute certainly: will the story steps that were re-ordered be returned to their original order (in addition to the restoration of the Greatest Fear arc)? And will the story instance entrances be returned to their original locations, rather than the current airship ‘airdrop’ thing that currently occurs at Fort Trinity?

Lasur Arkinshade.4107:

Could you clarify, for absolute certainly: will the story steps that were re-ordered be returned to their original order (in addition to the restoration of the Greatest Fear arc)? And will the story instance entrances be returned to their original locations, rather than the current airship ‘airdrop’ thing that currently occurs at Fort Trinity?

I’d like to read a clarification about this too. Especially that “airdrop”-thing. Before the redesign it felt like the pact marched and was really carving its way into Orr step by step and had to fight hard for every inch of ground. The original order of the story-missions and the events on the maps fitted together in an epic way. A clear-cut post with details about chapter 7 & 8 would be appreciated.

Is it planned to release together with HoT, or before/after?

Highly unlikely that you will be able to answer, but worth a shot ^^

I’m a pretty new player—only been around about a month or two, so I never saw the story in its original state. I can thus attest without bias that yeah, it’s pretty clear the last few chapters are hella broken. I was poking around on the wiki trying to figure out why Sayeh seemed to insist we knew each other when I learned that I supposedly had met her before in a series of cut quests…and that led me here.
Anyway, I’ve found I’m pretty invested in my main, who’s now sitting just before the final dungeon, very confused about the bizarre time-warp her life has become. If there’s any way that the story could be voluntarily reset to A Light In the Darkness for players who want it…that would be mightily appreciated.

I’m delighted to hear the drop ship thing might be reverted, it was almost as jarring as all the silent cut scenes.

lordkrall.7241:

Is it planned to release together with HoT, or before/after?

Highly unlikely that you will be able to answer, but worth a shot ^^

That would be pretty BS if it came alongside HoT, imo. But it would be better than not having it out at all. I’d prefer it to come out sooner. Though it does leave the question as to what to do with characters that have experienced the broken story. It’s been established that the story can’t be reversed nor replayed. What needs to be done? Reroll a new character and sink in more gold just to get the gear needed?

Malkavian.4516:

Though it does leave the question as to what to do with characters that have experienced the broken story. It’s been established that the story can’t be reversed nor replayed. What needs to be done? Reroll a new character and sink in more gold just to get the gear needed?

Ascended Gear is Account Bound so there’s no problem there in regards to what to do with the gear: just bank it and make a new character as you see fit. Unless you’re talking about all the progression then that also has to be earned again as well. Certain Soulbound gear is also unattainable, but you probably can still use the skin. It might not be a replacement of the item itself but you can still have the look of it.

That would be great and all. Except the thing is, save for my accessories and rings which are ascended, every gear piece I got is exotic. And it can be pretty taxing work just to farm the tokens I need to get me the gear. Plus there is the matter that my charr also had the customization from the self-style kit. I could sink the time or the gold just to take the same Zerker gear as before, but that may make me even less happy.

Ah… I’ve never had that problem really since gold is pretty plentiful and relatively easy to earn, but I can see how that can be an issue.

BobbyStein.2315:

Malkavian.4516:

BobbyStein.2315:

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.

This is just unacceptable, though. You’re telling me that I’ve ruined my chances of ever experiencing the full personal story and having a correct and complete story journal for my main character because I didn’t think to research whether or not personal story arcs were just incompetently REMOVED from the game before I continued my story? This is your fault, not mine. But I am the one getting punished.

If you can’t reset stories to the greatest fear, I would even accept a full personal story reset to biography and do the work of getting my character back up to that part of the story. I’d also even pay for such a service in the gemstore. I’ll wait for HoT for it too. Just give me SOME option other than rerolling my main. Please.

Tohnren.5603:

BobbyStein.2315:

Malkavian.4516:

BobbyStein.2315:

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.

This is just unacceptable, though. You’re telling me that I’ve ruined my chances of ever experiencing the full personal story and having a correct and complete story journal for my main character because I didn’t think to research whether or not personal story arcs were just incompetently REMOVED from the game before I continued my story? This is your fault, not mine. But I am the one getting punished.

If you can’t reset stories to the greatest fear, I would even accept a full personal story reset to biography and do the work of getting my character back up to that part of the story. I’d also even pay for such a service in the gemstore. I’ll wait for HoT for it too. Just give me SOME option other than rerolling my main. Please.

Make another character, problem solved. I’m just happy they’re fixing the problem. And please don’t start talking about what’s “unacceptable.” Most of us are bummed that the characters we already played through won’t get a chance at the original storyline, but we’re accepting it just fine.

I have to say Yay! Yay! Yay! Thank you for working on restoring this great PS plot. I got the game just in time to do it once. Then I created other characters so I could see the content for the other fears and missed it. I thought I was doing something wrong. So glad to know it wasn’t me and REALLY glad to know it’s coming back. Like the OP says this was great character development and I cried for Apatia when I had to go back and let her people know she was gone. Thanks!

Joesus.6371:

Tohnren.5603:

BobbyStein.2315:

Malkavian.4516:

BobbyStein.2315:

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.

This is just unacceptable, though. You’re telling me that I’ve ruined my chances of ever experiencing the full personal story and having a correct and complete story journal for my main character because I didn’t think to research whether or not personal story arcs were just incompetently REMOVED from the game before I continued my story? This is your fault, not mine. But I am the one getting punished.

If you can’t reset stories to the greatest fear, I would even accept a full personal story reset to biography and do the work of getting my character back up to that part of the story. I’d also even pay for such a service in the gemstore. I’ll wait for HoT for it too. Just give me SOME option other than rerolling my main. Please.

Make another character, problem solved. I’m just happy they’re fixing the problem. And please don’t start talking about what’s “unacceptable.” Most of us are bummed that the characters we already played through won’t get a chance at the original storyline, but we’re accepting it just fine.

Unacceptable might have been a strong buzzword, but it really is a problem for me. I don’t want to recreate the character and lose the birthday which was on the day the game released. I don’t see how it would be hard to put an item in the gemstore that resets the story. I’d even be happy for it to just be included in my story journal without me getting to play it.

I just happened to come back to the game and play through that part of the story during the relatively short interval where they botched the whole story up. I had no idea that they would even consider touching the PS given their history much less remove parts of it and now I can’t go back. I’m sorry but that’s a little ridiculous. I’m one of those OCD/perfectionist/completionist types and it just really bothers me.

If it was just an alt I had created a few months ago and leveled up I would happily delete them and begin anew, but that isn’t the case.

Tohnren.5603:

This is just unacceptable, though. You’re telling me that I’ve ruined my chances of ever experiencing the full personal story and having a correct and complete story journal for my main character because I didn’t think to research whether or not personal story arcs were just incompetently REMOVED from the game before I continued my story? This is your fault, not mine. But I am the one getting punished.

If you can’t reset stories to the greatest fear, I would even accept a full personal story reset to biography and do the work of getting my character back up to that part of the story. I’d also even pay for such a service in the gemstore. I’ll wait for HoT for it too. Just give me SOME option other than rerolling my main. Please.

Agreed.

Joesus.6371:

Make another character, problem solved. I’m just happy they’re fixing the problem. And please don’t start talking about what’s “unacceptable.” Most of us are bummed that the characters we already played through won’t get a chance at the original storyline, but we’re accepting it just fine.

That’s not a solution by any means, and no, not all of us are “accepting it just fine.” I’ve played through the PS in its original structure and I’d like to replay through it on the same character. Not being able to reset the personal story along with the immersion breaking of certain destroyed areas in the world showing up in both the PS and Story Journal when they’re supposed to be in their original state is simply ridiculous.

I’m with Tohnren on this one. My characters do mean a lot to me and I try to experience the game as complete as possible. A reset of the story would probably be the best solution possible.

For my part I don’t see how a story reset could be difficult to do, I think they could easily add it to the gem storm form like 800 gems or so and that should solve that problem for most people. I’m not even really effected by this but I think it should be resolved somehow.

BobbyStein.2315:

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).

Didn’t see the response. The mails isn’t really an issue. The issue is the dungeon’s levels. Let me put it like this:

• Ascalon Catacombs story mode: Level 30
  • Letter from Herald talks about bout Eir in catacombs
• Caudecus Manor story mode: Level 40
• Setting the Stage (which talks about Eir deciding to go to Ascalonian Catacombs) and Chapter 4: Level 40
  • Last instance of Chapter 4 features letter from iconic discussion AC, CM, and TA about to happen (either directly or indirectly depending on race).
• Twilight Arbor story mode: Level 50
• Racial storyline (Chapter 5): Level 50
• Sorrow’s Embrace story mode: 60
• Claw Island arc (Chapter 6): Level 60
  • First step includes a letter from iconic discussing conclusion of chapter 5 PS and AC and CM story dungeons about to begin.
• Citadel of Flames story mode: 70
• Greatest Fear arc (formerly) (Chapter 7): 70
  • First step includes a letter from iconic discussing conclusion of Chapter 6 (Claw Island) and discusses SE and CoF about to begin.
• Crucible of Eternity story mode: 72
• Honor of the Waves story mode: 78
• The Ruined City of Arah story mode: 80
• Invading Orr (Chapter: 80
  • First instance includes a letter from iconic discussing the ending of Chapter 7 greatest fear (originally, don’t know about presently) but doesn’t discusses HotW (as sylvari, doesn’t discuss dungeons as human/charr, idk about asura/norn).

Originally, the beginning of the storylines would be basically 8 levels lower than they currently are, if not 9 or 10 or even 11 in one case I think, thus they fit well. You often received the letter when the lowest dungeon they speak of is unlocked, or it’s about to in a couple levels, or it has a couple levels ago thus giving the “takes time to send messages” concept.

The “easy” way to really fix this is to put the Setting the Stage instance to the end of chapter 3, rather than the beginning of chapter 4, which would put both it and AC at level 30, though you’d still get a notification of AC when you unlock both – and after that, reword the “this is what’s up with DE” halves of the letters received.

I halfway agree with other people about resetting the story. But it should be an option for those who’ve completed a certain point (by the sounds of it, completing A Light in the Darkness) and takes you to just before that certain point (making A Light in the Darkness the “new start”). So those who don’t want to, don’t need to.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I halfway agree with other people about resetting the story. But it should be an option for those who’ve completed a certain point (by the sounds of it, completing A Light in the Darkness) and takes you to just before that certain point (making A Light in the Darkness the “new start”). So those who don’t want to, don’t need to.

Oh, for sure. I think there should be some in-game option to reset your personal story. The best thing would be for them to reset the story back before the Greatest Fear Arc only but they mentioned that wasn’t easy to implement. That’s why I suggest a full reset bought from the gem store. It brings A-net more money and gives an out to those who would really like one.

BobbyStein.2315:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The mails isn’t really an issue. The issue is the dungeon’s levels.

It’s out of scope for this particular team to change the level requirements for the dungeons, so all I can do at this point is either change the level at which the mails are triggering and/or adjust the mail text. Totally open to suggestions here, but I wanted to let folks know the constraints.

Change the level the mails are triggered to match the story line and remember next time you decide to alter the personal story: it connects to other parts of the game; those have to be updated to be consistent.

Here’s my reasoning on retooling the trigger level:

• Some people don’t care about the story at all; it won’t matter to them what you do.
• Those who must do the story in proper order won’t care about whether the dungeon is minimum L20 or minimum L60; they won’t do the story path until they’ve completed the relevant part of the PS, so make sure that syncs up.

I did the dungeons as soon as I felt I could attempt them and didn’t care about where I was in the personal story. My friend, by contrast, didn’t want to start them until they had seen the relevant background in the personal story (and then they also refused to continue the p-story until they had completed the sideline dungeon story).

It would be great if you could review the entire story and make it more consistent with itself, with the order of things in the NPE, and with other changes in the game. But since that’s not likely to happen soon, in the meantime, just change the trigger level (and the wording, if it needs to be).

edit: grammar

BobbyStein.2315:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The mails isn’t really an issue. The issue is the dungeon’s levels.

It’s out of scope for this particular team to change the level requirements for the dungeons, so all I can do at this point is either change the level at which the mails are triggering and/or adjust the mail text. Totally open to suggestions here, but I wanted to let folks know the constraints.

According to the Wiki, the Destiny’s Edge reunion that occurs at “Setting the Stage” is an equal chapter to members of all orders, so one option would be to relocate “Setting the Stage” as the last step of level 30 instead of being the first step of level 40. This way, people will witness Eir’s idea just before receiving the e-mail instructing to visit AC.

About the other changes in personal story after level 30, I feel that some of the changes were made to put 1 whole storyline each 10 levels. But the result of this is that some of the chapters are way too long. Did you consider dividing at least some of them so there are personal story chapters sometimes at level X5?

One prime candidate I would point is the “Battle of Claw Island” chapter, as it’s currently too long and would have a natural (while depressing) stopping point at the end of “The Battle of Claw Island” where we meet Treaharne and lose our mentor.

BobbyStein.2315:

Lasur Arkinshade.4107:

BobbyStein.2315:

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.

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).

Could you clarify, for absolute certainly: will the story steps that were re-ordered be returned to their original order (in addition to the restoration of the Greatest Fear arc)? And will the story instance entrances be returned to their original locations, rather than the current airship ‘airdrop’ thing that currently occurs at Fort Trinity?

Yes, the story steps will be restored to their original order. We’re looking into removing the airdrop step as part of the fixes as well.

THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU

In other news, do you know when we can expect this update to go live? Will people be grandfathered into the fix again, or will all players get it regardless of their story step?

My fiance recently started playing and I’d like to know at exactly which point I should advise him to put his PS on hold, and how long for.

He’s excited about the game, so please let it be soon!

DDCarvalho.2071:

BobbyStein.2315:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The mails isn’t really an issue. The issue is the dungeon’s levels.

It’s out of scope for this particular team to change the level requirements for the dungeons, so all I can do at this point is either change the level at which the mails are triggering and/or adjust the mail text. Totally open to suggestions here, but I wanted to let folks know the constraints.

According to the Wiki, the Destiny’s Edge reunion that occurs at “Setting the Stage” is an equal chapter to members of all orders, so one option would be to relocate “Setting the Stage” as the last step of level 30 instead of being the first step of level 40. This way, people will witness Eir’s idea just before receiving the e-mail instructing to visit AC.
[…]

I think that’s the best solution too. The cleanest and simplest. That level is just story, and precisely what happens before AC.

You don’t even have to change the order of stuff at all. Even keep the same mails.

Just make it the last of chapter 3 instead the first of chapter 4. Maybe just add some message about how you’ve been properly accepted into your chosen order and that your membership is being processed and that sort of thing, and that they’ll get in contact with you when things are ready for you or something like that.

Players will be at least level 30 when they do that, quite possibly more, and can go straight to the dungeon, and level up there before going on for chapter four.

It just fits.

BobbyStein.2315:

My advice to people who are interested in playing the restored Personal Story (which will include the Greatest Fear steps, original chapter 8 ordering, and various minor text and VO updates) is to not complete A Light in the Darkness (in chapter 6). That way you’ll be able to play the restored content in its entirety when it goes live.

We’re currently discussing release dates and will share that information when we’re able. Thanks again for all your great suggestions and patience.

What about the people who have done the “A light in the Darnkess” ? Will they still be able to see new content in chapter 7 and 8 ? What is the point of no return ? Is there any specific quest which if you are done you will be locked out of restored personal story ?

BobbyStein.2315:

Lady Elvea.2847:

BobbyStein.2315:

Lasur Arkinshade.4107:

BobbyStein.2315:

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.

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).

Could you clarify, for absolute certainly: will the story steps that were re-ordered be returned to their original order (in addition to the restoration of the Greatest Fear arc)? And will the story instance entrances be returned to their original locations, rather than the current airship ‘airdrop’ thing that currently occurs at Fort Trinity?

Yes, the story steps will be restored to their original order. We’re looking into removing the airdrop step as part of the fixes as well.

THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU

In other news, do you know when we can expect this update to go live? Will people be grandfathered into the fix again, or will all players get it regardless of their story step?

My fiance recently started playing and I’d like to know at exactly which point I should advise him to put his PS on hold, and how long for.

He’s excited about the game, so please let it be soon!

My advice to people who are interested in playing the restored Personal Story (which will include the Greatest Fear steps, original chapter 8 ordering, and various minor text and VO updates) is to not complete A Light in the Darkness (in chapter 6). That way you’ll be able to play the restored content in its entirety when it goes live.

We’re currently discussing release dates and will share that information when we’re able. Thanks again for all your great suggestions and patience.

Thank you for the updates, I’ll be able to play Personal Story again when this update is released

Ashendale.2165:

reapex.8546:

However, Colin did state Personal Story and Living Season 1 will be repeatable.

What? When and where did he say this? I stopped playing the game (stupidly) right before this started and I’m regretting it deeply.

I would love if this came to be.

Colin mention it last year but cited there will be issues making Living Season 1 repeatable such as, The Battle for Lions Arch.

Vyncy.2735:

BobbyStein.2315:

My advice to people who are interested in playing the restored Personal Story (which will include the Greatest Fear steps, original chapter 8 ordering, and various minor text and VO updates) is to not complete A Light in the Darkness (in chapter 6). That way you’ll be able to play the restored content in its entirety when it goes live.

We’re currently discussing release dates and will share that information when we’re able. Thanks again for all your great suggestions and patience.

What about the people who have done the “A light in the Darnkess” ? Will they still be able to see new content in chapter 7 and 8 ? What is the point of no return ? Is there any specific quest which if you are done you will be locked out of restored personal story ?

I’d like to know this, too. I did “Light in the Darkness” to select the fear for my latest character and then stopped in hopes that the rest of the fear arc would be restored one day. I figured that was the safe place to stop, so I hate to think that I went one step too far.

BobbyStein.2315:

Lady Elvea.2847:

BobbyStein.2315:

Lasur Arkinshade.4107:

BobbyStein.2315:

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.

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).

Could you clarify, for absolute certainly: will the story steps that were re-ordered be returned to their original order (in addition to the restoration of the Greatest Fear arc)? And will the story instance entrances be returned to their original locations, rather than the current airship ‘airdrop’ thing that currently occurs at Fort Trinity?

Yes, the story steps will be restored to their original order. We’re looking into removing the airdrop step as part of the fixes as well.

THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU

In other news, do you know when we can expect this update to go live? Will people be grandfathered into the fix again, or will all players get it regardless of their story step?

My fiance recently started playing and I’d like to know at exactly which point I should advise him to put his PS on hold, and how long for.

He’s excited about the game, so please let it be soon!

My advice to people who are interested in playing the restored Personal Story (which will include the Greatest Fear steps, original chapter 8 ordering, and various minor text and VO updates) is to not complete A Light in the Darkness (in chapter 6). That way you’ll be able to play the restored content in its entirety when it goes live.

We’re currently discussing release dates and will share that information when we’re able. Thanks again for all your great suggestions and patience.

Again, we’re very happy that you’re going back and fixing this. The changes to the personal story really decimated the narrative.

I hope that you’ve looked into removing the airdrop thing and relocating the entrances for each story step back to where they were before the feature pack, and I hope you discovered that it was feasible to do. The narrative flowed much better and made much more sense when you traversed Orr on foot to reach each step – it makes much less sense to just be airdropped there.

As an aside, if you are going to rerecord any more of Trahearne’s dialogue, I’d suggest rerecording (but not rewriting) the dialogue right before he starts cleansing Orr in The Source of Orr. The way the lines are written is beautiful, but I feel that his delivery didn’t necessarily seem to carry the appropriate emotional gravity. (Also, there are still some VA bugs from launch that it’d be nice to see fixed, like the Gixx line where he refers to “Priory Arcanists” as “Priory anarchists”, but I suspect those fixes may (or may not) be outside the scope of what you’re doing at this stage.

Thanks very much for working to restore the story, anyway. I realise it’s probably a lot of work to undo the damage, but we certainly appreciate it.

So glad I already finished the story on one, have two others waiting before the claw island battle.
All started from way before these silly storyline shenanigans began.

So I should be safe with finishing claw island on all my characters and especially getting the 10 achievement points for the various racial lvl30 quests?

Rialeth.9815:

For my part I don’t see how a story reset could be difficult to do, I think they could easily add it to the gem storm form like 800 gems or so and that should solve that problem for most people. I’m not even really effected by this but I think it should be resolved somehow.

Yeah, it seems very intuitive that they’d have a gem store item to reset your PS. Not sure why that’s such a hard thing to implement.

Because there are unique rewards given by the Personal story, and being able to do all different parts of the branches goes completely against having a branching story?

While I welcome the Personal Story being replayable, the problem with it is that the PS by design is set to have branching approaches on how your character wants to tackle a situation, when compared to the Living Story in that it’s story is told in a linear fashion making that part easy to make replayable.

If I have to make a brand new character just to go through a fixed version of the story, I’d be fine with that. But Arenanet still has yet to find something that can act as a form of compensation for the trouble.

BobbyStein.2315:

My advice to people who are interested in playing the restored Personal Story (which will include the Greatest Fear steps, original chapter 8 ordering, and various minor text and VO updates) is to not complete A Light in the Darkness (in chapter 6). That way you’ll be able to play the restored content in its entirety when it goes live.

We’re currently discussing release dates and will share that information when we’re able. Thanks again for all your great suggestions and patience.

:‘) ty I was confused if I should start or finish A Light in the Darkness, now I see. Are the text/VO changes limited to ALitD onward or are they earlier? I’m just wondering where we’ll need people keeping an eye on changes to compare against the current wiki content.

My engineer never had to do the Source of Orr storyline. I think I was roughly at Temple of the Forgotten God or a few steps after when these changes hit, and I wasn’t aware the personal story steps had been changed around.

I also realized that on my warrior which had completed the whole storyline in the first couple of months of release in 2012 or early 2013 also no longer has an entry for Victory or Death at all in her journal, and Temple of the Forgotten God is listed twice. Now I understand that I may never be able to replay the story steps on my engineer, since replaying the personal story wasn’t ever an intended function, but will my journal at least be adjusted to assume that I did those missing missions, and will my journal be repaired on my warrior that had completed the entire personal story prior to these changes?

lordkrall.7241:

Because there are unique rewards given by the Personal story, and being able to do all different parts of the branches goes completely against having a branching story?

Then make the cost of the item too expensive so it won’t be a feasible way of obtaining those rewards. Do you really think that those rewards are worth many gems for most people? If that is in fact something exploitable, then a one time reset back to the greatest fear arc for characters that have the messed up storyline in their journals would be fantastic. Or, prevent rewards after the first time a character has completed story steps/chapters.

I’m the last type of person that would abuse character RP in order to play each path or whatever. The reason I want the reset is to fix my character’s RP in the first place. My character just feels broken right now and hope of fixing it one day would make my GW2 experience a lot better.

BobbyStein.2315:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The mails isn’t really an issue. The issue is the dungeon’s levels.

It’s out of scope for this particular team to change the level requirements for the dungeons, so all I can do at this point is either change the level at which the mails are triggering and/or adjust the mail text. Totally open to suggestions here, but I wanted to let folks know the constraints.

Would it be possible to move Setting the Stage (first instance for Chapter 4) to the end of Chapter 3 so that Setting the Stage and Ascalon Catacombs are the same level, then?

That, and moving the letter from the Herald telling players about that dungeon (currently sent to players upon reaching 30) to be after leaving that story instance, plus whatever wording/delivery changes for the others that might be needed

That, as I see it, is the “minimal work” to fix this mess. Though, as said, I think the “preferred work” would be to alter the dungeon levels instead (because, if done to explorable mode as well, it would solve other kinds of issues such as cross-dungeon reward-difficulty ratio balance).

DDCarvalho.2071:

About the other changes in personal story after level 30, I feel that some of the changes were made to put 1 whole storyline each 10 levels. But the result of this is that some of the chapters are way too long. Did you consider dividing at least some of them so there are personal story chapters sometimes at level X5?

The chapter lengths actually never changed, and were always approximately every 10 levels as it was. Before the restriction addition, telling chapters apart was done via the achievements in the Hero panel.

DDCarvalho.2071:

One prime candidate I would point is the “Battle of Claw Island” chapter, as it’s currently too long and would have a natural (while depressing) stopping point at the end of “The Battle of Claw Island” where we meet Treaharne and lose our mentor.

I’m confused as to how you think chapter 6 is “too long”.

Chapter 1 (first bio option storyline) is 5 steps, not counting tutorial.
Chapter 2 (second bio option storyline) is 4 steps.
Chapter 3 (meeting the orders and choosing one) is 5 steps.
Chapter 4 (first storyline with order mentor) is 5 steps (including the shared Setting the Stage).
Chapter 5 (racial sympathy) is 3 steps.
Chapter 6 (Claw Island arc) is 7 steps.
Chapter 7 was 6 steps before removing Greatest Fear, currently 5 steps.
Chapter 8 was 14 steps before re-ordering and removing Greatest Fear (divided into 3 storylines of 5-4-4 steps in length), currently 10 steps (divided into 3 storylines of 5-4-1 in length).

So yes, Claw Island is longer than most, but Chapter 8 is the longest, and Claw Island is by no means much longer than the average of 5. It’s as much longer than the average as the racial sympathy arc (or Episodes 6 and 7 from Season 2) is shorter.

BobbyStein.2315:

My advice to people who are interested in playing the restored Personal Story (which will include the Greatest Fear steps, original chapter 8 ordering, and various minor text and VO updates) is to not complete A Light in the Darkness (in chapter 6). That way you’ll be able to play the restored content in its entirety when it goes live.

We’re currently discussing release dates and will share that information when we’re able. Thanks again for all your great suggestions and patience.

That’s great news finding out that y’all are not only restoring the Personal Fear story arc, but are making minor upgrades to the story. It was very confusion running a new character through the full storyline and episodes were out of order from where I ran it before. The whole “hey, nice seeing you again” to people I never met before was boggling.

Here’s the kicker though: I just finished A Light in the Darkness two days ago on a new alt. Before I found this thread. So, am I screwed? Should I go ahead and continue her story and just run back through on another alt to see the changes?

There is still the matter of how to help the characters who have completed the personal storyline. What I might suggest may be asking too much but here’s what I have:

If the character who experienced the botched story has customized his character through the self-style kit, as well as invested a heavy deal on gear that isn’t ascended, the best option would be to compensate those players by providing a free self-style kit as well as duplicates of their original gear so that they don’t have to spend their gold again. If such a thing isn’t possible, then you can always provide the player with free complete set of ascended armor and just one ascended weapon. Though the player in question has to request it over to Arenanet’s customer support.

Like I said, this may be asking too much out of Arenanet and this can easily be abused by people who desire free ascendeds. But I suggest limiting this courtesy to just one character per GW2 account to minimize it somehow.

This is in my opinion the least you can do for the players who love the story and for those who have waited for eight months just to hear some updates from you.

I’d like to voice my support for ideas that mention a partial story reset for characters who had to play through the messed up story.

Once the update goes live and players log in to a character with the alternate story, it would certainly be a good idea to ask them once whether they want the personal story of this character to be reset right before A Light in the Darkness. Deleting all story steps beyond this point is definitely easier than altering them. This player character would then get to experience the updated story without being forced to reroll completely. This would make a lot of people happy.

Is there any information whether this solution would be viable or is it considered “out of scope” as well?

Best news ever! Can’t wait to finally do this on all my other characters.

Just to be clear, up to what chapter can I safely complete with regards to the future fix? I completed Part VI: Suspicious Activity, next instance will begin The Battle of Claw Island.

The level 70 ones and beyond.

Questions: I first noticed the changes to the PS when I finished the cleansing of Orr and, instead of being told to go fight Zhaitan, was told to go invade Orr all over again. 1: Will I have to do those two chapters all over again? Or will I go straight to Zhaitan and it will be as if I skipped over the invasion of Orr altogether? and 2: Will the Greatest Fear storyline be totally wiped from my character’s history?

Actually, that’s a pretty good question. The story journal would look out of whack that way.