Guild Wars 2

BobbyStein.2315:

Conner.4702:

You call it teaser. I call it extremely boring and badly written. Teasers are supposed to grab peoples attention. Not have them running around like headless chickens, because you failed to make a compelling intro.

It helps if you could be more specific in your feedback. Do you mean:

• Badly written (full of grammatical errors, confusing dialog, characters talking “out of voice”)
• Badly designed (lack of logical flow, unclear directions, broken mechanics)
• Badly messaged (“I was expecting more because of how it was promoted”)

Most people I have gotten feedback from in general while doing some of these seem to revolve around the last two. “Badly designed” in so far as the Unclear Directions (“where do I find these items and how do I know where to look?”), and “Badly messaged” (“Why isn’t this any bigger?” “The hype leaked out about this living story and all it does is this?”).

Personally, I have said this feels more like the team setting up and seeing what they can do with this concept of a “Living Story” right now so more complex forms can be done later. And while I would like more to do each release (personally), the whole “sneaking evolution of things in every week or so” has kept me poking around and asking people who have been in Wayfarer’s Foothills and Diessa Plateau “hey, anything new or odd going on?”.

If that was your goal, to get even a casual interest in these areas, mission accomplished for at least my guild

Conner.4702:

Let me do it for you.
Step 1: Place some new random crap houses.
Step 2: Burn down one of them.
Step 3: Start rumors about monsters.
Step 4: Burn more of them down.
Step 5: Have people fleeing, while telling horror stories.

What you don’t do is show the enemy before the main event starts as that just completely kills the suspense

Step 1: We placed refugee structures, but new random houses would have been cool.
Step 2: That would have been neat if we had enough time to build an event around the teaser. We didn’t have the time or resources, so we put the refugee structures in.
Step 3: The characters you met in phase one alluded to attacks but did not specify the enemy.
Step 4: See step 2.
Step 5: We’ve done something similar to this, though the characters are scattered around Hoelbrak and the Black Citadel.

TL;DR version – You have some good ideas that, funny enough, we also thought of during the development cycle of the phase 1 and 2 teaser warmups. The reason we didn’t implement more substantial content for the teasers simply came down to a matter of time and resources. All of the members of the Living World team wanted to do more. They just didn’t have the time to build everything they wanted, which would have added to testing time, iteration time, rewriting, localizing, etc.

Have a +1 over refuting that point by point.

On a serious question, when you folks get to the next Living Story block you want to work on (after Frost and Flame) may we see something more ambitious as far as changes? Somewhere between the homestead/camps/ranches showing up and the havoc wrought on Lion’s Arch late last year?

The issue isnt that the content is bad, its that the “teaser” happened far from the actual release, several months of waiting is a poor judgement by anet.

Events should at most drag over a month period of weekly changes, anything slower and people forget or only show up for the first week then ignore it

For me it was badly messaged. I can perfectly well live with the content which was given, but from the way it was advertised I was expecting way more. The story itself is pretty ok, for me, I would say.

I was expecting that the story was giving more chains to discover to make people solve the mystery to give me a picture to unwrap, just a bit more connections. Atm it is…yeah some teasercontent or however you may call it. And I’m just a bit disappointed because I was really looking forward to this.

And it is not my intention to bash someone. I can pretty well understand that you can’t do everything you would want with limited resources.

I for one love the mystery of the Living Story so far. It fights the process of stream lining and creates a sense of exploration. I don’t want to be told everything, I want to be shown. And I don’t mind having to figure out some stuff along the way. It’s reminiscent of older video games like Myst, where you were given a clue and told to go figure it out.

I know i wont be popular with the crowd but i’d have been happier with just full on fixes of the content we had, three months of balance fixes, bug fixes and content repairs would have been fine for me, laurels still need to be upped with achievements etc.

While that was all happening you guys would have had three months to do flame and frost.. even a teaser saying “in march we plan on adding a living story till then we will repair the game and add cool skins to the cash shop”…or whatever..

I personally love the idea of the living story. Only contructive criticism is less time between story updates, or more content in each episode to allot for the space between episodes.

From what I’d read, I was expecting phases to have at least some sort of looping event chain that told a part of the story. Something like this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CyqGJHTjes , which when I saw it was one of the main reasons I got so stoked for GW2 and pre-purchased it months in advance. The game world is rich with these kinds of event chains, and while the community has eventually dissected them to find the fastest way to get to events that drop more loot, the stories are still there for us to discover. Those stories are tiny works of art that make the game world more than just a patchwork quilt of themed mob farms.

I spent ages trudging around the Wayfarer foothills looking for something like that, maybe aiding a particular cadre of refugees along a series of difficulties or helping one of the ‘star’ living story NPCs to secure the route to Hoelbak. Didn’t realize that the signposts and other ambient activity was it. The content was fine in and of itself, but the individual teaser was promoted like it was something richer and more involving than events already happening in the world. That’s only true in that the events taking place will have permanent effects on the world, as opposed to the current ‘groundhog day’ event loops. On their own merits, they’re barely stories, though I imagine we’ll appreciate these phases more once we’ve seen how they tessellate into the longer story arc that’s planned.

(One gets the impression that the living story may have been over-promoted to ensure that the wider world and its media would have no chance to accuse GW2 of losing steam on content creation. If that’s true, then it’s sad but understandable.)

I think the information about what there is to do in each phase should be a lot more clear cut. I appreciate the information being conveyed through in-character speech and narrative, and the idea of rekindling the desire to explore and discover these stories. However phases 1 and 2 didn’t rekindle that desire because I was still exploring the same maps I’d already explored, just with ant trails of signposts and injured people stitched through them, and thus the search for information wasn’t as enjoyable or appealing as it could have been. Maybe there’s a better way to balance how much explicit information is given and how much exploring is encouraged.

I remain optimistic, of course, because I’ve seen both how skilled ANet are at telling stories, and how quickly they adapt to player feedback. And I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t curious about how the story will pan out, even if what I’ve seen so far has been underwhelming.

BobbyStein.2315:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

On a serious question, when you folks get to the next Living Story block you want to work on (after Frost and Flame) may we see something more ambitious as far as changes? Somewhere between the homestead/camps/ranches showing up and the havoc wrought on Lion’s Arch late last year?

Our hope on the Living World teams, provided we get the amount of resources and time required, is to evolve the game with each scheduled update. I can’t be more specific than that right now, but we’re discussing lots of ideas at the moment. I hope to be able to discuss this in more depth once the time is right.

Talk to someone that manages rewards so we can get something other than a Jug Of Karma. These events have been pretty tedious (fedex quests). You probably be able to get alot more people to suck it up and play Frost and Flame: The Fetch Quest if they got something.

It doesn’t even have to be something worth anything. A pos mini/townclothes, hell even a laurel.

Woah….Bobby is on fire! Answering questions left and right. Good on you.

As a semi-casual player that can be and most times want’s to be drawn into the lore, the living story “teasers” have yet to make me care about dead and injured refugees, or that there’s an orange portal instead of the normal blue one (Maw event) in Wayfarer foothills, or the supposed threat that had eradicated people’s homes.
(P.S: Where are these homes? My assumption was that near all people live in the town hubs, bar a few here and there, but as the story is unfolding – and those houses remain intact and those dynamic events still run – there’s a mismatch between what you’re telling me and what you’re showing me)

In light of it being a teaser, it’s supposed to grab me, and make me desperately want to find the answers and be eager in the next instalment. I think a mixture of things caused it not to work as well as intended:

• Length of time between teaser sections
• “Just Another Event” syndrome – which I’ll say is pretty much stomping all over Colin’s “Hey, I swung a sword…Hey! I swung a sword again” comment, where in this case, it’s “Hey! I plugged up those holes in the ground and closed a portal….Hey! I plugged up those holes in the ground and closed a portal again…” which unfortunately due to the nature of the game, makes any effort for emphasising urgency, and worry in at a story level worthless.
• Over-hype = Under-deliver (this can be managed. Just remember.. The higher you hype, the harder it is to reach average expectations and the further it is to fall)

Personally, I think is that the hype behind this is nothing short of a continuation of bad messaging that can be found all over the place for GW2.
From what devs say in interviews that eventually get debunked by players when implemented – to hype around what the personal story should have been and what it actually ended up being.

I hope that in the coming months, we don’t end up with the Living Story being the awkward cousin of Personal Story.

dannylee.9361:

It’s reminiscent of older video games like Myst

How dare you speak such blasphemy.

after this story is all wrapped up, will the affected pve maps be altered in some way? example, if during the last epic battle to end the story changed the landscape for ever? like, if it was a HUGE dragon effigy, and we downed it (like the dragon events), will it leave a smoking crater in it’s absence? or will we gain new allies, and see an introduction of a hybrid race?

BobbyStein.2315:

Brutal Arts.6307:

BobbyStein.2315:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

On a serious question, when you folks get to the next Living Story block you want to work on (after Frost and Flame) may we see something more ambitious as far as changes? Somewhere between the homestead/camps/ranches showing up and the havoc wrought on Lion’s Arch late last year?

Our hope on the Living World teams, provided we get the amount of resources and time required, is to evolve the game with each scheduled update. I can’t be more specific than that right now, but we’re discussing lots of ideas at the moment. I hope to be able to discuss this in more depth once the time is right.

Talk to someone that manages rewards so we can get something other than a Jug Of Karma. These events have been pretty tedious (fedex quests). You probably be able to get alot more people to suck it up and play Frost and Flame: The Fetch Quest if they got something.

It doesn’t even have to be something worth anything. A pos mini/townclothes, hell even a laurel.

I’ll relay this to the teams.

On a distantly related note…

If there had been a way to do it, my ele would have saved those whales – even if there had been no reward at all for doing it. Just to somehow get them back in the water, safe and sound, and then see them swimming away would have been enough. For me, anyway. At that moment. That would have been a great story. Lost Shores? I say lost opportunity.

Funny that I felt more empathy with those beached whales than I have with the refugees. Maybe if they weren’t norn and charr. I guess it’s just difficult for me to see them as anything but fiercely self-sufficient. Also, it didn’t help that: here’s a dead norn, here’s another dead norn, here’s anoth — wait, no, this one’s just passed out, drunk. Well, okay then.

For the record, I kept the drawing.

@Bobby Stein

I feel like you were overrating peoples attention span, with this teaser content. Teasers are nice, but they shouldn’t be announced, if they’re going to be introduced a month in between. What happens is that players play the content, because they know it’s there, and then wonders why there isn’t more of it. The player’s logic is that; if something is announced, it must be something substantial. So if you’re going to release teaser content, it needs to come out closer to each other (at least every third week), or have a bigger impact. Otherwise, the teaser content shouldn’t be announced at all, as others have already suggested.

You really need to factor in the habits of how your players think a lot more, based on other games. And then plan and release your content with that in mind.

BobbyStein.2315:

It helps if you could be more specific in your feedback. Do you mean:

• Badly written (full of grammatical errors, confusing dialog, characters talking “out of voice”)
• Badly designed (lack of logical flow, unclear directions, broken mechanics)
• Badly messaged (“I was expecting more because of how it was promoted”)

I feel that so far, the reason this teaser content feels vague is due to a combination of all three reasons above. I have also provided some suggestions at the end for how to improve things in the future.

Badly written

The Living Story Teaser isn’t badly written in the sense that is contains errors or characters talking “out of voice”, it’s more that the characters don’t provide information in a way that sells the story. For example, remember in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom when that child came stumbling into the village? That scene sold the idea that the children were really in danger.

In GW2, the refugees don’t speak as though they have been through anything all that bad. Some NPC refugees (from what I can remember) don’t really even say anything at all. It all feels very casual and unimportant.

Badly Designed

This is where I have the most issues and why I started this thread in the first place. Like some events ANet has released in the past, I feel the the goals are much too vague.

As I mentioned above, when I’m being asked by an in-game character to perform a task, the last thing I want to do is feel as though I need to rely on third party sources (twitter/wiki/map chat/etc) to solve puzzles. That’s not to say the puzzles/tasks were impossible, but most of us don’t have an unlimited amount of time to dedicate to combing every inch of an already completed map, for an item that has no real perceived value beyond an arbitrary achievement.

The three main tasks are the portals, the lost items, and the “dog tags”. When I first landed on the map, I ran around randomly looking for what was going on. I found a sign post, and started repairing them, but I was doing so without reason. The “dog tags” were the same and until I happened across the mini-camp, I had no idea why I was carrying them.

The lost items are by far the most confusing. First, I have no idea why I am being asked to scour an entire map for them. Secondly, there is no indication that more have been lost. The only reason I even knew was because I checked map chat and wiki’s. How would I ever know if there were new things to find, unless I went out of my way to run to the refugee camp and check for new NPC’s?

We all know how many lost items their are because the achievements provide a spoiler. The task becomes less about the reason, and more about just filling the yellow bar.

I feel the puzzles should be solvable without resorting to map chat. I have no problem piecing together information form various sources to come to a conclusion, but having one NPC tell me to go out and look, is just too vague.

The portals fall into the same trap. The map chat has resorted to simply calling out portal locations, and people run over to them and kill them for no other reason than the achievement. No one seems to care why we’re killing them, or what would happen if we didn’t. There is no sense of threat or urgency, we’re just killing things we’ve killed before.

Because we know the portals/items will continuously spawn, on an emotional level we stopped caring weeks ago. Nothing we do, or don’t do seems to matter, and this brings me to the last point.

Badly messaged

This teaser really feels like a case where there are a lot of feathers and not much chicken. What I mean is, the way it was presented made it feel like things were kicking off and getting serious. After weeks of the game feeling static, many of us started asking ourselves if this was it?

It was a bit of an overzealous start, and I think it created unrealistic expectations, and confused a lot of excited players.

With all that said, here are some suggestions I have for improving future events.

1. Release only what is necessary outside of the game to entice players to log in. By providing so much information you set expectations that may not be realistic. In the case of the Living Story, a simple photo of a ragged family of Norn, stumbling through the snow, with everything they own on their backs, with a tagline that said something like, “Trouble is stirring in Tyria”.

Basically, you want to give the players a reason to log in, but if you release too much information, you run the risk of turning people off, or making it seem much more involved than it actually is.

2. When players log in, let them know via a cutscene what is going on. Players log in all over the world and many times don’t set foot in major cities for days. Sending out an email is too risky because many players don’t read, don’t check, or don’t bother with them.

If when a player logged in, an NPC ran up and started a short cutscene that would set up the story, then you’ve done everything you can to set the mood. Don’t rely on passive NPC’s standing around cities to get the message across.

3. Don’t spoil the content in the achievement panel. I understand this may be beyond the game mechanics, but if you tell me to collect lost items before I even know what that means, it chances my reasons for doing something.

What should happen is that until you’ve talked to an NPC, those achievements are not available. That way, you’re not making it task based, but story based.

4. Once you have your players ready for content, provide them with adequate direction. As many have said in this thread, randomly running around without rhyme or reason is tedious. Allow NPC’s to provide just enough information to point the player in the right direction, for example:

The NPC in LA tells a player to talk to an NPC in the northern city of Diessa. Once there, have that NPC relay a bit more information about where to go, such as, “I’m not entirely sure what’s happening. We’ve had a flood of refugees pouring in for days, but most are too scared, or too wary to give much information. Iv’e sent my daughter out to put up sign posts to help them find their way, if you would like to help, check along the road to the east.”

Then as you search you come across a woman cutting wood. Talking to her reveals that she is trying desperately to get the signs up because many of the refugees are getting lost in the snow, if I would like to help, travel south and help rebuild.

As you can see, you’re allowing the player to slowly gather information about what’s going on. Along the way they will inevitably meet refugees and this is where you can introduce them to even more story.

“I’m sorry, I’m much too weak to talk.”
“I lost everything…my home…my children…cries”
“I was separated from my family, we were following signs, but got disoriented in a storm”
“Please, help….I’m injured….they, came out of nowhere….please!”

Little bits of information that get people talking and players moving. As they explore they will come across more characters and more reason to become involved.

In the end it’s really about allowing the players the opportunity to seek out the information they need to continue progressing with the story. Tasks are fine, but having a static NPC standing on a beach tell me about something they lost, and then not really showing any emotion when it’s returned doesn’t make me care much.

These are refugees, they need food, water, medical supplies, shelter, etc. That should be the priority.

Sorry, this is getting long…I’ll stop for now.

to be honest i won t finish it till its over…if looked for the 2nd part pieces of this story and cannot find them due to lack of info from npcs so ill just wait for a guide and finish it in a day or 3 jut depends…

The lack of substance and a general ‘point’ is the biggest problem for me.

But here are some smaller, more general issues I have:
-The only goals given are generic achievement tracks.
-The whole dredge-charr alliance thing really doesn’t mesh at all in my head.
-The ‘tragedy’ is invisible to us. The only thing I see is some small events that happen extremely sporadically, hardly a big event. Sons of Svanir do more damage on a daily basis.
-Pacing is really, really poor. There is very little to do and you have it spaced out by months.
-Lack of rewards, I do not benefit at all, except for an extremely minor karma bonus, for doing any of this. (Achievements not withstanding)

My constructive feedback as of 2/4 of Living Story is this:

Positive 1: More events to do and keep the player interested in the game. These are somewhat a new style of events and I give the Dev team props for making my leveling experience in Wayfarer Foothills more interesting and entertaining

Positive 2: More Npcs to make the game feel more alive. Somehow the population of Wayfarer Foothills has apparently tripled as of late. This does however make me feel little regard for these refugees that seemingly popped out of nowhere.

Positive 3: More achievements and rewards this always makes me happy.

Negative 1: Storytelling: I see what is going on, yet I actually still have no idea what is going on. I say this because of the cultural differences between the two allied factions and the fact that there has been not even a single clue why these unlikely allies would ally. Although, I understand I may have missed an explanation or even speculation on the matter but if that was the case, this in itself seems like an issue.

Negative 2: The Npcs: What is with the refugees? They somehow managed to escape some sort of natural disaster (That we cannot see nor observe) and yet somehow, they are completely useless in an information aspect. They did not tell me one thing about the story that was actually useful. I return their item and they tell me something about themselves like we’re in a committed relationship all of a sudden. As far as I know, all of these individuals could have been homeless before the “disaster”. It was 10 times worse when I had the impression from the blog that these individuals contained vital information, but maybe it was a misunderstanding on my part.

Negative 3: The rewards: There is only one reward thus far and it is a decent karma boost and I have no problem with that. I feel the reward fit the work in that scenario, however, I can guarantee that there will be a problem with the upcoming rewards because players have no idea what reward they will be getting. This is compounded by the fact that Anet on a blog stated something along the lines of “great rewards” which is a dangerous promise because it will give very high expectations to the player base and that from my point of view is very risky. A solution to this would be to somehow show the item you will be rewarded with for completing said achievements in your achievement panel so players know exactly what they will be getting. If they don’t want the reward, then they won’t do the achievements = player base is happy. The player base = angry, if they feel tricked.

Also, it should be noted that the content between the two patches feels very small in regard to what we were promised. This IMO would have been better to have been fully released after a month (One part a week) and keep it up for two to three months (with a new dungeon being the shining crown at the end)

I should clarify that i like the concept of a Living Story, just not how it is currently designed and implemented.

The Karka event happened too quickly, but for those who were able to attend and did not disconnect, it was one of the most epic mmo experience i have had in my entire life.

Now we have Flame and Frost, no lag, everyone has plenty of time to experience it, but because the story is moving soooooooooooooo slow it completely lacks the excitement, depth, and interaction the Karka event had.

This could have been handled better if the January, February and March patches had been released during the Halloween, Karka and Wintersday patches, with no announcement of these teasers, then it would have created a huge amount of excitement, mystery and speculation amongst players but players would still have the other monthly content to keep them busy and not get bored of the game, because the Living Story by itself as a monthly update gets boring in a matter of hours.

I dont feel connected to the story in game at all. I have had to get all my information about this Living Story from outside the game via blogs, youtube videos and these forums. I had no idea about these collectables until i read it here, its a significant problem.

Besides dungeons, that many people have now become bored of, the Living Story is the only PVE content available to players and i think that is why so many players are disappointed because they were expecting something more… maybe harder challenging encounters, more time consuming, rewards to aim for, in depth lore… stuff like that. I was at least expecting our Personal Story to continue in some way, with the cut scenes and voice acting, maybe even our personal instance getting used once again.

Just imagine logging in just after Wintersday had finished, i get a letter in the mail from this stranger named Braham who has heard of our success with The Pact and needs our help to investigate whats going on. Bring back the cut scenes and voice acting.

Maybe along the way you meet a refugee and after a few personal story stuff you invite them back to your personal home instance to live as a constant reminded of this Living Story, little things like that bring the LIFE into this LIVING story.

Im rambling now so i will end it here lol.

As far as the lost items go I would have liked less randomness. Sure at the end of the day it looks and feels like a fetch quest, but instead of alt-tabbing a guide to check all possible locations I would rather have something like this:

“We were running for our lives and had just made it to the Wayfarer Foothills going west as they were suddenly closing in on us. We managed to hide in a cavern north and managed to defeat the spiders living there. Once we felt it was safe we continued our trek south but my daughter must have lost here favourite sleeping doll in that cave. She won’t stop crying about it …”

Whether or not some people will read that and try following the hints or just use the online guide or ask in mapchat is up to each individual then. But it sure beats running around or worse, trying to pick up the first item one found again. That’s a grrr moment for me and takes away from the story.

Why not even have the option to talk to a toymaker or the like and make the kid happy with something new? Give my hero different angles to approach the situation – just remembered those tracker dogs for one heart – could have one of those to find the toy(s).

Other than that perhaps try to add more and more refugees each week in the cities. Would add a sense of “Hey, this seems to be getting worse and worse!”

Looking forward to the main part(s) of the story

BobbyStein.2315:

They, like everyone else at ArenaNet, work really hard.

Everyone I know in the gaming industry is working hard (really), because they love creating (and playing) games (cough not talking necessarily about management now cough) .

But working “really hard” is worth nothing if they don’t deliver.

Then working “really hard” means “trying to keep up to not loose the job”.

And working for Anet, one should do their best, because there are many others who could do the same and probaly even better (for less money even…looking to the eastern part of the world).

Soooo…make sure you’re getting payed in future too!

For my part, I am looking forward to the 3rd installation of that Living-Story (because its still included in my initial purchase of the game…free stuff added=great!) and hope you’ll get more resources and time for future projects and a better PR.

And thank you for taking the time and patience being an exception and actually communicating to your costumers in an seemingly honest way!

Funny that I felt more empathy with those beached whales than I have with the refugees.

This is so true.

I remember maybe 30 plus players spending about two hours running around watering the whales on the beach one night on my server. It was so much fun, people were typing in map chat to “Please come to the beaches of Lions Arch and help us Save the Whales!”, they even lied to people and made them think it was an actual event lol.

The overwhelming majority of players care far more greatly about those whales then they do about these refugees, that is a problem.

MRA.4758:

Fiontar.4695:

You guys have definitely added features, but very light on content. I exclude Guild Missions from content delivered to players, because the gating of access to them is so absurd that maybe 95% of players have no access unless they guild leech. Besides, bounties, though I’m sure taking some amount of resources to develop, don’t really offer much in the way of actual playable content.

(My post is not necessarily directed at you, I just high-jacked your post.)

I would argue that content, even if its not for you in particular, is still content. Fractals, for instance, wasn’t for me, but was still quite some load of content, and many (other) people enjoy it.

Also, I wouldn’t underestimate the workload required to deliver new features. Guesting or the removal of culling haven’t been released earlier since ANet didn’t want us to have it, they just needed a significant amount of time for development/testing. I find it understandable that this has required resources that could not act on different tasks. So, while the “story content” of the past two releases was rather shallow compared to the months before, I didn’t see ANet giving us “less than before” in the past two releases.

And, finally, I would like to highlight the fact that we got all of this for free, as a kind of continued service for our one-time purchase. This service is even more impressive than what we got for GW1. Don’t tell me you expected that, say, 12 months ago, since I would not believe you.

~MRA

I did acknowledge that the past two months represent features/content that required development resources. I do, though, think many of us have been scratching our heads over what they have decided to spend development resources on and what they haven’t.

It seems like almost every interview the last few months have offered some excuse about relatively straight forward things they would/could/should be doing, but can’t because of a lack of coders. It’s not always that direct, but it seems they really do have a serious lack of coders and if you have a serious lack of coders and that lack is threatening the potential of the game’s ongoing financial success, you go out and get more coders.

Same seems to go for character artists/ modelers. The gem store should be overflowing with cosmetic items and armor/weapon skins by now. It was one of the things almost everyone, fans and ANet, agreed would and should be part of a cash shop for the game. I can only conclude they just don’t have enough artists at the moment to produce the quality/quantity of items they should be producing. This probably has cost them millions in lost revenue, more than enough to justify hiring a couple talented artists to do nothing but crank out skins for the gem store on a weekly basis.

Writers. Arenanet employees are all very careful what they say about work on their twitter feeds, but it’s become clear to me that they are over worked. I think that’s bolstered by how little story or dialogue has actually been included in the last two Living Story updates. They could have made up for lack of coded content by having the refugees actually tell tales worth listening to, but they didn’t. Seems they are in serious need of additional writers as well.

Believe me, I appreciate that ANet employees are working hard and that resources have been needed to produce what we did get in January/February. However, it also seems clear that they lack the resources needed to produce ongoing features/content at the needed rate. It also seems that prioritization of the available resources hasn’t always been appropriate since launch.

As to “we got this all for free”. Well, some of you are getting it for free while some of us are actually paying for it via gem purchases, often to sums greater than a typical monthly subscription fee. You might say “that’s optional and if you don’t like the ongoing development, stop buying gems”. Well, that’s really what my concerns all come back to.

The business model for the game relies on people making optional cash infusions to the company via the gem store. I have to seriously question their priorities and productivity when it comes to providing ongoing content needed to maintain and drive ongoing gem store revenue.

Turning off the “paying customers” to the game while chasing after the needs of the fickle, nomadic “hardcore l33t” players seems very self destructive to me.

BobbyStein.2315:

It’s pretty clear from all the responses that our messaging was a little confusing to some. I’ll be working on that with the relevant parties.

In general, I think GW2’s story suffers a bit from advanced warning. We always knew we were going to be fighting Zhaitan, so that took the majority of the suspense out of the personal story. With events like the Lost Shores patch, anyone who follows the game closely was pretty much told ahead of time what would happen and where to be. In the case of the Living Story, there haven’t been many surprises because the patch notes and update pages have mostly told us exactly what’s going on in the given zones and what we’re going to find there, so the fun of discovering clues is lessened and we’re left with just the activities.

I know there are a lot of things you’re trying to accomplish with the Living Story, while incorporating lessons learned from previous events. And I do really appreciate what you’re trying to create. However, I think you guys already accomplished a living story wonderfully, during the very first patch, and I’d like to break down the reasons that I think that’s so.

The Halloween trailer did an excellent job of setting the tone for the event. I still watch it sometimes, because it’s great—full of personality, has its own narrative going on, and drops all the appropriate hints to get people primed. The site for the Shadow of the Mad King event also set the stage for the coming story without blurting out something along the lines of, “Hey, guys, Mad King Thorn will be back this Halloween! Fight him in game Oct. 28 to Oct. 31!” The hints we got were presented as part of the story. In contrast, the teaser site for Flame and Frost: The Razing, gives us a big chunk of meta-info. The dredge and Flame Legion are allied, and they’re called the Molten Alliance. We’re going to have two new allies, and here are their names. Those are all things that would be more fun to learn in game, but we’ve gotten more info about the lore behind the Flame and Frost event from the event pages than the in-game teaser events.

Once the Shadow of the Mad King event started, we were immediately sent on a multi-zone hunt to uncover the story behind the character, and gather more hints as to his possible return. For that, we got a neat cosmetic item, but it was also just plain fun to do. Hunting down the story and seeing the mini-scenes was a reward in itself. Act 1 of the event was functionally a teaser, but it felt like the start of something big, and set up the story. In comparison, the Flame and Frost teasers have had relatively little story to uncover; the refugees in the beginning basically refused to talk about what had happened to them, yet by the time the second act rolled around, NPCs had started talking about the dredge and the Flame Legion as though it were meant to be perfectly obvious what had happened. It ended up being fairly anticlimactic.

A few continuous, gradual changes in the Shadow of the Mad King event made it feel like the story was truly progressing. The Mad Moon in the sky, the appearance of more doors, and especially the deterioration of the lion statue in LA—all of those established the fact that the world was changing, and something was really happening. And those were all things players noticed on their own, which made them feel organic. We all could guess that the Mad King was going to return, but we didn’t know when, where, or how, which preserved the air of mystery and urgency.

The one-time event was a cutscene, which was perfect—although it was a little weird to have it announced so far ahead of time.

In short, I think the Shadow of the Mad King event was an excellent example of how to do a living story, from pacing to atmosphere to execution. There was plenty of low-key, repeatable content to keep players busy in between phases, which came close enough together that the story didn’t drag on or lose its sense of immediacy. The whole thing, from start to finish, is one of the best experiences I’ve had in an MMO (and certainly the best holiday event).

I feel kind of like the living story content could benefit from something like a master of ceremonies—someone who could take on the role of giving out necessary information, but in the voice of a narrator rather than a developer. Or instead of telling us we’ll meet Braham and Rox, maybe they could address us—or each other—directly, to hint at their personalities and their role in the story? Something like what LoL has been doing recently with their new champion teasers would be really cool; it gives a lot of information while sparking excitement and discussion, and not outright spoiling the story.

This is super long, but I know you’re all working hard, and thank you.

The largest negative points, as previously noted, revolves around how badly the refugees have been handled. They just enter the zone and march off to the nearest city. There are no emotional connections, they have nothing setting them apart from any of the merchant escort events, except they aren’t even involved in events. Picking up mementos didn’t help either, they were just objectives in a fetch quest. There’s no emotional attachment to any of them. Even the items you need to find are just more fetch quests. Why would we care that they lost their items?

What really got me though was when I tried to figure out where these guys were coming from. I ran to and fro, studied the map and still have no idea where their so-called homes are being destroyed. The only landmark that stood out were the large wooden doors in Wayfarers, just above one of the portal events. So they must be coming from some unknown place located somewhere or another. Again, why should we care about them?

I know this is the “teaser”, but I would say this is the most important part. I’ve heard many times how important it is for a writer to grip a reader with the first sentence of a novel. By the end of the first paragraph, either the reader will be invested and read on, or put down the book and do something more interesting. So that’s not an excuse, you can’t tell a reader the book will get better. This has been a weak opening. There is no emotional involvement, no attachments, very little believable threat and no impact. As someone else said, these are norn and charr, so the threat must be immense, but it falls sort of flat.

That said, I really liked the geyser events, that felt like it had some urgency. I like the fact that portals are opening now, but it still feels a bit detached. They come and go, occurring at some structures, and feels far from awe inspiring.

In my mind, this is how it should have gone down:

January – The update is called Flame and Frost with no other indicators as to what’s going on. In the northern parts of Wayfarers and Diessa, a few existent buildings are burnt husks with no clues as to what happened. Later in the month, when players pass these structures, a portal event will start.

February – Some of the existing towns will have portals open and players need to defend them while putting out fires. Halfway through the month events will start where guard NPCs begin evacuating these towns, guiding NPCs south toward the safety of the cities, as these NPCs become the refugees. Deeper into the month more portal events spawn, upping the urgency.

My reasons for suggesting this:
In Jan you will have a bit more of an ominous feeling. Structures you previously saw intact are now burnt out husks. It sets a better tone than NPCs sauntering southwards.
In Feb, you’ll see the threat materialize, you’ll see actual settlements in trouble. You’ll fight for them, and as the NPCs are being guided to safety, you’ll actually care, since you’ve been fighting next to them, standing beside them as they fight for their homes, and with all hope lost, you now help them leave the homes you’ve been defending alongside them. This isn’t just their loss, you share it with them.

TwoBit.5903:

I like the idea that things are happening, but this so called teaser doesn’t seem to be teasing at much. What the developers want me to be aware of is that The Flame Legion and Dredge are working together and driving out Charr and Norn. That’s good and all but this only intrigues me on a superficial level; the changes just aren’t deep enough to get me invested in all your efforts. What kinds of social and psychological effects will this have on the inhabitants of Tyria? What kinds of cultures are lost. How is the economy being affected? How are the pre-existing NPCs reacting to this change?I know these questions don’t sound interesting, but to make an actual “living” story, the story needs to address issues on this level.

And I agree with the TC’s point. The objectives are far too vague. If you want something of a scavenger hunt, you need to at least give some clues, and “somewhere on x map” is not a very good clue.

I SO agree with this.

I have to hand it to you, Bobby – I may not always like the answers you give (though sometimes I do) – but at least you take the time to give us reasoned, well thought-out answers, and I appreciate that more than I can say. Thank you.

TexZero.7910:

FrizzFreston.5290:

TexZero.7910:

But that’s okay, keep telling me the story isnt happening….considering we are already in phase 2 of 4. I actually believe that the story isnt happening, because ANET dropped the ball on telling a story this time and focused way to hard on a system instead.

Teaser content is teaser content, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the first second or third instalment. I directed you basically to the article without a link , so I can’t blame your fool-hardiness.

Same article as before this time with link:
Angel Leigh McCoy – Living Story: Evolution

We’ve had long meetings, with our most colorful thinking caps on, to discuss how we will pay off all your patience during these early months of teaser content,

Colin Johanson, MMORPG interview on Flame and Frost*

World-narrative wise, February continues to build the fundamentals of this story to provide more hints and growth to this storyline as it builds into the core components and takes off in March and April.

And
Colin Johanson in a 4 part interview with Guildwars2guru.com

GURU: So what kind of sort of changes might we see to the world itself as the Living Story progresses?
Colin: I think you’re not going to see a ton of stuff in February. It’s mostly just a little more setup stuff. We hit the end of the year and decided to really make that a big thing for 2013 and as a result we really just didn’t have time to build that much stuff yet. I think, looking ahead, March and April is more when we kind of get in to the cadence of what a Living Story can be. Other than that we’ll build from there as the year goes on.

Just to note, that part 3 and part 4 are more in the right direction, means that its also still teaser content, I believe. And they focus on the system much more because once it is in place, then you can tell the story, It’s like inventing the TV before inventing the TV program.

I have to point this out…

The system was already in place. Any programmer worth their pay knows how to write an automated script. Anet is pulling legs if they think setting flags in a script is somehow new.

Too much gullibility here. It’s not teaser content, its being lazy.

hell, we saw it in halloween.

remember the big timer that counted down to MKT’s arrival?
and every 25% or so the statue changed?

now just hide that timer and OH MY GOSH IT’S A LIVING STORY GUYS! THIS IS COMPLETELY NEW AND NEVER DONE BEFORE!

ironically, the halloween event was probably better handled than this, if only because the “spectral energy reading” gave us a sense of scale and presence, we knew that badness was going down because of the big ticking timebomb in the corner of the screen, we hunted all over the world for info to thorn’s past, we saw that the spectral energy was causing tangible problems that was linked to the progress bar and could go out and investigate said problems.

this on the other hand is just “at some arbitrary point, these people will have more dialog options”

I’m so glad I don’t have a job where 500 people are telling me I’m doing it wrong. You and the team are doing a great job Bobby, I’m loving the direction we are headed and can’t wait to get to see where the story goes.
Hope you don’t mind, but I’ve been collecting the story details as they happen (and hopefully getting most of it right). Doing this to try and keep my guild up to date with events. All of this is possible to know in game by talking to the characters and should be fun to read a year from now when this is all part of the history.

The Living Story so far
January 29 saw the introduction of the Living Story where events and new elements would be added gradually and Tyria would begin to evolve week by week.

It begins with Norn refugee’s in Wayfarer foothills and Charr refugee’s in Diessa Plateau both making their way South. Gas eruptions are appearing in both zones with events requiring the player to close the vents. More notably, there are massive vents in the hills North of Solitude Waypoint (in Wayfarers).

A dead Merchant can also be found here.
“The cause of death is unclear. There are burn marks on the body, but there are also trails of blood from the ears. And yet, there is no other sign of damage from a blunt weapon”.
Nearby a Merchants body guard can found, he’s happy with all the gold he’s making from Merchants. He reports many more are being attacked up North.

On the 4th of February additional structures have been created in Wayfarer foothills and in Hoelbrak and the Black Citadel. More refugee’s have arrived and one NPC in each capital will now talk with you.

Feb 11 saw the expansion of the refugee’s camps at Hoelbrak and the Black Citadel. Two more NPC’s have been added giving different accounts of who they were attacked by. Oh and the camps are infested with rats! In Hoelbrak they report that the Dredge have attacked but they were using Fire and he’s never seen the Dredge use fire. Meanwhile in the Black Citadel reports are that the Flame Leagion are behind the attacks on the ranchers.

On the 19th of February, the Refugee Coordinator reported that White Bear has sent Wolfborn scouts and while we are waiting for them to report it seems clear to the coordinator that the Dredge have risen up with Magical help! The charr led by Tribune Brimstone have sent out scouts as well, it seems the Flame Legion are systematically clearing the farms in the North West of the Plateau.

25 Feb – At least things seem a little better at Hoelbrak, refugee’s have started gating to Lions Arch with the help of a mysterious benefactor. The Coordinator has finally confirmed that the Dredge and Flame Legion are working together.

On the 26th of February things took a turn for the worse as firey portals began to open up in Wayfarers and Diessa. Heroes rushed to the area to contain the Dredge and Flame Legion that poured out.

A mysterious new fortification has been constructed in the North of Wayfarers alongside the venting gas, giant doors block entry to a large building with flames burning along the roof line. Another fire can be seen further up the hill amongst the eruptions.

The refugee’s who have made their way to Lions arch have lost items in both Wayfarers and Diessa, if you can find the 6 unique items in either area they may be able to provide more information on what has been happening. (Adventurers report 2 can be found now at random spawn points).

The consortium, best known for their souveniers and ill faited island resort launches has stepped in to assist the refugee’s. Apart from providing temporary facilities in Lions Arch they are going to be constructing settlements in the Southsun Cove. The effort is headed up by Elpida Callis.

Grawl refugee’s who have been in Lions Arch for some time have been camped in the spot chosen by the Consortium and they aren’t very happy. They were also driven from their homes by Dredge months before but they are not being offered help by the Consortium. Doesn’t really matter though as in the chiefs words “Their smile does not reach their eye’s” in other words he doesn’t trust them and won’t touch anything of theirs.

On the 13th of March two new refugee’s had made their way to Lions Arch but had lost items along the way. The camp is becoming more established, clothes have been cleaned and are drying which should make visiting a bit more pleasant soon.

Elpida is making sure to let people know that Canach was responsible for the Southsun fiasco and he’s no longer with the company so this is bound to be a more successful effort from the Consortium!

The Merchants bodyguard who was bragging about how much money he was making has left at some point. Whether he’s on another job or not is unknown.

BobbyStein.2315:

Tachenon.5270:

Funny that I felt more empathy with those beached whales than I have with the refugees.

Awesome. Our next iconic is a whale.

Cool! :-D

Um. What is that?

Talk to someone that manages rewards so we can get something other than a Jug Of Karma. These events have been pretty tedious (fedex quests). You probably be able to get alot more people to suck it up and play Frost and Flame: The Fetch Quest if they got something.

It doesn’t even have to be something worth anything. A pos mini/townclothes, hell even a laurel.

True. Whoever decides what reward each activity provides, they seem to value karma as a resource far more than any player in the entire game does. Karma used to be worthwhile back when you could trade karma items in for cash money, but so long as karma items are soulbound and non-sellable, even to vendors, it’s a fairly valueless currency. I did buy two cool cultural3 daggers the other day with karma, but that only cost a tiny fraction of the karma jugs I had filling up my bank.

Funda.7216:

I’m so glad I don’t have a job where 500 people are telling me I’m doing it wrong. You and the team are doing a great job Bobby, I’m loving the direction we are headed and can’t wait to get to see where the story goes.

It’s going to take more than a few happy players to keep the game going.

My only real complaint, is that I was directed to talk to the refugees. I greet them, and all I get is: “yes”, what do you want/get lost type comments, or grunts. I was expecting some stories, reactions, hints. At least on the road when I healed some of them, they were greatful, but others just rude like the merchants with their beasts. None seemed to have ANYTHING of any interest to tell me; it’s very discouraging to feel any real impathy for them.

BobbyStein.2315:

Wayfinder.8452:

You look forward to hearing WHAT !? There is a 2000 thread about guild missions being crap and you don’t even respond to that.

My team and I are primarily focused on the Living Story aspect of the game right now. We support other teams with writing and VO (WvW, Guild Content, etc.) but don’t have a big hand in their process. Unless the bulk of the constructive feedback on Guild Missions is based around the writing or characters, I don’t really have anything to add to that discussion.

Wayfinder.8452:

Do you seriously believe anyone still takes you seriously?

Some do. Some don’t. I do the best I can but don’t lose sleep over it.

Wayfinder.8452:

The few Reds that I’m believe in are on the Dungeons and Support teams + John Smith, love that guy.

They’re a great bunch and deserve all the support and respect that people are willing to give them. They, like everyone else at ArenaNet, work really hard.

Wayfinder.8452:

Other than that thanks for at least talking to the community, you’re one of the few that actually do that. The January patch was my favorite patch up till now.

You’re welcome.

I know you are on the Story Team and I know Guild Missions aren’t your responsibility, what I wanted to say is that ignoring such topics speaks bad about the ANet team as a whole. I really overreacted here and I apologize.

Once again thanks for being so open with us. Kitten you even replied to my trash talk.

Wayfinder.8452:

BobbyStein.2315:

Wayfinder.8452:

You look forward to hearing WHAT !? There is a 2000 thread about guild missions being crap and you don’t even respond to that.

My team and I are primarily focused on the Living Story aspect of the game right now. We support other teams with writing and VO (WvW, Guild Content, etc.) but don’t have a big hand in their process. Unless the bulk of the constructive feedback on Guild Missions is based around the writing or characters, I don’t really have anything to add to that discussion.

Wayfinder.8452:

Do you seriously believe anyone still takes you seriously?

Some do. Some don’t. I do the best I can but don’t lose sleep over it.

Wayfinder.8452:

The few Reds that I’m believe in are on the Dungeons and Support teams + John Smith, love that guy.

They’re a great bunch and deserve all the support and respect that people are willing to give them. They, like everyone else at ArenaNet, work really hard.

Wayfinder.8452:

Other than that thanks for at least talking to the community, you’re one of the few that actually do that. The January patch was my favorite patch up till now.

You’re welcome.

I know you are on the Story Team and I know Guild Missions aren’t your responsibility, what I wanted to say is that ignoring such topics speaks bad about the ANet team as a whole. I really overreacted here and I apologize.

Once again thanks for being so open with us. Kitten you even replied to my trash talk.

A thousand times THIS! It’s the same story over and over again. So, if a Red is reading this, I’d just say that it’d be a good idea to hint the respective colleagues towards the guild missions thread.

Zeldain.5710:

Funda.7216:

I’m so glad I don’t have a job where 500 people are telling me I’m doing it wrong. You and the team are doing a great job Bobby, I’m loving the direction we are headed and can’t wait to get to see where the story goes.

It’s going to take more than a few happy players to keep the game going.

Oh for sure and while I wonder whether some of the people I see will ever be happy I’ll be interested in reading peoples responses once this story is complete and the next is in action. If this had been done with no fanfare I think people would have been falling over each other begging the devs to tell them what’s going on!

Funda.7216:

Zeldain.5710:

Funda.7216:

I’m so glad I don’t have a job where 500 people are telling me I’m doing it wrong. You and the team are doing a great job Bobby, I’m loving the direction we are headed and can’t wait to get to see where the story goes.

It’s going to take more than a few happy players to keep the game going.

Oh for sure and while I wonder whether some of the people I see will ever be happy I’ll be interested in reading peoples responses once this story is complete and the next is in action. If this had been done with no fanfare I think people would have been falling over each other begging the devs to tell them what’s going on!

Wind of Change style! :P

Yeap, you nailed it.

At some point the Devs are going to get it that hype, and particularly over-hype is TOXIC.

What we’ve seen so far would have been vastly more intriguing if we weren’t constantly being told how amazing its gonna be. We’ll tell you if its amazing. Quit trying to tell us and show us some story/content as its ready.

Thanks for coming in and explaining where the team is coming from. I hope this leads to clearer content in the future. Great ideas on many things but implementation has often been a problem.

BobbyStein.2315:

Brutal Arts.6307:

Yargesh.4965:

BobbyStein.2315:

Raine.1394:

The key to understanding the understanding issue is in their recent blog on the Living Story. What they have given us so far are ‘teasers’, not actual content. There is also a reference to developers rolling off other projects now available to expand upon the story. The monthly events had to happen as they are a key value proposition for Anet. So, absent the ability to provide actual content, they occurred as ‘teasers’. I would expect the content to be fleshed out more properly over time and this should make the story more understandable. TLDR: You haven’t been able to get it because there has been nothing to get.

Correct.

So a vague and convoluted answer is the correct way to think about a vague and convoluted piece of content?

Basically the devs were busy so they only had enough time to make 2 weeks of content and stretched it out into two months. Now that they’re done fixing minion AI and solving world hunger (pfffffft) we’ll return to our regularly scheduled hitting things til they die.

What we’ve released so far is teaser content. Our next release, Flame & Frost: The Razing, is where the story and characters ramp up.

I think it has been mentioned but I would like to post my thoughts on the living story.

1. I feel like the past two living stories have been over hyped (I know many have said it already). They came out and told us about characters we still have not seen. Events unfolded too slow, a month apart. Now with the next update that might be redeemed however I would like the next living event to be less hyped. Tell us what is in the update coming not the one after or the one after that. I felt disappointed after the first and second updates to the living story because each time I expected more.

2. The speed of the event being put out. I feel it is too slow. I understand you want to do it all a month apart, but by then I have moved on and forgotten what it was about: or lost all excitement for the event. A example of this would be the Xmass one, it went on for far too long. I know not everyone did it at the same time when it came out, but it felt like that event just never ended and I wanted to move on to the next thing. In my opinion, I feel that content the size of the first two living story sections could have been done maybe two weeks apart. I think if they were done in this way they would have seemed like they are progressing, instead of me just forgetting them.

3. The best event so far was Halloween, for me. It had rewards unique to Halloween: I made characters do all the scavengar stuff to get them so later down the line when I wanted to level them, I could and see this unique reward for doing that. So far I have not got that experience. So please give us better rewards, even if they are small like a mini pet or a hat. They incentively me to do the content.
I know we have the painting btw, but it is just a karma reward so it is a little bit disappointing as know one needs Karma.

4. While events out in the world are fun, and they are Halloween did them, sometimes we need another reason to do them. Xmass and Hallow both had these, and they are a drops from a enemy we can only get at that time. I still have loads of Halloween candy and I would like some more of those from future events. If I know I can only get them then, I go out and do that content deliberately: while having fun and experiencing the hard work put into the living story.

5. A mini dungeon. I really liked how the Halloween one went, and to some extent the Xmass one. I enjoyed doing them over and over again for rewards but more then that, it seems to be you can get a story over to the player in a slightly more personal way in a dungeon. You feel like your the hero doing all the work, or you and your 4 other buddies. Where as in the world I am player X doing spam attacks to hit the mobs while my whole server does events. Kind of like the dragons.

I think that is everything I have to say, and thank you for doing the living story. I do hope it gets better in this next month, however I still feel a month apart is just a little too far.

BobbyStein, keep it going. From what I’ve read of your responses, I get the feeling you understand what areas that could use some improvement. So I won’t waste your time with that. I do want to make one suggestion about the in-game email players receive from one of the Destiny’s Edge noting about Flame and Frost. Many players overlooked this email, some weren’t really pulled in by it. My suggestion is instead of getting an email full of text, we could get a painterly animation or a cutscene with a key characters of storyline explaining what’s going on.

Fiontar.4695:

It seems like almost every interview the last few months have offered some excuse about relatively straight forward things they would/could/should be doing, but can’t because of a lack of coders. It’s not always that direct, but it seems they really do have a serious lack of coders and if you have a serious lack of coders and that lack is threatening the potential of the game’s ongoing financial success, you go out and get more coders.

I agree. Anybody else ever wondered why the “ANet is Hiring!” ad has been up for months now on the gw2 website? It doesn’t seem to be that simple for them to get the actual coders/artists/writers they want.

Fiontar.4695:

As to “we got this all for free”. Well, some of you are getting it for free while some of us are actually paying for it via gem purchases, often to sums greater than a typical monthly subscription fee. You might say “that’s optional and if you don’t like the ongoing development, stop buying gems”. Well, that’s really what my concerns all come back to.

The business model for the game relies on people making optional cash infusions to the company via the gem store. I have to seriously question their priorities and productivity when it comes to providing ongoing content needed to maintain and drive ongoing gem store revenue.

I’d still argue it is for free. I, for one, have also bough a dye pack, a key, or similar non-essential stuff out of my good-will to support the game. However, in the gem shop, I still only get what I pay for (a dye pack, a key, etc.). Halloween, more PvP maps, the karka slideshow, guild missions, and so were/are available to anyone regardless of their participation in the gem shop. This IS content for free. If the monthly releases also encourages players to buy an additional bank slots/whatever, then this is great for ANet, but it is still optional. If I don’t like the current months release, then no harm is done, and maybe I will like the next month’s release.

Of course ANet should make it’s releases as good as possible to keep people interested in playing (and, as a side-effect, in spending). Yet, I still cannot understand the attitude of some people who seriously now feel entitled to a monthly “DLC’S worth of content for free” (to use a CJ-like description) and are not ashamed to complain rudely if they are not completely satisfied. (Again, this is not necessarily directed at your post, but I have seen enough posts that fit into that category.)

~MRA

Speaking as a casual player the pace of the Living Story is just fine. Halloween was really pushing it for me in terms of how much time I could spend in the game in a week, and the way my life is now I would miss 90% of the Flame & Frost content if we only had a short time for it. I still haven’t finished any achievement but the Volunteer one. I think a lot of players on the forums don’t realize that they go through content much more quickly than the average player.

I think having more informative NPCs would be great. It would help people keep track of what they’ve done and what new stuff has cropped up, and also pull people into the story more. This might also help with how people feel about the pacing, since the NPCs could provide short recaps or pull players back in with sob stories, etc.

Halloween had good events and atmosphere (but terrible directions), and Wintersday had the clearest messaging and directions. No event has gotten in-game NPC messaging quite right yet, but you’re getting better.

I think that NPC interaction may be the most important part to focus on for F&F, because the story is fine. It’s the pacing and directions that are confusing and pull me out of the game. The directions for the lost items aren’t clear enough for me to rely on my own ability to find them, although I did figure out the part 1 achievement easily, and the NPCs don’t seem traumatized or needy enough for me to really care about what happens, so I don’t remember to pay attention and I miss things. They’re kind of bland, honestly, and I have a hard time caring about them. And this is coming from someone who switches out my ranger pet near rivers so my river drake doesn’t wind up attacking her cousins.

I want to care about the NPCs and follow the story, but the way it’s presented I don’t get enough details to do things easily and I don’t get any motivation to try and figure them out. If there was more motivation (Halloween) I would try harder, if the messaging/directions were clearer (Wintersday) I would uncover more and be more invested. As it is, I keep forgetting to check up on the refugee camp and missing out on stuff and generally not caring very much.