Guild Wars 2

I still dont know, why does ANet give this thing…

I dont want even read this, why do you, guys read this?

Is something interesting in this?

It’s just a fun little story, probably written in some off-time of a dev. I enjoy them for what they are. I don’t see what the problem is.

Some people enjoy it, and read it. It is of no interest to me so I ignore it. Harmony ensues.

read it once, regretted the time I lost doing so, haven’t read it since. personally I find it boring, but I’m sure there are people who enjoy it.

It’s basically fan fiction written by someone at Arenanet, a story about the world of Tyria and the people in it (although I don’t think Vikki and Momo are actually in the game).

I enjoy reading it, especially for the descriptions of different places as seen by someone on their first visit there, it reminds me of the first time I encountered some of the same landmarks, and places I still like to re-visit now (like the aquarium tunnel in Divinity’s Reach).

I especially liked the previous chapter where she briefly visited the Mad King’s Labyrinth. It was an interesting firstly to realise that to someone like Vikki who seems to have little/no combat training ending up somewhere like that would be absolutely terrifying, and then that she found our characters (who were mentioned in the story) nearly as frightening – seeing all these people armed to the teeth rushing eagerly into a maze filled with deadly monsters.

But if you’re not interested you don’t have to read it, you’re not going to miss anything except the story itself.

At a panel not too long ago, the Devs [the one from Disney and the super-handsome one ; )] asked the audience to create some characters in Tyria. Then, the Devs said they would write a story using said characters. (Something to that effect.) Thus, Tyrian Travels. No requirement to take part in this Tyrian fiction.

Good luck.

Arden.7480:

I still dont know, why does ANet give this thing…

I dont want even read this, why do you, guys read this?

Is something interesting in this?

So, don’t read it. How much effort do you think it takes to put this out? How many people need to read it to make it worthwhile?

It’s a bit of local color. I would have preferred to see the characters appear in the game, but I like the idea of having more stories appear (the original Living Story was partly meant to do this, see e.g. The Modus Sceleris)

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

It’s a bit of local color. I would have preferred to see the characters appear in the game, but I like the idea of having more stories appear (the original Living Story was partly meant to do this, see e.g. The Modus Sceleris)

That update still frustrates me. They added a whole load of new Dynamic Events, many with little storylines to them and others, like these ones, which could have been built into something really interesting.

Then later they said they weren’t going to build on it or do it again because their data showed players were only completing them if they happened to be nearby when it started and weren’t showing any interest in seeking them out.

Which could be an understandable complaint if it wasn’t for the fact that we had no other option. The patch notes literally just said “Added over 30 events across the game” and the game was only 2 months old – the Wiki didn’t even have info on all the hearts, let alone all the events that had been in the game since launch.

I’m still not sure of all the events that were added in that update (and I’ve spent a lot of time looking), some were easy to identify as being new, others might just be rarely seen and hadn’t been documented before then.

It’s a classic example of relying too much on quantitative data and not considering other factors which can’t be documented that way.

Danikat.8537:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

It’s a bit of local color. I would have preferred to see the characters appear in the game, but I like the idea of having more stories appear (the original Living Story was partly meant to do this, see e.g. The Modus Sceleris)

That update still frustrates me. They added a whole load of new Dynamic Events, many with little storylines to them and others, like these ones, which could have been built into something really interesting.

Then later they said they weren’t going to build on it or do it again because their data showed players were only completing them if they happened to be nearby when it started and weren’t showing any interest in seeking them out.

Which could be an understandable complaint if it wasn’t for the fact that we had no other option. The patch notes literally just said “Added over 30 events across the game” and the game was only 2 months old – the Wiki didn’t even have info on all the hearts, let alone all the events that had been in the game since launch.

I’m still not sure of all the events that were added in that update (and I’ve spent a lot of time looking), some were easy to identify as being new, others might just be rarely seen and hadn’t been documented before then.

It’s a classic example of relying too much on quantitative data and not considering other factors which can’t be documented that way.

Yeah, I thought that they didn’t really give it enough of a chance. People who find those events now are often really pleased to find the odd event.

I agree with you that ANet (especially Mike O’Brien) relies too often on quant alone, without enough qualitative analysis to disaggregate our diverse community.

Still, that’s a big digression from the OP’s question: why do they write/publish this stuff? Because some people like it and it’s very low cost for the warm fuzzies.

Diovid.9506:

It’s just a fun little story, probably written in some off-time of a dev.

Danikat.8537:

It’s basically fan fiction written by someone at Arenanet

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Then, the Devs said they would write a story using said characters.

It would be really helpful to finally know who’s actually writing these stories. As the people on reddit claim otherwise:

You think a developer is writing these lol?

Who is ‘we’ in the following text?

In September, we sent out a casting call to the community on the official Guild Wars 2 Tumblr asking players to submit profiles of their own characters. In this and future chapters, we’ll be selecting real player characters as needed to play minor roles in the story. We’d like to thank everyone for the incredible response we received!

^This may be what you are looking for:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.twitch.tv%2Fmomocontv3%2Fv%2F69182362

(And here’s a forum thread about it: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/MomoCon-2016-Panel/first#post6179305)

Thus, one would assume written by Leah Hoyer and Ross Beeley (and probably the whole Narrative Team).

Good luck.

There’s a GW Tumblr? O_O
Wow, would have liked to have known about that….

Does anyone but Gaile even know these Forums exist?

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Thus, one would assume written by Leah Hoyer and Ross Beeley (and probably the whole Narrative Team).

Leah Hoyer seems to have left Arenanet, posted on Twitter, September 23.

I always understood that the devs started the MomoCon story project together with some fans, creating the characters (asura and moa). But who continued it remained a secret… If those side stories are really actively written by GW2 devs, many people will be upset. The team is already split up between the expansion and Living World so it would be questionable to go even further and assign them to another side project.

I think (and hope) that these side stories are written by fans, but it would surely be great to have clarification of someone who is involved.

Why would anyone be upset? It’s all part of the Tyrian universe, and thus promotes the game. I don’t think fan fiction gets on the Official News Blog, but…I suppose anything is possible.

Because people like getting upset at stupid, inconsequential things…

Seriously though, if someone is going to get mad at a Dev writing an 1,100 word chapter in a (very) short story every once in a while, then frankly, they are just looking for things to get upset about…

Indeed.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Why would anyone be upset? It’s all part of the Tyrian universe, and thus promotes the game.

If it’s really actively written by the devs in their working time (?), I can understand the people who disagree with this project. The idea of writing the story together with fans is fine, but I thought it’s just part of the MomoCon.

Example: Notes from Rata Novus created the necessary bridge between the plot of HoT and the current Living World season. It provided some background information about Taimi’s research and the arrival of other asura in Rata Novus we could then see in the Living World episodes. It’s been part of the main story.

There are tons of places where we would welcome some additional background information in the story. If not scrapped HoT story lines, then just consider the current events, adding some deeper level to Auris Weirdbringer and his theories about the rifts we experienced. Don’t let him just be a generic NPC that just handed us the rift stabilizer. Give him a background, let him speculate on the events and make us curious about the next step. With all of those possibilities mind, I can’t understand how they decided to create another completely independent story line that has no reference to the actual story.

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

Because people like getting upset at stupid, inconsequential things…

Seriously though, if someone is going to get mad at a Dev writing an 1,100 word chapter in a (very) short story every once in a while, then frankly, they are just looking for things to get upset about…

I’ll just remind you of the argumentation of the whole GW2 forum: New playable races? There are more important things the devs have to focus on and it doesn’t really add anything to the game. New weapon types? See above.

How can they start a completely unrelated story line of an asura and its cute moa if there’s so much left to write about contributing to the main story of the game? Everything is justified with priorities, we can’t have that because other things are more important. How did Tyrian Travels become more important than the main story?

Are you seriously trying to argue that a Developer taking a little personal time to write a short little story about an Asura and her Moa would in any way significantly impact the development of the game?

Do we know how many devs are part of this project and when they are working on it?

My post started off with “If it’s really actively written by the devs in their working time (?),” as a question. You assumed they’re working on it in their free time? Do we have any information on that?

Its a little pointless gimmick that lets a dev waste their time whennthey dont wanna work on Gw2

-rolls eyes-
I don’t know how many people might be working on the short story… But I’d hazard a guess it’s one person in their free time…
Honesty, just never mind… I’m not going to mince words with you over the friggen internet just to continue a worthless argument over semantics about something this trivial.
In fact… hey, let’s make the argument that the devs and anyone else working on this game should be just shackled to their desks and flogged for even /thinking/ about anything even remotely like Tyrian Travels… Because you know, it could maybe, possibility, just might (even though it really wouldn’t) affect production of the game…

Guys, wow. Calm down. There’s no reason to get so bent out of shape over this.

It’s a fun little side story about a character exploring Tyria. They aren’t heavily investing development time into this. This is not detracting from work that is actively progressing. And in response to the question posed in the OP, yes, I read the Tyrian Travels and I find them delightfully entertaining. Some of us do indeed enjoy a little lightheartedness from time to time.

We just got a new map, like, a week ago. Put down the pitchforks. Yowza.

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

-rolls eyes-
I don’t know how many people might be working on the short story… But I’d hazard a guess it’s one person in their free time…

Of course everyone can decide what he wants to do in their free time. But we don’t know when they’re actually working on it.

drunkenpilot.9837:

It’s a fun little side story about a character exploring Tyria. They aren’t heavily investing development time into this. This is not detracting from work that is actively progressing.

Can you be sure of that? How?

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

In fact… hey, let’s make the argument that the devs and anyone else working on this game should be just shackled to their desks and flogged for even /thinking/ about anything even remotely like Tyrian Travels…

You may have heard of the scrapped story parts of HoT? And the plot holes that existed for years? Some devs (of the story department) left the team and 70 devs were assigned to work on the expansion. Maybe… just maybe it would be helpful to focus on the main thing in the current situation.

drunkenpilot.9837:

We just got a new map, like, a week ago. Put down the pitchforks. Yowza.

Yup, I can’t believe how story driven the last episode is. Killing endless oozes, farming ingridients, killing endless mobs in a cave and oh wait the ending really did contain a small part of the story.

The “current events” were usually released every 2 weeks. The last one was added 2 months ago.

If you think a good writer can’t spare the time to write one “three page” story once a month, you don’t know many writers.

Heck, some of the people complaining about the practice in this very thread write that much every day, albeit in chunks of prose, about 4-5 paragraphs or less at a time.

I’d absolutely like to see a lot more story in the game, more frequent content updates. However, it’s naive to think that the bottleneck is the writing. (In fact, some of the writers have mention that it’s more likely that they have to drop parts of the story, rather than they need to write more.)

tl;dr if you don’t like Momo et al, don’t read the story and rest assured that it’s not slowing down the release of anything that interests you more.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

tl;dr if you don’t like Momo et al, don’t read the story and rest assured that it’s not slowing down the release of anything that interests you more.

Except for the fact that we didn’t hear anything from Auris Weirdbringer for 2 months. Instead of working on a completely unrelated story line about a moa, we could actually hear where he comes from, who he is and how his studies about the rifts progress.

We can now place bets if we will ever get background information on his character in the context of the current events or if there’s just no time to go deeper into that story line and he stays a generic Charr with a special name.

Provide some background stories to the White Mantle and the bandits, as the Living World episodes showed that they won’t go too much into detail in general. Talk about the population of Kryta being upset since Caudecus brought up the Charr-Human conflict with the posters we eventually removed. Riots against Queen Jennah and the treaty?
There are really places we could need three pages a month in the main story.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Arden.7480:

I still dont know, why does ANet give this thing…

I dont want even read this, why do you, guys read this?

Is something interesting in this?

So, don’t read it. How much effort do you think it takes to put this out? How many people need to read it to make it worthwhile?

It’s a bit of local color. I would have preferred to see the characters appear in the game, but I like the idea of having more stories appear (the original Living Story was partly meant to do this, see e.g. The Modus Sceleris)

I been playing since beta and never even seen those events nor did I know about them. They sound kinda like the Am Fah.. too bad

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/an-interview-with-queen-jennah/

But they continued with an asura and its moa.

I don’t read it either because I don’t like fanfiction, or in this case, “officialfiction”, lol, but I don’t mind them posting it. -shrugs-

The entire of Super Adventure Box World 1 was created by something like 5 developers in the time they had between their assigned work. (Meaning they did everything they were required to do, and then did that as well, in my job we call it “doing it off the side of your desk”.)

If they can do that how long do you think it takes to come up with a short story every few weeks? Once they’ve got an idea for the plot I can imagine it taking an hour at absolute most. And as any writer will tell you coming up with ideas isn’t something you can assign a time for, it happens when it happens, most likely when you’re in the shower or in bed or driving to work or somewhere else your mind is somewhat free to wander.