Guild Wars 2

Warning – Very long post, leave now if you like short posts lol or skip to the very bottom for a summary.

From what I gather “Living World” from Anet’s perspective is the danger this world faces or the politics. Am I correct in this? If this is the case it would explain the living stories we have had thus far as well as the Karka invasion and that map coming in.

However for me “Living World” means more or it should. What I have in my mind for it’s meaning should be something similar to how we live our real lives in the real world. So that would includes things like the following:

1 – Politics/dangers we face in the world.
2 – Where we live, we live in a house or some dwelling right?
3 – Having a job or career.
4 – Doing things for fun or entertainment.
5 – Exploring, finding new places, lands and such.
6 – Travel/Mounts.

This is my short list. I would like to hear what other people feel “Living World” means to them and which of those ideas should/could we have/want in this game.

Now I know some people may say we don’t need these things in this game or they could take away that thought of danger/threat that we do have/get from the living story. But I would not agree with this. I think some of what I have in my list above has been put in the game already somewhat but maybe in very watered down ways so to speak for lack of better words. I will now do my list again and then show how I see how these are sort of already in the game and then add to that how I would truly like them to be in the game and what could add fun/enjoyment to the game.

1 – Danger to the world/Politics

This is a no brainer, obviously the living stories and the Karka invasion has addressed this. So too has things like the odd new events that have been added to the game (some were added at least once right?). This will obviously continue with HOT and beyond.

But apart from the living story how else could we enjoy these aspects? For a while now I have thought that a great deal more could be done with the orders (vigil, etc) in this game. So that we can have more variety of things to do in the game as well as give some real meaning (beyond skins) to the order that we choose.

I don’t know what to propose beyond perhaps some new missions or quests. Yes this could mean the old (go to quest starter person, get task then go on your merry way) quest type systems. I think this could be a start and could even replace daily (or in the least the PvE version of daily) to mix it up for us and have things different for everyone depending on their order.

Or perhaps there could just be more Personal Story added to the orders with a new sense of progression where we finally reach the end. Perhaps this could be repeated so that it does not go to waste and so we can continue to earn rewards for it. So say a full completion could take a full month or perhaps shorter/less. Shrugs just 2 small ideas off the top of my head.

2 – Player Housing:

To a very basic extent we do have our Home Instance which I am sure many of us had expected far more when the info for these was announced. However it seems due to various reasons (probably other priorities) this seems to have been abandoned or left on the back burner for a very long time.

Why are these important for a game and why do we need them? Well it adds a sense of reality or immersion to the world. It gives us somewhere to call home and gives us something to care about or be attached to. In a way it can make us care MORE for the world itself and the dangers to it. If your home in the real world was under threat from some danger would you not then jump at the chance to defend it or risk your life to keep it safe?

But what could a player house offer us in terms of gameplay?

1 – It can offer diversity (different houses to build/buy from everyone else).
2 – A place for people to Roleplay.

3 – New features, bonuses – examples could be extra storage, ways to generate items for yourself (example farming patches or trees) or even personal things to play with (training dummy) and mini games (I will also touch on mini games further below).

4 – A place to show off achievements. GW1 players would know of what I speak here, just think Hall of Monuments. This could be GW2’s version of that. A place to display statues, titles, items earned in game etc etc. Maybe new boss trophies or collection rewards could improve on this.

5 – A new sense of progression. Example building your house up from a lowly cottage to perhaps a full blown mansion or castle. This could bring in new gameplay elements and things to do. Think masteries here people, we could have a whole new mastery as part of the housing system.

3 – Having a job or career:

Ok some people may find this one sort of odd or may just be sarcastic and say something like “go and play Sims”. I think having a sort of job or some such could add a great new element to the game. It is sort of already in the game in the form of crafting, but to me that is a very shallow way of doing it.

Why need jobs? Well again it adds a sense of diversity for your char, a role that is different from other players in the game to a degree. It also gives you a sense that you are part of a community and doing your part. Lastly it can add new things to do in the game.

So how would we have jobs in this game? Tbh I really don’t know. I would not want it to mess up the crafting system or interfere with it. Perhaps just some new basic “jobs” added or “bonuses” added to our chars that let us do different things or gain bonuses in different ways. An example could be a “fisherman” might be able to gather from a new type node in the world. Or a “hunter/gatherer” could have a bonus or new skill to be able to “skin” animals when killed for a guaranteed hide from the creature if they normally drop them.

I wont spend too much time on this one but I am sure many people could come up with many great ideas. But you see my point I hope as to why I think they could be a great new thing for the game.

4 – Fun things, entertainment:

Some mini games do exist in the game and they are part of the daily activities. There are also the ones that come back from time to time during holidays as well of course as the Asura game box thing (sorry the name escapes me right now lol). We also know that more were planned to be added to the game but have been either abandoned or again put on the backburner for now.

Why do we need them? That’s obvious, for fun, something different to do in the game when we are bored of everything else or just burnt out. It can also give us things to do between living stories. No need to spend too much more time on this one. Perhaps after HOT is here and now that the backbone of the game is pretty much in place Anet can get back to working on the mini game features they wanted when this game was released?

5 – Exploring.

The game world is averagy (I know the word does not exist but I just made it up so we are fine here!) large and does have many things to explore. The maps themselves, mini dungeons, Jp’s, normal dungeons; all these things do add to exploring.

Having said that I do think there could be more. Yes HOT is coming and it will have large maps to explore so maybe that can last us for a great deal of time to come. But still I would like more, lol call me greedy.

I don’t want to ask for a new map every week, I think that would just be silly. But perhaps opening places up a bit more could help. An example could be to open up the current dungeons as an “explore” mode. NO I do not mean new “explore Missions” or anything to do with the current dungeons. Right now dungeons to me are just “missions” or “quests” and are NOT truly exploreable. What I mean is open them up perhaps as a new small map where we can go in, explore, kill things and perhaps even gather resources. This would NOT effect dungeons in their current forms or replace them. Just give us new places to explore and play basically.

Apart from that, I don’t know perhaps more mini dungeons or similar content. I would really like some sort of a “randomized” type of dungeon or some such place tho. Other games have these types of systems and I think it could be a great addition here. How they work are you enter said place and each new floor is randomized in some way. The layout, challenges as well as enemy creatures. A feature like this if done right can add YEARS of gameplay to the game especially if new things (layouts, challenges, creatures are added to them from time to time).

I realise this may sound similar to Fractals but no it’s not. Fractals are more a randomised “mission” format with very set in place maps, creatures and challenges. How this is done in other games is you could have maps that seem VERY different from each other and you may never see any 2 look too similar at all.

I don’t know how much more of an example I can give, but one game that has something like this is Runescape if anyone wants to look further into it.

Apart from that perhaps new “islands” or sea areas we could book passage on to new lands to explore and perhaps those too could be randomized, dunno I think I am going beyond my original ideas here now lol.

6 – Travel/Mounts:

Yes I said the “m” word. We obviously have a way to travel right now, being waypoints and walking of course. But just think about the waypoint system right now, does it make sense? Yes it does when you travel through a portal to another map as you are being sent through the “magic” or technology of that portal. But how does it work when we just open our maps and click on a waypoint and we are suddenly there? I don’t think this has ever been answered. We are obviously not using a portal so what is it? Does some kind of an invisible thing come from out of no where and just throws us into a portal?

Okay that is all rather redundant but I feel it had to be said. :P
The waypoint system works well for getting to where you need to and in a hurry. But do we have too many waypoints, does this make content too easy to get to or destroy a sense of immersion? Honestly probably yes but I don’t care it works. So why even mention any of this? Well I don’t know lol maybe I just miss some sort of travel such as boats and such. I really did enjoy the hot air balloons when they were here as it added reality and a sense of immersion. Perhaps we could just have new sorts of travel added for future maps going forward after HOT? Heck even that elevator pod thing in the Grove is a cool way to travel.

Mounts – No, just no. Yes I tricked some of you, so that’s all I will say about mounts. :P

Okay I think that’s about it finally! Thank you all for reading (those who did) and now I would like your feedback and ideas!

Summary: I think we could do we more things in the game that creates a sense of “living world” besides just the living story. Things that would make us feel more a part of the world and not just some “hero” that happens to always be around when ever needed. I don’t JUST want to be a hero I want to be a normal joe as well doing normal things (but they have to be fun of course!). That’s all.

I think what they mean by the Living World is simply that the existing maps can and will be included in the story and will change as a result, instead of all being permanently frozen in time and new events only occurring in new maps.

All of Season 1 and much of Season 2 of the Living World storyline took place in the maps that were available at launch and several of them were changed (new look, new events, changes to existing hearts and events etc.). The most obvious are Kessex Hills which is a bit of a wasteland since the Tower of Nightmares and Lion’s Arch which had to be completely re-built. But there’s also the Marionette remains in Lornar’s Pass, the steam vents and Cragstead in Wayfarer’s Foothills, the enraged wildlife and new settlements on Southsun, the destroyed forts that Mordremoth attacked and many more.

It’s part of their idea of encouraging players to consider the entire game as ‘end-game’ content instead of abandoning the majority of the open world and it’s storylines in favour of a few designated activities once they get to level 80.

What you’re asking for is basically a sandbox RPG. These do exist but they’re very different games and it would be virtually impossible to convert an existing game into one.

Danikat.8537:

I think what they mean by the Living World is simply that the existing maps can and will be included in the story and will change as a result, instead of all being permanently frozen in time and new events only occurring in new maps.

All of Season 1 and much of Season 2 of the Living World storyline took place in the maps that were available at launch and several of them were changed (new look, new events, changes to existing hearts and events etc.). The most obvious are Kessex Hills which is a bit of a wasteland since the Tower of Nightmares and Lion’s Arch which had to be completely re-built. But there’s also the Marionette remains in Lornar’s Pass, the steam vents and Cragstead in Wayfarer’s Foothills, the enraged wildlife and new settlements on Southsun, the destroyed forts that Mordremoth attacked and many more.

It’s part of their idea of encouraging players to consider the entire game as ‘end-game’ content instead of abandoning the majority of the open world and it’s storylines in favour of a few designated activities once they get to level 80.

What you’re asking for is basically a sandbox RPG. These do exist but they’re very different games and it would be virtually impossible to convert an existing game into one.

Thanks for your input. I certainly do not think adding any new/more content to the game is impossible at all. If this was the case guild halls and such things wouldn’t even be coming. They have mentioned wanting to do player housing before and you certainly can not tell me that I am dreaming up these abandoned mini games.

If the living story is all that they or even us players have in mind for creating a “living world” then I would say that is very short sighted and very limited content wise. There is great opportunity not only for more content and game play options but also for more things to be available on the gem store pertaining to that.

More people just need to think out side of the box and certainly more outside of this game being nothing more (or very little I should say) than combat, combat, combat. This game was an improvement over GW1 in that regard, albeit very slightly. I am talking of course of the much improved crafting system, gathering resources and things such as JPs, adventure box etc. All I am saying is it can all go much further with some thought and imagination.

Heaven forbid they even do what some other companies do and actually ask us what we want. They could make a post asking for ideas for future content. Have it up for a month or so, gain feedback from all of that. Make short lists of what they think could work great and what they could do. From that then offer a poll of which we would like to come into the game first out of said content or if we do want that type of content.

Other games do this and it seems to work.

So nobody else have any ideas or dreams of how they would like to see this game “evolve” beyond the story that is put on us?

Edit: I certainly would not want the game to be sandbox such as Secondlife is, that’s just ewww. That is not what I am imagining here, not at all.

I did not say they can’t add new content to the game, that’s obviously untrue.

What I said is they cannot turn a themepark MMO (which GW2 is) into a sandbox MMO, which seems to be what you’re asking for with things like customisable housing and player jobs because it has knock-on effects on other areas of the game.

For example in sandbox games players have jobs in the form of crafting, or gathering crafting materials, and it works because (like a real job) everyone needs the results but it takes so much time and effort that it’s impractical for everyone to do it all themselves. So they buy those products from other people or trade them for things they can make/gather and this is the basis of their economy and a lot of player interaction.

Whereas in GW2 crafting is very quick and easy and optional because you can get equally good items (with the possible exception of food) elsewhere. So most players either train up all the crafting professions they need themselves or get their equipment from dungeons, WvW vendors and other places. As a result many crafted items sell for less than their raw materials and you can’t reliably make a profit doing it, so it doesn’t work as a job.

To change that they would have to make crafting much more difficult and either forcibly restrict players to just 1 or two crafts or make it completely impractical to learn more (such as by making it cost hero points to level them up, so you have to choose between developing your crafting profession or your actual profession). Crafting in these games usually also takes a lot longer (via time-gating or a random chance of failure on each attempt) and can be much more complicated so you have to actually learn how to do it.

They would also have to make crafted items better than what players can buy with dungeon tokens, WvW badges etc. so that they have an incentive to buy from crafters.

If they did that it would then have a knock-on effect on the economy with most material prices dropping as fewer people are crafting, and the price of crafted items going up. It would settle down eventually but it would be a very different situation to what we have now, and would have a further knock-on effect of forcing everyone who doesn’t already have it to save up more gold than they need now to buy the best equipment (or put in the time and effort to craft it themselves).

They would probably also have to change how materials are gathered. Although I suppose you covered that by making it into another job, so only certain people can gather resources. Which would then give them control over the prices the crafters pay and have further knock-on effects on the game-wide economy.

There’s also the downside that we have a global economy through the Trading Post, unlike in games which offer these options where you usually buy or sell directly to another player so there’s more of an opportunity to negotiate and maybe get a great price or exchange your services for their goods. So they would probably have to add direct trading for this to work, which again would change the economy and how players interact with each other and the game.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

If that’s not what you’re imagining I’d love for you to explain how your ideas are different to sandbox MMOs because they sound identical to the ones I’ve played. If you can explain why sandboxes are “just ewww” and why your ideas are better and different maybe I can work out what about your posts I’m misunderstanding.

Your post here mainly seems to be with regards to the Job system. As I said I would not want it to effect the current crafting system (or at least too much if possible) as that is already well and truly in place and people are used to if after these 3 years.

I did say it could offer us bonuses instead of say a total overhaul if that would be as far as Anet would like to take it. Such as a “miner” could have increased chances of getting the extra ores from rocks per swing, a “woodcutter” could work the same for trees. Alongside that new jobs such as fisherman etc could bring into the game new resources. Again this could mean NOT ONLY that job class could catch fish but maybe only that job could have a chance at the higher reward say the tier 6 version. This could work retro active too for the others.

But the very best they could do is add totally new jobs which could bring in new mini games within themselves or just add new things to do, new ways to play, new progression and rewards.. Think of it as our profession Elite specialisations but not totally combat orientated. I guess I should think up more examples here and I may do in future to hammer down more what I could imagine for this part of my entire thread. I didn’t want to go too indepth into each thing as the thread was long enough as it was. Also the main point of this thread was to also see what others thought about the “living world” concept as a whole and what they think it means or could mean.

" If you can explain why sandboxes are “just ewww”"

I specifically said eww for the secondlife type as that is all I have experienced I guess when it comes to what people call “sandbox”. By that statement I meant the game has no story, no lore, no real direction besides what the players create. It’s more of a world where people just muck around doing whatever. Again, that is not what I am asking for here or imagining. I would want anything added to fit into what we have, even work alongside of or to enhance our ways forward with the game in general as well as the Living story aspect.

As such again I will give guild halls as a good example. This coming feature will no doubt be something new for us and offer us new things to do. But like I said above we can see Anet is not just throwing it in as a new toy to be left all alone by itself. No it is actually going to be along side the living story and perhaps be part of it in some way to actually earn the hall with possibly future threats of losing it and such.

1. I would love to have politics really affect the world. I had a very fun exchange with another player in the forum if Legat Minister Caudecus could actually manage to overthrow Jenna if he plays his cards right or why Jenna can´t take immediate and swift Justice against him. Stuff like that is what makes these types of worlds great, and i had the highest of hopes for GW2 when they announced that sites could permanently change owners and monsters could spit into your virtual soup.
How disappointed I was to see what that really means for Anet, a of chain events leading to a sad and unsatisfying end event. But that is ok on a second glance, even the real sandbox MMO like Eve Online will never allow a home base invasion scenario of empire room.
I also realize that which I seek is hard to implement, but it was something that lured me here, beside the strong effect of GW1 too.
2. My characters live on the road, in a tavern or on the battlefield. If I wanted them to settle down, I´d retire them^^.
3. I already have a RL job and don´t need another, thank you very much.^^
4. The most unfunny thing in the whole of GW2 is the boxes o´fun(are they Irish?^^). True story. For me personally, JP come a really close second and the SaB comes third, but thereby you see how people find these things differently good. I can live with the soutshun events and halloween, hate contest drinking, dislike the winterland, can tolerate the runnning event and massively dislike the dragonball stuff.
5. Fully support this.
6. Also support this. Why torture a horse with carrying around a heavy guy in heavy armor while you can teleport the same way?

Living World to me is a dynamic and more fluid game environment. Where actions done in game by players have a more drastic effect on the world itself. Which seems like something that Anet started but didn’t finish or didn’t go far enough.

Lets take Queensdale for example.
-Queensdale has threats of bandits, centaurs, and undead(around SB).
-Say players primarily focus on undead, then bandits and centaurs would expand their influence on Queensdale, possibly even have bandits more active in DR.
-Or players focus on centaurs then undead would expand in numbers and influence possibly even overtaking bandits(making them undead) and could start conquering more of Queensdale and maybe a massive event of a undead attack on DR.

As stated GW2 seems to have some elements that promote this, dynamic events for example and some aspects in SW, but even those are very static and timed. Turning open world into a more fluid sandbox type gameplay is something that GW2 has a missed opportunity on imo.

Paulytnz.7619:

From what I gather “Living World” from Anet’s perspective is the danger this world faces or the politics. Am I correct in this?

No, I think you are wrong.

We (the player character) are a hero and have to face grave dangers and big bad enemies and have to survive and save the world because that is our job as a hero. This is the foundation of the story of GW2, but that has nothing to do with “living world”.

“Living World” means, that the story that is told and the events that happen really change the world of the game, as it would be in a real, living world. No “reset button”. And in part that is true. As an example: Tyria has changed and is different before and after the LS1 and LS2 happened.

“By darling. Maybe I am late this evening. because I may have to slay a dragon and save the world today.” – “Have a nice day at work..”

“Living World” in GW2 does not mean Sims or something like that.

Zok.4956:

“Living World” means, that the story that is told and the events that happen really change the world of the game, as it would be in a real, living world. No “reset button”. And in part that is true. As an example: Tyria has changed and is different before and after the LS1 and LS2 happened.

It indeed has. But the status quo was never in danger, there was no chance that Scarlet could have triumphed over Lions Arch for example.

Torolan.5816:

Zok.4956:

“Living World” means, that the story that is told and the events that happen really change the world of the game, as it would be in a real, living world. No “reset button”. And in part that is true. As an example: Tyria has changed and is different before and after the LS1 and LS2 happened.

It indeed has. But the status quo was never in danger, there was no chance that Scarlet could have triumphed over Lions Arch for example.

It was a bold move to destroy Lions Arch, but players requested, that it should be rebuild.

Some things can change, some things can not (or the story ends), GW2 ist not “Game of Thrones” Example: We (the player character) will never die permanently. No dragon has the power to do so.

I give you two examples where this actually worked out, although it was not a computer game but interactive events:
Warhammer 40K, both the third battle for Armageddon or the Black Crusade of Cadia.
At the Battle of Armageddon, humankind barely managed to push the waaghboss Ghazkgkull back into space with one of humankinds greates heroes pursuing him.
The black Crusade of Cadia was a massive Chaos fleet pushing against the Empires borders to finally exact their revenge on the Emperor that started 10000 years ago with the uprising of Horus. Chaos actually won that Battle and pushed against Terra.

Sadly Games workshop did not pull through and stopped their timeline after the Crusade for marketing issues and booking themself in a corner lorewise, losing me both as a customer of the figurines and the lore books at the same time then. Still both events were entirely player driven and went on for months, and that even without the help of a managing, quickly reacting computer network, but by collecting results from matches all over the world.

Well I saw Living World as content that content that was happening in “real time” or as close one can make shared content for an MMO. If you weren’t there when it was happening, you missed it.

They tweaked this in the 2nd season as just another episodic story to work through.

In both cases it was a way to introduce new lore into the game.

Paulytnz.7619:

1 – Politics/dangers we face in the world.
2 – Where we live, we live in a house or some dwelling right?
3 – Having a job or career.
4 – Doing things for fun or entertainment.
5 – Exploring, finding new places, lands and such.
6 – Travel/Mounts.

Just throwing in my two cents here.

1. Check out the living story, or whatever it’s called.

2. I travel far too much to bother with my own house. I’d never spend more than a night or two there a month anyway, if even that. (though to be fair, I loved housing in Wildstar. A lot. Definitely a lot. Did that more than playing the actual game, even.)

3. My asura works as an engineer, and (spoiler!) won the Savant prize. Now she’s working for the Order of Whispers to fight Shaitan and save the world. How is she supposed to keep another job? “Sorry, I know your town is under attack and all, and I know your family is being butchered, but these newspapers don’t deliver themselves!”

4 and 5: Crafting? Exploring is fun (finding vistas, points of interest, jumping puzzles etc.) Lots of stuff to do here. Heck, I played my lvl 43 Guardian earlier today, and discovered by accident that I hadn’t even started on Caldeon forest, and have only four hearts done in Gendarran fields. By the time she’s 80, there will still be tons of areas to explore I haven’t even visited. And that before the expansion. The expansion adds hanggliding and learning new languages to find new areas too. Wonder what’s after that? Could be anything.

6. I’d love mounts, but to be fair, they aren’t needed in this game. Adding them would probably just be too much work. I’d get on my motorcycle, travel around for thirty minutes, get bored and start teleporting to waypoints again. What’s the point in mounts?

It’s just their fancy buzzword for semi-regular free content patches. (not a complaint!)

Torolan.5816:

1. I would love to have politics really affect the world. I had a very fun exchange with another player in the forum if Legat Minister Caudecus could actually manage to overthrow Jenna if he plays his cards right or why Jenna can´t take immediate and swift Justice against him. Stuff like that is what makes these types of worlds great, and i had the highest of hopes for GW2 when they announced that sites could permanently change owners and monsters could spit into your virtual soup.
How disappointed I was to see what that really means for Anet, a of chain events leading to a sad and unsatisfying end event. But that is ok on a second glance, even the real sandbox MMO like Eve Online will never allow a home base invasion scenario of empire room.
I also realize that which I seek is hard to implement, but it was something that lured me here, beside the strong effect of GW1 too.
2. My characters live on the road, in a tavern or on the battlefield. If I wanted them to settle down, I´d retire them^^.
3. I already have a RL job and don´t need another, thank you very much.^^
4. The most unfunny thing in the whole of GW2 is the boxes o´fun(are they Irish?^^). True story. For me personally, JP come a really close second and the SaB comes third, but thereby you see how people find these things differently good. I can live with the soutshun events and halloween, hate contest drinking, dislike the winterland, can tolerate the runnning event and massively dislike the dragonball stuff.
5. Fully support this.
6. Also support this. Why torture a horse with carrying around a heavy guy in heavy armor while you can teleport the same way?

Thanks for your feed back!

1 – It would be cool if more of the politics were played out as the example that you give. Simply because when you have other intelligent beings as your opponent there is more threat as they can persuade people to do all the wrong things. I am not saying the elder dragons are not intelligent beings but really how everyone else sees them it’s more like waiting for a tornado or some other natural disaster to hit. They bring destruction yes but not much else. Okay now with the influencing of the Sylvari race maybe this is slowly changing so they seem more like a real threat.

2 – Fair enough. :P

3 – Yes but I am sure you do your job for either the Bling or because you have to. What I am proposing would be something fun or as a bonus to what we already have.

4 – You seem 50/50 on this one which makes sense since not everyone will like ALL the mini games. I don’t play most of them or do the daily activity mainly because of the lag/latency issues, but that’s what I get for living on the other side of the world I guess….
But if this was addressed and they were removed from daily so we could pick which to play when we feel like it I probably would do so more. As this way you could practice at your own pace and not have to wait for a specific day for it to roll around….

5/6 – Cheers.

BrooksP.4318:

Living World to me is a dynamic and more fluid game environment. Where actions done in game by players have a more drastic effect on the world itself. Which seems like something that Anet started but didn’t finish or didn’t go far enough.

Lets take Queensdale for example.
-Queensdale has threats of bandits, centaurs, and undead(around SB).
-Say players primarily focus on undead, then bandits and centaurs would expand their influence on Queensdale, possibly even have bandits more active in DR.
-Or players focus on centaurs then undead would expand in numbers and influence possibly even overtaking bandits(making them undead) and could start conquering more of Queensdale and maybe a massive event of a undead attack on DR.

As stated GW2 seems to have some elements that promote this, dynamic events for example and some aspects in SW, but even those are very static and timed. Turning open world into a more fluid sandbox type gameplay is something that GW2 has a missed opportunity on imo.

I would really like it if they went back and did make it more like you describe above. Just the Queensdale example would be awesome. But I think the problem may be that it would just seem like we can’t win or have the upper hand. As if we are dealing with one enemy another will just fill their shoes. I don’t know maybe some kind of middle ground could be thought up.

Zok.4956:

Paulytnz.7619:

From what I gather “Living World” from Anet’s perspective is the danger this world faces or the politics. Am I correct in this?

No, I think you are wrong.

We (the player character) are a hero and have to face grave dangers and big bad enemies and have to survive and save the world because that is our job as a hero. This is the foundation of the story of GW2, but that has nothing to do with “living world”.

“Living World” means, that the story that is told and the events that happen really change the world of the game, as it would be in a real, living world. No “reset button”. And in part that is true. As an example: Tyria has changed and is different before and after the LS1 and LS2 happened.

“By darling. Maybe I am late this evening. because I may have to slay a dragon and save the world today.” – “Have a nice day at work..”

“Living World” in GW2 does not mean Sims or something like that.

This is pretty much what I was saying. My point was it is defined mainly by the story and the results of how that turns out. The rest of my post was how can we or should we make that living world even better or in the least give us more immersion into this world and feel more a part of it.

To me it means a game world being updated with periodic, or frequent, patches that actually add to or alter existing core content while perhaps expanding the game as well.

My hope is that the living story will continue in between expansions going forward. I also hope that the story telling is better in future seasons of the LS.

BattleCat.2098:

Paulytnz.7619:

1 – Politics/dangers we face in the world.
2 – Where we live, we live in a house or some dwelling right?
3 – Having a job or career.
4 – Doing things for fun or entertainment.
5 – Exploring, finding new places, lands and such.
6 – Travel/Mounts.

Just throwing in my two cents here.

1. Check out the living story, or whatever it’s called.

2. I travel far too much to bother with my own house. I’d never spend more than a night or two there a month anyway, if even that. (though to be fair, I loved housing in Wildstar. A lot. Definitely a lot. Did that more than playing the actual game, even.)

3. My asura works as an engineer, and (spoiler!) won the Savant prize. Now she’s working for the Order of Whispers to fight Shaitan and save the world. How is she supposed to keep another job? “Sorry, I know your town is under attack and all, and I know your family is being butchered, but these newspapers don’t deliver themselves!”

4 and 5: Crafting? Exploring is fun (finding vistas, points of interest, jumping puzzles etc.) Lots of stuff to do here. Heck, I played my lvl 43 Guardian earlier today, and discovered by accident that I hadn’t even started on Caldeon forest, and have only four hearts done in Gendarran fields. By the time she’s 80, there will still be tons of areas to explore I haven’t even visited. And that before the expansion. The expansion adds hanggliding and learning new languages to find new areas too. Wonder what’s after that? Could be anything.

6. I’d love mounts, but to be fair, they aren’t needed in this game. Adding them would probably just be too much work. I’d get on my motorcycle, travel around for thirty minutes, get bored and start teleporting to waypoints again. What’s the point in mounts?

Thanks for your input

1 – Have done all of it on 2 chars so far, 6 more chars to go….

2 – Who’s to say if done right you may not love housing here as well? I think you might going by how it effected you in that other game.

3 – How you fight or kill the baddies to me is more of a style of combat and not really a job…. Sure Anet made the mistake of calling them “professions” but still. Right now we have a break from saving the world, it’s a perfect time to deliver those newspapers and earn a little more coin to help fund the world saving. It is also a good way to stay fit and be prepared!

4 – There is lots, but sadly for some of us it has all been done. I have world complete on 9 chars so far and my 10th is 3 maps from being done. Have done all JPs, all dungeon paths and mini dungeons. I am not saying there is nothing I have left to do because there is. But the exploring side is done, I have that well and truly done. I am sure there are many other people in the same boat with this regard.

I do admit it does seem like HOT will bring a LOT more. But still, those random dungeon mechanics can as I said add YEARS of playable content if done right and can add a sense of new exploring every time. If anyone here has ever played a Civilisation game you should know what I mean. Every game seems different because it’s always a new randomly generated world. Sure they look similar but they still feel different every time. It can go a lot further than that when it’s done in dungeons as you can have a lot of different terrain types all randomly linked to each other. I may have to make a better post in future regarding this as well more in depth lol..

6 – I never said I wanted mounts in fact I said the opposite. :P The point in most other games is usually 2 fold. 1 Status/actual movement bonus and 2 a good way for the game makers to make lots of money and fast. Still waiting for my flying Harley but I can’t see that ever happening in any game lol…

Ashen.2907:

To me it means a game world being updated with periodic, or frequent, patches that actually add to or alter existing core content while perhaps expanding the game as well.

My hope is that the living story will continue in between expansions going forward. I also hope that the story telling is better in future seasons of the LS.

Ditto on this. I also hope that people who don’t buy HOT are not left out in the dark too much either as that would be a shame. Thanks for your input.

Maybe I’m just cynical in this regard, but to me “living world” is a zinger that was developed to make the regular updates and changes that are made to every other MMO sound special here.

Paulytnz.7619:

I would really like it if they went back and did make it more like you describe above. Just the Queensdale example would be awesome. But I think the problem may be that it would just seem like we can’t win or have the upper hand. As if we are dealing with one enemy another will just fill their shoes. I don’t know maybe some kind of middle ground could be thought up.

The concept is based around the player base being more localized, instead of anywhere and everywhere. While there would be a need of checks and balances, but having a group of players who pretty much “live” in Queensdale and can keep things in check to a degree. Which kind of goes along with what you want in your OP.

However you really wouldn’t want players to have a complete upper hand because it would cause stagnation.

Another reason I believe in the idea, is because it does allow for “challenging open world” content, since you can have areas that are ignored be “infested” and the longer the NPCs go unchecked the stronger they grow. Which paves the way for pseudo open world raid content trying to fight that back.

The downside however is with the introduction of megaservers it would make this idea near impossible, since it would be easier to balance and maintain on a map per server basis instead of trying to balance control/spawn rates based off of megaserver activity.

The original reason for the home instance seems to be a place for personal story events to take place. Later the gathering nodes were added, so at the moment the only use seems to be getting materials. I don’t think they can realistically remove nodes now without considerable complaints so we are stuck with them and the instances.

The living story doesn’t mean that much, it’s stopped until HoT comes out. The instances themselves are abandoned except for a few as they give no reward for time spent there. A lot of the Achievements are virtually impossible to get solo and getting team together is extremely difficult.

At the moment the whole thing seems like a sideline to the issue of the rest of the dragons. We killed Zhaitan 2 years ago and since then nothing from any of the others.

These could be added to the dailies, as the missions were in GW1, although they are a little short for that.