Guild Wars 2

I think it’s terrible. This is destroying the game more than the plush quaggan hats. I can’t even think about a worse thing to happen. This game is falling apart.

Killing risen with 8 bit weapons, pony bows, plush TYBALT backpacks, panda hats, yeah, totally fits the game.

A note to Arenanet: this is supposed to be an AAA MMO, not some f2p sandbox BS.

Remember when new to content used to be awesome and not useless gemstore knickknack? I do, it was called Guild Wars 1.

Though to be fair GW1 had it’s fair share of that stuff too in the post EotN years.

My thoughts on SAB? A fun joke.

It shoulda remained as a joke.

Next up: Commandos from an alternate reality. Featuring: stick people breakdancing! And little people.

In my opinion, the “Living Story” is slowly and surely killing the game. They should have stuck with only holiday updates and expansions.

Yeah, im confused. I thought the orignal SAB was the april 1st joke. I did not expect a world2 before next april.

And this following up Scarlet’s invasion that is supposedly destroying the countryside? And killed hundreds if not thousands of people?

Will the invasion magically stop? Or worse, will it continue while this thing is getting updated?

I’m guessing the SAB is back since a lot of players thought it was fun. It hasn’t got any lore but it doesn’t need any lore. It’s all in Asura box and you can ignore it if you want to. It will be gone in a month’s time.

We can expect to see a lot of the games and festivals return annually with some new content alongside them, hopefully. There’s no point getting annoyed at their return since we know it is inevitable.

I don’t usually post a lot, but I have to get this off my chest:
I don’t mean to be rude, and I don’t mean to offend anyone either, but I’m getting kind of annoyed with the slowly increasing whining about the living story.

The majority of people here weren’t too happy with Scarlet, and were telling they needed a break from her. When we get exactly that, and nobody’s happy either.
The invasions won’t magically stop either, it’s been announced some time ago that they will remain permanent, albeit at a reduced frequency.
We’ll get back to Scarlet in time.

I fail to see how this update is destroying the game. GW1 had candy cane weapons and similar joke weapons.

(Just to be clear, I’m not saying the LS and this update are top notch, but does it really deserve all of the flack it’s given? You don’t even have to pay for it, for crying out loud!)

MaesterTed.6571:

I don’t usually post a lot, but I have to get this off my chest:
I don’t mean to be rude, and I don’t mean to offend anyone either, but I’m getting kind of annoyed with the slowly increasing whining about the living story.

The majority of people here weren’t too happy with Scarlet, and were telling they needed a break from her. When we get exactly that, and nobody’s happy either.
The invasions won’t magically stop either, it’s been announced some time ago that they will remain permanent, albeit at a reduced frequency.
We’ll get back to Scarlet in time.

I fail to see how this update is destroying the game. GW1 had candy cane weapons and similar joke weapons.

(Just to be clear, I’m not saying the LS and this update are top notch, but does it really deserve all of the flack it’s given? You don’t even have to pay for it, for crying out loud!)

And it’s sad enough I’m crying Scarlet or even, even the dragons back. It’s that I see people with these awful 8bit weapons everywhere.

And GW1 candy weapons didn’t do max dmg, i think only a very limited (under 100), did.

What if.

We kill Scarlet in SAB? 0:

I don’t see why people care what other players do with their characters. I treat them as if I was walking around IRL seeing what they are using. I give them a sidward glance, think for a moment “what were they thinking?”, and then move on with my life. Only thing I honestly care about is that I can make my character look good with what we have. First thing I always do is look at the weapons available, determine if they fit my character, and move on, lol.

As someone pointed out before, the only zones which were left untouched by Scarlet were in Maguma. It wouldn’t surprise me if the update following the SAB p2 is Scarlet posing a threat to Rata Sum.

As for lore-wise : it already started to fell apart when GW2 was released with the retcons. And the need of Anet to keep it extremely simple because “players nowadays don’t read what the NPC have to say”…

SAB is a video game made by an asura and it has an educational purpose.
That’s the lore behind it. It is just a cube in Rata Sum and I don’t think it destroys the game. I think it fits the asura.

The weapons are ugly, but I don’t mind, since I don’t use them. The minis are holographic toys, so they fit with the asuran technology quite well.

I really don’t mind SAB as an ingame joke (one that had great development), but despite I wanted to see more of it, I think it should remain “the official April’s Fools” thing.

What if next one they release something that players lover too? Will we constantly get joke updates from each of them every 2 or 3 months?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

In my opinion, the “Living Story” is slowly and surely killing the game. They should have stuck with only holiday updates and expansions.

I’ve said in other threats how LS is slowly burning players, and how it seems like a good thing to get profit fast as you get players all the time in the game with new things to do, so for sure they’re right now getting excited with those numbers, but that in the long run, it is a bad solution, players are already getting burned, some are leaving, many are realizing that they don’t care anymore about keeping the pace.

And to add to that, what you said is true too. Lore isn’t getting as much progression as it should because of how this works (and the lore we get is a bit… well, not everyone is loving recent stuff).

I hope they realize soon this isn’t a long term solution and we start having expansions to continue the real story with real content and further explaining unanswered lore questions. There is no way we’ll get as much permanent content with just 1 new map (that they needed to feature twice in LS so people go there) per year. If during the first 2 years of the game we don’t get something like Cantha (in terms of adittions to the game) and we still are forced to rush updates every months, things will go downhill.

I find it really hard to describe how much I despise SAB (or its return, at least). For an April’s Fool Month-Long Joke it was fine… but making it a “serious,” returning part of GW2? sigh I guess the Loreslaughter is actually happening, and what McCoy said in that intereview wasn’t just made up after all.

However, put Scarlet in there permanently, have Moto tell us that the Queen’s Jubilee is still underway and we had a really bad dream after falling out from too much SAB playing (read: brain damage) and Jennah’s making her speech any moment now. Turns out Scarlet and her twisted mecha-junkies and Galactic Empire sized Aetherblade armada was all but a bad dream. Much like how Samantha was dreaming of Jockey being dead throughout half of Dallas.

^That would make me a perma-fan of SAB. I’d even buy all the related gemstore crap.

I REALLY don’t get you guys.

SAB is a video game made by an asura, Moto. It is not relevant for the rest of the story at all because it is a completely different game inside GW2. Therefore, it is not “lorebraking” in any possible way.

It is coming back because there are four worlds and just one world was released with the game. The other worlds will be released from time to time, that was said back in April, when it appeared for the first time. I’m fine with not having to wait four years for the SAB to be finished.

Again, it is completely SEPARATED from the rest of the world. It is like if, I don’t know, Eir called you for a random hunt and you killed a bunny. Irrelevant for the rest of the story. Completely unrelated to the story line, just something that someone did in their free time.

I, myself, never said that it is lorebreaking.

I just said that the entire thing is joke content. And it should remain as such. IMO, joke content should remain as non-canon. This update makes SAB 100% canon.

And in that, it becomes lore. And in that, it breaks the feel of the lore/story for me.

Though I would say Gandarel overacts to the nth degree with his complaint of 8-bit weapons. I mean, come on, look at all the other weapons we got. There’s a pistol with freaking rotating saws in the barrel – the thing would cut your finger off if you try to put your finger on the trigger, let alone fire. The weapons and armors in both games have remained unrealistic since Prophecies.

Gabby.3205:

Again, it is completely SEPARATED from the rest of the world. It is like if, I don’t know, Eir called you for a random hunt and you killed a bunny. Irrelevant for the rest of the story. Completely unrelated to the story line, just something that someone did in their free time.

This is where you’re wrong. It’s part of the world’s story – as opposed to previous April Fool’s joke that was there and disappeared, never commented upon lore, because it wasn’t canon.

This content update makes it officially canon.

And that’s the problem. It’s 100% joke content, made part of canon lore. It’s something meant for a comedy, put into a game that is actually a rather serious plot if you manage to get past all the other pop culture references (well overdone IMO, but they were in Nightfall too – thankfully in Nightfall, they were all part of side quests not the main plot). SAB is far from the worst offender in the pop culture references, but turning it into actual canon lore is not exactly an improvement.

The SAB is whimsical content, but I don’t see why it can’t co-exist alongside the “actual” game. To me, going into the SAB is no different from going into the Fractals of the Mists, or the Crown Pavilion with its illusionary-clad Watchknights, or Keg Brawl. Our characters are engaging in a form of entertainment within their world, and nothing the SAB does actually breaks that immersion.

I’m sorry Konig, I still can’t get your point. The canon thing about SAB is that an asura once came up with the idea of a video game, and then built it. That’s the context in which it exists, that’s where it stands in the lore.

What happens inside the cube does not affect the main game story line. There are no international conflicts because a fake princess was kidnapped. Nobody is calling the Pact to defeat Lord Vanquish. I would be mad too if suddenly a 8-bit video game took the whole game.

The only thing the new update does is to add another world to the game. I’m not saying that it is separated from the world like in “it never happened”. What I am saying is that the only thing about it that actually happened was this: An asura built a video game.

Granted, I wasn’t happy when they scattered SAB chests around Tyria. That was immersion breaking, alright, but I can’t see how SAB is relevant for the lore as long as the 8-bit things stay inside the cube (aside from weapon skins and minis, which I can tolerate).

I still don’t get the big deal though.
Asura can create giant friggin’ lasers and holographic projectors, but when an Asuran made video game console becomes canon, that is a problem?

Just out of curiosity though Konig, why wasn’t it considered canon back in April?
Was that an assumption because it was an April fools thing? Or did a developer comment upon it? I took a break from GW2 during that period, so a lot of the details are a bit foggy to me.

It’s more of the feel of the SAB than the existence of it.

Alright, take Corporal Bane and the Moahawk from GW1 – if you played it, if not GWW it. It’s a full blown Terminator (and subsequently, Terminator II) reference quest and NPCs, decked out with April Fools jokery, modern tech, and the like.

It can perfectly exist in lore without question via the existence of alternate realities – it’s been set up that the Mists contains a multiverse since Prophecies, and the Infinity Ball storyline tells us that time travel is possible, so it’s not hard to argue alternate realities exist, and Bane is just from one of those in the future.

But the feel of the quests, them being 100% pure joke-infested pop-culture ridden content… just wouldn’t sit right with the canon lore. The concept is perfectly fine, but the execution not so much.

SAB is the same, except being Terminator references, it’s 90s video game attitude and commercial references.

Perhaps it’s because I grew up with those references, that it feels offputting to have the SAB – especially with its ‘Back to School’ theme this run – returning as canon content.

I certainly love the SAB itself, but it feels like it’d be better off remaining as a joke content, rather than being a serious part of lore, even if it canonically can fit in.

@Ted: I suppose you’d say “assumption because it was an April Fool’s thing” – Anet does jokes that are non-canon every year. The year before it was Corporal Bane and the fake GW2 professions of the Commandos (the page on the official site used to exist hidden, but sadly they removed it). And this year it was SAB. Every year it’s been non-canon jokes. And suddenly it changes.

I see what you mean, but maybe it’s less of a problem for me considering I thought it was canon to begin with, since the SAB never physically disappeared from Rata Sum.

Also, the minstrel I liked that one.

Minstrel wasn’t an April Fool’s joke, though. It was just a mesmer reveal joke. And though there’s jokes on that in the game, (a couple gravestones, the guy in Cursed Shore, who showed up in Halloween’s LA), the reveal itself isn’t canon (obviously).

As to the SAB remaining in the game… that’s a good point, but still all that pop culture that floods from the SAB content…

oh god this thread. when you thought there wasn’t anything more for GW2 players to whine about, there comes a faction that finds a way to hate the SAB, which is just pure, humorous platforming fun.

but no, it’s evil and makes the lore look stupid and OH MY GOD I NEED MORE BROODING, DEPRESSING STORIES WHY IS THIS SO COLORFUL AND FUN.

might as well complain about all the GW1 quests that made pop culture jokes. ohwait, no, that’s GW1, and GW1 is holy.

Well if we’re discussing one thing being lore breaking why dont we go all the way.

Why is Orr not healed or atleast starting the process the of being settled for the players that have finished their PS? Why do risen keep respawning in Orr even after Zhaitan is defeated? Why are most of the greatsword skins so large that you’d break your hand if you tried to swing it, if you could even manage to lift the giant thing off the ground first. Why do the same dynamic events keep popping up after you’re done them once? Why do you get to respawn when you die? Why are some NPCs able to be revived while others arn’t? What exactly are the “places of power” that you commune with for a skill point and why are they there? Why do you even need to spend skill points to learn abilities? Why can’t you defeat a level 80 risen when you’re level 2 but when you’re level 80 a level 2 wolf can defeat you? Why the level system at all; that you need to level to 80 to pose a threat to the risen. Why do people give you things for free (karma)? How do people in Orr know about you helping farmer Joe back in Queensdale? How do people know when to stop giving you things for free if you fall below a certain number? Why can mesmers only summon 3 clones/phantasms at a time? Why cant rangers use more than one pet at a time? Why cant any class use any weapon? Why cant Sylvari grow their armor as opposed to wearing crafted items? Why dont Norn wear their own types of armor over the same style as human made armor? With the number of humans in the game, why dont they expand their territory? Why do all races run the same speed, shouldn’t norn be the fastest, followed by charr, human, sylvari, and finally asura as the slowest. Why don’t the other dragons move more of their forces forward (we know Jormag atleast actively attacks the Norn)? Why can NPCs not fight at all, how did the world survive without us being here?

And from all of this that has been in the game since launch, you complain about a single update ruining the games lore with it coming out.

General reasons for a lot of the ones you mentioned:
- Gameplay mechanics
- It’s a fantasy game, what do you expect? (the greatsword thing, for example.)
- Can’t give one race unfair advantages in comparison to other races.
- Saved for future updates

A bit more specific ones:
- Most of the NPCs you ‘resurrect’ aren’t actually dead, just defeated, knocked out.
- The places of power are either places where something big happened in the past, great natural energies, or something similar.
- Can an elephant run faster than a jaguar? Bigger size comes with greater mass. In addition to that: gameplay mechanics.

@Rainbow, in order:

• Risen keep appearing because zones are effectively stuck in time. Only exception are the Living Story content updates. Otherwise, why do the same named NPCs keep reappearing in events despite being killed?
• I wouldn’t say “most” but I think the idea is that folks train hard enough and they’re lighter than they look. But I’d put this into the same category that I said about armor and weapons – a lot of them are unrealistic. This is just one of the suspensions of disbelief that is not part of the story whatsoever, unlike the SAB.
• Reoccuring events is mechanics so that everyone has a chance to do the content within the open world. Some of the events are also set up to be appearing like they’re just similar events with similar but not the same folks reoccuring.
• Simple: you don’t die. You get knocked unconscious. Hence why it’s called “defeated” and not “dead.”
• Reviving isn’t bringing back to life in GW2, but waking up those who are unconscious. So those who cannot be revived are dead, those who can be are merely knocked out. Why don’t enemies ensure their deaths? Mechanics. Same reason why the PC never dies.
• A place of power is a place of magical concentration. They exist there for the reasons in the text – overall magic seems to congregate in places of many deaths, water, and close to the depths of the world.
• Skill points is mechanics that replaces the idea of training. You don’t magically know things. Even with magic.
• Mechanics, again. The concept of scaling is meant to make it so that you never really become able to take more hits per say, but you’re more skilled in combat. It’s a mechanical replacement thing and is not lore just like most things you mention.
• Again, mechanical replacement for becoming more skilled in combat via experience.
• Karma isn’t a physical thing, and it’s not given for free – you help them out, they pay you. No different than a job.
• Do they know you helped Farmer Joe? If so, grapevine most likely.
• Not sure what you refer to here.
• You can call this either a mechanical limitation to keep the profession balanced (why can player characters only summon one Flesh Golem while Trahearne and what’shername that faces Draithor can summon multiple Flesh Golems?), or the character’s own limitations. Same with the ranger pet.
• Subsequent weapons and armors questions – again mechanics. Not lore. In lore, sylvari do grow their own armor – that’s what cultural armor is, lorewise (as well as Warden and Verdant weapons – perhaps Nightmare armor/weapon too). Similarly, in lore, any profession can use any weapon because lorewise, they aren’t limited to the same limitations as players. Again not lore, but mechanics – there’s a separation.
• Norn armor question is also mechanics.
• Humans don’t expand their territory because they’re being pushed from the east and north. Technically their territory in Kryta extends north and west of what we have access too, though how far is unknown. But our inability to see this is mechanical – just like we cannot see where the Blood Citadel is to the east.
• Running speed is also mechanics. In the novels, the asura have to speed walk to keep pace with humans (Sea of Sorrows) and charr walk slowly to be at the pace of humans (Sea of Sorrows), even the measurements between races are different at times because of this size different (Edge of Destiny).
• Question on the other dragons moving is same as the Zhaitan one – zones are effectively stuck in time until ArenaNet puts in the effort to show these things. Unfortunately, they’re intent on having The Sylvari Sue as the story focus for a while, so don’t expect dragon movements. Technically speaking, Jormag was making a move before Zhaitan was killed. He just wasn’t the story focus.
• NPC strength is, once more, a mechanical thing.

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

And from all of this that has been in the game since launch, you complain about a single update ruining the games lore with it coming out.

Every single thing you mentioned is not lore. It’s mechanics.

SAB permanence is lore. Not just mechanics.

That’s the difference.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

And from all of this that has been in the game since launch, you complain about a single update ruining the games lore with it coming out.

Every single thing you mentioned is not lore. It’s mechanics.

SAB permanence is lore. Not just mechanics.

That’s the difference.

Sylvari growing their armor isnt lore? Norn running faster because they’re bigger isnt lore (granted not a big part of the lore but still lore)?

Besides we’re talking about something ruining the games established lore. Just because it’s a game mechanic doesn’t mean it cant go against lore.

Say all races having the same running speed. Or Orr being stuck in time. Yes I get that these are game mechanics and I get why anet did them. My point was with all this other lore breaking stuff that isnt whined about, why SAB?

Congratulations on only reading the very bottom.

What I meant is that the discrepancies you mention are mechanical in nature, not lore-based in nature, even if they effect your suspension of disbelief.

As I said, in lore, the sylvari do grow their own armor and weapons just as they grow their houses. Similarly, races do move at different speeds. But because mechanics must balance all players equally, these things are not how they would be in lore. Same goes for the scale of the open world – lore wise, you would not be able to go from the westernmost part of Brisban Wildlands to the easternmost part of Fields of Ruin within a couple hours via speedboosts while on foot. But in the game, you very much can. Such a thing is not a lore discrepancy or lore issue, it is mechanical in nature which is what I meant when describing what you were posting.

The SAB is something completely different on every level of comparison. It is not something that happens differently between mechancis and lore. It is something that exists as we experience it in the lore. And THAT is the problem.

There are cases of lore breaking, and then there are cases of immersion breaking. Your list wall of text of questions is the latter, the complaints in this thread (and about Scarlet) is the former.

Yes, because we all know that a great technological advancement like the SAB, would never be a target of say… Scarlet. I mean, it’s just a box that brings a person into a world totally crafted from the mind of someone. No possible future evil uses there at all, because it will never fall into the hands of said evil persons.

Plus, if Moto allows the Consortium do be able to get to sell it to others, they would never sell it to unscrupulous people! Never!

What I get from Konig’s opinion is that because it’s intended to be a canon diversion from the other LS content, it should still be serious. I don’t agree, it’s his personal view that he is very attached to and is disappointed ANet content designers aren’t in line with.

It’s a cute diversion, though I wish it wasn’t right after Scarlet was revealed for the sake of wanting answers.

As someone else said in another thread in the SAB forum, this is basically just a breather episode. After Scarlet revealed herself, and we were able to defeat her and make her retreat; this is going to act as a buffer before the next story arc. I’m guessing that they are going to bring back the main features from Halloween in Oct, but since they already have most of the festival content already made; they are going to add more LS/lore elements into this upcoming Halloween.

That was one of the points they were making when they released the Queen’s Pavilion. The QP was the last annul festival event to be made, so now the LS teams can focus on expanding the story more, since they have 4 less festivals to make each year. They can now just bring back the main festival content, add some new features to it, then they can focus on LS content.

I think SAB is just fine. It’s an alternate reality, which canon-wise allows them to do what ever they wish. And it’s a lot of good fun really. Some of the other temporary Living Story content is a bit of a shame, because it puts such a time constraint on the players. A lot of it just doesn’t add anything permanent to the game, which just leads to a lot of throw-away content. But of all the content they added, SAB is some of the best, and it’s not entirely temporary.

I think SAB can be pretty much ignored from a lore point of view.

Thank you once again Konig. I agree 100 percent with your first post on this topic.

I too, grew up playing the infamous games SAB resembles, and it was a splendid update in April. I reminisced for the first hour, laughing with a couple buddies, enjoying the (what I thought was a joke). After learning it was not in May and would be returning, I sighed and put it out of mind.

I also agree that Living Story has been the overall turning point for me, creeping further away from the roots of which the Guild Wars story was all about. Tyria has turned into a mere joke for me, and I have lost all but little interest in the game.

The only problem is that SAB sets a precedence. There are tons of fun and not serious, joke stuff in the game. Thats alright, no need to be all serious all the time.

SAB arrived as a joke. That was the feel of it, seeing the time and the way it was released, and how it is a direct reference to real life in almost every aspect there can be in an April’s Fool joke in a game. That was the first impression, and rightly so, seeing how even ANet handled it.

And now it is to be taken seriously all of a sudden. It can be done, sure. Its an asura thing. It can even lead to interesting plot events that are certainly not a joke.

But if something that had the full impression of an April’s Fool joke can get serious, do the always serious lore-geeks have to wonder how the flying kitten can a shortbow, however magial, shoot rainbow ponies in a world where we never even saw modelled horses? And still be the most dangerous shortbow in the game? What about the bubbleshooting pistol?

There should be a clear line between joke content and serious lore-wise relevant content. SAB is blurring this line, mostly because of its original introduction on April’s Fool day, and the impression it left.

It would be nice to have some kind of ingame codex or something that directly dictates what can/must be taken seriously, and what is just a breather between all that seriousness. That would help both the lore and the roleplaying community too.

Personally I think the rainbow ponies are a bigger problem. I can understand people being upset about 8-bit enemies popping up in explorable zones. Now that breaks canon, even if they are holographic projections. But on the whole, SAB is an isolated VR-world, and doesn’t really break established canon. But having players wielding these joke weapons that fire rainbow ponies, now that just breaks immersion. And the Quaggan backpacks as well. Seeing heavily armored Charr running around with a Quaggan backpack, and a bow that fires ponies, just makes my eyes bleed.

With SAB, I got the impression that the devs remembered how to have good old fun. And that is something that deserves to be praised. The game needs more good old fun.

How ever, I understand people’s concerns. GW1 always maintained a good balance between humor and a believable setting. They never made the mistake of doing what WoW does, by literally copying popular culture, and literally quoting famous movies, for the sake of humor. GW2 has already made several of the races less serious, like for example the Norn, who are just about drinking and boasting now (hardiharhar). And that’s a shame. I would prefer them to keep a modest tone regarding the humor, and to be careful not to let the nonsense get out of hand.

Lore-wise there is nothing wrong with SAB so long as nothing leaks out of it. It’s like saying Guild Wars 2 can’t possibly exist because there is no magic in reality. SAB is a computer game inside of a computer game. From that purist perspective it’s fine. It’s completely believable and plausible that the Asura would be able to create a computer game. It’s also a lot of fun.

Sadly stuff does come out of it, i.e. the SAB weapons and minis. That’s where it breaks the lore – but it’s not too bad, you could logic it away with Asuran hologram projectors and whatnot.

With that out of the way I have to agree with Mad Queen Malafide. The biggest problem is the legendaries, and I have for a long time lost interest in acquiring one (or have considered getting one for the stats and changing the skin) – hailing back to my unicorns in Guild Wars 2 mindset (strangely appropriate how your specific example of a joke legendary is “The Dreamer”, and that it is unicorns, and honestly I haven’t made that connection until now).

Just enjoy the SAB: it’s the one area of the game we don’t have to care about how one specific writer is ruining all the lore.

I am not a fan of the SAB, and I am not a fan of how technologically advanced the asura are in GW2 – especially when their inventions seem to be a cop-out way to solve all kinds of problems that arise in the plot, ever since Guild Wars: Beyond’s chapter with Queen Salma.

I know that it is A-net’s world and they are the ones who decide what fits in and what does not, but the current state of the asura is something I, personally, do not see as quite fitting. Gigantic lasers, computers, robots, cellphone-type things – it just seem a little overdone. I think that the video game that is SAB is just the icing on the cake in this respect.

Personally i really like SAB. I am happy that it is coming back, but my problem isn’t that it is lore breaking, but just the terrible time of it’s return. We are fighting against psycho with an army the size of the army of an elder dragon and between the fights we get a follow up story of an April joke. They could have waited a bit longer to release it.

I know that Scarlet went to hiding (maybe) after the battle in the funhouse, but still it isn’t a great timing.

It’s already cannon… And if you don’t like an game that is optional to play and more than 3/4ths of the player base likes, then don’t play it.

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

I am not a fan of the SAB, and I am not a fan of how technologically advanced the asura are in GW2 – especially when their inventions seem to be a cop-out way to solve all kinds of problems that arise in the plot,

I agree entirely! Thank you for pointing that out. It’s very similar to how various comics often have a crazy scientist character, whose inventions always conveniently solve plot problems. Sort of like Gyro Gearloose from Ducktales, who in the recent game has conveniently just invented oxygen-rich chewing-gum that lets you breath on the moon (granted, that was a joke, but you get the idea).

And much like your average Star Trek episode, vague science babble often explains why things in the plot are either possible or not possible, thus conveniently steering the plot in a certain direction. And that’s lazy writing. That is why I also dislike the Asura.

See, if we just avoid “holodeck malfunctions” then I’ll just look at it like said piece of technology on the old Enterprise.

Something to fit in between what actually is important and happening, for entertainment purposes.

At least it’s not another festival, huh?

Not aimed at anyone poster but I feel it is relevant to the thread:

GuildMag (Ollannach): ……..She feels it’s more like a themepark where there’s minigames, jumping puzzles, etcetra, but not really bigger, lore-enhancing stuff. She’s mostly just concerned that because of the Living Story there’s only going to be small new lore added to the game, which will, in the end, result in a bigger story.

ArenaNet (Jeff Grubb) : We wanna be more epic, right, AND we have this huge, flying city, just, go for it. Whatever you want.

ArenaNet (Jeff Grubb) : This gets back to the whole big world concept. It’s more than just Destiny’s Edge, it’s more than just Kryta, it’s a larger world.

ArenaNet (Scott McGough) : That’s really the main surrogate, the Living World is much bigger than any one group of characters and so, we were expanding and adding to that. We wanted something cool to be happening every month, to make people come and check it out, but we’re also trying to lay the groundwork for a larger story, much more in the line of the epic story we saw in the personal story in the game launch and in the dungeons we saw.

http://www.guildmag.com/magazine/issue9/interview.htm

So really, SAB is just a smaller story happening while the larger stories are happening. It’s not a major event, lorewise. Just one of many inventors trying out one of many inventions. We look at it as bigger than it is because it comes in a patch. But it really isn’t that big of a deal.

Dustfinger.9510:

So really, SAB is just a smaller story happening while the larger stories are happening. It’s not a major event, lorewise. Just one of many inventors trying out one of many inventions. We look at it as bigger than it is because it comes in a patch. But it really isn’t that big of a deal.

It’s a big deal to some people who feel there’s not enough forward motion in things, no feel of the world progressing, and we’ve had festivals of some stripe for fun and games for a while now.

At least that’s how I am reading into this whole thing.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Dustfinger.9510:

So really, SAB is just a smaller story happening while the larger stories are happening. It’s not a major event, lorewise. Just one of many inventors trying out one of many inventions. We look at it as bigger than it is because it comes in a patch. But it really isn’t that big of a deal.

It’s a big deal to some people who feel there’s not enough forward motion in things, no feel of the world progressing, and we’ve had festivals of some stripe for fun and games for a while now.

At least that’s how I am reading into this whole thing.

I notice the “festivals of some stripe” also include the ones that do progress the larger stories forward, as well. So making it a big deal seems like a deliberate attempt to have an issue where there really isn’t one.

Dustfinger.9510:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Dustfinger.9510:

So really, SAB is just a smaller story happening while the larger stories are happening. It’s not a major event, lorewise. Just one of many inventors trying out one of many inventions. We look at it as bigger than it is because it comes in a patch. But it really isn’t that big of a deal.

It’s a big deal to some people who feel there’s not enough forward motion in things, no feel of the world progressing, and we’ve had festivals of some stripe for fun and games for a while now.

At least that’s how I am reading into this whole thing.

I notice the “festivals of some stripe” also include the ones that do progress the larger stories forward, as well. So making it a big deal seems like a deliberate attempt to have an issue where there really isn’t one.

Possibly. I don’t make those kind of judgments lightly.

I think what Tobias meant in the “big dea” is that there’s too many “small stories that do not progress the larger stories” – effectively meaning that we’re getting too many breaks too frequently from the story. If we look at this year in full, we have:

SAB, Queen’s Jubilee, Dragon Bash, Mad King’s Day, Wintersday, and Bazaar of the Four Winds.

That’s six “breaks” from the main story each year. Meaning that half of the time we’re playing this game, the main story isn’t progressing. Breaks like this should only be a fourth at best – and GW1 did that well, with only having 4 holidays (Mad King’s Day, Wintersday, Canthan New Year, and Dragon Bash). Even though there wasn’t content in the rest of the year, we didn’t get flooded with too many “fun time breaks.”

IMO, when half of the story doesn’t progress the story, then it is a big problem. Because you’re stretching out a plot just too long. Which makes people tire of it and desire something new. In many cases, this leads to losing audiences. Though I didn’t think of it as a problem before, Tobias kind of made me realize it’s yet another problem of the Living Story.

Dustfinger.9510:

Not aimed at anyone poster but I feel it is relevant to the thread:

GuildMag (Ollannach): ……..She feels it’s more like a themepark where there’s minigames, jumping puzzles, etcetra, but not really bigger, lore-enhancing stuff. She’s mostly just concerned that because of the Living Story there’s only going to be small new lore added to the game, which will, in the end, result in a bigger story.

ArenaNet (Jeff Grubb) : We wanna be more epic, right, AND we have this huge, flying city, just, go for it. Whatever you want.

ArenaNet (Jeff Grubb) : This gets back to the whole big world concept. It’s more than just Destiny’s Edge, it’s more than just Kryta, it’s a larger world.

ArenaNet (Scott McGough) : That’s really the main surrogate, the Living World is much bigger than any one group of characters and so, we were expanding and adding to that. We wanted something cool to be happening every month, to make people come and check it out, but we’re also trying to lay the groundwork for a larger story, much more in the line of the epic story we saw in the personal story in the game launch and in the dungeons we saw.

http://www.guildmag.com/magazine/issue9/interview.htm

So really, SAB is just a smaller story happening while the larger stories are happening. It’s not a major event, lorewise. Just one of many inventors trying out one of many inventions. We look at it as bigger than it is because it comes in a patch. But it really isn’t that big of a deal.

Yes, but at the main time where do 8 bit weapons magically fit the game? If I’d came up with the idea of SAB and its weapons usable outside SAB 2 years ago, the community’d tought I’m a 8 years old troll.

But if the writers say it’s going to happen suddenly everyone defends it.

I love SAB, when i first seen it..it was amazing. So i don’t want it to be gone forever, but i think maybe it has come back too soon. Would be cool for april fools to have some other style of game implemented for a bit.

I think at least the Bazaar content, progressed the Living Story a bit (but not the main story). But how does SAB further the Living Story? It doesn’t really.

I think the Living Story teams are making great content in the sort time that they’re given. But a lot of those mini games don’t seem to have much to do with the plot at all. Nor do any of these stories make the world feel alive.

Oddly enough, the best Living Story update that they did, was the beached whales update, where they didn’t explain anything to the players. Just a couple of whales that had washed on the beaches of Lion’s Arch. No explanation, yet so fascinating. Players started carrying buckets of water to the whales, and keeping watch. I miss this sense of mystery. You can make the world feel so more alive by just having “stuff” happen without an explanation.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Oddly enough, the best Living Story update that they did, was the beached whales update, where they didn’t explain anything to the players. Just a couple of whales that had washed on the beaches of Lion’s Arch. No explanation, yet so fascinating. Players started carrying buckets of water to the whales, and keeping watch. I miss this sense of mystery. You can make the world feel so more alive by just having “stuff” happen without an explanation.

I missed that. Wish I’d been around to see it.

Zaxares.5419:

I missed that. Wish I’d been around to see it.

Fortunately youtube has many videos of the beached whales, along with people having parties on top of the poor animals. In fact, I remember that being a very popular activity for a while.