Guild Wars 2

With Season 2 comming to an end and the conclusion pushed back to next year, there are these nagging questions on my mind:

Beware frustration and rant-material. I am allready sorry for it, but I welcome anyone to guess with me on the outcome

- Will we get a conclusion at the end of S2, or is it only a setup for things to come?

- If we get a conclusion, will it be worth it?
For that I consider clearing up Caithe`s secret as a substory, even though it was hinted at in S1, but just came back in the last minutes of S2 and had no real bearing in any way before.
Neither will be the attack on a champion on Mordremoth (or his Mordrem-plant).

Oh and while we are at it. The Mcguffin Egg question could have been answered by at least three people so far, so that wouldn`t satisfy as well.

While we knew this was supposed to push us into the direction of the next Eldar Dragon, so far we got more questions, than answers, so…

- Will we finally get satisfying answers?
Season 1 played the mystery game and Season 2 starts to get even worse with annoying cliffhangers, erratic pacing and unessesary mysteries . Are there substancial answers to be found at the end?

- *Is the LS Story Our quest for the Egg and the LW Story The attack on Mordremoth?
Are they supposed to be connected? What actually is our story? Is it really just the Egg?
What is our goal? The story jumps back and forth between storysteps, creating a jumbled mess. Sure the Egg is more or less the start with the Zephirites, but in between we have Biconic adventures, political mumbo jumbo, secrets, mysteries, cliffhanger, unfinished buisness, hints and red herrings… I am sorry, but is it really just the Egg? Is that our story? Going for a shiny omlet?

All these story threads are good and needed, but I feel completly distracted from our goal. More so, because no one really seems to care as we are merrily go after every sidequest there is, instead of getting a group of trackers (which braham and Rox should excel at btw. hello, Ranger and Norn… Children of the wild. The Master lives in an airship… Majory appearently can feel lifeforms and Kasmeer has the hack teleport… we should have been easily be able to catch up) and catch up to the guy….

Last words
I am very on edge with S2 so far. For all the good things it includes, there are just so many annoying things, which just didn`t have to be, really muddy the experience for me.

I can hearby say that I do not have any great expectations for the finale with the way the story has progressed so far.
If I had to give a current TV example, it would be Gotham . Great build up and characters, but a very sequel bating conclusion.

I voiced my opinion above, but I really hope you created something that hits it out of the park at the end and reveal something Amazing . We need something bigger than an Eldar Dragon here (so yeah, scratch the official Mordremoth reveal here as amazing), since you did that with S1 allready.
We need something that shakes the world. A new force to reccon with for example.

Again, i am sorry, but It`s just my hope for answers looking for some peace.
I would even be okay with simple: “Yes, No, Yes, Yes, No.” answers….

This is always a risk when an RPG storyline has the player doing something without telling them why. A vague prophecy or vision isn’t enough on its own. It is much better when something needs to be done in the story and the prophecy then provides the means or inspiration to do it (or prevent it).

PeterFries.1057:

Let us know how we did, when you get there.

As for how we’re doing along the way, keep giving us your feedback.

Thanks!

You are becoming my favourite dev here on the forum right now.

However like I said, you are doing fine, mostly at least…

I will let you know how you did, sadly we all have to wait for it a few weeks.
Hope you enjoy your holidays and stack up on happy feelings, since I intend to come back with vengance if you don`t deliver
But don`t worry, won`t be as bad as after-christmas shopping

Jaken.6801:

PeterFries.1057:

Let us know how we did, when you get there.

As for how we’re doing along the way, keep giving us your feedback.

Thanks!

You are becoming my favourite dev here on the forum right now.

This. I love devs that respond to players in more ways that damage control. Especially when they’re being helpful when not doing damage control, and giving interesting trivia like you have been.

But since you asked, Peter, the TL;DR of my view of Season 2 thus far is (Spoiler Alart: talking more than just lore):

• Open World Writing: 7/10
• Open World Art: 9/10
• Open World Music: 9/10
• Open World Mechanics: 8/10
• Living Story Writing: 5/10
• Living Story Art: 9/10
• Living Story Music: 9/10
• Living Story Mechanics: 8/10
• Delivery: 4/10
  ——————————————————————————
  Writing
  Overall, I can’t think of many problems with the writing of the open world content. There is one exception to this, however, which is why the rating is 7 rather than 9. And that’s the altering of old dialogue. Primarily, the NPCs around Fort Concordia, Fort Salma, and Fort Vandal. While I’ve noticed a removal of some dialogue at the last (talking about sieging the place), the hearts and dialogue boxes have remained unchanged. This is bad. One point off per major location!

The writing for the story instances is different, and ranges from utterly and sadly ametueristic, where I find that newgrounds.com has a better average than what I’m seeing in the story instances (I’m looking at you, idiotball holders, Lochin, and the PC!), all the way up to pretty kitten good (Hidden Arcana, primarily, minus two books and a certain blonde laying on her butt for no shown reason).

In some of the negative cases, it’s using overly cliche’d words and phrases (Looooochiiiiinnnn!!!!), but in most cases it’s a case of not portraying moods and events properly (Faolain in the past and Caithe in a tent says ‘hi’). Overall, the average level of writing is “decent but not interesting” while leaning on the side of “subpar”. And these downsides are all about reveal and mood, rather than grammatical errors (and very few are about lore inconsistencies as we go on).

Thus far, the most annoying thing, however, si that it feels like the plot isn’t going anywhere. Compare this to Winds of Change, and where we are now with release number seven is just now feeling like it reaches the end of WoC Part 1 in comparison of plot development, with us waiting on meeting Reiko at long last.

Music and Art
In all honesty, I can’ say a single bad thing about either the music or the art. I only made it a 9 out of 10 so your heads don’t go blowing up from inflated ego.

Mechanics
Episode 1 story mechanics were spot on, in my opinion. Aside from a few tedious bugs here and there (NPCs resetting during Trouble at Fort Salma still – yes, I’ve reported), my biggest complaints would be the forced* reliance on Zephyrite Aspect skills that don’t function properly all the time (I’m looking at you lightning skill), and how the allies in story instances are invulnerable 99.99 with a lot of nines% of the time – it removes all challenge there could be, and removes the usefulness of them if they do 0.1% damage to enemies (if any!), especially bosses, nad usually don’t even revive you anymore (such as during the Predator fight – I recently did such just to have Kasmeer, Caithe, and Marjory suddenly stop doing anything once I died, just standing there giving oogly eyes at each other while Rox and Braham were invulna-killing the Predator).

Overall, I like the mechanics. I loved how in Episode 1 the NPCs didn’t skip around when following you – I’m sad to have seen this ended with Episode 2 at Trouble at Fort Salma instance.

*"Forced" as in “without a portal from a mesmer or unique profession mobility skills that may or may not be of assistance”

Delivery
In my opinion, the delivery – which includes the release schedules, the amount of content given at a time, the breaks (yes, including this sudden out-of-nowhere “Episode 8 next year!” announcement a week before we were expecting it), the (virtual) material rewards, and the quality. This is where I find the Living World lacking most – and it was where it was lacking most in Season 1 too. While the amount of content has improved, imo, the releases have not, and the breaks don’t help. I understand the need for breaks to develop the content – producing content at a continuous biweekly rate results in bugs, incomplete testing, etc. etc. I’d just much rather have a system akin to Winds of Change – 2 month break, large content (~4 episodes worth), 2 month break, large content (~4 episodes worth), etc. etc. rather than this tedious sporadic biweekly nonsense**. The quality of the content is overall up and down, which is never good.

**Naturally, it is nonsense in my opinion only and I do not speak objectively.

PeterFries.1057:

Let us know how we did, when you get there.

As a proffesional writer myself (at least in Spain), I don’t like how you’re doing so far (i mean Anet with the LW story-telling, not you, Peter).

The story is messed up with so many secondary stories that it’s ok for a while, but paccing them after so many weeks it makes the player to forget the earlier stories. Think about it, do you think now people remember everything that scarlet said? I can guarantee that only a small percentage of the players will do, yet we don’t have the answers that we needed related to season 1 and you already started 2-3 different new stories with more questions and little answers. By the time that you deliver the answers that we needed in season 1 it will be already pointless, unnecessary or too late, because we already lost interest on it.

As example: It’s the same as when you look for the name of a song that you like a lot, then you stop liking it 3 months later and then someone tell you the name of the song 1 week later. Ok nice, you know the name… but you don’t like it anymore.

In my opinnion, a good story must be leaded by a main thread and the other sub-stories should be started and closed before the player lose track of the main thread. Which is not happening in GW2 and that’s why the community feel so lost.

Edit: I did like season 1 more, the marionette, lion’s arch battle and the tower of nightmare because of it’s mechanics, not the story related. Funny uh?

Edit2: Threads opened at this time:

• What happened with all the scarlet armies after she dies? Did they came back to home? Do they team up together for something? That massive amount of enemies won’t just dissapear without making some noise.
• Why Scarlet woke up mordremoth? (This thread seems on “pause”, but it doesn’t feel so badly, we’re waiting for it because it started a second main thread)
• Where is rytlock? (Open thread, not closed)
• What about the queens medallion that always shows the real queen? (small sidestory that was never closed)
• The past of caithe (open thread, could be closed easily with another update BUT you put 6 weeks of waiting in between, people will forget about episode 7 details when the episode 8 kicks in. Some others already forgot what Scarlet says to Caithe in Aetherpath).
• The zephirites and the egg (open thread, i consider this the Main thread at the moment, opened when Scarlet woke up Mordremoth. And well, we probably will know the answers for this in season 2 or 3 or i’ll be highly dissapointed).

I probably lost track of other little side-stories that were introduced but never closed. Marjory, braham, taimi, rox, caithe, canach, ellen kiel and so many. many characters should make clear what they are doing. Otherwise, unveiling only a small part of each of them will eventually leads to a confussion of “who did what?” or “when did that happen?” because nobody will remember it.

Agh, i can’t properly explain in english my thoughs, but I think you got the point.

PeterFries.1057:

Let us know how we did, when you get there.

As for how we’re doing along the way, keep giving us your feedback.

Thanks!

I don’t get on the forums much, and I’m sorry if this seems very whiney… But,

I really feel disheartened by this 6 week break now. I understand there is vacation time, and employees leaving to see family, travel, and do what they do on their holidays and they deserve their breaks.

The one thing I know that is going to hurt me as a player, and other gamers in the Guild Wars 2 franchise is that we had this sudden build up. We are attacked at the summit by a Modrem champion, the pale tree is in very poor health, we get confirmation that it’s Glint’s Egg, we find the Master of Peace and he dies before he finishes what he is saying, Caithe seemingly turns on us and steals the egg, and we start to learn Caithe’s past and get to a magically sealed door that is between us and potentially wrapping up why she did what she did and have to wait now. There was a lot of momentum in the story going up until now, and honestly after the Wintersday patch and on January 13th, no matter how great the patch may be, the momentum was ruined. Unfortunately this is the way things work at times but the release timing should of been better planned. The story is great but the momentum was lost now.

Another thing that is disheartening is that Rytlock’s side plot was seemingly lost and the teaser pictures put out on Twitter didn’t help. (Any of the teasers put out lately have not been helpful but rather disheartening as we get them and think of how long till we get back to this or find out what it means [Teasers images should of been released according to next update.].) I understand you don’t want us to forget about Rytlock but releasing a teaser image of him in the blindfold then no word or sighting of him in the patch really was disheartening. Even if it was just some message he left us or just a small side plot in an episode after the teaser would of been a lot better then nothing but a random teaser getting hopes up.

All I can really say is I hope the next release is as exciting as it’s being made out to be and we really are shocked by it, because the momentum is lost and I’m losing hope on Season 2 of the Living World.

Have a good Christmas and Happy New Years!

Sincerely,
Xter

Really the only issue i see is the pacing. The releases and the time between them vaires. Both in the story and in the real world releases. ANet needs to balance out somehow. There are episodes that end on a cliffhanger that should have their follow-up right away, or they shouldnt even be separated from each other. Then there are episodes that in the story they set up a break (like Taimi’s device needing a few weeks to calibrate), and after the next episode comes out and its available right after, the story pacing is broken.

As much hate the PS episode shuffling gets (rightly so, considering the Orr and the Greatest Fear plotline fiascos), that at least (mostly) had some structure. Level-gating aside, each episode is a full story on its own. Some has cliff-hangers, but not breaks that shouldnt be there. In Season 2, playing through with another character now, I only notice the end of an episode by the boss-battle.

Gameplay-wise, the boss battles are what passes for a satisfying conclusion to an episode. But without proper arcing of the story through the episodes, its just that. Gameplay. Maybe if the bosses themselves would be built up in the story somewhat, that would help a bit. Right now all of them just feel like they are just there. The Predator was only mentioned when we got into the final instance. Barradin’s statue (for non-charr) was only mentioned as it was coming alive. The Shadow of the Dragon (for non-sylvari) was only mentioned when it attacked. Defeating these threats only felt good on a gameplay level, but it didnt accomplish anything in the story. If not for their original mechanics, they would just be another mob with no relevence whatsoever. They just come, and they just go.

In comparison, Mai Trin was built up. The dredge and charr bosses were (somewhat) built up. Scarlet was built up massively, the Marionette was not however. That was another example where the superior gameplay mechanics overshadowed the questions of “where did it come from and why should i care?”.

Season 2 is still suffering from the problem that plagued Season 1 that the episodes aren’t telling complete stories, and frequently they’re skipping out on a conclusion by setting up another story thread. A lot of the frustration with Season 1 is that Guild Wars has a lot of story threads already, so setting up more with the promise that they’ll be paid off ‘some day’ is hard to believe.

The constant drive west is giving the season structure that season 1 didn’t have, but that’s been squandered by also building narrative hooks into the story so each episode is a prologue for the next. This is super clumsy – the callbacks we’re seeing, and the drive west towards Mordemoth, is enough – and it hurts the individual episodes by denying most of them closure. Even Game of Thrones structures its episodes so the episode is ‘about’ something, thematically related to everything else you’re seeing, and the final minutes of the episode resolve the theme and provide closure, even if it’s the kind of closure that immediately opens a new question. The shocking ends to some GoT episodes usually come at the end of an episode that ties a bow on the character who dies. Most of the ‘cliffhanger’ endings of this season aren’t shocking swerves, they’re the story finishing before we have all the pieces.

Of the episodes, I think Entanglement is the strongest. It’s got the clearest story – we have to follow in Ceara’s footsteps before Mordremoth becomes too powerful. In doing so, we find Omadd’s device, but Mordremoth’s power is growing too strong. Taimi, emulating her role model Ceara, goes too far, and so we sacrifice ourselves to save Taimi, and in doing so go beyond reality. There’s beats there that don’t quite work – Fort Salma and Concordia show Mordremoth’s power growing too strong, but that doesn’t really inform the actions of the protagonists, and Taimi doesn’t appear to have learned anything – but we have a nice emotional story and our character gets some character development.

You’re hamstrung a bit by the idea that this is supposed to be our story, because the Season 2 format doesn’t really give you any flexibility to give our characters an arc. It’s hard to really have a satisfying storyline if our PCs don’t grow or change other than more loot. There’s also an irritating tendency to drop details about the biconics as teasers instead of building them more fully into the storyline as the emotional side of the storyline. For instance, the hunt for the Master of Peace could have been an opportunity to also tell a story about Kasmeer’s scrying powers, with her coming to terms with it, maybe causing conflict with Marjory. The Dragon’s Reach uses the relationships the characters have with their home as a plot point, but we don’t really see how they feel about home and losing it even if they don’t care for it (and our PC, of course, doesn’t report home, and doesn’t have opinions about home). We spend most of Glint’s Lair hearing about Glint’s history from Marjory and Kasmeer, when they have literally been swept up into a legend. Are they nervous? Are they excited? Are they soulless automatons?

While I like stories in games, honestly right now I feel the writing team’s better used filling out towns and cities and making the world vibrant and full of character. Their dialogue-focused instances and and towns have been getting better and better while the story hasn’t really improved, and I think ArenaNet are so far behind when it comes to story delivery in an MMO that the resources they need to spend to catch up would be better spent on making sure the world is even more beautiful, the places inside it are even more full of character, and the combat is even more exciting.

As many said, the weakest point of LS2 is actually its diversity.

To me, the pacing of the releases is acceptable: one every two weeks is good to keep people interested in the story without too many huge breaks (oh wait…). However, the content of each patch is terrible unbalanced: some are so awesome I wanted to play them again and again (Glint’s lair), but some are so insipid that they should have been part of a bigger update (last week’s patch).

About the story, sometimes it’s really breathe-taking, and deep (the library! I spent literally hours in there) but you guys are trying to hard to add cliffhangers that the story goes all around the place without even having a clear aim.

For example.
Ritlock disappeared: really good cliffhanger (IMHO), but it has been months and no once cares about him, so bad story step.
The doors: we were teased with doors, nice story step because we want to now what they mean, bad cliffhanger because you gave us the teaser that is actually the cliffhanger, and we will have to wait a full month before knowing what’s behind it. A better cliffhanger would have been a slight peak of what inside (with a cinematic maybe).

There’s also that huge flower-thing in Dry Top, does anybody care about it? Negative.
Anise seemed to be doing something really important… Two months ago.

The story isn’t going from point A to B with additions in between. It’s going from point A to B in the first patch, then from B to C in the second, from C to D in the third, etc, without making much sense.

The ideas are really good, but the realization is quite poor, the pacing could be good if the quality were equal with each release, and if the story wasn’t predictable with so many cliffhangers.

We had some ups with LS2, but we had many more downs.

Stooperdale.3560:

This is always a risk when an RPG storyline has the player doing something without telling them why. A vague prophecy or vision isn’t enough on its own. It is much better when something needs to be done in the story and the prophecy then provides the means or inspiration to do it (or prevent it).

This is actually something I thought about twice this year.

First when we are trying to get the racial leaders to prioritise Mordremoth above all other threats. My PC was saying Mordremoth was the greatest threat, but as a player who (I like to believe) pays close attention to the story, it wasn’t clearly established to me that Mordremoth was the biggest threat. That reasoning kinda blind sided me and I was like “Is Mordremoth the biggest threat?”. It really hurts that point when Mordremoth’s name and existence came out of the blue, I felt like the existence and threat priority of Mordremoth was not handled well.

The more obvious instance of me questioning my PC’s motivation in the story was when Marjory asked me why I cared so much about the egg. I honestly freaking don’t know why the egg matters so much. I mean, it’s just a freaking egg! I know the fan theories of using a hatchling to replace Elder Dragons but that hasn’t been discussed in game. As a Pact Commander who a few months ago was preaching about how important it is to take the fight to Mordremoth, the story has not justified to me why I’m suddenly running around like a headless chicken after a mysterious egg and risk missing the launch of the Pact assault. The Pale Tree is one of the most useless characters in Tyria right now, she gave me a cryptic vision (containing information she could have given me MANY times in the past) and I still don’t know what’s going on.

I know Marjory’s question was simply an excuse to feed her personal story (“Oh please Marjory, you’re my rock, I know you’re upset about your sister who was created just to be killed a few months later and you want to kill Mordremoth, but please come help me chase a legendary cooking ingredient because the Pale Tree wants an omelette.”) but she asked a question I honestly can’t answer – why am I dropping everything relating to the Pact’s assault on what I supposedly believe is Tyria’s biggest threat simply to chase down an egg? I can guess why the egg would be important but the story hasn’t given me a reason and I truly believe it should have.

All this effort was put in to give Marjory a motivation (they created a sister just to kill her to motivate Marjory to want to kill Mordremoth) but what effort was put in to explain my character’s motivation to prioritise the egg over the Pact assault on Mordremoth?

PeterFries.1057:

Let us know how we did, when you get there.
As for how we’re doing along the way, keep giving us your feedback.

You know you’ve done well when you have a Fake_Peter_Fries on the GW2 subreddit

Content patches might feel a bit short and the pacing is too slow with too many breaks – both upcoming and the one back before November, but other than that I’ve really enjoyed LS2 compared to LS1.

And I’m really curious (but careful not to raise my expectations to expansion-hype levels) what & where Anet are going in 2015.

Xter.6271:

Another thing that is disheartening is that Rytlock’s side plot was seemingly lost and the teaser pictures put out on Twitter didn’t help.

In all fairness, the Rytlock teaser said ‘My journey has only just begun’, not ‘Your journey…’ – so maybe he’s going to be away for a bit and we don’t get to partake in that :P

But yea, I agree that a 4 week break now ruins momentum of the build-up we’ve seen. Most people only get 1-2 weeks of Christmas holiday, and they could’ve started up again sooner at the very least. January 6th being one date for instance…

I don’t need 4 weeks to play Wintersday content that is no different to previous years…

Dondarrion.2748:

And I’m really curious (but careful not to raise my expectations to expansion-hype levels) what & where Anet are going in 2015.

Aren’t we all :P

Merus.9475:

Season 2 is still suffering from the problem that plagued Season 1 that the episodes aren’t telling complete stories, and frequently they’re skipping out on a conclusion by setting up another story thread.

Very much this. Issues do exists somewhat with the delivery and the segmentation of the story. In the beginning the episodes felt slightly more complete (ish) but as we went along we’ve gotten more plots separated between episodes. For example getting everyone to the summit was divided into two episodes even though logically that seems more like something that would fit into a single episode. The mystery around caithe is also turning into a multi-episode things even though this impacts the delivery and pacing somewhat.
The pacing issues is probably more a result of the segmentation and the fact that the episodes are becoming somewhat formulaic, first episode we have a talky instance (no combat, but still nice for lore I guess), have a few instances (a bit of variety comes in here) and then we have the boss fight at the end. Using Caithe as an example, just as we’re getting into solving the mystery of Caithe we hit the mandatory boss fight and then the end of the episode. The next episode looks like it’ll be another talky one (back in the priory) which isn’t a bad thing but taking it as a whole it breaks the pacing we built while running through far shiverpeak.
So I don’t know, I don’t think the instances are bad (I like the talky ones and I like the boss fights) but the ordering of them (why not having a talky one in the middle of a episode? Or at the end?) and the habit of breaking plot lines between episodes (that making most episodes feel like cliffhangers and overall impacting the pacing).
Although given that I’m fairly sure the reason for this is the effort required to produce content (thus it might be difficult to produce a plotline worth of content for a single episode).

I’m not sure of the solution though. Get more people? Start working on branching story lines (i.e. continue on with Mordy but also give us Rytlock)? turn the bi-weekly into tri-weekly to allow for more rounded episodes? Like I said I’m not sure.

EDIT:

Edit: I did like season 1 more, the marionette, lion’s arch battle and the tower of nightmare because of it’s mechanics, not the story related. Funny uh?

Narrative engagement vs mechanical engagement. To use extreme examples: tetris has zero narrative engagement but full mechanical engagement. GW2 offers both narrative and mechanical engagement, but of course different people prefer different things. S1 had a far stronger mechanical component to it while S2 seems to be trying for both with obvious mixes player feedback.

PeterFries.1057:

I know where we’re going, and I advise you to go ahead and fasten your seat belt.

Pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion.

/Subliminal message or madness mantra, it’s up to you to decide/

BuddhaKeks.4857:

PeterFries.1057:

I know where we’re going, and I advise you to go ahead and fasten your seat belt.

Pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion pls be an expansion.

/Subliminal message or madness mantra, it’s up to you to decide/

I fully believe there is going to be an expansion and here’s why…

If Episode 8 is the final episode in Season 2 then all these plot arcs that we had opened this season will probably not be resolved by the end of the season, but rather closed up in a possible future expansion.

Think about it, currently, if you do not log into the game when a Living World chapter is live then you have to pay for it. I always thought this was a bit strange since most people excited about Season 2 would most likely be able to log in for at least a minute every two weeks to just unlock it, so why the charge per episode? They couldn’t possibly be making much money off of this at this current time.

I believe that they know an expansion is coming and that the story of the expansion will tie in heavily with what happened in Season 2 so when a flood of players who come back after a year+ of not playing, they’ll want to, if not need to, play Season 2 to know what’s going on in the story of the expansion, and there my friends is where ANet makes bank off of the gem cost of Living World episodes.

PeterFries.1057:

Dondarrion.2748:

You know you’ve done well when you have a Fake_Peter_Fries on the GW2 subreddit

Honestly not a fan of that, though at least s/he put the “Fake” disclaimer on their Reddit account name. I’ve only ever posted online under my actual name.

Dondarrion.2748:

Content patches might feel a bit short and the pacing is too slow with too many breaks – both upcoming and the one back before November, but other than that I’ve really enjoyed LS2 compared to LS1.

I’m glad. Believe me, our team has worked very, very hard all year to bring you these releases, to focus our efforts, and to try to raise expectations. Note that we have a director of narrative now, as a sign of how serious the studio is about telling great stories.

Dondarrion.2748:

And I’m really curious (but careful not to raise my expectations to expansion-hype levels) what & where Anet are going in 2015.

I know where we’re going, and I advise you to go ahead and fasten your seat belt.

Yeah, but please tone down the hypetrain. At this point i am ready for nothing.

Don`t get me wrong. I am mostly annoyed by the kinks you still have to work out, since overall I am with the others, seeing it mostly positive.

However there are just some things that… urgh….

You get the feedback, we will provide it. We will keep nagging, etc. You know the drill.

You are doing a good job and i am pleased for the recent spike in interaction, which by all means is just delightful in these rolercoaster times.

btw. as you are so open with “teasers” (seriously, putting Rytlocks new look into the open like this? Shame on you. That would have been a mystery worth keeping, inestead of the other stuff), any answers to my ranting questions from the beginning?

PeterFries.1057:

I know where we’re going, and I advise you to go ahead and fasten your seat belt.

This was said literally all last year after season 1 ended. Trust me… could have left my seat belt off for the past year. Why should anyone believe this hype now?

Anet is riding a fine line having the game be supported by whales (not an insult, whales as in people who spend big on the game). Slowly these people will leave without significant evolution of the game and LS hardly evolves the world in a meaningful way.

PeterFries.1057:

snip
I know where we’re going, and I advise you to go ahead and fasten your seat belt.

If it’s something like that, I promise I’ll come to Bellevue to stick my tongue out at you!

It seem that Season 3 will be like a ride on the back of a bull. I really hope the upcoming season was one of the big projects.

PeterFries.1057:

Dondarrion.2748:

And I’m really curious (but careful not to raise my expectations to expansion-hype levels) what & where Anet are going in 2015.

I know where we’re going, and I advise you to go ahead and fasten your seat belt.

No offense, but you (ArenaNet) has been effectively telling us this since Flame and Frost.

I’ve yet the need to “fasten my seat belt”. There’s been ups, but never nearly as grand as you (ArenaNet) make them out to be.

Sometimes I wonder if you (ArenaNet) are playing a different game from us (the players).

Parisalchuk.9230:

without significant evolution of the game and LS hardly evolves the world in a meaningful way.

This. Living Story as a content delivery system was a nice experiment, but in my mind a failed one as its much too slow in content updates, coupled with the fact that PvP, WvW, Features, Story and Holidays are all part of the same “Living” story release model and as such all these parts take breaks for each other and its quite irking as a player because we end up with all these long arbitrary breaks. Not only that, but with how Season 2 has progressed, compared to when it started, it feels aimless at this point with far too many sub-plot points that in some cases are filling entire episodes that while fun end up not really advancing anything in any meaningful way. Episode 7 feels like a prime example of this. That was fun to see flashbacks and get to understand Caithe’s past a bit better, but what did this do to advance the overall narrative and plot of Season 2? Nothing.

Frankly I am at a point where this game is now 2 1/2 years old and what do we really have to show for it in terms of story and world evolution? If Living Story was truly supposed to replace expansions, then it has failed. If an expansion is planned and in the works for next year, then ANET needs to say so soon. Otherwise it just feels like we are going nowhere slowly with nothing to show or tell me otherwise. At the end of 2013 we were told to fasten our seat belts too, and now I am having some of the same sort of frustrations I had then. Yes the story is remarkably better, but overall what have we gained in a year’s time and where are we going? Too slow, too aimless, too many subplots at this point for Living Story style to really deliver.

Edit:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

No offense, but you (ArenaNet) has been effectively telling us this since Flame and Frost.

I’ve yet the need to “fasten my seat belt”. There’s been ups, but never nearly as grand as you (ArenaNet) make them out to be.

Sometimes I wonder if you (ArenaNet) are playing a different game from us (the players).

Frankly, I wholeheartedly agree with this.

Parisalchuk.9230:

PeterFries.1057:

I know where we’re going, and I advise you to go ahead and fasten your seat belt.

This was said literally all last year after season 1 ended. Trust me… could have left my seat belt off for the past year. Why should anyone believe this hype now?

Anet is riding a fine line having the game be supported by whales (not an insult, whales as in people who spend big on the game). Slowly these people will leave without significant evolution of the game and LS hardly evolves the world in a meaningful way.

It’s not that I don’t believe it, I just am so tired of playing this teasing game.

PeterFries.1057:

I know where we’re going, and I advise you to go ahead and fasten your seat belt.

You guys really aren’t doing much to squash expectations of a major upcoming announcement (such as an expansion or something of a similar importance), are you? :P

Between this, Colin’s statement of “We hope you’ll join us for the ride; you won’t want to miss it”, the teaser images, and the theme “Point of No Return”, it’s hard to imagine anything else worth this level of hype.

I’m hoping that if the payoff for this doesn’t meet player expectations, there won’t be too bad of a backlash. The general atmosphere from the communities I’ve seen have been pretty down since the announcement for Ep 8 on Jan 13.

/cheers

I got a question.

Right now Season 2 feels unfocused. Something Season 1 had not, which just felt slow and unresponsive.

Season 2 is just jumping between stories and subsequently looses a lot of urgency.

Is it possible, with the episode design, to go with a focused mainstory and have sidestories be optional, maybe added along the way.

That way we have a focused story for our NPC, sidecharacters can develope outside the mainstory, maybe have their own adventure and if we want to experience these, we can choose to follow them.

This is a system many RPGs are using.
While their influence goes beyond that (if you help side characters that actually influences the story) usually, it would help with focusing the main narrative, while allowing side stories to exist and even be added later.

Imagine Majory suddenly wielding Belindas sword and it is glowing, so you ask yourself where she got it. In the mainstory she will only hint on it if you ask her, unlocking the backstory of the sword to play.

Right now we have a wibbly wobbly mess of stories, we are forced to play in order, that causes a loss of focus.

We are forced to get lost and have not the choice to ignore parts.
That way we end up with a story that doesn`t seem to advance.

Is it possible to impliment such a tree like developement system, where sidestories branch off and come back into the mainstory later?

Was such a thing on the agenda at some point?

As examples you could go with almost any RPG. From Neverwinter Nights, Baldurs Gate, to modern like Dragon Age and Mass Effect (all bioware…. hm..) Okay, even Final Fantasy, Shadow Hearts etc. tells stories these way…

If I am not mistaken we even got this storytelling with Guild Wars 1, as there were sidequests, which allowed hero character stories to progress and give more insight aside from their Mainstory appearence…

Season 2 was in my eyes still a test run to improve the story journal. The fact that only a very small part of the staff has worked on it intensifies this feeling. We saw improvement compared to the first season. I think the teams know already what to change for Season 3. To unveil the whole potential of the LW concept it need more teams working hand in hand to support each other. The LW team needs input from other teams. The current small LW team did a impressive job in designing the story instances plus the maps where the story tales place. In Season 1 they had the luxury that in many cases the stage for the LW was already there giving more time to focus on the story plus connected events.

As mentioned before I really hope that Season 3 is treated as a big project covered by many teams. Leah Hoyer will give a new influx of ideas and visions to produce a story-driven expansion via LW concept.

Elrey.5472:

• (open thread, could be closed easily with another update BUT you put 6 weeks of waiting in between, people will forget about episode 7 details when the episode 8 kicks in…)

This is easily the most jarring thing for me with this entire season so far. Ending that arc when it did felt cheap. It’s like reading 3/4 through a book to find the last quarter missing.

I have similar thoughts to Elrey. To many open narrative threads and not closing enough of them fast enough. Its overwhelming and very easy to forget a particular thread was opened previously when you try and continue it. For example: “E”

• “E” was last casually mentioned at the party and before that in a mail at the beginning of the season. This thread has been open how long now? A year and a half? I’m not saying reveal all now but even if there was at least progress here with “E” it would feel better.

That is one example there are many others. Some are just poorly paced like Marjory and Belinda. When this arc was addressed it seemed to come out of nowhere and interrupt the current flow of the story.

Episodes
- Now I did find the first couple of episodes quite well delivered (barring the sudden Mordremoth knowledge) until we had to start bouncing around Tyria to make the summit happen. There was too many viewpoint changes too quickly. Things like Braham’s arc felt like throw away’s.
- With the exception of ghost Belinda, Episodes 5 & 6 were good. Caithe is a slight issue here though. Some foreshadowing of her “betrayal” might have been good somewhere in Episodes 1-4. And I already addressed my major issue with Episode 7.

Other
On the plus side, Canach was a great character to stick in here but I think he needs more time on the screen, so to speak. Using an engaging character like that can be a double edged sword. Too much of him and he can take over the story, too little and he becomes filler or annoying even.

Now, as for the Biconics; They seem to be having a lot less impact in this latter half of the season which I think is unfortunate. Its hard to point out specifics here but they are just less involved than they were in Episodes 1-4. Now it could simply be that the story arc requires it to get to whatever ending they have in mind.

Finale
Arcs I think need to be tied up at the end of this season IMHO:
1. Mordremoth - Either his location or his plan or something very significant anyway, needs to be world shattering at this point. Lots of promises made that need to be fulfilled here
2. The Egg - Its now intricately tied with Mordremoth and the Sylvari so needs to tie in nicely without more mystery
3. Caithe - We need to know exactly what she was doing and why by the end of the season, nuff said.
4. Scarlet, the Ley Lines, Omadd’s Machine and the vision - Again, tied to Mordremoth and the egg, so should meet with that arc at the end. Ogden and “The Map of the All” already hint at connections here. Needs to be resolved. (See theory on Baby dragon in egg becoming Elder Dragon through Zaitan’s power)

So 4 Major threads this season, all related to one another, and IMO should all resolve together as closely as possible for the best climax. Lots of nice theories around on how they might do this which is why I love this community

Ty for LWS2, looking forward to Jan 13th

PeterFries.1057:

~Snip~

I’m glad. Believe me, our team has worked very, very hard all year to bring you these releases, to focus our efforts, and to try to raise expectations. Note that we have a director of narrative now, as a sign of how serious the studio is about telling great stories.

~Snip~

First, I want to high light this portion of Peter’s post, IMO, this points out that what we’ve been seeing up till now was already set in stone before Ms. Hoyer joined A.net and she had no effect on it what so ever, but that in the future, perhaps beginning with Ep. 8 more likely Season 3 we’ll begin to see what kind of input she’s had and the direction the LW is moving towards.

Stramatus.5219:

~Snip~
Not only that, but with how Season 2 has progressed, compared to when it started, it feels aimless at this point with far too many sub-plot points that in some cases are filling entire episodes that while fun end up not really advancing anything in any meaningful way. Episode 7 feels like a prime example of this. That was fun to see flashbacks and get to understand Caithe’s past a bit better, but what did this do to advance the overall narrative and plot of Season 2? Nothing.

~Snip~

Perhaps you missed it, but the entire point of Ep, 7 was for us to get a look at Caithe’s history and get an idea of what might have caused her to steal the Egg at the end of Ep. 6. Now if you think the entire egg thing is irrelevant to the LS and the pursuit of Mordremoth that’s a different issue and not one I can help you with if you miss the connection.

We got now so many hints dealing with Rytlock. It would help if we could get some conclusion by the end of the current season.

Zaklex.6308:

Perhaps you missed it, but the entire point of Ep, 7 was for us to get a look at Caithe’s history and get an idea of what might have caused her to steal the Egg at the end of Ep. 6.

Oh, so based on what we learned in Ep 7, why did Caithe steal the Egg?

perilisk.1874:

Zaklex.6308:

Perhaps you missed it, but the entire point of Ep, 7 was for us to get a look at Caithe’s history and get an idea of what might have caused her to steal the Egg at the end of Ep. 6.

Oh, so based on what we learned in Ep 7, why did Caithe steal the Egg?

Lol I was thinking the same thing.

perilisk.1874:

Zaklex.6308:

Perhaps you missed it, but the entire point of Ep, 7 was for us to get a look at Caithe’s history and get an idea of what might have caused her to steal the Egg at the end of Ep. 6.

Oh, so based on what we learned in Ep 7, why did Caithe steal the Egg?

Because she’s not very intelligent? That’s what I feel we learnt from Ep 7 -_-
She blindly does as Faolain says and shows very little regard for the distress she puts Wynne in or the fact that she’s killing a ton of peaceful Centaur who say they DONT want to fight. So basically she completely ignores all of Ventari’s teachings and goes against anything that is supposed to be established as her character. I get that they wanted to establish the relationship between her and Faolain as close, but I don’t think that means she would be a complete imbecile. But hey, maybe she stole the egg because she’s a complete imbecile in which case mission complete/message recieved Anet!

Konig Des Todes.2086:

No offense

Ironically, nothing non-offense has ever followed those words in the history of mankind.

take the dragon egg and throw it into the leyline hub
its all coming together
mwahahahaha

and that Mr.E guy is actually just modys corruption guiding you to do his evil bidding
you never actualy got any mail it was all in your head.
notice how nobody has ever seen him…..

Belenwyn.8674:

We got now so many hints dealing with Rytlock. It would help if we could get some conclusion by the end of the current season.

Ugh… with all the bad imagery we get of Destiny Edge, i hope we do not go down the Biconic VS Iconic route…

So far we got Rytlock down and possible Evil (red and black armor. Either it`s the much wanted and clichè dark knight class, or he has gone to the dark side and is pulling a darth vader with rox)

And we got Caithe, doing weird stuff, which might be concluded or not.

So yeah, two DE`s AWOL.

Let`s see what we can do to the others?

Logan can certainly be pulled down by grief, since it`s his fault that Glint died (his perception) and that can be used to make him an enemy.

Eir is a bit harder, but with her mommy eyes on Braham, she could be pulled back into her role as someone who just wants to do the right thing , even if it is going against her family. She has a history like that.

Zoija… oh please not her, I like her. Well anyway. Being annoyed by the stiff Asura council she goes her own way, cutting loose because of some perversion of snaffs, Taimis or her own ideas.

I really hope that does not happen

Logan has overcomed his grief – what little there was of it – of Snaff and Glint’s death. He’s certainly not pulled down by it. Go play Citadel of Flame story mode (again). He outright states that he had to make a choice and neither choice was the ‘right’ decision, so he doesn’t regret his choice, even though he still feels remorse for Snaff’s death (he doesn’t mention Glint, iirc, but even if he remained Glint would have died).

Zojja has nothing new on her. She always thought that the Arcane Council was full of it during the Personal Story, and has long adopted the approach of “ignore when possible.”

And I honestly see nothing “evil” about Rytlock’s new outfit. His outfit was always black.

Caithe’s attitude is based on her past, so logically, whatever’s happening now she should have always (as long as we’ve known her) had such happening. So she isn’t turning, she’s just being her usual ‘take matters into her own hands without thinking through first’ (remember when she suddenly called all of DE and her idea of helping them overcome the grief of Snaff’s death was “Tyria needs us, we must work together again now work together again!”) and ’don’t tell anyone until necessary’ Night sylvari self.

So really, I see no big change in DE happening.

Nokaru.7831:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

No offense

Ironically, nothing non-offense has ever followed those words in the history of mankind.

Which is why that phrase exists. If the following words weren’t going to be offensive in some manner, then why say “I mean no offense in saying this,” “no offense is intended,” or simply “no offense”?

By stating that phrase, you acknowledge that what you’re about to say can be taken offensively, but also stating that you hope it isn’t taken offensively.

Jaken.6801:

So far we got Rytlock down and possible Evil (red and black armor. Either it`s the much wanted and clichè dark knight class, or he has gone to the dark side and is pulling a darth vader with rox)

Rytlock didn’t turn evil, he just turned awesome®. He’s the king of ghosts now, or something.

I do see Destiny’s Edge changing at the end of LS2. It’s quite possible that Caithe might sacrifice herself and die at the end of the next episode, especially if she is righting a wrong from the past. Rytlock is gone. Zoija isn’t doing much. Destiny’s Edge might split again with Logan and Eir supporting the Pact as well as their other duties.

Rather than “changing” or “splitting up” I think Anet’s actions are leading to DE becoming background figures or written out of the story entirely (be it by death or being put on the proverbial bus), and the reason may be voice acting costs and availability (this is what happens when you take famous voice actors for a video game you intend to have rolling continuous content). Even now, Zojja doesn’t have a single spoken line added since the game’s release (unless I missed something).

This of course could lead to them changing/splitting up, but that’s more of an after-effect.

perilisk.1874:

Zaklex.6308:

Perhaps you missed it, but the entire point of Ep, 7 was for us to get a look at Caithe’s history and get an idea of what might have caused her to steal the Egg at the end of Ep. 6.

Oh, so based on what we learned in Ep 7, why did Caithe steal the Egg?

Unfortunately, we didn’t get inside the cave yet…which is the final piece of information that is needed to learn that information. It’s like being a detective, only you’re missing the one clue that will seal the case…and you have to wait a month to find that clue.

Which is exactly their point, Zaklex. We didn’t learn “anything” of importance. We learned where to go to find it, but Anet put an arbitrary wall blocking progress for the sake of… a terrible cliffhanger?

We learned where we can find an answer, but we have not reached any answers themselves.

Zaklex.6308:

Unfortunately, we didn’t get inside the cave yet…which is the final piece of information that is needed to learn that information. It’s like being a detective, only you’re missing the one clue that will seal the case…and you have to wait a month to find that clue.

That’s nothing new. If you read an old Sherlock Holmes story he’ll solve a mysterious case and tell everyone it was elementary, mainly due to him getting a letter telling him who the murderer was and the reader not finding out until the every end.

PeterFries.1057:

Wow, tough crowd (mops brow, loosens tie nervously like Rodney Dangerfield)…

Maybe I should have just said, “All I know is that I’m excited about we’re working on.”

Feel free to buckle or unbuckle your seat belts according to personal taste and locally legislated safety standards.

Less bout syvalri, more about other races. Also, no more annoying cliffhangers without at least SOME closure…

I know I know. No respect, ya get no respect :p

Serophous.9085:

Less bout syvalri, more about other races. Also, no more annoying cliffhangers without at least SOME closure…

Listen to this man, he’s got some good ideas.

PeterFries.1057:

Wow, tough crowd (mops brow, loosens tie nervously like Rodney Dangerfield)…

Maybe I should have just said, “All I know is that I’m excited about we’re working on.”

Feel free to buckle or unbuckle your seat belts according to personal taste and locally legislated safety standards.

I appreciate that you’re not letting the criticism phase you too much. It’s a good attitude. But it’s worth pointing out that most of your player base fall into that “tough crowd” category. So when people are complaining there’s a problem. Arenanet seems to consistently rely on the whole ‘when you see what’s coming you won’t be disappointed’ line, but players should enjoy everything that is leading up to whatever next big thing you are working on. I know that these forums tend to bring out the overly critical in people, but it would be great if you guys acknowledged that you perhaps need to improve on your middle content. It’s not enough to have a strong start and finish. People want to feel compelled to play the whole way through.

You keep comparing the Living Story to a television season. One of the main problems TV seasons have is that you get a huge spike in ratings for both the first and last episode – everything in between is a lull. Your ending might be great, but it’s losing impact and meaning if people haven’t been enjoying or paying attention to everything in between. It seems like you guys are a fan of big set ups, dropping lots of little clues etc. but people are missing those clues and those set ups aren’t acting as hooks, they’re acting as annoyances.

Tl;dr more focus on story that is compelling the whole way through rather than trying to bank on big reveals that aren’t paying off. I’m loathe to mention this, but remember Scarlet? You guys seemed convinced that once we saw what it had all been leading to (the awakening of Mordremoth) that we would all be satisfied. But the reality is that you have an entire player base who haven’t gotten over how poorly delivered Scarlet’s story is and it keeps being brought up again, oh look at what I’m doing, to emphasise the problems you’re encountering with storytelling.

Zaklex.6308:

Unfortunately, we didn’t get inside the cave yet…which is the final piece of information that is needed to learn that information.

It’s more like the first piece of information needed to learn that information. I enjoyed Ep 7 for what it was, but at the moment it seems like it could have been completely skipped without affecting the broader narrative at all.

/puts on grammar kitten hat

PeterFries.1057:

Wow, tough crowd (mops brow, loosens tie nervously like Rodney Dangerfield)…

Maybe I should have just said, “All I know is that I’m excited about what we’re working on.”

Feel free to buckle or unbuckle your seat belts according to personal taste and locally legislated safety standards.

/takes off grammar kitten hat

You call us tough, I’ll be tough. :P

But more seriously, it’s just an overused line is all, one that doesn’t really work for the reason that FlamingFoxx said – and probably more that my sickened brain cannot really work out atm.