Guild Wars 2

To start off, the 8 hours in the title isn’t 100% accurate because I’m sure you could fly through the content in less time if you put your heart to it. It’s there as an approximation of how much time avg players spend to complete all the LS. Others also might say that 8 hours isn’t very much, but that is beside the point of this post and many people may have 0 hours to play games for certain long periods of time. Should they not be allowed to experience what the rest of us experienced?

A friend of mine logged in for the first time in about half a year, looking to “catch up” on GuildWars 2 (i.e. run dungeons and play the LS content that he missed). I brought him to the marionette fight, we killed it and this was repeated, then we grabbed some of the power cores and he saw the secret lab. After this I told him that’s all there was to show in terms of living story. He was bummed, as he has no understanding of what any of the alliances are, what Scarlet has been doing and what we as players have been doing to stay busy.

Sure, he can read about it online or I can explain it to him but this no where as engaging as a game should be.

I played WoW a lot in highschool, back when I had time and my parents money. While in college, I would come back for a few months toward the end of each expansion and run ALL the content leading up to the final boss kill and complete most the lore. There was plenty for me to do, and it felt like a story to me. Its not like each time WoW offered a new expansion or raid patch they removed the last one, because that last patch was essential for telling the story as a whole. I know “Anet wants to make a changing world” well make it a world that can be revisited or progressed through properly.

In a hypothetical situation, pretending that all the Scarlet LS is an expansion, its as if you get this expansion but you can only kill the most recent boss or see the most recent content. Now, I’m not sure what LS they will keep in these next four patches, but they already removed so much of the stuff that they built! I understand that there are the two partial fractal bosses and the Aetherpath, but there is no lore to say what the kitten it is there for or what order things happened in. Its not like ANet doesn’t have the staff to give us repeatable content, just make an instance that people can progress through if they want to…so much of the LS is instanced I don’t see why they cant do it. The way that GW2 designed the gear and level scaling is such that you can stop playing for a while and your progress in terms of the game won’t be hindered, but the way they designed the LS is that if you aren’t here for each patch, you are missing out on nearly everything that patch offered which imo is worse than having to play gear catch up. I’m still going to play GW2 but I think that the way LS is offered right now is truly hurting the game. LS could be viewed as an “expansion” if it stayed around

TL;DR People should be able to re-experience or progress through the main plot of LS

Luckily the main story isn’t very good so missing it is not as bad is it could be. Imagine if it were Game of Thrones quality.

Fantastic.5298:

A friend of mine logged in for the first time in about half a year,

It is ridiculous to ask the devs to tell you what happens in half of year if you dont log in.
In real life, aka living world, If you leave your country for a while and you don’t even read the news how do you think the government will tell you what has happened while you were away? maybe three were strikes, maybe a new elections, maybe the government is totally changed… you just come and see what there is and hope others will tell you what happened but you will not be able to see all the news bulletins and other things live

So, if you want to know what happens in the game you should do a little effort and read about it not waiting for it to be handed to you on a plate
It is the living world concept and it will not go away, hopefully

Fantastic.5298:

After this I told him that’s all there was to show in terms of living story. He was bummed, as he has no understanding of what any of the alliances are, what Scarlet has been doing and what we as players have been doing to stay busy.

There is actually a Story Instance in LA with nearly all main characters from the LS so far, and the discussions between them refer to many past LS updates, giving the new player something to understand the past of the LS. Check your UI next time

Lord Kuru.3685:

Luckily the main story isn’t very good so missing it is not as bad is it could be. Imagine if it were Game of Thrones quality.

Wouldn’t we all be dead at the end of Flame and Frost..?

EragamerLG.2390:

Fantastic.5298:

After this I told him that’s all there was to show in terms of living story. He was bummed, as he has no understanding of what any of the alliances are, what Scarlet has been doing and what we as players have been doing to stay busy.

There is actually a Story Instance in LA with nearly all main characters from the LS so far, and the discussions between them refer to many past LS updates, giving the new player something to understand the past of the LS. Check your UI next time

This. Also, there are those nifty videos summing up what happened so far in the living story

The whole point of having limited-time content is to get people to actually keep playing and keep logging in though, so it is kind of understandable that you won’t be able to grasp everything that went on while you were away. It is kind of working as intended I think…

Aside from that though, we know that Anet is thinking about and working on better ways to allow us to recap what happened so far in the game. There was a CDI about this I think.

Ronah.2869:

Fantastic.5298:

A friend of mine logged in for the first time in about half a year,

It is ridiculous to ask the devs to tell you what happens in half of year if you dont log in.
In real life, aka living world, If you leave your country for a while and you don’t even read the news how do you think the government will tell you what has happened while you were away? maybe three were strikes, maybe a new elections, maybe the government is totally changed… you just come and see what there is and hope others will tell you what happened but you will not be able to see all the news bulletins and other things live

So, if you want to know what happens in the game you should do a little effort and read about it not waiting for it to be handed to you on a plate
It is the living world concept and it will not go away, hopefully

The “real life” argument is getting old. This isn’t a life simulator. It’s a fantasy MMO. He doesn’t necessarily want to just read about what happened…he wants to play it. And if this were a true “living” world, then events wouldn’t happen every two hours. They’d be one and done. I’m with the OP, I just don’t care for the whole LW model. It sounds cool, and I know people who play this game exclusively love it, but it’s just not my cup of tea. I like to go back and play through old content at my leisure. That’s just not possible with this stuff.

Nat.4029:

Ronah.2869:

Fantastic.5298:

A friend of mine logged in for the first time in about half a year,

It is ridiculous to ask the devs to tell you what happens in half of year if you dont log in.
In real life, aka living world, If you leave your country for a while and you don’t even read the news how do you think the government will tell you what has happened while you were away? maybe three were strikes, maybe a new elections, maybe the government is totally changed… you just come and see what there is and hope others will tell you what happened but you will not be able to see all the news bulletins and other things live

So, if you want to know what happens in the game you should do a little effort and read about it not waiting for it to be handed to you on a plate
It is the living world concept and it will not go away, hopefully

The “real life” argument is getting old. This isn’t a life simulator. It’s a fantasy MMO. He doesn’t necessarily want to just read about what happened…he wants to play it. And if this were a true “living” world, then events wouldn’t happen every two hours. They’d be one and done. I’m with the OP, I just don’t care for the whole LW model. It sounds cool, and I know people who play this game exclusively love it, but it’s just not my cup of tea. I like to go back and play through old content at my leisure. That’s just not possible with this stuff.

Thank you, it seems like people take offense to the fact that I’m suggesting the content be available after the LS takes place. Reading about a game is not the same thing as experiencing it, is it too much to ask for to make the content repeatable.

A recommendation I have is to have a historian-NPC for each living story in our home instance(which right now is completely empty except for some ore) that you can go up to and talk to, who will ask you,
“Which of these stories would you like me to retell?”

And you, the player can say for instance,

“I would like to hear about the Tower of Nightmares again”

and they would put you in that instance and we would pretty much play through our own story. And this can be done for any of the LS patches, whether it be helping out the homeless people during flame and frost or participating in the Queens Jubilee instance when you must destroy the watchwork minions. Sure some of the instances would have to be tweaked but I think to reshow those cinematics and content would be great. I think it would greatly improve the replayability of the content and it would keep the rest of the world, up-to-date and living

Yeah. The problem isn’t getting caught up on the story because it’s a Living Story. You experience the events as they happen instead of just reading it in Lore. Unfortunately for your friend, they now have missed GW2 lore and have to do research to get caught up.

As others have said, there is the Scribe in LA that helps with the story a little as well as gets you caught up on the Characters. There is also the Wiki and Youtube Vids to help if need be. As for playing parts, you can do Fractals and hope to get the Flame and Frost and Aetherblade Fractals. They both give you a small fraction of those LS dungeons. The Flame and Frost one I played for the first time over the weekend and it was pretty cool the nostalgia that one brought back.

Tell your friend not to leave the game anymore so they don’t miss out on all the cool stuff

Lord Kuru.3685:

Luckily the main story isn’t very good so missing it is not as bad is it could be. Imagine if it were Game of Thrones quality.

Besides, if you miss out, you can just get caught up by way of any of the myriad social media channels ArenaNet employs to get the word out there. Granted, it’s not ‘in the game,’ but then what gaming company these days still puts the whole hill of beans in the can? Erm… tin, I meant to say “tin”!

There’s a huge difference between reading up or watching videos about what has happened so far, and actually getting to fight some of these characters, or hearing them speak in front of you, or watching the cut scenes.

Anyone designing a game with features to get you to keep logging in by using limited-time content is doing it all wrong, imho. It’s been tried before many times, and it always leads to the same problem, you annoy people who don’t have the time, and you make the game feel more like work.

Want people logging in often? Give them incentives to do so, instead of punishing them for not doing so.

Anyway, I’d really love to see something in the game such as an “Asuran Historical Simulator.” This would be something akin to the Super Adventure Box where players can relive past stories instead of missing out completely for not being around, or picking up the game after certain events have passed.

Another way is to use something like what World of Warcraft uses, a dynamic world per player, where you only see up to what you’ve accomplished and experienced, instead of tying things to the server.

This is easily my biggest pet peeve about GW2. It’s one of the reasons why I took nearly a year off from the game.

Also, let’s not forget many of these living story events require a lot of players and a lot of time, so it’s not always a simple matter of logging in during the events.

Ronah.2869:

Fantastic.5298:

A friend of mine logged in for the first time in about half a year,

It is ridiculous to ask the devs to tell you what happens in half of year if you dont log in.
In real life, aka living world, If you leave your country for a while and you don’t even read the news how do you think the government will tell you what has happened while you were away? maybe three were strikes, maybe a new elections, maybe the government is totally changed… you just come and see what there is and hope others will tell you what happened but you will not be able to see all the news bulletins and other things live

So, if you want to know what happens in the game you should do a little effort and read about it not waiting for it to be handed to you on a plate
It is the living world concept and it will not go away, hopefully

You don’t understand some people’s lives.
.
Try being a military person who diligently plays the game.
.
Then you are posted to a country where the internet isn’t available for gaming – a year or more and you are then told by your game “tough”.
.
Military and others who must go away for extended business trips should not be penalized for their work or service and I believe not allowing for their very valid “excuses” – READ REASONS – to be accommodated a bit not out of the realm of kind to amazing – but I have yet to see amazing from this game just more grind and several apologies without substance in emails.
.
I am cognitively disabled – this game is my link to connecting the dots so I don’t lose MORE abilities than I already have. I am a veteran who knows a bit about the long weeks and months away from all that is normal or functional, those who are asking for a TINY bit of accommodation are not doing it out of “poor, poor, pitiful me” but rather a sincere desire to stay connected to the world, guilds and friends that are made in a game that is becoming far more than “just a game” for many.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Luckily the main story isn’t very good so missing it is not as bad is it could be. Imagine if it were Game of Thrones quality.

I will!….If it were Game of Thrones quality, would read the book to see what happened if I missed an episode, in the same way people look online to read the wiki to see what happened in Guild Wars 2…

Can we combine this thread with one of the thousand other times this has come up?

It’s a Living World, people. Love it or leave it, but don’t try to change it.

Historian to replay past events is too GW1 for this game

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Bonus_Mission_Pack

You only need to spend about 2 hours at most every two weeks for just the story content. You can then complete the meta with an additional amount of time by doing the living story specific daily. If you want all of the achievements then that will take more time but doesn’t contribute to the story.

jsduke.6537:

Can we combine this thread with one of the thousand other times this has come up?

It’s a Living World, people. Love it or leave it, but don’t try to change it.

Really? So you haven’t made any suggestions for changing the game, ever? Because you totally think we shouldn’t try to change anything about the game? That’s interesting, considering your participation in the CDI threads.

TLDR: You’ve no right to tell others not to try to change things. They paid for the game, too.

minbariguy.7504:

jsduke.6537:

Can we combine this thread with one of the thousand other times this has come up?

It’s a Living World, people. Love it or leave it, but don’t try to change it.

Really? So you haven’t made any suggestions for changing the game, ever? Because you totally think we shouldn’t try to change anything about the game? That’s interesting, considering your participation in the CDI threads.

TLDR: You’ve no right to tell others not to try to change things. They paid for the game, too.

Amen.

If we didn’t try to change things, I think we’d still be living in caves. (Thanks, The Croods. Great movie.)

So I agree with catching up on the store. I came back from after awhile and apart from reading up on the story online there is know way to find out what happened.

They should make a way to redo the store missions. Let on of the races come up with a memory device or something that lets you relive the store missions. Or something.

totally agree with this thread.. i bought gw1 but never played it until yesterday
so i’m hoping arenanet readily makes available the past 9 wintersdays

cheshirefox.7026:

totally agree with this thread.. i bought gw1 but never played it until yesterday
so i’m hoping arenanet readily makes available the past 9 wintersdays

Sigh…

No one is asking for temporary holiday events to be replayable at any time. Or even the occasional non-holiday special event, for that matter. It is perfectly reasonable to have occasional things that players might miss.

But when your main method of content delivery, occurring every two weeks, is stuff that players can only achieve and/or experience in a limited window of time, that is a problem for a lot of people.

Randulf.7614:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Luckily the main story isn’t very good so missing it is not as bad is it could be. Imagine if it were Game of Thrones quality.

Wouldn’t we all be dead at the end of Flame and Frost..?

Except that the only Personal Story character that anyone cared about was already killed off throughout the course of the personal story…

If Logan, Anise, Jennah, Faren, Rytlock, Caithe, Traeherne, Zojja, or Eir were killed off… No one would care.

Sad but true. They’d probably have the same impact as killing off random NPC #12.

I think they realized that Destiny’s Edge was far too “whiny” in the Personal Story, so they tried to create a new group of NPC heroes.

Guilds break up for a reason. Maybe they’re better off apart.
Rytlock running the Black Citadel and Logan doing whatever he does.

With the Pact now formed, Destiny Edge’s importance has dwindled.

Now, on the other hand, since we’ve been introduced to and spent time with this Living Story cast, they’re prime for the picking.

Imagine the outrage if Jory or Kasmeer were killed.

EragamerLG.2390:

Fantastic.5298:

After this I told him that’s all there was to show in terms of living story. He was bummed, as he has no understanding of what any of the alliances are, what Scarlet has been doing and what we as players have been doing to stay busy.

There is actually a Story Instance in LA with nearly all main characters from the LS so far, and the discussions between them refer to many past LS updates, giving the new player something to understand the past of the LS. Check your UI next time

I honestly never noticed this feature. Thanks!

I just want to be able to relive the story not replay crappy Holiday content.

..I really don’t understand how people get so irate over the idea of having Anet add in a historian NPC that lets players relive the Living Story…

I mean, these people are essentially saying that they don’t want additional content in GW2, and are content with the pathetically hollow and shallow content we have now in the game.

Imagine if all the content over the past year of LS was still in the game. I would actually be praising Anet instead of constantly criticizing them for being able to put out that much content into the game over the course of the year. GW2 would be bursting at the seams with things to do, people wouldn’t feel forced to log into the game every two weeks and hurry through the story segments to start their achievement grind, and we’d have more PvP game modes than you could shake a fist at.

Remind me how any of that is bad? How would having the Tower of Nightmares instance present through a Historian NPC be bad? How would having the Molten Facility and Aetherblade Base present as new Explorable Dungeons with their own unique skins be bad? How would having the Zephyr Sanctum still be present, with all it’s fun time happiness mini games, be bad?

And of course, how would having what essentially amounts to a second personal story, re-playable whenever you make a new character, be bad?

Do people really not realize that when they’re arguing against the idea of having LS content be entirely permanent, they’re quite literally arguing against having more content in the game? Or has Anet actually managed to brainwash people into thinking the LS is a good idea, and that having temporary content is better than bucket loads of permanent content.

Apparently its considered wrong to want to experience the game content like the op suggests. (Take a break, come back and play it all at once). It is supposedly better for it to disappear.

The usual comment is: its easy to get it done in the time available, you can watch it on youtube, and if you haven’t been here all along you don’t deserve to play it cause if this were real life you couldn’t just do stuff whenever you want. Did I miss anything?

I don’t necessarily agree with making the ‘content’ readily available for those that miss it. I mean, I can’t see people trying to take on even an instanced version of the marionette …say a year from now.

However, I do think some type of historian or npc herald with some replayable cut scenes to get a returned player caught up to the current story in game would not go astray. Give the returning player a chance to catch up, meet the cast, etc. This could also serve the additional function of allowing those that didn’t quite catch everything in the most recent story chunk to perhaps do so – story wise anyway.

The Marionette likely wouldn’t be feasible due to the sheer number of people needed for a kill, unless they turn it into a special kind of guild mission that could be started up “as needed” and therefore could take steps to gather up enough participants beforehand.

But that said, I see no reason why all the “story instances” couldn’t be available for replay through a Historian NPC. This includes other soloable instances like when Braham recaptured Cragstead or the fight against the Toxic Hybrid.

I can appreciate how busy real life can be and the frustrations of players who genuinely want to experience the content but are unable to do so due to circumstances beyond their control. These are the dedicated fans who, if their situation was different, would easily find a couple hours every two weeks to log in and experience the content as the developers have intended.

The rest are your classic MMO hoppers who are frustrated that this particular game won’t provide a backlog of content for them to devour when their current game of choice gets played out. These people rarely support any titles they play beyond the cost to actually play it, and considering GW2 is already free it makes no sense to dedicate development time toward their interests.

I don’t mind watching a youtube video of events I’ve missed, I don’t mind missing out on achievements I didn’t have the time to grind out. I play this game because I enjoy the world the developers have created, because the lore has depth and provokes enlightened discussion and speculation. I play because the environments are well crafted and satisfy my need to explore, to discover all the little details that aren’t attached to quests or specific storylines. A current, evolving game world that changes and grows irrespective of my progress within it possesses greater immersion than one that puts itself on pause the moment I log off. It’s that immersive quality that keeps me tied to this game, or any other game for that matter.

What I would like to see however, are more cut scenes/cinematics made available from journals or NPCs to catch players up on past living world updates. For those who absolutely MUST have access to the story instances and group-based content in previous updates, there’s nothing wrong with bringing them back in an adjusted fashion via Fractals.

Personally, I’m looking forward to an eventual Marionette fractal boss. Jury is still out on the Ancient Kharka though.

it’s sad really, you can do all kinds of quests, missions and (kinda) LS in GW1 at your own pace but they keep on forcing ppl to play GW2 or you’ll miss stuff.
so in a nutshell, they first made a game perfectly balance between 2 kinds of players and then make a new game made only for 1 kind of player, the “i play GW2 8 hours a day” crowd.

Blade Syphon.4325:

..I really don’t understand how people get so irate over the idea of having Anet add in a historian NPC that lets players relive the Living Story…

I mean, these people are essentially saying that they don’t want additional content in GW2, and are content with the pathetically hollow and shallow content we have now in the game.

Imagine if all the content over the past year of LS was still in the game. I would actually be praising Anet instead of constantly criticizing them for being able to put out that much content into the game over the course of the year. GW2 would be bursting at the seams with things to do, people wouldn’t feel forced to log into the game every two weeks and hurry through the story segments to start their achievement grind, and we’d have more PvP game modes than you could shake a fist at.

Remind me how any of that is bad? How would having the Tower of Nightmares instance present through a Historian NPC be bad? How would having the Molten Facility and Aetherblade Base present as new Explorable Dungeons with their own unique skins be bad? How would having the Zephyr Sanctum still be present, with all it’s fun time happiness mini games, be bad?

And of course, how would having what essentially amounts to a second personal story, re-playable whenever you make a new character, be bad?

Do people really not realize that when they’re arguing against the idea of having LS content be entirely permanent, they’re quite literally arguing against having more content in the game? Or has Anet actually managed to brainwash people into thinking the LS is a good idea, and that having temporary content is better than bucket loads of permanent content.

This is EXACTLY the problem with this game. I’ve been playing it for over a year, and I barely recognize any of the stuff he’s mentioned. Why? Because it’s here today and gone tomorrow, more or less.

Fantastic.5298:

In a hypothetical situation, pretending that all the Scarlet LS is an expansion, its as if you get this expansion but you can only kill the most recent boss or see the most recent content.

That hypotheticality doesn’t exist. You are pretending the LS is something very different to what it is. LS is NOT an expansion in the traditional sense that WoW offers. It’s more like a series of events, where there is always at least one happening, but the new quests, festival items, etc are only available while that festival is going on. A boxed expansion is something very, very different.

/thread

Note: I have never played WoW

I just read another thread about people missing out on Living Story rewards. And I can understand the whole thing about missing out on the story because I was on a trip and missed most of Queen’s Jubilee and felt a bit out of the loop for a while afterward. I don’t think this model isn’t very good for everyone. I’ve managed to keep up with most of it, but it sort of feels like a chore… Surely there’s a better way.

I’m one of those who is lucky to play 1 hour or 2 hours a week or perhaps 4-6, maybe 8 hours a month.

No, I don’t miss the living story. I don’t play much due to my real life, but that’s ok. Most of the story, I do get to experience a little of it. Rarely do I earn anything, but again, that’s ok.

Been playing GW2 since release and all 5 of my characters are about levels 29-31. I do keep up with the story through the historian things. To me it’s like reading a book and I enjoy keeping up with what I cannot always experience.

Yes, there are some drawbacks, such as finding a group to do the very first personal story dungeon. I still haven’t done that one yet since my personal story isn’t up to that part. That’s OK.

My crafting is just up to around level 78-100. It’s getting there. It’s OK.

I understand and it doesn’t make the game any less appealing to me. I play solo due to my personal life. That’s OK, too.

I don’t feel like I HAVE to be at cap. I don’t feel like I HAVE to keep up with everyone else.

I have my own world within GW2 and frankly, I’m having a blast even if I can only play for 15 – 30 minutes before I have to log off.

And no, I don’t need anything special from ArenaNet. IMHO, I think this game is fantastic as it is. I do like the changing world, even if I can’t complete everything offered by the devs. That’s OK.

I cam’t complete everything offered in the real world either. Good adventure to y’all.

This is considered A Living Story. Time should not stop for players who where not around nor new players.. We don’t have time machines to go back and relive past events in the real world. We read about it or watch d footage of it. This should be the only way for people to “relive” past events.. Snooze you lose!

NYG.2568:

This is considered A Living Story. Time should not stop for players who where not around nor new players.. We don’t have time machines to go back and relive past events in the real world. We read about it or watch d footage of it. This should be the only way for people to “relive” past events.. Snooze you lose!

yet in GW1 you can do exactly that, WiK and WoC are pretty much the LS of GW1 and you can play them at your own pace.
nothing is removed after a while, everything is put on pause till you continue.

sorudo.9054:

NYG.2568:

This is considered A Living Story. Time should not stop for players who where not around nor new players.. We don’t have time machines to go back and relive past events in the real world. We read about it or watch d footage of it. This should be the only way for people to “relive” past events.. Snooze you lose!

yet in GW1 you can do exactly that, WiK and WoC are pretty much the LS of GW1 and you can play them at your own pace.
nothing is removed after a while, everything is put on pause till you continue.

Perhaps you don’t understand Living as in Breathing. Here today gone tomorrow. Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 are to very different games. The Devs as far as I or most can tell are trying to make it as if the events going on in Tyria are the same as in the real world real time. You shouldnt be able to go back and relive say the events of 9/11 as if it just happened(not that anyone would want to).I do agree though that there should be some sort of summary for Lacking/new players on past story events.

So here’s the deal. It’s not unreasonable to want to be able to go back and watch cut scenes and do instanced portions of the LS, like when the player enters the tower of nightmares.

You can’t allow people to play through entire updates though. I agree with what NYG said above, that the aim of the Living Story is to feel like a LIVING story. Everything that changes in the world is made coherent through the narrative.

But imagine if people could just go back and repeat the attack on Southsun or aiding the refugees during the Molten Alliance story: eventually you get fewer and fewer people doing the current living story. I think they want you to try to keep up with what’s going on with the living story in the present because other players playing with you is part of the game they’re selling.

I feel there’s room for compromise.

First, there should be a Historian NPC in your Home Instance, or maybe a Living Story NPC in the appropriate zone, where if you talk to them, you can replay instanced content like Braham’s attempt to retake Cragstead, or the Aetherblade Retreat dungeon (along with the appropriate rewards). This lets people who came late to the party to experience the important parts of what they missed firsthand, and also lets people who enjoyed the content replay it if that’s what they like to do.

Content that affects the actual open world, such as Toxic Offshoots, Molten Periscopes etc. shouldn’t return, but they should leave behind evidence of their presence so the open world doesn’t feel forever static and unchanging. (Although personally I don’t mind that.)

Finally, some of the “zerg content” such as the Tower of Nightmares or the Marionette Battle could be reworked into special Guild Missions that must be completed within 30 mins (or 1 hour). This allows large guilds to gather up their members (recruiting more in LA if they want), and launch the content basically on demand.

I feel that this setup would allow ANet to preserve some of their excellent work and let players continue to enjoy it, but also infuse the world with a changing landscape over time.

Living Story is a marketing tactic designed to keep players loyal. It’s a carrot on a stick that’s how they’ve been using it atleast. Generally speaking, some players get to feel special because they have a title, backpiece or pet that is now unobtainable and the rest get to feel left out.

I don’t understand how always removing things from your game can possibly be a good thing. A game is a leisure activity that can provide users with hundreds of hours of entertainment. Why keep adding fresh, interesting content only to rip it away again? Who does that benefit? And why?

People who are present during a Story segment can experience it firsthand, then once it’s removed they can go “huh? stuff changed? cool!”.

…Meanwhile anyone who hasn’t been monitoring this game would log in after a year, say to themselves “I wonder what new stuff is happening” and find they have only a small scrap of the Story to experience. They don’t get to have an entire year’s worth of content. They get a tiny piece – like a page torn from a book. Who does this benefit? It benefits ArenaNet. Players will continue logging in to minimse the risk of losing one-time rewards like backpieces and story experiences. And anyone who doesn’t have the time to log in loses out.

GW2 puts so much effort into temporary content because it’s a great way to force players to log in. And the rest of the game suffers for it. You can see it with the steadily increasing number of bugs every patch which somehow manage to bleed out of the LS and into other aspects of the game. This week’s New Bug™ is when my character switches to town clothes he has a hole through his chest where parts of the texture have turned invisible. Kinda weird that messing with Lion’s Arch has affected some clothing but okay.

I am totally new to this game. So I haven’t the slightest clue what happenend, who the hell is scarlet, and why I should care about it.

As example: I am annoyed as hell about the toxic crap events, because they make absolute NO sense. They don’t fit in any personal story branches, and have nothing to do with the envirement or backstories.

And If I can’t relive the story, I am totaly not interested in “actual” events. Point.

It has simple no meaning and no sense at all for me. And I don’t kill things without a good reason — that’s boring -that means, I need a story. From beginning to the end.

I will play the personal stories, and after that, I am gone for good.

The argument of the living world is bullkitten. On different servers you can have diffent world instances, show different timelines, and after reaching a certain point of the story, the character has to go forward to the the next server/instance in time, unless he reaches the actual story branch.

Otherwise they betray new players. They do not get the whole content. It’s as simple as that.

A living world, and telling a personal story do simply not work out, if you try it in one instance.

NYG.2568:

This is considered A Living Story. Time should not stop for players who where not around nor new players.. We don’t have time machines to go back and relive past events in the real world. We read about it or watch d footage of it. This should be the only way for people to “relive” past events.. Snooze you lose!

But what benefit does this lend the game? Realism is an important part of immersion but deadlines, time-sensitive content, and the regret of missed opportunities are things I specifically DO NOT want in a game. Part of playing a game for me is exactly so I can escape these particular aspects of reality. A place where I can enjoy myself at my own pace without the fear of missing content.

And again, what benefit does this adherence to real-time story lend to the game? Does the idea that the universe is temporally consistent truly add a large amount of enjoyment to your gaming experience?

Lord Kuru.3685:

Luckily the main story isn’t very good so missing it is not as bad is it could be. Imagine if it were Game of Thrones quality.

So Comparing Game of Thrones(Book) to LS(Game) which took over 20 years to write vs. this which only took 1. Who is to say that in 20 years LS won’t have Game of Thrones quality. It is like saying you read 1/5th of a book and decided you didn’t like it when all it had was the character introductions. So u can’t really compare games and books in the end. Also, well written books take a long time to write, just look at “Name of the Wind” still waiting for those. Concept of LS and a living world is the holy grail of video games.

My solution for video games would be to give all players one character and one npc to make a macro loop with dialogs and quests . That way the world will be constantly changing with payers constantly designing updates they want in the game. A guild could create invading armies of npcs and such and such. Anyway the through separating the processing of each npc to each player would allow them to possibly have very complex dynamics.

Point is you can compare the story development times between LS and a well known book at all.

The answer is, tough. You will have to learn to accept it. Even if you did have access to the old Living Story, it wouldn’t be the living story because it wouldn’t be what’s currently happening and affecting the world.

If you are unsatisfied because you missed that experience, and wish to be able to have it now, you can’t. You can’t ever recreate it because it’s already happened. Bringing it back won’t make it happen again. You might get access to the content, but even having access to the content won’t change that you missed out on it when it was alive and part of the world that everyone is experiencing with you. Its the community experiencing it together that really makes it what it is. You would be better off accepting it and looking forward to more new content that’s to come and being a part of that.

NYG.2568:

sorudo.9054:

NYG.2568:

This is considered A Living Story. Time should not stop for players who where not around nor new players.. We don’t have time machines to go back and relive past events in the real world. We read about it or watch d footage of it. This should be the only way for people to “relive” past events.. Snooze you lose!

yet in GW1 you can do exactly that, WiK and WoC are pretty much the LS of GW1 and you can play them at your own pace.
nothing is removed after a while, everything is put on pause till you continue.

Perhaps you don’t understand Living as in Breathing. Here today gone tomorrow. Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 are to very different games. The Devs as far as I or most can tell are trying to make it as if the events going on in Tyria are the same as in the real world real time. You shouldnt be able to go back and relive say the events of 9/11 as if it just happened(not that anyone would want to).I do agree though that there should be some sort of summary for Lacking/new players on past story events.

it’s still a game and any game i have played (and it’s allot) gives everyone the chance to play the game at their pace, this game tries to simulate a living breathing world but it fails even at that.

if you truly want a living breathing world then we would be able to march right to scarlet’s hideouts and destroy them permanently, we would be able to get LA back within a day and we would be able to destroy the drill within 15 minutes.
or better yet, a truly breathing world let’s us permanently change the world beyond recognition.
one player could push an event that causes a great war, the other could even single handedly stop a war by simply killing the general or whoever the leader is.

for instance, let’s say there is a camp where the leader of all centaurs is, i march to this camp with 2 other players and kill the general.
currently the game simply respawns the general after a set time, a true living world makes the kill permanently and even makes sure i stopped the war with my 2 fellow players.

i think you don’t understand a true living breathing world, all we have now are events that constantly changes maps of the world.
it’s filled with new enemies and new achievements but the fact is, it’s still not a living breathing world, just a generic event made to keep players busy.

Zaxares.5419:

The Marionette likely wouldn’t be feasible due to the sheer number of people needed for a kill, unless they turn it into a special kind of guild mission that could be started up “as needed” and therefore could take steps to gather up enough participants beforehand.

But that said, I see no reason why all the “story instances” couldn’t be available for replay through a Historian NPC. This includes other soloable instances like when Braham recaptured Cragstead or the fight against the Toxic Hybrid.

I like the guild mission idea for the marionette battle. It would be cool if it was available as an instanced guild mission. However, people would complain about it being only available to large guilds.

sorudo.9054:

NYG.2568:

sorudo.9054:

NYG.2568:

This is considered A Living Story. Time should not stop for players who where not around nor new players.. We don’t have time machines to go back and relive past events in the real world. We read about it or watch d footage of it. This should be the only way for people to “relive” past events.. Snooze you lose!

yet in GW1 you can do exactly that, WiK and WoC are pretty much the LS of GW1 and you can play them at your own pace.
nothing is removed after a while, everything is put on pause till you continue.

Perhaps you don’t understand Living as in Breathing. Here today gone tomorrow. Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 are to very different games. The Devs as far as I or most can tell are trying to make it as if the events going on in Tyria are the same as in the real world real time. You shouldnt be able to go back and relive say the events of 9/11 as if it just happened(not that anyone would want to).I do agree though that there should be some sort of summary for Lacking/new players on past story events.

it’s still a game and any game i have played (and it’s allot) gives everyone the chance to play the game at their pace, this game tries to simulate a living breathing world but it fails even at that.

if you truly want a living breathing world then we would be able to march right to scarlet’s hideouts and destroy them permanently, we would be able to get LA back within a day and we would be able to destroy the drill within 15 minutes.
or better yet, a truly breathing world let’s us permanently change the world beyond recognition.
one player could push an event that causes a great war, the other could even single handedly stop a war by simply killing the general or whoever the leader is.

for instance, let’s say there is a camp where the leader of all centaurs is, i march to this camp with 2 other players and kill the general.
currently the game simply respawns the general after a set time, a true living world makes the kill permanently and even makes sure i stopped the war with my 2 fellow players.

i think you don’t understand a true living breathing world, all we have now are events that constantly changes maps of the world.
it’s filled with new enemies and new achievements but the fact is, it’s still not a living breathing world, just a generic event made to keep players busy.

You are correct. It’s not a true living world, but that is of course not what anyone has described it as either. Your doing such is a poor try at discrediting the Living STory or what it actually is.

It’s an evolving storyline that gives the world a sense of progression, of history, by moving a story forward in that world. Those events, just like real life, come to be and then pass and as such the world is given a history that players were able to experience.

It’s not difficult to understand, nor is it difficult to understand why that content is then not left available in the world. Doing so would defeat the purpose. Perhaps ANET will create some kind of a loophole where players can “relive” or “imagine” those events, but even so it would not be the same because you aren’t living it in the moment with everyone else!

Why not just skip the living story bits that don’t offer interesting gameplay? The actual storytelling is pretty poor (not up to Anet’s previous work).

My only problem, and everybody seems to gloss over it anyways, with this is how in the name of hell would they even be able to bring all of those back and make them work? Ok, things like zephir sanctum, the gauntlet, SAB or some of the newer story instances that can work as solo play, sure, but the big scale events like southsun, dragon bash, queens jubilee, the tower, marionette? I really can’t see how you can make an instance for those let alone find the number of players necessary for that content or how to party them up considering the overflow system or just the games coding in general.

do not compare/ confuse living story with expansio packs, real expansion packs will come but make no mistake a person who plays 0 hours does not have the right to anything in game, at all….ever

u dont play, i dont care, end of discussion