Guild Wars 2

Hey there ANet, good to see a new subforum for this topic finally emerge. Thought I’d just put up a quick post on something I’m sure (hoping) that your story-tellers know and the topic title pretty much sums it up, and what I’d like to see when you take this idea forward.

If you script out the plot too much then the story isn’t really “alive”. It’s on rails. Example: Bad guys appear, harrass npcs, players should start thwarting them, bad guy boss shows up, players kill boss, event reward. End.

Cool. That’s the bread and butter adventure. Sort of like your Karka event.

Better example: Bad guys appear, harrass npcs, players investigate only to find out Bad guys aren’t really bad – town NPCs have been encroaching on their land and being generally kittens. Players can fight on either side, or try stop the fighting through peace. Whatever the outcome has to be reflected in the game permanently.

What was that? The players exploded the black citadel? Okey dokey remove all the npcs and replace them with corpses. Throw in some ascalonian ghosts for good measure. Alternatively, the players wiped out that ogre clan? Cool. Remove those overgrown dead kittens from the map, put a monument to their slaughter somewhere with the name of the highest ogre killer (player) displayed for all to see.

You can even vary the results per server which would be more awesome.

Too hard? Too many varying things to test with limited resources? That’s fine too. There are ways around that like having an ingame ballot where each account (or character for realism) gets to vote for a period of time (a week say) on a major course of action. In the above instance it could be:

a – side with the not so bad guys
b – side with the not so good guys
c – work for a peace treaty
d – lets play them off against each other then wipe both out for epic loot

Once the votes are tallied you then know which way the majority of your players want the story to progress so go that way (ofcourse you have to produce the results of each ballot so the tinfoil hat people don’t get all emo). It is still up to each person to participate in the events that follow anyway so if option D was chosen in my example, the stalwart defenders of good could just sit out of whatever kittenly trickery was to happen, missing out on potential loot and a potential karma hit (set karma to negative maybe) for scummy participants.

If you ever actually get your guild vs guild system running then maybe the stalwart defenders of good (temp guild for event) can even try stop the scum dudes (temp guild for event) and their nefarious plans.

Anywho, just voicing suggestions to help your living world become a reality.

Excellent suggestion, this would be great if the living story didn’t advance every month but instead new chapters would appear every 3 or so. They should give us a few choices and then after a while expand in the direction players have contributed the most.

I understand it’s the most typical thing to do, but I don’t always feel like aligning with the good guys. Of course doing what you suggest is pretty complicated on an MMO, but having a couple choices in story would be nice too.

True, the story choices push you along the good guy path. Going Bad choices would be great, but the game will need redesign.

In PvE I’d like to see the event stories having a long term impact on the zones: eg, repeated event failures during the battles against centaurs, would see the centaurs encroach further across human territories.

This isn’t feasible from a developer’s standpoint.

This isn’t a tabletop RPG; the developers need time and resources in order to create material, more than the GM, who can fly by the seat of their pants if need be.

So, that means in order for anything to be released in a reasonable amount of time it has to be prepared ahead of time. They can’t just stop in the middle of the event to ask what people want to do, and it’s impractical to prepare for so many outcomes that may not even see the light of day.

And you can’t vote ahead of time without spoiling the event.

Moreover, different servers can’t experience different story developments, otherwise some would feel cheated by being forced into a less desirable or interesting path.

Very, very good post.
Seeing how this is currently an MMOG and not an MMORPG since you can’t really pick your role as good/evil but is forced along the good guy path, I agree that this kind of content would suit the game. We don’t have factions, but does that mean that we live in a world of purely “good guys”? No, of course not. People have different opinions, and basically has different ways of striving for what they think is good. It is kind of a clichéed good guy that we play as.

Getting variety like this would be nice. I’m definitely for your suggestion.

Cross.6437:

This isn’t feasible from a developer’s standpoint.

This isn’t a tabletop RPG; the developers need time and resources in order to create material, more than the GM, who can fly by the seat of their pants if need be.

So, that means in order for anything to be released in a reasonable amount of time it has to be prepared ahead of time. They can’t just stop in the middle of the event to ask what people want to do, and it’s impractical to prepare for so many outcomes that may not even see the light of day.

And you can’t vote ahead of time without spoiling the event.

Moreover, different servers can’t experience different story developments, otherwise some would feel cheated by being forced into a less desirable or interesting path.

1.) During beta the developers threw out end-of-beta events like the Shatterer invading an entire zone where the players fought against an invasion where death turned you into one of the invaders. Then they turned an entire zone into an in-depth Hunger Games scenario. They have the systems in place to do things like this on relatively short notice. They have months now to casually put these kinds of events in, which could make the Living Story really feel alive.

2.) Players would effectively “vote” on what to happen next by their actions. In his example with peace/side-1/side-2 as options, the player actions would be votes to tally up.

3.) What is wrong about different servers experiencing different things? We’re adults here, I don’t see why any of us need to be protected from have a “less interesting” path. Plus, we have guesting so you can see the results on other worlds if you really want to.

That’s not a reason to make the story ENTIRELY static. It’s supposed to be a ‘living’ story, and what the OP suggests actually makes it a living story.

Alarox.4590:

During beta the developers threw out end-of-beta events like the Shatterer invading an entire zone where the players fought against an invasion where death turned you into one of the invaders.

(…)

That’s not a reason to make the story ENTIRELY static. It’s supposed to be a ‘living’ story, and what the OP suggests actually makes it a living story.

Wow I wish I was there for one of those events, but I joined at pre-launch and not Beta. I’m game for any of this as long as it doesn’t turn PvE into PvP, and as long as it doesn’t make getting stuff that matters out of reach (e.g. in GW: Factions where you lose access to skill trainers if Kurzick/Luxon wasn’t going your way).
That means if a server gets their Hoelbrak or Black Citadel ravaged, then all the exploration points and the cultural weapon/armorsmith should still be accessible. That said, it would be interesting what people would see from their Vistas in a destroyed city :P

I really like this idea!

But instead of a ballot why not:

1. Make dynamic events for each “choice”.

In your example, there could be a dynamic event chain for saving the town from invaders that triggers every other hour (for example).

Another dynamic event could also trigger in another area of the map relating to the invaders. This time, show casing their side of the conflict.

These two event could merge at some point and players can be tagged for PVP.

You could also add ANOTHER dynamic event chain that will address the “neutral” position between the two factions.

2. Players that participated in either of the three DE chains are locked out of the other two for the rest of the day. They can still play the chosen DE chain until it resets. And can choose another action on the next day if they want but will again be locked out from the other two.

3. Tally all the players that participate on said events per day and average all three choices at the end of, let’s say, three month period to choose the permanent world chaning that wil happen. This can include map changes or NPC locations.

4. Open up another dynamic event chain for each choice when the average tally for each choice reaches a certain level to make it more engaging, i.e. invaders will now also attack the next town OR the villagers will now go on the offensive from being scared and helpless.

A daily chest can also be rewarded if you complete an event for the first time.

After the three month period, the outcome of the conflict we permanently affect the world on that server.

With guesting, you can visit other servers who had a different outcome to the same event.

So, what do you think?