Guild Wars 2

I would say you’re both right and wrong. You are right about the recent plots not having much impact. The Aetherblades show up out of nowhere and interfered with a festival that’s about uniting to overcome the overwhelming threat of the elder dragons. Then they only get a dungeon, a jumping puzzle and occasionally pop up in very remote locations around the world. Worst of all, there’s no lasting impact. The world really hasn’t changed except for some pirate councilor dying and that was so trivial, I can’t even remember his name. If they really wanted to make an impact, they should have killed off a member of Destiny’s Edge, Queen Jenna or even Trehearne (though that will likely be met with fanfare) then have Lion’s Arch on high alert while an Aetherblades dynamic event has a chance to spawn in any highly populated area, including cities. That would have got people talking and made one thing clear: no character has plot armor.

That said, I must also insist that you’re wrong because stories need peaks and valleys. You can’t have something exciting happen every single update because it will be expected to be topped the next time. This pushes the creators to constantly clamor for something bigger and better, which always ends in stories ramping up to ludicrous proportions. It happens in shounen anime all the time. Dragon kitten, Fairy Tail and Naruto are extremely guilty of this. Bleach is the worst of the bunch as, when it began, it had a very good flow and focused on flushing out the main characters’ personalities, life views and aspirations . Eventually though, a female because the token damsel in distress while the main character suffered the incurable, “I must become stronger,” mental illness that affects every lead of the genre. That always ends up with said lead being able to blow up entire cities or even planets, just to be on the level of a villain whom had to be powerful enough for the audience to perceive him as a threat.

In short, bigger does not mean better. Downtime is needed calm down from the last story’s climax.

I would expect a lot more light weight content to be introduced as the ideas start thinning on their new two week release schedule

That this is filler, no doubt. That they have something better down the line, I can only hope. If this is the future of living story, then it’s wasted money as far as I’m concerned. It’s hard to get excited about anything they say after so much hot air. Just have to wait and see.

I personally would see something like fire and frost (name?) with staying content and coherent story. Never cared about the rest. Not caring about this stupid minigame either, even though the new area is pretty. But pretty doesn’t cut it.

I’d trade all this “racing” junk for just 4 new working DEs in barren zones of the world.

Not every story arc needs to change the face of the planet. I’m sure there will be some more like that at certain points though.

For some reason, I feel the need to ramble. I’m really not even so sure it entirely fits the thread, but whatever. These are basically my thoughts on the events I’ve been a part of so far. (Be sure to check out the section on Sky Pirates)

Flame & Frost

I started playing during the tail-end of Flame & Frost, the day before SAB started (Fun story: The first thing I ever did in this game was get myself killed several times by the pre-nerf Sonic Periscope just outside of Smokestead. I felt like a boss when I finally killed it.) Being a new player at the time, I spent most of my time in the low-level Ascalon and Shiverpeaks zones and thus, was forced into experiencing the F&F content all the time. It was pretty cool, especially when my new guildmates would drag my level 40 butt through the Molten Facility dungeon when it popped up near the end. That dungeon was awesome—at least until people started standing in the corner for that awesome middle boss, lame.

Overall, I liked what I saw of F&F. Things happened in the world that made the antagonists seem like a threat, no sure-fire way to “play it safe” in the areas it was happening, and there was a pretty cool conclusion with the dungeon and story instances. Good job, even though I never got to see the build-up of the previous 2 F&F events.

Super Adventure Box

I don’t have anything to say about Super Adventure Box. I was level 10 at the time, and I was brand-new in my guild halfway through the event, so everyone was done with it already, and didn’t want to take my level-20 self through it, which is understandable. I probably would have liked it though, as I like the jumping puzzles, and I like the retro feel ANet went for.

Secret of Southsun

Southsun was awesome from a “player involvement” standpoint. Pretty much everyone I know practically lived and breathed Southsun the first two weeks. The first several days, nobody even did the daily world bosses like Fire Ele or Maw. It was ridiculous. Obviously everyone was there for the crazy Magic Find buff and 40+person PvE zerg we had going around the clock. I personally levelled two characters from the mid-50s to 80 in just a few days riding the Southsun Loot Train.

Exploring the zone while finding the sample points was entertaining, even though the zone itself wasn’t all that pretty to look at most of the time, and due to the vicious mobs everywhere, I got to know some of my guildmates by spending all the time I was out there grouped up with people.

The single-player dungeon was tricky, and even a little unfair at times, but it was doable and it felt like an accomplishment when I finished it. The multi-player dungeon was pathetic and embarrassingly bad, especially after Molten Facility was so good.

Overall, was the event a “success”? Pretty much everyone I talked to said the only reason they were there was for the 200% Magic Find buff. Nobody really cared about the story, but that zone was packed day-in and day-out for the duration of the event anyway, and I got to meet quite a lot of people because of it. I know I spent way more time than I probably should have there.

Oh yeah, and that Crab Toss game was fun too, though it would have been nice if there weren’t so many achievements requiring very specific circumstances.

Dragon Bash

Dragon Bash was fun for the first two days or so. Ran around and did the easy achievements, killing holograms, vomiting up candy, shooting fireworks, easy stuff. After that my involvement in the event was pretty much just finding Dragon Coffers and thinking “Oh yeah, Dragon Bash is still going on.”

What would have been really cool, would be instead of/in addition to those dragon piñatas, there could have been a mechanical/magical dragon piñata that would be fired up in Lion’s Arch every few hours that worked like a world dragon, such kittenterer or Tequatl, where players have to rally together and beat it with pick-up-able “beatin’ stick” bundles, culminating in burning the piñata for a daily reward chest.

Wow, I didn’t think I’d have so much to say. Continue reading below…

Dragon Bash (Continued)

Dragon Bash was fun for the first two days or so. Ran around and did the easy achievements, killing holograms, vomiting up candy, shooting fireworks, easy stuff. After that my involvement in the event was pretty much just finding Dragon Coffers and thinking “Oh yeah, Dragon Bash is still going on.”

What would have been really cool, would be instead of/in addition to those dragon piñatas, there could have been a mechanical/magical dragon piñata that would be fired up in Lion’s Arch every few hours that worked like a world dragon, such kittenterer or Tequatl, where players have to rally together and beat it with pick-up-able “beatin’ stick” bundles, culminating in burning the piñata for a daily reward chest.

In hindsight it probably would have been a good idea to put those Jade Weapon Skins up on the Gem Store, or make the claim tickets able to be traded, as probably 80% of what I heard about Dragon Bash was everyone whining about not getting Claim Tickets that they “wanted so badly.” I personally got lucky and found a few within the first couple days, but I can definitely see how people could get frustrated about it, and when 80% of what you hear about an event is people whining and complaining, it’s difficult to get excited about something.

Overall it was okay as a holiday event, but it didn’t really have much “staying power” after the first couple days. I would have liked to have seen some ornery dragons from different elders crash the party every once in a while just to deliver a little havoc for poking fun at them so blatantly. (I’m actually amazed that didn’t happen, and we got Sky Pirates instead)

If this really is an annual holiday event, I wonder how it’s going to go down next year, as this year’s was very heavily connected to the Sky Pirates event. I suppose it’s alright to be a little weak in content if Dragon Bash is going to be a catalyst for the next event every year, let’s just hope that next year is better than Sky Pirates, okay?

On another note, I never did try Dragon Ball, and the noir-esque cutscenes for the Dragon Bash/Sky Pirates story questline were enjoyable. I personally found them extremely corny/cheesy, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Heh, another-another note, am I the only one that thinks it’s a little funny that there’s a ton of Norns running around with Dragon Helms and Dragon Wings? I sure hope they don’t stop by Hoelbrak any time soon.

Sky Pirates

I’ll be brutally honest here, Sky Pirates was a huge letdown for me. When I saw that teaser, and “Lion’s Arch in Chaos” tagline, I was friggin’ excited. I was expecting you know, Lion’s Arch to be, well, in chaos or something. Instead what we got was people in funny outfits in a cave. How exciting.

This is how I would have done it:

So the Aetherblades built this base in a mountain not a stone’s throw from Lions Arch, and not one time did I see an Aetherblade in open-world Lion’s Arch. This could have been so awesome. Imagine, at the start of the Sky Pirates event (or maybe a bit before, you know, foreshadowing), stealth figures with no nameplates start infrequently wandering around Lion’s Arch. Something is about to go down.

A couple days later, a full-scale attack starts. Mortar shells start landing in the Trade/Crafting/WvW Districts of Lion’s Arch (where the majority of people are), defeating any NPCs and unsuspecting players (of course there would be a “don’t stand here” red circle where it’s going to land several seconds in advance, and make sure being killed by them doesn’t cause repair damage to quell some of the inevitable whining) Aetherblades rappel down from the cliff sides and off rooftops and engage players! Akitteng in Lion’s Arch isn’t safe, players and guard NPCs have to work together to keep each other alive and keep Lion’s Arch safe from attackers.

Wow, even more continuing…

Sky Pirates (Continued)

Aetherblade units drop insignias and broken gadgets or something—a bounty has been placed on their heads. Bring stuff from defeated Aetherblades to the investigator headquarters so their researchers can learn more about them. Trade them in for small karma items, buff food, small amounts of coin, etc. Maybe even have different ranks of Aetherblades that drop more valuable insignias for skins, RNG boxes or something.

Aetherblade Saboteurs have tampered with the Asura gates, they now malfunction and sometimes send players to the wrong city, or even to one of that city’s accompanying starter zones! For example, if you went through the Black Citadel gate, you might end up in Black Citadel, or maybe Plains of Ashford, or maybe even Rata Sum or Metrica Province! For added fun, sometimes spawn them a couple meters above the ground. (Keep it to starting zones so we don’t end up with level 10s zoning into Orr or something, that’s not fun.) The way to make the gates function properly for a time would be for players to complete a periodic collection quest where they need to bring glowy Asura batteries or whatever to the Krewe working on the gates. Players can still waypoint to the cities normally (for a little extra gold sink wink nudge), and the gates would work properly when people are doing the repair quest. The WvW/PvP gates would be unaffected.

In two days, Aetherblade airships appear in the skies above an ever increasing number of zones, troops land in villages, causing a ruckus, and starting “reclaim X village”-type events. This gives low-level and new players a way to experience the event without needing to hang out in LA all the time. There would be Lionguard investigation personnel stationed around to collect insignias in these zones, much like the audio log collectors in F&F.

About a week into this chaos, Lionguard officials have located the Aetherblade base of operations just outside Lion’s Arch. Players must defeat Aetherblade units, destroy mortars and complete events to decrease the amount of attackers and mortar shots spawning in Lion’s Arch. After a day or two, there could even be an outright siege going on outside the Aetherblade base. During this, keep a record in the Living Story meta event box that shows how many insignias have been collected, how many assaults were successful or whatever, sort-of a server-pride thing, and so players can see real progress. This is a little crazy, but maybe if players don’t try to hold back the invasion, Aetherblade start para-dropping into the other capital cities too.

Another couple days later, the Aetherblade bunker has been cracked, and the Aetherblade Retreat dungeon can be accessed. Also, those “other zones” that Aetherblade airships have been floating over now have Lionguard forces stationed around them, allowing players to use a jump pad to board the airships and complete an “Aetherblade Morale” event to disable the airship from bothering the zone for a time.

At the end of the event, establish that there will be a timed finale where airships explode in the air spectacularly. Maybe stagger the ships in the different zones so there will be multiple opportunities to see it.

Yay! Victory against a terrible threat to peace!

This might sound like it would be annoying, but seriously, “Sky Pirates: Lion’s Arch in Chaos.” People might even spend some time in some of the other major cities for once. People might look back on the event and think “Man, remember that one time Lion’s Arch was in absolute chaos? We had to do so much work to restore order and just get by.”

In closing, I felt the only cool thing about the Sky Pirates event was that Aetherblade Retreat dungeon. I thought it was awesome, almost as good as Molten Facility even. Everyone constantly whined about it because it was actually tricky, and you couldn’t faceroll it. I hope a cut-down version makes it to Fractals sometime. Same for Molten Facility.

Bazaar of the Four Winds

So far I have enjoyed this event for the most part, but it’s difficult to judge so early on. I have a feeling that It will end up like Dragon Bash, where I’ll get all the achievements done in a few days and then not touch it anymore. It’s too bad, that zone is quite beautiful and interesting. I’m really liking this “Canthian design” everyone seems to go on about. (Never played GW1) The zone is definitely very jump-puzzly, but that doesn’t really bother me personally.

Heh, If Sky Pirates had gone down like I described above, this event could be about how the Aetherblades discovered the Zephyrites’ big floating city, damaged it, and now they have to land and trade their rare goods for our crafting materials to get it repaired and even fix our silk/leather economy while they’re at it.

It’s filler. Anet needs to get their Long Range Planning Committee together again so there’s a better flow to the game updates. Sure, some things happen with no reason (volcanoes erupt, massive earthquakes, invading Mongol Empires, etc. that don’t fit in any neatly planned schedule) but overall it’s been a bit sketchy in GW-Land.

I hope Anet themselves believes it’s filler because it’d be worse if they actually thought this was true, meaty content!

Well the stories are cool but they could use “living story” for a living Tyria wich is hard IMO due game critical limitations, this new story looks promising to open further development arround it, pitty that players/guilds actions dont change the world of tyria and living story can be “ignored” as the result will be the same no mater what i hope theres a real voting system for players choose the NPC and not being only a visual concept.

EDIT: just remmembered if there was a player base decision the voted npc/storyline would start to be different from server to server so theres already one winner on living history… more content to ignore, it does not affect me.

note :The future of mmo’s is not themepark

I don’t feel it’s so much “filler” as it is “busywork”. Narrow distinction I guess, but generally the same feeling.

Essentially, I get the feeling that ArenaNet is trying to lay down train track ahead of an onrushing freight train. They’re just trying to throw out whatever they can think of to keep the players busy in game and spending gems in the cash shop.

The casualty is that nothing that’s coming out really makes any sense, and moreover because it’s all being worked on simultaneously by different teams it comes across as very isolated and disjointed.

There’s a tenuous thread of continuity that runs through all the releases one way or another – so I would assume that the developers believe they’re adequately tying it all together – but despite the fact that there are some characters and commonality, it doesn’t seem like the stories are really framed to go anywhere (or perhaps they are and I just don’t care about where they are going).

What the Living Story needs is a truly epic overall story arc, something that captures the imagination of the playerbase but is big enough that it can contain victories AND defeats, multiple smaller story arcs (with their own heroes and villains) within the bigger one and is plotted out in enough detail and far enough ahead that it really seems that the world is moving forward with each release.

At the moment I would characterize the Living World as full of “groundhog content”. It pops up, players whack at it for a bit, it disappears, other (totally different) content pops up a couple of holes over, ad nausem.

Living Story is pretty much just the episodes of Naruto after the Sasuke fight, but before Shippuden. Or the Zanpakuto spirits arc from Bleach. It’s just filler till the next Elder Dragon.

Zale.9645:

Living Story is pretty much just the episodes of Naruto after the Sasuke fight, but before Shippuden. Or the Zanpakuto spirits arc from Bleach. It’s just filler till the next Elder Dragon.

I suppose a secret organisation manipulating Tyria from the shadows (no, not the order of whispers -.-) and the modern day Brotherhood of the Dragon dont interest you.

And thats a bit rough. The episodes of Naruto after the Sasuke fight? Below the belt man. Below the belt.

How in the world have these flying ship people been around with no one having heard of them before? And we go there and we are acting like, no big deal this is normal. This feels totally chaotic to me. Like someone is flipping through channels on the TV staying on each show 20 seconds. There was no lead in to it. No back story. Everything is disjointed. So what is this? Is it a story or just unrelated activities to do every two weeks or so?

I think they need to hire someone who can be the overall story person that organizes it all.

I think the are laying the ground work for a big story move. Remember, this is how they plan on doing content updates for the life of GW2, possibly no xpac. So with that said they still need a way to address the threat of the dragons and they have to do it in a impactful way. What I see happening is somehow the past few LS mysteries connect back to the dragons and we are either introduced or in the midst of fighting by the end of the year.

They’ve been formulating this concept since at least last year and laying the ground work since January… where are the results? This isnt a moon landing project and this filler is taking entirely too long. I do hope they come out with a real longterm direction for each aspect of the game soonish, because I feel

1) they think WvW is there and just throwing an xp bar to fill makes it permanently interesting

2) they have these huge aspirations for e-sports for sPvP but its just wishful thinking and hot air right now.

3) their pve is consumed, the last permanent update with some meat to it was in november and while they produced some nice content they decided to remove it again. Worse, they now focus on doing that every other week at a pace that costs them quality and depth and replaces that with pressing (F) alot, reducing these updates to gem shop commercials for new skins.

Some parts of the commercials are good though. That’s why I am still here. I do not have the impression that they have their act together right now though, and hope they manage that soon. The comparison to laying tracks in front of a moving train was pretty spot on, too.

Grimthagen.6019:

I don’t feel it’s so much “filler” as it is “busywork”. Narrow distinction I guess, but generally the same feeling.

Essentially, I get the feeling that ArenaNet is trying to lay down train track ahead of an onrushing freight train. They’re just trying to throw out whatever they can think of to keep the players busy in game and spending gems in the cash shop.

The casualty is that nothing that’s coming out really makes any sense, and moreover because it’s all being worked on simultaneously by different teams it comes across as very isolated and disjointed.

There’s a tenuous thread of continuity that runs through all the releases one way or another – so I would assume that the developers believe they’re adequately tying it all together – but despite the fact that there are some characters and commonality, it doesn’t seem like the stories are really framed to go anywhere (or perhaps they are and I just don’t care about where they are going).

What the Living Story needs is a truly epic overall story arc, something that captures the imagination of the playerbase but is big enough that it can contain victories AND defeats, multiple smaller story arcs (with their own heroes and villains) within the bigger one and is plotted out in enough detail and far enough ahead that it really seems that the world is moving forward with each release.

At the moment I would characterize the Living World as full of “groundhog content”. It pops up, players whack at it for a bit, it disappears, other (totally different) content pops up a couple of holes over, ad nausem.

In some ways, a common thread running through all of it is a weak point. Keil is the current common thread (she was in Southsun, Dragonbash, Sky Pirates, the Bazaar and soon to be in the election) but that has caused the story to focus on her, which in the case of the Bazaar and the Zephyrites, she is the least interesting thing about the update. Putting attention on her is taking attention away from the more interesting parts of the story.

They said themselves they were experimenting before and were on very tight schedules. Now they have expanded the team and given each one up to 4 months to develop content it will get bigger and bigger.