Well, new Living Story patch is here. Let me try to relate my experience with it.
- symbol means dialog
~ symbol means an action was taken
… means loss of inspiration, moment, or interest
- “Hmm. I have mail.”
~ I check mail.
- “Go to Durmand Priory because reasons…”
~ I go to Durmand Priory.
- “Go find find a book.”
~ I go find a book
~ I reading the book did something (obscured to avoid spoilers)
- “Someone says to go find out what reading the book did”
~ A something has appeared (obscured to avoid spoilers)
~ Follow the something around
…
…
And this is where I stop.
Anet. If you are so badly funded that you cannot do an actual scene from the Crystal Desert in the Crystal Desert, but rather have to copy and paste creatures around the same 4 hall corridors of the Priory basement… just stop. And do not give any hints what so ever about some portal that’s going to go there…
What do you think this tells your player base? “Next, Heart of Thorns will take place in… in… the exact same maps you’ve already played! Why? Because copy-and-paste is AMAZING!”
For the longest time you’ve been benging on the Gem Store until that blew up in your face this last fall. This copy-and-paste routine is the kind of thing that ended shows like Stargate Universe.
In that show they understood the basic mechanics of the Stargate franchise; you go through a Stargate at the end and beginning of each episode. That’s it. Simple. Same set up as Star Trek. It works because there is a leader, a healer, a fixer (period related), an interpreter, and an intellectual body. Guild Wars 2 does not allow for this kind of thing.
You cannot copy-paste the same things over and over again and call it “new”. Stargate Universe tried that and it failed horribly. The whole first season was, “We need to survive.” They very much tried to make it a survival story. That was fine until they realized that the four basic things they really needed were Air, Water, Food, and Energy. Then they tried to do the drama story. “Now we need to get along.” Except, Stargate Universe couldn’t do that. The Universe was effectively dead and uninteresting. The characters had potential, but the writers or directors absolutely refused to build on them. They also absolutely refused to do anything remotely related to aliens except in very sparse ways. So it was all cardboard cut outs. Finally in the last season everything turns into random explosions and drama in the usual American TV way: “I know it doesn’t make sense, but we need more explosions! Give us more explosions! This isn’t inhuman enough! Make the characters do something utterly absurd and dead-pan. If people can empathize with what’s going on it isn’t Hollywood enough!” The show died shortly there after.
Guild Wars 2 is really skating some thin ice if this patch is any indication. You’ve learned that copy-and-paste is tolerated, but the long term result is a loss of confidence in your creative potential. I should not be running around the Priory doing something that took place in the Crystal Desert / Elona. Holographic blue transparencies do not constitute “ghosts”. Holographic blue transparencies constitute holographic blue transparencies. Copy-and-paste is not the Durmand Priory In Ghost Vision Mode… It’s just copy and paste.
This is what I’m talking about with Stargate Universe turning its characters into card board cut outs. You’ve turned the drama into a formula. Ever read a math book? It’s not dramatic. It’s dry, boring, and generally uncomfortable. That’s the case even if you enjoy math.
Last episode you had us go search for the dragon egg. The episode before that you had us… go search for the dragon egg. See the copy-paste? Now this episode you have us go get a book… Go get an urn… Go get a shard… Okay, fine. Sure. Come-to-be-expected GW 2 standard vacuum.
From here the contradictions to GW 1 lore are absolutely jarring. Even if it had happened… who cares? What’s this guy to me? What’s any of this to me? It has not been part of the story in any way shape or form up to this point. All I could think was, “Renegade option: burn book and go home.” I mean we’re told flat out Sir Holographic Blue the Transparency is just an echo. Let’s forget all this ritual, go find a particularly Eve-like (GW1 reference) style Necromancer and skip all this. But here’s where it gets good… “Go collect three things,” the quest says. “Excuse me. Did I just do that?!”
So no. I’m sorry, but enough. I’m not chasing your copy-paste ghosts around to find out what is the next copy-paste battle mechanic/creature deposit There comes a point when fighting through the same old content is just fighting through the same old content. The carrot isn’t worth it.
I’m sure the story you have written for this Living Story patch is just fine, but the hassle to get there is really not worth the bother.
