Guild Wars 2

There are so many threads and opinions about the good and bad of the temp contents and sometimes I am wondering if it would have been better if there was no LS contents at all?

Update: Another question I have: How was GW1 handled in terms of contents? did it have this kind of LS or any expansions. unfortunately I never got to play GW1 and don’t know the details.

I don’t think so, I’ll take something over nothing (warts and all) as long as it’s free.

I’d rather have full expansions that are completely thought out and finished than have a weak Living Story. The Molten Alliance was well done and then the ball got dropped.

I’ll be interested to see if the LS teams that have more time can produce deeper, more thought-provoking, more challenging and interesting content. We haven’t seen content produce over that kind of time frame yet. With that, I’m getting tired of the bread and circuses approach.

Lysander Freeman.4186:

I’d rather have full expansions that are completely thought out and finished than have a weak Living Story. The Molten Alliance was well done and then the ball got dropped.

I think the Molten Alliance flopped in the end because the threat ended up not being very threatening and the consequences seem non-existent. The parts of the world it took place in are unchanged, it was simply used as an unnecessary tool to send people to Southsun. As a faction I was never convinced they were a big threat (partly because I don’t think there was a single named character that gave them much a story or reason for being, they had no leader and no set goals, they were just baddies attacking people) and it’s really disappointing that they seem to have neatly dissolved when the new RNG box was ready.

I don’t think the ball got dropped so much as they have too many irons in the fire and they aren’t pulling any of them out. The story is trickling out but so far it’s all just set-up, nothing that’s truly compelling has happened. They keep introducing characters and what’s most frustrating, they seem to be setting up all new stories (which takes time) instead of utilising existing ones (which makes existing lore feel like it doesn’t matter).

The story is definitely going somewhere, I just think the drive to get there doesn’t have enough pit stops. The pacing with the story really feels off.

I don’t like that it’s mostly cheap/quick content, it’s never polished and introduce bugs every new LS. It still takes team a lot of work and time with new maps, mini games and such just to end up with a cheap LS update every 2 week. I’d rather have a much slower pace with quality content a minimum polished like every 2 month.

Playing under pressure of “two weeks ONLY content” is not fun. Tyria is big… and because of recent updates I didn’t have time for anything else (WvW in particular…)

Thaia.5146:

Playing under pressure of “two weeks ONLY content” is not fun. Tyria is big… and because of recent updates I didn’t have time for anything else (WvW in particular…)

Short and sweet, but my sentiments exactly

Lysander Freeman.4186:

I’d rather have full expansions that are completely thought out and finished than have a weak Living Story. The Molten Alliance was well done and then the ball got dropped.

molten alliance dungeon was good as were the two mini quests leading up to it. The road sign fixing and heirloom Fedx quests were not though.

I would prefer a proper expansion that’s the same quality of GW2 at release…

The ‘shallow’ 2 week content is very hit & miss…

I just look it up on dulfy and see if there is anything I fancy doing, the last 3 updates I have done very little, largely avoided them…don’t think I have missed anything much…

The only part of Flame and Frost I enjoyed was the Facility, and Secret of Southsun was pretty meh. I thoroughly enjoyed all parts of the Sky Pirates though, and the Bazaar is nice.

Despite this, I would also still like a thought out expansion rather than constant updates.

I would prefer a expansion or a 6 month content release schedule rather than the LS. I have no issue with not having an expansion. But this games Main story needs to start progressing.

I know some people enjoy minigames and such. But it’s not my idea of fun.

I think the Living Story model of content is a great idea and, for the most part, I’ve enjoyed what they have put out so far.

I also think we really haven’t seen its full potential yet. I look at the early months/chapters as testing the waters to see what will and won’t work. I look forward to where they can go with this model (which I much prefer to the “all at once” expansion model).

I think people just need to be a little patient – continue to provide feedback (reasonable, thought out feedback) about what we enjoy and what we think could be improved – and we will see some pretty amazing things.

I personally don’t like the living story very much. I don’t really like that the the content isn’t permanent like it would be in an expansion. The thing I am worried about is if the LS does something about the other dragons but its only around for 2 weeks. If there is a LS part about fighting an Elder Dragon and I miss it because it was temporary content I will quit the game. I agree fully with Thaia about feeling rushed also.

I’ll take a mix of both.

Living story to move the “time” forward in the world, with newer personal story when it’s time to battle a new dragon

Another question I have: How was GW1 handled in terms of contents? did it have this kind of LS or any expansions. unfortunately I never got to play GW1 and don’t know the details.

I would cry because there would be no more Colin videos about where the game is going

I enjoy and look forward to the living story updates, honestly I look forward to every other Tuesday when we get to hear the details of what is coming the following week, however it would be nice to be able to support ANet by actually purchasing an expansion too one day.

Please stop substituting stupid minigames for combat MMO content. I personally am in this game for the more challenging PvE boss and WvW combat, not to jump through the hoops of throwaway minigame tack-ons.

I just want some of this stuff to be permanent. I HATE cool material just disappearing in order to fit some “living world” agenda.

Perhaps for instance the Molten Facility could be entered through instanced events in WvW and PvE so we could still access it occasionally. Wouldn’t it be cool if periodically/randomly a Molten Alliance tunnel opened inside Stonemist Castle, unleashing a horde of enemies? Maybe every WvW reset has the Molten Alliance in control of Stonemist. Or maybe it spawns in a PvE area with a new Molten PvE world boss, giving access to Molten Facility upon defeating it. There are so many good possibilities for challenging, fun, permanent LS-based content…

I feel it is currently to early to tell personally.

Ask me in……….maybe a year, and then I’d feel I could give a unbiased answer.

I really enjoy the living story. ArenaNet just doesn’t work like other companies do. If/when they decide to make an expansion and announce it, they will keep the living story and I think some of the complaining will go away. People just want to know if there is going to be something really big happening. It would really really stink if they decided to not do an expansion and just stay with the living story though. It would be them caught in the exact same trap they got caught in in Gw1 with the releases every 6 months. There are some things you can’t do if you have a limited time frame like that. If I had to choose between an Expansion and Living Story, I would probably choose expansion.

Zylonite.5913:

Another question I have: How was GW1 handled in terms of contents? did it have this kind of LS or any expansions. unfortunately I never got to play GW1 and don’t know the details.

they had exspansions not this ls stuff. exspansions wwere actually an new continent full of stuff and could be standalone games if you didnt have the original

Living Story has been a disaster in my view. I was loving GW2 up until Flame & Frost. Southsun with Canach is what really killed it for me. GW2 should’ve stuck with the traditional content updates other MMOs use. The traditional way also has it’s problems, but it’s still a lot better than this new content distribution that A-Net is trying.

Right now it is annoying me. This is fast becoming the game that I “used to love”. I hope it improves. Currently I feel we are in a beta game that has no intention of making it to release (as they don’t keep the content).

As best I can tell they plan on keeping some of the content in the future by reusing mini games and putting dungeons in fractals. That is not the same as an expansion with new things for everyone to do. Fractals are ok if you have a group that you know and can do fractals with all the time. I don’t. Minigames are not content I want to concentrate on.

I kittening hate living story

I like having it around – it’s nice change for exploring and completing zones and working on the personal story. I had to get into a right kind of mindset, though, and tell myself it’s not important to get all the achievements and minis and whoah weapon skins either, because once I tiptoed the completionist line it stopped being fun.

I’d have it be less about grinding achievements, but otherwise I prefer having Living Stories.

Right now they are achievement races, and for me at least it has lead to burnout.

If less LS meant that ever so often a new zone would open up (multiple zones have gates that are not leading to anywhere right now) instead, i would gladly see LS go the way of the dodo.

The LS reminds me of D3 a lot in how it gets shoved in your face and generally isn’t good. At least give us the ability to turn off the quest reminder.

Celestina.2894:

I feel it is currently to early to tell personally.

Ask me in……….maybe a year, and then I’d feel I could give a unbiased answer.

another year? its already been one.

Well the last adition of the labyrinth was just great. most of the mini games that came with it are also pretty well done.

I haven’t really seen any content excluding AR and F&F dungeons and maybe S.A.B. This living story is just an excuse for saying :“Oh look guys, we are doing something for you” In fact LS is nothing but utter crap. I would 1000 times prefer waiting a year even and purchase a well thought, compelling and detailed expansion rather than this joke every 2 weeks. Enough said.

I would like smaller mini-content updates like the Living story every month or so, but I would honestly prefer expansion-type content updates with several new zones, game mechanics, instances etc. all released at once.

Lysander Freeman.4186:

I’d rather have full expansions that are completely thought out and finished than have a weak Living Story. The Molten Alliance was well done and then the ball got dropped.

It’s funny that Flame & Frost is used as the example for well-done Living Story content these days.

What I remember is 3 months of absolute boredom (and the majority of forum people agreed) followed by glorious 11 days (!!) of a decent and fun dungeon.

I think so. As much as I respect what the developers are trying to accomplish with the Living Story, too much of it feels like filler. I’d rather have a second helping of steak (Factions, Nightfall) than fill up on bunch of bread (Southsun, Sky Pirates, etc). If the quality of the Living Story matched the quality of the original game, if it didn’t feel so rushed, then I’d probably change my vote. But as is, I’d prefer something “meatier”.

I would love to see how Arena add more dynamic events through all locations in Tyria, instead of LS. Make more DE chains, more deep that they are at the moment. So it wouldn’t look like repeatable DE.

Each location can tell the pretty long story, you know. All Arena have to do, it’s make more DE in each location, increasing storytelling through DE.

For example if you loose point, mobs not just take it, but will move forward, until they will take the whole location if you let it. Or something like that. It’s just an example.
This is more feel like “Living World”, but not this LS.

Also Arena could increase the pve content by giving sub-personal stories. For example by using other fractions (not only the orders). The fractions like Ebon Vuanguard.

I thinkg the LS is a more easy than, for example what I’ve just posted above.

I love how people praise expansions like they are the greatest thing a game can hope for, why have we been corrupted by this thought all these years?

So if you think of a 6 month(24 weeks) release schedule, we play the game and current X content for 6 month’s straight. No changes rather than bug fixes and maybe some gem store rotation. Just to get that glorious expansion. We wait for it to be released, then BAM. A week or two straight of playing to test out all the “new” stuff. After this point where does it leave us with? “Ohh I really like what they did with X, but I think Y was horrible, overall they should have added more of Z.” Awesome! Now, that this content has been played, we get to play it again for the next 6 months. Until the next big change. Rinse and repeat each 6 months(24 weeks).

So now lets look past the LS content rather than just the “Ohh these 2 weeks are awful, or those 2 weeks were better.” Lets look at it as “Ohh I really enjoyed X, but I hated Y, and really the developers should add more of Z.” In the end after 6 months of this “Living Story” content we as players are left with the same conclusion. But the major difference happens with you get to play each of these content for about 2 weeks. With the amount of changes for 2 weeks, you can try out each of the new stuff in about 5-6 days with an hour or two play times. But then after these 2 weeks, you will get another change to the story in another 2 weeks. Rinse and Repeat each 2 weeks. (0.5 month)

As for the always changing world, this is a part of what makes GuildWars2 amazing. Being able to feel as though what you played 4 weeks ago effects what you are playing now. Or even when we get to what you played 2 years ago effects current events. If you take a look at this as a whole we only gain from a system like this. For once in our gaming lives, we have a game that is changing. A game that we can not feel like we played X hours. But rather our X hours helped make the game where it is today.

TL:DR – Most likely this will not change anyone’s thoughts about the game, but just wanted to let the developers know there are people out there that enjoy the game and the direction it is heading.

Zypher.7609:

I love how people praise expansions like they are the greatest thing a game can hope for, why have we been corrupted by this thought all these years?

If ArenaNet released two expansions that were to GW2 what Factions and Nightfall were to GW (full, stand-alone campaigns with tons of new content to explore), I don’t see why that wouldn’t be welcomed by the people who enjoy Guild Wars 2.

Id rather see some expansion than living story.
With dungeons, events, locations, hearts, gears, levels..

Strejda Tom.6108:

Id rather see some expansion than living story.
With dungeons, events, locations, hearts, gears, levels..

Don’t forget personal story and actual voice acting for our characters. I don’t think my character has had one line of spoken dialogue since the introduction of the Living Story.

darkace.8925:

Strejda Tom.6108:

Id rather see some expansion than living story.
With dungeons, events, locations, hearts, gears, levels..

Don’t forget personal story and actual voice acting for our characters. I don’t think my character has had one line of spoken dialogue since the introduction of the Living Story.

And new skills, maybe even new class? new weapons..

Zypher.7609:

I love how people praise expansions like they are the greatest thing a game can hope for, why have we been corrupted by this thought all these years?

So if you think of a 6 month(24 weeks) release schedule, we play the game and current X content for 6 month’s straight. No changes rather than bug fixes and maybe some gem store rotation. Just to get that glorious expansion. We wait for it to be released, then BAM. A week or two straight of playing to test out all the “new” stuff. After this point where does it leave us with? “Ohh I really like what they did with X, but I think Y was horrible, overall they should have added more of Z.” Awesome! Now, that this content has been played, we get to play it again for the next 6 months. Until the next big change. Rinse and repeat each 6 months(24 weeks).

So now lets look past the LS content rather than just the “Ohh these 2 weeks are awful, or those 2 weeks were better.” Lets look at it as “Ohh I really enjoyed X, but I hated Y, and really the developers should add more of Z.” In the end after 6 months of this “Living Story” content we as players are left with the same conclusion. But the major difference happens with you get to play each of these content for about 2 weeks. With the amount of changes for 2 weeks, you can try out each of the new stuff in about 5-6 days with an hour or two play times. But then after these 2 weeks, you will get another change to the story in another 2 weeks. Rinse and Repeat each 2 weeks. (0.5 month)

As for the always changing world, this is a part of what makes GuildWars2 amazing. Being able to feel as though what you played 4 weeks ago effects what you are playing now. Or even when we get to what you played 2 years ago effects current events. If you take a look at this as a whole we only gain from a system like this. For once in our gaming lives, we have a game that is changing. A game that we can not feel like we played X hours. But rather our X hours helped make the game where it is today.

TL:DR – Most likely this will not change anyone’s thoughts about the game, but just wanted to let the developers know there are people out there that enjoy the game and the direction it is heading.

You are talking about an actual changing world.. If you call this a changing world then presumably you haven’t played any sandbox game in your life or this is your first MMO. Unlike this living story content which suppose to change the world instead of being totally poorly designed, in those games when the developers say that player’s choice will change the world and the world will shape according to the player’s decision it is actually true. When it comes to arenanet it just cannot go beyond the fact that the stuff they release actually gives you an illusion of doing something but in fact doing nothing but wasting some more time and spending more money on the gem store. Let me give an example to be more specific. The living story is like a free bread in the restaurants. And you are eating them while waiting your main dish. But the thing is, your main dish is every time delayed and/or not being delivered. At the end you are full because of eating this free bread on the table and you aren’t hungry anymore thus you think that you are satisfied and go home.. Anet do care about their players who QQ a lot on the forums about how the new content is so OP while it’s actually mild,mediocre difficulty. Anet does not care about the other players at all who are complaining since the beginning of the game about how broken the dungeons are and how the thrash mobs don’t award you in some way, thus skipped 90% of the time. Really do you think any of these bosses in the game actually hard? If your answer is yes, then I will tell you my opinion which may put some sense into you and to those who thinks the bosses are hard in this game.. The bosses in the game are just some HP sponges which only soaks up dmg until they die. The bosses in this game almost requires little to no skill to understand their mechanics and mitigate the damage by simply pressing the dodge key. If you can’t do such task then I’m sorry but I dunno what to say. Even the bosses in Guitar Hero is harder than Guild Wars 2.

Strejda Tom.6108:

darkace.8925:

Strejda Tom.6108:

Id rather see some expansion than living story.
With dungeons, events, locations, hearts, gears, levels..

Don’t forget personal story and actual voice acting for our characters. I don’t think my character has had one line of spoken dialogue since the introduction of the Living Story.

And new skills, maybe even new class? new weapons..

If you read over the blog post about the future of GW2, new skills have been confirmed to be the next progression step. And in a interview soon after on I believe it was MMORPG.com it was confirmed that they plan to give every class access to most if not all weapons.

Celestina.2894:

And in a interview soon after on I believe it was MMORPG.com it was confirmed that they plan to give every class access to most if not all weapons.

I sincerely hope they reconsider; the professions are homogenized enough as is.

Zylonite.5913:

I am wondering if it would have been better if there was no LS contents at all?

Without the Living Story we would be missing the temporary: dungeons, achievements, and rewards. I also doubt that we would have seen the intro of RNG coffers since it would not be accompanied by the “limited time offer” feeling of urgency.

We would still have received the new pvp maps, new pvp features, changes to WvW like culling and rewards, and changes to traits/professions.

Now here is the interesting part – instead of temp events what would we have gotten?

I cant say. But what i can say is I still believe this Living Story Project to be a Frankenstein’s monster. The best thing to come out of it were two dungeons…and MMO players enjoying fun dungeons is NOT a revelation! Why did you not just spend more time making more dungeons, or fixing the old ones – giving Zhaitan a proper death.

Before rant mode kicks in I’ll end with this – Living Story has not offered anything.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Lysander Freeman.4186:

I’d rather have full expansions that are completely thought out and finished than have a weak Living Story. The Molten Alliance was well done and then the ball got dropped.

It’s funny that Flame & Frost is used as the example for well-done Living Story content these days.

What I remember is 3 months of absolute boredom (and the majority of forum people agreed) followed by glorious 11 days (!!) of a decent and fun dungeon.

I can’t speak for everyone else but I know specifically when I say Flame and Frost was better the latter, I mean the story, the plot, characters etc. Not the point of players hitting posts and collecting trinkets. The instances were cool though, and the dungeon was awesome. The overall story should had been expanded up further imo.

Shiren.9532:

flopped in the end because the threat ended up not being very threatening and the consequences seem non-existent. The parts of the world it took place in are unchanged,

I think that is exactly what all the living story is like. Even if we (the players) did nothing at all, the world would not change a pixel.

Personally I don’t need the living story at all. If it was actually life-changing I would want it, but it is far, faaaaaaaaar from that.

Frankly, I’m bored with the whole game I have like 6 or 7 level 80 toons and nothing really new for them to do. Except things I’ve already done. Pug dungeons are boring and so is PvP for me. WvW is Ok once in a while but really I just want to play in the world.

So the living story would be great for players like me but it’s become a dull farming experience. It gives you achievements if you want to PvP or do dungeons or mini games which are fine for about 5 minutes then boring. Southsun Survival is about the most boring time I’ve ever had playing Gw1 or 2. I can barely drag myself to the computer to do the 15 games for the achievement, I’ve given up on the mini in fear for my life if I had to face getting 2500 points for the achievement.

Direct and Advanced Support could have been wonderful but as it is it’s just a boring mini game. It could have been an area where 100-150 or so players could go and do dynamic events against the a-blades that culminated in four different major boss battles. Each giving one of the 4 achievements. But alas we get king of the hill scaling up a little harder each time. Ho hum.

No body complained about killing those survivalist bosses on Southsun for a couple of weeks. It was fun running back and forth and opening the chests.

I would prefer no LS to the LS they have implemented to date. Especially with the last release where you have to perform a platformer mini-game to even vote. Having no LS beats having a bad telling of the LS. At least you wouldn’t anger segments of the player base.