Do you prefer if there was no LW contents?
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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.
It didn’t have a Living Story equivalent until they began development on GW2 (and ceased expansions for GW1). It was called Guild Wars: Beyond and it had three chapters, the first one was set in Prophecies (the first campaign) and basically placed Queen Jennah’s ancestor on the throne. Basically it established the human story to lead into GW2. The second chapter was a love story resolution for a popular GW1 character and Kieran Thackery, Logan’s ancestor. The third chapter took place in the second campaign (Factions) and tied up the lose plot threads there, explaining how many Canthans became refugees to Kryta and set the events in motion to tie it off from the world. More stuff was planned but development stopped when they moved the team onto GW2 to prepare it for launch.
In general, the content was a lot better than the Living Story. The story took existing and relevant plot points in the world and took them further. Players already cared about the conflicts because they were the ones we dealt with during the main story of the game and it paid homage to many of the character we had grown to care about (the final chapter, Winds of Change, has a mission where a character that been with you since Ascalon makes a surprise cameo). They also had strong relevance to GW2. The gameplay was a lot more challenging than existing content (the player base 5+ years after launch was fairly elite in terms of skill at that point) and the item rewards weren’t monetised (although there were costumes, similair to gem store armour sets or town clothes in GW2) so the content felt rewarding instead of simply grinding for achievement points and looking at the RNG box skins you will never get.
The update pace was tediously long. It usually took an entire year for the releases to come out. This was the worst part. They had a small team, and although the story was good (Winds of Change was a lot better than the War in Kryta), the gameplay was challenging and fun and the scope was epic (the final fight in Lion’s Arch is one of the more memorable GW1 experiences for me) the updates were sometimes months apart.
Ironically, Guild Wars Beyond was far better than the Living Story at changing the world. The enemy spawns in the “open world” of GW1 changed at different stages in the story. When the story had the White Mantle taking over Kryta, lots of them spawned through the Krytan maps. When the story resolved and they were defeated, most of the spawns changed again. In Factions there was an enemy called the afflicted, kinda like zombies. The story begins with cleansing Cantha of the afflicted and once you’re done, the spawns in the world change to show that you’ve done that. The content was also permanent. You can play it today if you want (because the “open world” is instanced, whatever stage of the quest you are on dictates what mobs will spawn in the world around you).
As far as expansions go, GW1 had full sized campaigns released after launch. I think the game was only out for 12 months when the second campaign was released. Only 6 months later and the third campaign (which was as big as the first game) was released. Each campaign was a stand alone game, with two new classes, a bunch of skills for each existing class, lots of new weapon and armour sets (none of which disappeared after four weeks), a whole new story to experience and even dungeons. It was fantastic value for money and trumps the Living Story gem store model quite easily. The game also had four annual festivals, Wintersday (Christmas), Halloween, Canthan New Year (Chinese New Year) and the Dragon Festival (Independence Day) and these were added to the game when the respective celebrations rolled around.
I’m currently so overwhelmed by the way they are force feeding us this… less than appetizing “stuff”, that, yes, if they announced Living Story a failure and pledged never to do that again, I would jump up and down in joy, then find something worth buying on the gem store to reward the decision.
Given time to recover, I might concede that content like this every other month might be acceptable. However, it never, ever, ever should have been the primary or all consuming focus of ongoing “content creation” and, moving forward, should not occupy more than 10% of the Live Team’s resources.
I literally have stopped playing the game and stopped supporting the game financially because they have driven me to loath Living Story to such a degree.
I want the game world to evolve. The game world should evolve by having the Dynamic Events in the world evolve and tell a story by allowing players to actually experience a living, changing world. I do NOT want a series of completely linear, theme park hoops to jump through.
Living Story has greatly diminished the game. Not only due to the nature of the “content”, but the fact that it has used up all the resources that should have been spent ensuring progress of the story lines in each game zone as told by the dynamic events that occur there.
Ever since the Secrets of Southsun Living Story Arc I haven’t really cared much for the content. There are tidbits that I find entertaining but my general conclusion is meh.
I honestly wouldn’t mind if they removed Living Story altogether, as all of the other permanent content they continue to add is excellently done.
Sad to say, but the game would have been better off if they had been more like other studios, only pushing holidays and a few new dungeons as live content, while devoting the vast majority of development resources on an expansion.
The game world is so vast and the potential for an evolution of content via progression of Dynamic Events so great, that maybe the best model for this game would have been twice yearly expansions that only offered an additional zone or two, with most of the expansion focused on changing the existing game world.
LS has been a huge waste of resources, IMO and as we near the 1 year mark, I really hope they will just recycle what makes sense during year two and otherwise abandon LS entirely.
My main issue with the Living Story is shared by many; the fact that the content is brief and seems so inconsequential to the world. Additionally, instead of adding new events and other reasons to revisit areas of the world, they build new transient zones that suck the static world of players every 2-4 weeks.
Not none just not the main focus i’d like to start heading into the crystal desert, maguuma, and all these other zones around. Maybe a new dungeon for each of these areas and a ton more hearts, dynamic events, metas, vistas, PoI, some new enemy types, jumping puzzles, and other stuff. I realize they could do this threw the Living story but they haven’t and the 2 new zones we got, although cool looking, didn’t add much when compared to other launch pve zones.
I’d also like to see some big changes/additions to WvW like one big patch that adds more siege, more tower/keep upgrades, maybe some new maps, more guild customization to personalize towers/keeps, adding depth to the hylek/orge/quaggan/dredge/centaur camps and better reasoning to take them, and as much as they can really cram into it.
So if that means that their would be no updates for a while i would be fine with that because having more of this world to explore or big changes to WvW would just provide me with lasting content i would enjoy. If they can still provide this content while doing the living story than so be it but they have yet to show us that unfortunately.
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.
+1000
We can still get some minigames every two or four weeks, if you wish, but nothing too polished or worked out.
And then, every 6 months, the great expansion that REALLY changes the current history!
Morbridae (Norn Necromancer)
@ Sorrow’s Furnace (VE)
@ Sorrow’s Furnace (VE)
If living story will continue to be story with almost no story and with a lot of boring achievements, they can stop releasing it as far I’m concerned.
Yes, this 2 week content is getting old and I, like many feel burnt out. I wonder how this effects the programers? All this effort for limited content, would rather see an announcement of a real Expansion pack with expanded content that I can do at my own pace and not on some 2 week limit.
Living Story should be axed immediately, the game needs a new injection of life, Not half baked distractions!
I honestly cannot wait to see end of this charade. Even so I am wondering how Anet will keep telling the LS for years ? GW1 lasted like 7-8, and is still active at least a little. Does Anet keep telling us LS for the same time ? Besides it has little story like 10% the rest is only about doing achievments and running back and forth.
When I bought GW2 I was so happy. Finally a game that will allow me to left her behind for a while, knowing that whenever I return I will not feel being abandoned, which can happen in MMO due to grindfest and gear chasing. I like to play 2-3 hours a day but I like to create my schedule of how should I play. Now It seems that nightmares from previous games have returned and came here, sinc there is not only time-gated content and also a rush where it is hard to find ourselves. Oh the horror.
LS=BS So sick and tired of half baked product.
Edit Also if Anet decides to end this Ls we shall prepare for rage from people that might be ,,spoiled,, from the curren schedule. It might me hard for them to back to normal habits.
(edited by Blumiere.1489)
I’d rather have full expansions that are completely thought out and finished than have a weak Living Story.
Agree as well!
I’d rather have full expansions that are completely thought out and finished than have a weak Living Story.
Agree as well!
short answer… no living story, cause the name is chosen rather poorly.
I would love for more content like Fractals and the SAB.
Both of these were just so well put together. The random ‘’go do 50 of these’’ or ‘’kill 100 of these’’ kind of living world events are absolutely terrible.
I would love for more content like Fractals and the SAB.
Both of these were just so well put together. The random ‘’go do 50 of these’’ or ‘’kill 100 of these’’ kind of living world events are absolutely terrible.
I’m all for frequent and free diversions like Fractals and mini-games being added to the game. But I’m very much against the Living Story replacing the Personal Story. If you look at the quality of Factions and Nightfall respective to the original Guild Wars there’s no drop-off. If you look at the quality of Queen’s Jubilee or Secrets of Southsun respective to the original Guild Wars 2 they’re not even in the same league. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…I want quality, not quantity.
I’m all for frequent and free diversions like Fractals and mini-games being added to the game. But I’m very much against the Living Story replacing the Personal Story. If you look at the quality of Factions and Nightfall respective to the original Guild Wars there’s no drop-off. If you look at the quality of Queen’s Jubilee or Secrets of Southsun respective to the original Guild Wars 2 they’re not even in the same league. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…I want quality, not quantity.
Oh there was a huge drop-off if you compare prophecies to factions. Not only PvE but PvP wise as well. But that’s a whole ‘nother discussion.
And comparing the Living Story to the Personal Story… that’s kind of unfair because the personal story was just super boring.
As far as the core of the game, yes I’d love to see more of the same quality being released. And I agree, the current Living Story does not live up to that.
I’m all for frequent and free diversions like Fractals and mini-games being added to the game. But I’m very much against the Living Story replacing the Personal Story. If you look at the quality of Factions and Nightfall respective to the original Guild Wars there’s no drop-off. If you look at the quality of Queen’s Jubilee or Secrets of Southsun respective to the original Guild Wars 2 they’re not even in the same league. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…I want quality, not quantity.
Well, I didn’t find the “personal” story very enticing to begin with, but the “living” story definitely is even worse. I’m not particulary against free additional content of course, but I can’t help but think that if they had channeled all the recources that went into creating all those tiny snippets into a single project, we could have a great expansion by now already.
What we got instead was a series of short events that left no mark on the game world whatsoever and seemingly aren’t connected at all, despite some minor hints at a connection between kiel and the sky pirates, which seems more like a complete afterthought in order to tie 2 random theme park fares together somehow.
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.
There were some similarities. GW1 had a character called Nicholas the traveller (and his companion – a dolyak called Prof. Yakington). He moved around to different areas each week and swapped his rewards for various numbers of a specific drop (e.g. 5 animal furs for 1 gift of the traveller). There was also at least 1 bonus mission pack which I think had different reward tokens (exchangable for new weapon skins). There were also some mini games which returned for annual festivals. The biggest differences were the trading system (which had many scammers) and the ability to choose skills from a secondary profession. There were also some elite dungeons (underworld and fissure of woe) where you could take a particularly effective solo skillset build and farm high value loot which would otherwise have been distributed among a whole party. These could be accessed from each expansion pack as well. There were also some players who would “run” a party from one place to another (waypoint) through some tough areas for a small-ish fee.
The expansions generally added a new continent to explore, new dungeons, 2 new professions, new skills for existing professions and a whole new storyline to complete. Then they added quests like the black moa chick where you had to have all the expansions and do a cross-continent scavenger hunt. In the Factions expansion you had to side with either the Luxons or Kurzicks to earn faction (points) which could be spent on accessing an elite dungeon in their respective area or to make Luxon or Kurzick armor. When you went back to the opposing areas the merchants wouldn’t trade with you.
The rewards for completing various parts of the game became more important after it was announced there would be rewards in GW2 for GW acheivements. The hall of monuments was created as a place to display your acheivements and you could exhibit statues of your mini-pets, weapons & armor sets to your team. There was also one area for trophies (similar to the Zephyr sanctum model) which you would get when you completed the main antagonist of each expansion or completely mapped a continent, or all of them. After beating an end-level opponent you also got a reward which could be exchanged for an end-game weapon or sold.
They also introduced a hard-mode so you could go back to low-level areas but instead of being scaled down, the mobs and rewards were scaled-up. There were also some memorable characters such as Kilroy Stonekin who would turn up in certain areas and when you talked to him, he would ask you to help him… then he would charge straight into the nearest high-level mob shouting “kiiiiiiiiiiilllllllrrrrroooooyyyyyyy sttttttooooonnnnnneeeekkkiiiiinnnnnnnn” and you would get a reward at the end if you kept him alive.
It was a truly awesome game which I played for 6+ years and I still remember the first time I played (factions) and there was an area where the leaves were just being blown from the trees. The artwork was just so fantastic given that you didn’t need to have the highest spec PC to run it. I also remember getting a black dye drop and when I got back into town discovering how valuable it was (imagine finding an Abyss dye on your first ever trip out of Divinity’s). Best of the genre without a doubt and turned out to be amazing value for money.
Absolutely. I asked myself two questions about, “Would I play the game if it were only LS content?” and “Would I play the game if it were only vanilla style content?”. The first one is a “no” and the second is a “yes”. I’m not sure what value this content adds, some of it has been interesting and is a good weekend’s worth of content.
The problem I’m having, and could be entirely personal taste, is that the game doesn’t feel like an MMO to me. There are just certain features that are lacking, which I’ve experienced in almost every other MMO I’ve played. The way they release content doesn’t feel like an MMO release, to me. I’m still scratching my head on what the game’s direction is shaping to be.
Sad to say, but the game would have been better off if they had been more like other studios, only pushing holidays and a few new dungeons as live content, while devoting the vast majority of development resources on an expansion.
The game world is so vast and the potential for an evolution of content via progression of Dynamic Events so great, that maybe the best model for this game would have been twice yearly expansions that only offered an additional zone or two, with most of the expansion focused on changing the existing game world.
LS has been a huge waste of resources, IMO and as we near the 1 year mark, I really hope they will just recycle what makes sense during year two and otherwise abandon LS entirely.
I agree, entirely. I feel like ArenaNet is trying to be too different, almost to a fault. There’s an established culture of what MMO updates should be and I don’t feel like they’re adhering to that. People are expecting new zones or instances to play around with. Thus far, they’ve only said they’re adding permanent content going forward. I’d like to know when we’ll start seeing that. I’d appreciate if they’d at least say what type of content they’re releasing. It’d stem the tide of doubt so many of us are experiencing. It’s a shame to have such a beautiful game crafted by such talented artists that goes to waste.
It was fun in the beginning, but the farming days should be over soon enough I hope.
Like many others here said they are convinced the living story approach works and giving in to the call for an expansion is admitting they are/were wrong about it.
i wonder who from the original GW team is still around, they should know that the expansions of gw1 made it. gw beyond was created to see if such an approach would work and people rather saw another complete expansion instead of small parts.
It was fun in the beginning, but the farming days should be over soon enough I hope.
Like many others here said they are convinced the living story approach works and giving in to the call for an expansion is admitting they are/were wrong about it.
i wonder who from the original GW team is still around, they should know that the expansions of gw1 made it. gw beyond was created to see if such an approach would work and people rather saw another complete expansion instead of small parts.
If it makes them money (i.e. enough people log in for the temporary content/achievements and see/purchase the temporarily available Gem Shop items) then it does work. That’s probably not what you meant, but it’s certainly a driving force we’ve all got to consider.
The Living Story has content?
A friend came back momentarily after a hiatus for months, I shower her the Queen’s Jubilee and the content, and then she asked me, “So, this is it? Are there any thing more permanent content from the past living stories?” I had to pause and think hard… I have no permanent features to show off for this living story content from what we have been doing.
So a 2-4 week achievement grind fest, there is very little evidence that we have permanent content, as promised, to show for. Sure Keil is the newly elected captain council, Aetherblades still reside outside of Lion’s Arch in their cubby-hole of a jumping puzzle, sure Bharam and Rox’s instances still exist… but these don’t feel as if the world is evolving, only the politics are changing to me. What of the more prominent features?
- Southsun Cove : while beautiful, is a pain to navigate solo and the minions there are far more difficult to fight then the risen in Orr. I even advise everyone, whom ask, to stay clear of there due to it’s danger.
- Super Adventure Box : an amazing feature that possibly brought more people back into the game then making them want to quit, is offline and non-accessible at the time being. This is how a mini game should be, exclusive from the world and inciting to play.
- Fractals : probably the best feature we’ve got to show off from the living world content. However, due to the limited fractal levels per character are suppose to acquire, I feel people get burned out on these faster then doing a normal dungeon.
As expected the holidays are coming back, so… yay? I am fully aware we are in the first year and the game has to establish a minimal rotation of reoccurring events into the world of Tyria. Yet, we are waiting on the continuing story where we progress from defeating Zhaitan onto other greater threats as well as the other Elder Dragons. Again we were told we are not fighting an Elder Dragon until 2014, at the bare minimum.
So what I want to ask is, where can I get the feature to show off to newcomers / returning friends that our world is, yes, evolving into a living world?
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