Guild Wars 2

As we have seen and heard, the Living story concept is here to stay in GW2 but from the forum perspective, this concept is more or less appreciated depending on player tastes and abilities. Let’s start to see how we would make a Living Story Content.
I will start:

1) The game client has successfully patched the new content and the player hits the PLAY button
2) The player selects one character to enter the game
3) The game starts with a non skip-able cutscene in which a random icon figure – Logan, Eir, Rithlock, Caithe and the asuran one (forgot the name) or any other NPC we met/will meet in the game – tells the player about the new things happening in the world concluding the monologue with: " I will update your journal with details"
This cutscene will be delivered only once after the Living story patch has been updated
4) The character gets in the game and the HERO panel will get a " ! " in the UI icon similar to the TP when having something new in it.
5) The HERO panel will upgrade with a new tab called “Living World” and will be account bound so every character will have it in their Hero panel regardless of what step in the personal story they are. Why? Because it is the World’s Story not personal story
6) There will be no UI notice as we have now but Hero panel’s Living World tab will keep track of all the text information the player gets a.k.a as used in the current mail system and it will update with a " ! " every time there is something new
7) The achievements tab will get a " ! " the first time a living story is updated with new achievements
8) once a Living Story content is ended, the Hero panel tab will still keep track of the past stories. All we have now is a history of achievements and not a history of the storyline unless you are still keeping the mails in your post box

This is how I would introduce a Living Story content without cluttering the UI for weeks and annoying those uninterested.

Living stories should be remembered as stories too not only achievements

I would make it have permenant content. I get the whole “make it seem alive” but as one person who left and came back months later “Nothing seems different”. Doesnt really make the world seem so alive, does it? I hate the feeling that if you miss a segment, you’re missing the story. A big complaint in Southsun was that, since apparently it was built on a much earlier event, so for all us who missed it, it was alot of “Who is this, why is this happening and why should I even care?”

LS needs to enact actual lasting change, and make us care about whats going on. And maybe let us feel more important, since I just feel like some creepy stalker of Kiel.

Hmm…

I’d make certain aspects of the story truly player-driven, so the story couldn’t progress / conclude without active player participation . Things like; discovering the bad guys base(s) of operations, helping citizens ect. I feel this sort of thing would help the player feel like an active participant and driving force, as opposed to being a lackey.

I’d also make certain things optional side-parts that aren’t made known to the player, where the player has to discover these things for themselves. So things like; helping the refugees (both escorting and defending the camp) by fending off attacks from opportunistic antagonists (Sons of Svanir, Separatists), gathering wood to make shelters and ires, herbs to make medicines, finding items that are important to them, Braham and Rox.

As well as this, rather than have a five-man dungeon at the end, I’d have a massive, open-world map, and / or multiple smaller maps that requires players to co-ordinate their attacks upon. Failing to co-ordinate these attacks properly, or one team failing to take a base, would result in subsequent bases being harder to take, since they’ve been notified that someone’s attacking.

At the end of this, if players haven’t completed the content properly, survivors may remain / escape, resulting in similar events happening in other areas of Tyria in the future.

The map would remain, now inhabited by wildlife, or other undesirables (bandits, racial antagonists ect).

This is what I would do:

• As the content is released, players can read the story on their Hero’s Panel and what’s going on.
• There, you’ll have several objectives like “clear these story missions”, “complete this dungeon” or other objectives which replaces the same things achievements has now and instead give achievements more unique and fun things to do.
• E.g: “Run this story in <insert time and time frame>.” “Find the secret <insert item or area> in the story mission.” “Defeat this boss without <insert mechanic to avoid> in the dungeon.”. You can still have achievements for completing a set of missions and the dungeon, but they shouldn’t replace the Hero’s Panel, its reward and telling the story of the content.
• At the end of completing the Hero’s Panel mission you gain a temporary special reward (instead of putting it into achievements, add something else, like minipets and such, tho not gear).
• The Living Story content is temporary, but instead of disappearing once the other story content releases, it’s there for half a year before it disappears.
• When it disappears, dungeons are gone and put into Fractal as a separate dungeon from the original (so players can fully experience as they wish) and added as a fractal to the original, story mission icons disappears out in the world and all events and outside world changes reflects the outcome of the event.
• But! Living Story instanced missions can still be replayed and played for the first time by those who missed it by simply visiting the Hero’s Panel, accepting the mission and going to the location it played out previously. A lot like Personal Story. The special reward is gone, and instead you get gold for completing it the first time.

Conclusion: This not only allows people to replay what they have experienced, but for new players to experience the same content without it interfering with the story being alive. The world outside still changes and reflects the outcome, the events and NPCs that was around out in the world are gone and you can no longer do these side things for achievements.

You can still do the dungeon though in Mist of the Fractal and you can still do the story missions through Hero’s Panel. Some rewards are temporary and can’t be gained again and will still make this event special.

I feel a living story doesn’t need to be: add content and then take it away. They would add far more content for new people by making the living story permanent story content. Imagine if all the Living world stuff was just added story for your characters. Now Imagine someone new to the game starting after 1 year of such additions. It would IMO make the game feel way more impressive and give the person more time to grow to love the world and the characters in it.

I’d prefer permanent story content. And instead of make it and take it content, why not add in more dynamic events that maybe happen weekly or Monthly and provide good rewards. And maybe effect that entire zone and it’s dynamic events.

For example. Have a Weekly or Monthly event in the charr area where the flame legion attacks and if we fail to defeat them, they now control the zone and all the events in that area change. Then maybe a week or month later we get an event to take the area back. That feels far more living story to me.

I would make an Expansion instead.

New world event dragon to spice things up.

I would::::

1) Continue to give players in-game mail, because suddenly having someone from Destiney’s Edge or some other random in-game character show up out of the middle of nowhere when I log in in some random remote location to tell me about the latest and greatest sounds extremely game and story breaking to me.

2) Let Players read a summary of the Living Story in the Hero Panel (like the living story tab) in sections Only if they completed those sections (like reading the letter you get from an in-game character explaining those events to you is saved in a new, Living Story tab, and you can go re-read it whenever you want), just like how you should get to read sections of your personal story after you complete those sections. Why should a newer player get to read about it if they never did it to begin with?

3) I would have permanent changes to areas in the game (like the addition of Cragstead for example), and add a new Map/Zone/Whatever every few month (Like Southsun Cove).

4) I would have temporary story content, but once its gone, its gone forever. The Molten Alliance invaded six months ago. Why should they still be invading in December, if all the other events that happened are a direct result of this story content? The World doesn’t seem like time passes in any meaningful way if the storylines stay there and overlap forever!

5) I would not do away with RNG chests. I would make it so the first weapon claim ticket is a freebie, but only after completing the meta achievement or a smaller achievement in the living story release. If you want more weapon skins than that, then you might want to start working for them!

Sorry if this sounds kind of Troll(y), but there is very little I disagree with as far as the living story goes so far, except….

6) I would not add another half-baked mini-game, or any new gameplay types at all unless there was atleast a month or longer of extensive beta testing to ensure it works as intended.