Inconsistent living world philosophy!
I think removal of the personal story is actually a great idea — it’s pretty bad anyway and that would release several zones and regions from their frozen-in-time state.
The real problem is that the Living Story is pretty terrible in terms of story — that’s a problem that needs to be resolved first.
Or they could just accept that the Personal Story is historical content. I don’t understand why this is a constant issue. I can go and play any Guild Wars campaign or expansion in any order, why should GW2 be any different? The personal story has to be historical at some point otherwise the Living World can never be anything resembling alive.
Freezing the world in time simply doesn’t make sense.
Or they could just accept that the Personal Story is historical content. I don’t understand why this is a constant issue. I can go and play any Guild Wars campaign or expansion in any order, why should GW2 be any different? The personal story has to be historical at some point otherwise the Living World can never be anything resembling alive.
Freezing the world in time simply doesn’t make sense.
That actually makes a lot of sense. If you check the Guild Wars 2 Timeline(http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Timeline) you’ll see that in 1325 AE our Personal Story starts, and the present day in GW2 along with the Living Story is 1326 AE. However, it doesn’t really seem like one year has gone by(or close to a year). If ANet is goingto update this timeline each year, and Zhaitan is still around in the same state, or Orr is still around in the same state(corrupted etc)… It just won’t really work.
The idea of instancing like the Pre-Searing and after the searing, seems like an option, but if I’m correct, Colin Johanson stated it would divide the player-base too much, which I completely agree with(and remember).
The idea of the Personal Storyline being historical seems like the best option so far.. or just instancing at another level? For example, each person mines his own node, its an instanced object in the same world map. Could this approach be used in Orr? Players who have completed the Story-line would start to see certain forms of life like trees and plants grow, and an overall more colorful Orr (a bit like what happens after the Cathedral of Verdance Event chain?).
There is also another option, partially mentioned in the posts before, the removal of the personal story. I do not agree with this, HOWEVER, I’d say the the last few missions could be changed every time most of the player base killed the Elder Dragon that is around at the time (and could then complete Zhaitan and others through the historical system).
Today, in 1326 AE, Zhaitan has been killed(or at least we think so). Imagine the AntiToxin Injection Meter, for the Elder Dragon. The meter would fill up in time as players killed the Elder Dragon. Once the meter is full the last few missions leading to the dragon would be removed and instead ANet could add a last mission LEADING players to the current Living Story. I Think this would work.
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Freezing the world in time simply doesn’t make sense.
They just need to fix how LS is being introduced to players, also as i am tired of saying, overflow sytem disconects players from the happenings on their server.
Since LS is being worked to create more blob of randoms(due how game is designed) will be always a model broken by source and decisions.
1st April joke, when gw2 receives a “balance” update.
@EragamerLG.2390 I believe what you’re suggesting is called phasing. I’ve never played WoW but I’ve seen forum posts here about that, and usually it was talked about with mixed or negative connotations.
A living world is fine, but its bad enough that new players can’t experience any of the previous LS. If you remove the PS too, what drive do they have to go out and explore? The current PS can always be considered “historical” (or like gw1 did it, “relive the experiences that happened before you got here”), but it shouldn’t be removed.
Personally I liked the PS, and I wish I could actually replay certain parts of it. As for “cleaning up” Orr, I think it’s fine if it’s left “as is.” And just a new zone or two are added (and possibly only being able to be accessed after the dragon is defeated).
@EragamerLG.2390 I believe what you’re suggesting is called phasing. I’ve never played WoW but I’ve seen forum posts here about that, and usually it was talked about with mixed or negative connotations.
A living world is fine, but its bad enough that new players can’t experience any of the previous LS. If you remove the PS too, what drive do they have to go out and explore? The current PS can always be considered “historical” (or like gw1 did it, “relive the experiences that happened before you got here”), but it shouldn’t be removed.
Personally I liked the PS, and I wish I could actually replay certain parts of it. As for “cleaning up” Orr, I think it’s fine if it’s left “as is.” And just a new zone or two are added (and possibly only being able to be accessed after the dragon is defeated).
I personally liked the PS as well, and I’m not saying it should removed. I’m saying just like the Antitoxin meter, there should be one, and as it became full, the Elder Dragon would no longer be available at the PRESENT GW lore time, but could be fought through the historical system. And the last mission where we fought the Elder Dragon, to be consistent with the Living World and the present time in GW, would then change leading players into Living World Content.
As for phasing, that was just an idea, I’ve never played WoW, but think the instanced nodes in the world work out very well and would do so in a major concept as well. I can understand the negativity towards it though. Personally, I’d prefer it to be completely changed for all characters regardless, and it’s old state accessible via the historical system as well. This reminds me of the Ancient Karka event and the Attack on Lion Arch. If I had missed it, it would be great to go to LA and see how the lighthouse hda been destroyed along with the Lion Statue. Sure, I may have missed the event, but it gave me a much better sense of a “Living, breathing World” than the fact that I’ve defeated Zhaitan, can do so whenever I want because he’s always there, waiting, in present GW2 time, along with the Risen population and the corruption still in Orr, knowing I helped Trehearne perform the cleansing ritual(ONE YEAR AGO, in GW time), to which I see no consequences/outcome. I trust ANet will look into this though.
However, it is also possible that the Personal Story takes place DURING one year(starting 1325, ending 1326), which means it should be “ending” very soon(or has already?). If this is the case, then I guess the changes we’re waiting for can wait another year to be seen(or hopefully just months).
(edited by SigmaOfApeiron.8397)
Removal of gameplay is never a good idea. It’s the main reason why I’ve been playing this game less and less. Everything added should be accessible in some way.
The fact that you still cannot play southsun survival with friends is already disastrous and now you cannot even play it every day. I don’t know what the hell they are thinking.
If I look at what most of my guild mates are doing right now I’d say about 80% are doing champ runs for their legendaries and WvW. The Living story seem’s to keep player’s interest only for a few days and the PvE stuff is too generic: random loot, lack of challenge and no new areas to explore.
(edited by Xillllix.3485)
Or they could just accept that the Personal Story is historical content. I don’t understand why this is a constant issue. I can go and play any Guild Wars campaign or expansion in any order, why should GW2 be any different? The personal story has to be historical at some point otherwise the Living World can never be anything resembling alive.
Freezing the world in time simply doesn’t make sense.
What makes the most sense is dissolving the LW in its current incarnation and transforming it into something else. Having a large focus on temporary content and frequently wasting development resources to alter or remove existing content to simulate a ‘living world’ is pretty much the worst idea anyone ever conceived for an MMO and the main reason GW2’s first year of post-launch development has been a pretty huge flop and why they’re doing this collaborative development initiative now.
There are two systems that exist harmoniously already deeply embedded in the game – the PS and the DE system. The Living World should be about enhancing and expanding on those two systems to make them better rather than an experimental/kitten attempt at supplanting them with something that can’t even peacefully co-exist with them.
Story/instanced content should pretty much always be permanent and should be implemented and treated as expansions to the PS, which they should focus on improving the general experience of, such as allowing replaying of missions, better utilization of the home instance, and recruitment of NPC henchmen that you can take into PS content. Content within the PS would be on a world scale and would reflect the overarching narrative of the game as told from a player/character perspective.
The Living Story part of the development should be focused around open world features (like weather) and spotlighting the stories of specific new or existing zones (open world) that occur autonomously from the character-driven narrative of the larger world (reflected in the PS). This can involve some temporary content but it would be relatively insignificant bits that just serve to enrich existing lore and provide greater immersion for the spotlighted story. Content within the LW would be on an area scale and would autonomous subplots that occur throughout the world.