Just Completed Personal Story... WHAT???

Just Completed Personal Story... WHAT???

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Posted by: Tipper.6973

Tipper.6973

I’m a new player and I just beat Zhaitan for the first time. I thought that would be that for the personal story, but then a new green indicator appeared on my map. Nice! More to do!

Except, nothing makes sense.

All of the sudden, I’m whisked off to the Durmond Priory base, talking to all these people I’ve never seen before. There’s some Dwarf guy I remember from GW1 (but I’ve never met him before in GW2… what is his purpose?), and some girl calling me “boss”. I have no idea what I’m doing here but okay.

Next I’m summoning some ghost guy and doing a throwback quest to ascension (which I also remember from GW1, but if I hadn’t played that game I REALLY wouldn’t have a clue what is happening).

After that, all of the sudden I’m sent to dry top in search of some dragon egg? What? What egg? Why is Destiny’s Edge here searching for Caithe?

Who are all these people calling me boss?

Oh cool I guess I found Caithe in a cave. But why is she hanging out with Faolain? I did TA while levelling and I thought they were enemies?

Why do these people keep calling me boss?

WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING??

….

This game has THE WORST story telling I have ever seen. Now, I understand that I have missed out on some living story stuff… but this is just really, really bad. With a sudden influx of new players who may not be reading the forums or wiki page, they will simply not understand this broken quest chain. They will be so confused. It ruins immersion and weakens the games overall plot & feel.

Gah. I can’t even go back and purchase Season 1 to figure out what is going on, so I guess I’ll spend the next hour reading quest dialogue on the wiki, instead of… y’know, enjoying the game.

Sorry for the rant. I’ve just spent the last couple hours of my game thoroughly confused and disappointed. This is a really bad way of handling introducing new players to the expansion.

Oh, one more thing — Who is this Mordremoth, anyway? The game still hasn’t told me.

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Posted by: Systematic Anarchy.1439

Systematic Anarchy.1439

Unfortunately if you’re a new player looking for story, this is the absolute worst time to join if you want to do it all in game. Fixes and additions are being worked on but you’ll need to YouTube the story to get close to an idea of what is going on. The beginning of the real story was LS season 1 and if you missed that you are up kitten creek until it’s put into the game via gemstone or otherwise. What you did was season 2 which you really shouldn’t have bothered with if you wanted any sort of chronological sense to be happening. YouTube season 1 and look at Anet’s recap videos on their YouTube channel as well.

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Posted by: Tipper.6973

Tipper.6973

The thing that I don’t get, is why would they bother to give me the final chapter of Season 2? I didn’t even get the parts before it, just the ending. This makes literally zero sense to a player who doesn’t supplement the game with forums/wiki/youtube. It feels really bad.

I would have been happier if the story just “ended” at Zhaitan, with a pop-up that directs me to the store page for purchasing the living story episodes (BOTH of them…) if I want to continue. “Prepare for Heart of Thorns here!”

Now, I’m just confused, and the ending of season 2 is spoiled for me. I don’t even /want/ to go spend gems on the rest of the living story now, because it will be told out of order.

What kind of ridiculous idea is limiting the living story to seasons, anyway? Like, I can’t imagine the devs sitting in a board room somewhere and coming to a consensus that it is a good idea. What were they thinking? Would ANYONE protest if they allowed you to buy season 1? It just seems like easy money for Anet, and happier players who enjoy lore.

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Posted by: BobbyStein

BobbyStein

Guild Wars 2 Narrative Lead

Next

The thing that I don’t get, is why would they bother to give me the final chapter of Season 2? I didn’t even get the parts before it, just the ending. This makes literally zero sense to a player who doesn’t supplement the game with forums/wiki/youtube. It feels really bad.

Here’s what I think happened in your case:

  • You logged into GW2 sometime between January 13 and January 27 (the date when episode 8 released and the end of the two week “free unlock” period)
  • You completed your Personal Story six months later
  • The content guide looked for the next available story in your Story Journal. Since you probably don’t have any other episodes from Season 2 unlocked it put you on Episode 8.

I’d need to see a screenshot to be absolutely sure, but that’s likely what happened.

The good: You got a free episode
The bad: You played that episode out of linear order and it confused you

We certainly can message this better in the game, so I’ll be having some conversations about how to change this behavior.

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Posted by: BrunoBRS.5178

BrunoBRS.5178

Oh, one more thing — Who is this Mordremoth, anyway? The game still hasn’t told me.

and it won’t. even if you were following it in chronological order since launch. they just start using the name at some point and assume the player is in on the out-of-game datamining.

LegendaryMythril/Zihark Darshell

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Posted by: Tipper.6973

Tipper.6973

The thing that I don’t get, is why would they bother to give me the final chapter of Season 2? I didn’t even get the parts before it, just the ending. This makes literally zero sense to a player who doesn’t supplement the game with forums/wiki/youtube. It feels really bad.

Here’s what I think happened in your case:

  • You logged into GW2 sometime between January 13 and January 27 (the date when episode 8 released and the end of the two week “free unlock” period)
  • You completed your Personal Story six months later
  • The content guide looked for the next available story in your Story Journal. Since you probably don’t have any other episodes from Season 2 unlocked it put you on Episode 8.

I’d need to see a screenshot to be absolutely sure, but that’s likely what happened.

The good: You got a free episode
The bad: You played that episode out of linear order and it confused you

We certainly can message this better in the game, so I’ll be having some conversations about how to change this behavior.

Okay, glad to hear this is an isolated case! I don’t recall if I had GW2 installed during that time period (I purchased GW2 at release, but only just got around to playing it a month or two ago… I know, I know), but it would make sense for that to be the cause.

Here’s a screenshot of my story tab, if that helps you at all.

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Posted by: kajidourden.1264

kajidourden.1264

So I’m still working on my personal story but this has me wondering….what will happen once I finish it? Will I basically be stuck picking up at a point that makes no sense like the OP here? If that’s the case i’ll just skip the story entirely once I hit the cap.
P.S. My account is only two months old, max, so I wouldn’t have this exact problem.

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Posted by: BobbyStein

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BobbyStein

Guild Wars 2 Narrative Lead

Next

The thing that I don’t get, is why would they bother to give me the final chapter of Season 2? I didn’t even get the parts before it, just the ending. This makes literally zero sense to a player who doesn’t supplement the game with forums/wiki/youtube. It feels really bad.

Here’s what I think happened in your case:

  • You logged into GW2 sometime between January 13 and January 27 (the date when episode 8 released and the end of the two week “free unlock” period)
  • You completed your Personal Story six months later
  • The content guide looked for the next available story in your Story Journal. Since you probably don’t have any other episodes from Season 2 unlocked it put you on Episode 8.

I’d need to see a screenshot to be absolutely sure, but that’s likely what happened.

The good: You got a free episode
The bad: You played that episode out of linear order and it confused you

We certainly can message this better in the game, so I’ll be having some conversations about how to change this behavior.

Okay, glad to hear this is an isolated case! I don’t recall if I had GW2 installed during that time period (I purchased GW2 at release, but only just got around to playing it a month or two ago… I know, I know), but it would make sense for that to be the cause.

Here’s a screenshot of my story tab, if that helps you at all.

Thanks for the screenshot. Yeah, you had episode 8 unlocked (either you got it for free in January or you bought it). Episodes 1-7 show as locked in your journal so the content guide put you on the only one available.

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Posted by: BobbyStein

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BobbyStein

Guild Wars 2 Narrative Lead

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So I’m still working on my personal story but this has me wondering….what will happen once I finish it? Will I basically be stuck picking up at a point that makes no sense like the OP here? If that’s the case i’ll just skip the story entirely once I hit the cap.
P.S. My account is only two months old, max, so I wouldn’t have this exact problem.

The Personal Story shouldn’t show up anymore in the upper right once you complete it, and since you don’t have any Living World episodes unlocked I believe the content guide will point you to other things like events, etc. You can change these settings by hitting F11 and looking at the Content Guide settings under User Interface.

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Posted by: FlamingFoxx.1305

FlamingFoxx.1305

The thing that I don’t get, is why would they bother to give me the final chapter of Season 2? I didn’t even get the parts before it, just the ending. This makes literally zero sense to a player who doesn’t supplement the game with forums/wiki/youtube. It feels really bad.

Here’s what I think happened in your case:

  • You logged into GW2 sometime between January 13 and January 27 (the date when episode 8 released and the end of the two week “free unlock” period)
  • You completed your Personal Story six months later
  • The content guide looked for the next available story in your Story Journal. Since you probably don’t have any other episodes from Season 2 unlocked it put you on Episode 8.

I’d need to see a screenshot to be absolutely sure, but that’s likely what happened.

The good: You got a free episode
The bad: You played that episode out of linear order and it confused you

We certainly can message this better in the game, so I’ll be having some conversations about how to change this behavior.

Even if OP had been able to start from the beginning of Season 2 they wouldn’t have had a clue what was going on. They would still have been thrust into a situation with brand new characters they hadn’t met before but who were treating them as if they had. Yeah OP was in a worse situation for just having the last chapter of LS2, but the fact that not a single new player is going to know anything about LS1 means you have a whole lot of new players going on who are going to be incredibly turned off by the fact that there is a whole lot of story that is inaccessible to them.

“The bad: You played that episode out of linear order and it confused you”
That is going to be the situation for everyone who missed out on LS1, because guess what, that means they’re playing the story out of linear order (because a large chunk of time/story is inaccessible to them) and every single one of them is going to be confused. You guys screwed up.

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Posted by: Rifky.9321

Rifky.9321

Thanks for the screenshot. Yeah, you had episode 8 unlocked (either you got it for free in January or you bought it). Episodes 1-7 show as locked in your journal so the content guide put you on the only one available.

I wanted to clarify this.
I have all the LS2 episodes unlocked and I’ve done them all when they were released, so I don’t get confused by such things and I remember my situation pretty well. This is what happened to me multiple times:
- When I completed Victory or Death on one of my alts, the green indicator put me on the newest LS2 chapter – for instance, if it happened in November 2014, it directed me onto Tangled Paths and so on.
- When I completed Victory or Death on my other alts – after the release of the final LS2 chapter, Point of No Return, it put me onto this very chapter, specifically the first mission, Arcana Obscura. I believe this is what happened to OP.
In those situations I needed to quit the episode in question and manually start Disturbance in Brisban Wildlands (first mission of chapter 1).
I have all the LS2 episodes unlocked, so it’s not a case of directing you onto your earliest unlocked one – probably it moves you to the newest unlocked.
At first I thought this was intentional, something like advertizing your newest chapter so that players can check what’s hot at the moment and join right in, etc. Then I figured the dev team probably didn’t remember to change it :P
Perhaps this counts as a bug?

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Posted by: starglam.1596

starglam.1596

As a possible bug note. I did buy this story line early this week and the same thing happened to me. I finished Zman and then the first episode that it gave me for LS2 was the last episode. I completed it wondering why I was attacking these enemies with no context and then went into my achievements to find that it was in fact the last story, but it put me on it first. I now have my last episode completed first and with all mastery done for it as well.

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Posted by: thedrumchannell.2405

thedrumchannell.2405

So I’m still working on my personal story but this has me wondering….what will happen once I finish it? Will I basically be stuck picking up at a point that makes no sense like the OP here? If that’s the case i’ll just skip the story entirely once I hit the cap.
P.S. My account is only two months old, max, so I wouldn’t have this exact problem.

The Personal Story shouldn’t show up anymore in the upper right once you complete it, and since you don’t have any Living World episodes unlocked I believe the content guide will point you to other things like events, etc. You can change these settings by hitting F11 and looking at the Content Guide settings under User Interface.

This is exactly why LS1 should be unlock-able and purchasable like LS2.

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Posted by: BobbyStein

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BobbyStein

Guild Wars 2 Narrative Lead

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This is exactly why LS1 should be unlock-able and purchasable like LS2.

I don’t disagree. We’ve stated before that we hope to one day rebuild LW Season 1, but we’re focused on HoT development right now.

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Posted by: BobbyStein

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BobbyStein

Guild Wars 2 Narrative Lead

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As a possible bug note. I did buy this story line early this week and the same thing happened to me. I finished Zman and then the first episode that it gave me for LS2 was the last episode. I completed it wondering why I was attacking these enemies with no context and then went into my achievements to find that it was in fact the last story, but it put me on it first. I now have my last episode completed first and with all mastery done for it as well.

I’d like to have QA repro this, but I need to know exactly what happened. Let me know if my understanding of your situation is accurate here.

  • You hadn’t yet completed Personal Story (e.g. did every story step except Zhaitan)
  • You bought LW Season 2 in the gem store
  • You then finished your Personal Story by defeating Zhaitan
  • The content guide then pointed you at LW S2 Episode 8 instead of Episode 1

Is this correct?

(edited by BobbyStein.2315)

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Posted by: Bob F It.5701

Bob F It.5701

As a possible bug note. I did buy this story line early this week and the same thing happened to me. I finished Zman and then the first episode that it gave me for LS2 was the last episode. I completed it wondering why I was attacking these enemies with no context and then went into my achievements to find that it was in fact the last story, but it put me on it first. I now have my last episode completed first and with all mastery done for it as well.

I’d like to have QA repro this, but I need to know exactly what happened. Let me know if my understanding of your situation is accurate here.

  • You hadn’t yet completed Personal Story (e.g. did every story step except Zhaitan)
  • You bought LW Season 2 in the gem store
  • You then finished your Personal Story by defeating Zhaitan
  • The content guide then pointed you at LW S2 Episode 8 instead of Episode 1

Is this correct?

I’ve experienced similar results when doing alts while Season 2 was rolling out. Whenever Personal Story was finished, the most recent LS chapter would activate, regardless of any earlier chapters also being unlocked.

Right click your GW2 shortcut > “Properties”
“Shortcut” tab > “Target”
Add to the end " -bmp"

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Posted by: Oorjuwa.1682

Oorjuwa.1682

Anet really must focus on S1 before anything else, its a big turn off for new and returning players who missed it…at least I think so, specially now with a new expansion is coming out it only gets more and more confusing. It Just makes sense that S1 comes before S2 and specifically before all expansions.

I don’t think it is that hard, I have read community thoughts and ideas regarding the same, It can be done easier than they making it appear to be. I guess they are just delaying a really important matter.

“You’ve got some really nice toys there. Mind if I break them?”
— Gwen

(edited by Oorjuwa.1682)

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Posted by: Bob F It.5701

Bob F It.5701

Anet really must focus on S1 before anything else, its a big turn off for new and returning players who missed it…at least I think so, specially now with a new expansion is coming out it only gets more and more confusing. It Just makes sense that S1 comes before S2 and specifically before all expansions.

I don’t think it is that hard, I have read community thoughts and ideas regarding the same, It can be done easier than they making it appear to be. I guess they are just delaying a really important matter.

I think it should be the focus after HoT releases, along with hunting down any bugs that arise from the release; there should be enough content to keep most players busy while it’s happening.

Right click your GW2 shortcut > “Properties”
“Shortcut” tab > “Target”
Add to the end " -bmp"

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Posted by: starglam.1596

starglam.1596

As a possible bug note. I did buy this story line early this week and the same thing happened to me. I finished Zman and then the first episode that it gave me for LS2 was the last episode. I completed it wondering why I was attacking these enemies with no context and then went into my achievements to find that it was in fact the last story, but it put me on it first. I now have my last episode completed first and with all mastery done for it as well.

I’d like to have QA repro this, but I need to know exactly what happened. Let me know if my understanding of your situation is accurate here.

  • You hadn’t yet completed Personal Story (e.g. did every story step except Zhaitan)
  • You bought LW Season 2 in the gem store
  • You then finished your Personal Story by defeating Zhaitan
  • The content guide then pointed you at LW S2 Episode 8 instead of Episode 1

Is this correct?

That is correct. I don’t know for sure if I was on the quest for Zhaitan specifically, but I can say I did not complete the personal story completely before purchasing the LW story from the gem store. Although, I do believe I was on the last episode of the personal story when I bought the LW season.

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Posted by: Nidome.1365

Nidome.1365

Having completed the personal story with the rest of my characters since the release to LS2 I can attest that it always starts the last episode rather than the first episode of LS2 immediately after completion.
I have just been quitting that episode and starting it from the first but I guess that if you are not familiar with LS2 it would be confusing.

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Posted by: BobbyStein

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BobbyStein

Guild Wars 2 Narrative Lead

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Thanks for all the info. I’ll be following up with QA and some other people and taking a closer look at this issue.

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Posted by: deSade.9437

deSade.9437

This game has THE WORST story telling I have ever seen.

Yep.
You’ll get used to it.

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Posted by: Zonkster.3589

Zonkster.3589

I would like to get this off my screen since I doubt I will ever be able to complete it (The Mystery Cave) in it’s current condition.
Unfortunately none of the choices in the drop down list for the “Content Guide” in the Options dialog actually work.
Setting it to anything other than “Default” and then resetting it to “Default” works for about two seconds then the Mystery Cave is mysteriously back.

I also tried quitting the episode in the Hero panel, again it just mysteriously reappeared.

(edited by Zonkster.3589)

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Posted by: Tobias Trueflight.8350

Tobias Trueflight.8350

This game has THE WORST story telling I have ever seen.

Yep.
You’ll get used to it.

Still not as bad as Minecraft.

Seeking assistants for the Asuran Catapult Project. Applicants will be tested for aerodynamics.

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Posted by: Donari.5237

Donari.5237

Suggestion: Have a cinematic recap of Season One to explain the story, and a PS page in the Hero Panel that summarizes the events that happened in LS1. When someone completes the post-Arah victory party, give them an option — a very noticeable one, perhaps via mail, perhaps via a reward object that plays the cinematic when used (in which case also have an NPC somewhere who plays it, to avoid inventory clogging) — an option to view the cinematic.

That brings them up to speed as to what happened to lead to LS2 Chapter 1. Then there can be a clear note (in the mail? in a popup saying “you are now in LS2, and need to unlock chapters xyz to play them unless you join another player’s instance”?) to tell them what the next sequence of story involves.

Wow, I wrote that in a convoluted way. Short form: Until we have LS1 playable again, use a cinematic to inform players of the story bridging from Zhaitan to the biconics (along with a written summary in the PS panel), then direct them to how to access LS2 in the correct order.

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Posted by: khani.4786

khani.4786

Thanks for all the info. I’ll be following up with QA and some other people and taking a closer look at this issue.

Yeah, I just finished the personal story on two of my characters. The first had one part of the living world and was actually started on one of the episodes when I went back to try Victory or Death. I finished Victory or Death & then it put me at Ep. 8 (I was working on Ep. 4). The other character hadn’t touched Living Story yet and it also put her right at Episode 8 when she finished Victory or Death. I put in an official bug report with screenshot in game. Hope that helps!

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Posted by: Donari.5237

Donari.5237

Khani, are you saying it behaved differently from how Bobby described it in his OP in the sticky in General? I remember that there were some steps that if you were on them you would get advanced and miss out on a section. He listed which ones. I checked all my alts for where they were and none were on one of the “bad” steps so I stopped giving mental space to which steps were the miss-out ones.

I suggest you check the sticky to see if you’re bugged or were just in the wrong PS position when the patch hit.

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Posted by: khani.4786

khani.4786

No, personal story itself works fine from what I’ve found. When you finish personal story it jumps to episode 8 of the Living story rather than episode 1 (or wherever you left off).

Edit: it’s not a huge deal if you’re paying attention to where you are in the story, but if you’re not paying attention (or unaware there’s a problem), then you’ll wind up doing living world season 2 out of order.

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Posted by: Niquechelle.2015

Niquechelle.2015

Just to give some additional info on this.
This happened to me as well recently on one of my alts.

I’m playing since beta so I got the Personal Story finished on most of my characters but not all. Also I got all Living Story Chapters unlocked.

I just played the last Chapter of the Zhaitan fight alone, to try it out.
After I finished and got out of the instance where you celebrate Zhaitans defeat
I got redirected straight to the last Arcana Obscura Chapter of the Living Story.

After I received the mail I read it over and noticed something was of, when I opened the Story tap I saw that not the first Chapter was activated but a later one.

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Posted by: Afya.5842

Afya.5842

I think they call you the BAUS to like you feel like a BAUS. Guess that’s a resolution to the complain of the original personal story.

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Posted by: Donari.5237

Donari.5237

Oh I misunderstood, Khani. I thought you meant it moved you to chapter 8 of the PS, not the final episode of LS2. Never mind me.

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Posted by: kta.6502

kta.6502

This game has THE WORST story telling I have ever seen.

Yep.
You’ll get used to it.

Still not as bad as Minecraft.

Or MapleStory… Prior to the Big Bang event, MS’s story was really, really messed up.

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Posted by: Ceridwen.6703

Ceridwen.6703

Probably a little late to the party, but thought I’d chime in anyway: I’ve had my main character do all Personal Story, and did the LS stuff when it was available (and twice over at that), so all content is unlocked. After the recent change to the Arah story dungeon, I’ve been taking in my alts, and after each completion thus far, I’ve been directed immediately afterward to Arcana Obscura.

I like that particular part of the story, yes, but I don’t necessarily want to have to be instructed by the nag text on my alts for more stuff. I default to having it turned off, and I’d love for that off to actually mean all off. Also, slight derail: I was after a sly hair kit from the Distorted Reflection achievement. I started it off whilst holding the torch, but it then seemed I switched to my own weapons (even though I’m fairly sure I didn’t tell it to!), and when I’d killed the doppleganger, I had the divine fire torch again. The achievement didn’t take, and I’d not mind a clue as to why (and it’s not really an issue to run the instance again - as I said, I actually like this one a fair bit!).

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Steve R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”

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Posted by: BobbyStein

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BobbyStein

Guild Wars 2 Narrative Lead

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Living World episodes can be played in any order and also replayed, unlike the Personal Story which you can only play in chapter order and may only do so once per character.

Living World Season 2 is like show season available on Netflix. There is a linear order to the story episodes but the user may choose to play any episode they like (or in the case of this bug, the system is pointing you to the last one you unlocked instead of the next one in story order).

I don’t believe this is messaged clearly in the game, so we’ll be looking at ways to better communicate this. Your feedback helps, so thanks for taking the time to report your issues and share your ideas with us.

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Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Konig Des Todes.2086

I’d like to have QA repro this, but I need to know exactly what happened. Let me know if my understanding of your situation is accurate here.

  • You hadn’t yet completed Personal Story (e.g. did every story step except Zhaitan)
  • You bought LW Season 2 in the gem store
  • You then finished your Personal Story by defeating Zhaitan
  • The content guide then pointed you at LW S2 Episode 8 instead of Episode 1

Is this correct?

Yeah, this has been around since at least September. I recall it happening for my ranger, and he’d constantly be pushed to the most latest episode whenever I tried to stop an episode.

This is exactly why LS1 should be unlock-able and purchasable like LS2.

I don’t disagree. We’ve stated before that we hope to one day rebuild LW Season 1, but we’re focused on HoT development right now.

Any chance we can convince you guys to have a side team work on Season 1 now?

Perhaps sending cookies would help the process? Or other sweets, perhaps?

I don’t like Scarlet in the least (there was just too many retcons made to make her seem all the more important and all the good guys just kept juggling that idiot ball throughout Season 1), but I enjoyed the mechanics of Season 1 and I’ve grown long tired of having to explain to new players what it is their missing and how they cannot play Season 1, and tired of seeing the immense disappointment that leads to anger over ‘lost content’ after explaining such to them.

This just seems like something as important as the Personal Story Restoration project. And something that by all logic should go out before HoT’s release because Season 1 leads into HoT just as much as Season 2 does.

When you really look at it, Seasons 1 and 2 and HoT are all one story – while the Personal Story is its own story that’s just related. But as it is, people coming into the game for HoT can’t enjoy Season 1.

It’s like telling people to read The Hobbit (Personal Story), and then The Two Towers (Season 2) and Lord of the Rings (HoT), while keeping Fellowship of the Rings out of their reach, allowing them only to read a summary of it online. That just makes no sense.

Until we have LS1 playable again, use a cinematic to inform players of the story bridging from Zhaitan to the biconics (along with a written summary in the PS panel), then direct them to how to access LS2 in the correct order.

They even already have some ‘recap cinematics’ (though they don’t do that grand of a job) already:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/recap-the-living-world-of-guild-wars-2/
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/recap-scarlets-war/

So just adding those into the game via an NPC would work ‘well’ until Season 1 becomes permanent.

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)

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Posted by: Becka Williams.4978

Becka Williams.4978

Suggestion: Have a cinematic recap of Season One to explain the story, and a PS page in the Hero Panel that summarizes the events that happened in LS1. When someone completes the post-Arah victory party, give them an option — a very noticeable one, perhaps via mail, perhaps via a reward object that plays the cinematic when used (in which case also have an NPC somewhere who plays it, to avoid inventory clogging) — an option to view the cinematic.

That brings them up to speed as to what happened to lead to LS2 Chapter 1. Then there can be a clear note (in the mail? in a popup saying “you are now in LS2, and need to unlock chapters xyz to play them unless you join another player’s instance”?) to tell them what the next sequence of story involves.

Wow, I wrote that in a convoluted way. Short form: Until we have LS1 playable again, use a cinematic to inform players of the story bridging from Zhaitan to the biconics (along with a written summary in the PS panel), then direct them to how to access LS2 in the correct order.

I’ve long since said that LS1 should be released as cinematic chapters. Ie: you play, let’s say, the tower of nightmares chapter, and it takes you through what happened via a cinematic, rather than forcing anet to worry about instances, and scaling, etc, etc. That way people would know what’s going on. of course, they could also go to youtube, but I do understand the desire for everything to be in game.

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Posted by: Zaklex.6308

Zaklex.6308

For those that have ideas about Season 1, what hasn’t been stated yet by Bobby is that those were done as Live releases in the open world on a temporary basis. In other words, the content was in the open world for a limited time, then removed…at this point, they would need to reconstruct some of it and change others(the large scale fights) to suit a more personal story like instance. That’s the secondary reason it hasn’t been re-released as of yet, the primary reason is the focus on HoT.

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Posted by: Gnat.9405

Gnat.9405

“The bad: You played that episode out of linear order and it confused you”
That is going to be the situation for everyone who missed out on LS1, because guess what, that means they’re playing the story out of linear order (because a large chunk of time/story is inaccessible to them) and every single one of them is going to be confused. You guys screwed up.

Considering all the people that just bought the game with the HoT prepurchase, this mass confusion over LS is going to be unprecedented. It’s going to wreck the perception of the story and GW2 lore for players that haven’t been exposed to it.

It would probably be a really good idea to have a team make a recap cinematic or even put in a readable text option to at least give the people some idea of what’s going on that will release along HoT as part of the end of the personal story. These forums are gonna be wild.

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Posted by: ProtoGunner.4953

ProtoGunner.4953

There are two decisions with imo were implemented in a questionable way: making season 1 in non-instanced areas, aka open world which makes an implementation rather complicated and season 2 making a think you have to pay in case you missed it.

‘would have/would’ve been’ —> correct
‘would of been’ —> wrong

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Posted by: Koomaster.9176

Koomaster.9176

Have to admit I was confused about Season 2 as well. Only had the game for 4 months and I guess I thought the personal story was ‘Season 1’ and then I bought Season 2. Started off Season 2 and I was very confused wondering who all these people were and what was going on.

I know you guys have a lot going on with HoT, but maybe some cinematic that goes over the events that happened in Living World Season 1 for people who bought Season 2 that plays before things get rolling. If that could be added in the future it would go a long way to letting people enjoy the story without feeling so confused.

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Posted by: Lucky.4263

Lucky.4263

This is a huge issue and one that is being looked over by the developers.. season 1 can not play at all and season 2 locked behind a paywall.

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Posted by: Evans.6347

Evans.6347

Still, how would you remake S1? It was mostly world events, and the instances were incorporated into Fractals.

Joy to the world, ignorance is bliss

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Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Konig Des Todes.2086

Still, how would you remake S1? It was mostly world events, and the instances were incorporated into Fractals.

It actually wasn’t.

I mean, yes, there was a large number of events added and removed with Season 1, but an equal amount of events were added with Season 2. And most Season 1 events are, like the events of Season 2, not including the main characters or necessarily require going away after the events of the main plot.

Most of the main story was told in instances – in fact, only The Lost Shores, Tequatl Rising, and Escape from Lion’s Arch lacked instances out of all 25-or-so releases.

And it’s not like we don’t have events happening in story instances anyways – any event which does hold the main characters (primarily revolving around Kiel) can be recreated as an instance, rebalanced for 1-5 players. The only hard parts would be the unique zones – Tower of Nightmares and Lion’s Arch during both Escape from LA and Battle for LA. Twisted Marionette would be a lot of changes too.

But the rest of the main story – that is, ~20 out of 25 releases – are already instanced and ready to go. There are a total of 30 instances in Season 1 telling the story, with 2 dungeons; and about 12 events telling the main story (the vast majority of those being part of The Lost Shores). And even some of those events can be brought back into the open world and treated like the events related to Uprooting the Iron Marches.

I wrote out how I would return Season 1, after I had gotten some praise on a short-hand off-the-top-of-my-head suggestion posting a long while back.

In all honesty, bringing back Season 1 doesn’t seem as hard as people make it out to be. Most of the open world events are not relevant to the main story and are little different to the open world events we got with Season 2. Most of Season 1’s main story is still told in the open world like Season 2, with only about 10 idle placement of NPCs – half of which are previews (like for the Tower of Nightmares) or epilogues (like for Flame and Frost) which aren’t needed to be brought back (and if thought it should, a simple instance similar to Rallying Call – a combatless dialogue-only instance meant solely to push players into the next direction – would do).

The ‘zerg events’ only became a part of the Living World in three of the last five releases (Origins of Madness, Escape from LA, Battle for LA) – sole exception being The Lost Shores. Before that, they were zerg events because that was ‘the new thing’ – not because they were designed for zergs. No different than the zerg that showed when Dry Top and Silverwastes were new.

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

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Posted by: Evans.6347

Evans.6347

I’ll take your word on it, you’ve obviously put a lot of time and thought into this matter. All I can say is that it feels like most of it was in the open world or covered by Fractals, so I guess it’s perception.

Joy to the world, ignorance is bliss

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Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Konig Des Todes.2086

Oh I certainly agree that it feels like it. I thought it was mostly open world too, until I actually looked.

I guess that’s because all/most instances were one-time events and the main characters were all part of the open world on top of instances.

And to note: I’m not saying it’ll be easy to bring back Season 1 just because there were so many instances. The instances of Season 1 were done in multiple formats (4 different formats I believe), none of which are like Season 2/Personal Story, so it’s hard to say – especially as players – how much work would need to be done to change it from instance format A/B/C to instance format D.

But all the assets are there. Dialogue, plot, voice acting, even the intended scripting. Arguably, it might just be a case of rescripting into a new format with some programming for said format. But as a player it’s hard to gauge how much work that ‘case of rescripting’ might be.

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)

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Posted by: BobbyStein

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BobbyStein

Guild Wars 2 Narrative Lead

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And to note: I’m not saying it’ll be easy to bring back Season 1 just because there were so many instances. The instances of Season 1 were done in multiple formats (4 different formats I believe), none of which are like Season 2/Personal Story, so it’s hard to say – especially as players – how much work would need to be done to change it from instance format A/B/C to instance format D.

It’s quite a bit of work, actually, to convert the Season 1 content into something that resembles the Season 2 format. So while we’re fortunate to have some pre-built content to start from we’d have to make a lot of changes for it to fit the revised LW model.

But all the assets are there. Dialogue, plot, voice acting, even the intended scripting. Arguably, it might just be a case of rescripting into a new format with some programming for said format. But as a player it’s hard to gauge how much work that ‘case of rescripting’ might be.

My hope is that, should we take the opportunity to bring back Season 1 in some form or fashion, that we’d get the opportunity to make improvements like we did with the Personal Story restoration (revised VO, maybe some new or updated camera flythroughs or cinematics, etc.). I want to be clear, though, that we have nothing to announce at this time. Just being totally honest and managing expectations here.

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Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Konig Des Todes.2086

My hope is that, should we take the opportunity to bring back Season 1 in some form or fashion, that we’d get the opportunity to make improvements like we did with the Personal Story restoration (revised VO, maybe some new or updated camera flythroughs or cinematics, etc.). I want to be clear, though, that we have nothing to announce at this time. Just being totally honest and managing expectations here.

Revisions would be a great thing. It will present a chance to introduce Scarlet Briar in a less horrible manner. It will also provide a reason for veteran players to replay S1.

Also, I am putting in a formal request that you try to encorporate the short stories into the game.

Also x2, for when you get to The Secret of Southsun, you include the recorded but never used Faren judging the fancy cat competition. To be followed by an in-game version of the Welcome to Paradise short story.

I really hope that this becomes a priority project after HoT isfinished. Season 3 can wait. Your new players will want to not be confused.

And I STILL highly suggest a panel in the story journal to explain the events of Season 1.

And formal request to not forget about The Lost Shores. Because that is an important introduction for Kiel which is half of Season 1 (the not-Scarlet half).

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

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Posted by: BobbyStein

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BobbyStein

Guild Wars 2 Narrative Lead

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Also x2, for when you get to The Secret of Southsun, you include the recorded but never used Faren judging the fancy cat competition.

It’s on the list!

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Posted by: Randulf.7614

Randulf.7614

I pretty much concur with Konig. I think there are golden opportunities to learn the lessons of hindsight on S1 and make the changes you see fit that would improve things. S2 showed how you are improving the narrative and using that on S1 can only be a good thing.

Whilst I’m sad no work has been started on S1 since it is vital it is restored for the continuity of the story between PS and S2/HoT, I do appreciate that you have come out been honest with us. No false promises, no “watch this space” placitudes. It tempers the disappointment a lot, especially as any reasonable person will understand the demands of the expac on your time.

I would however concur with the above suggestions something is put in game to bridge the gap. I am friends with players who pretty much are oblivious to S2 existing and if they started it, would be utterly confused. Maybe the UI could direct the player to a herald in LA, directly after finishing the PS to play a video of what happened and then move onto S2 from there. Plus the addition of the panel Konig suggests.

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Posted by: PeterFries

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PeterFries

Narrative Designer

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Also x2, for when you get to The Secret of Southsun, you include the recorded but never used Faren judging the fancy cat competition.

It’s on the list!

(gasps in shock)