Guild Wars 2

The last season of Living Story has been brutal, with many displaced and dead, and much lost or poisoned territory; we need a win.

Trahearne headed the Pact for a time, but having “cleansed” Orr and downed Zhaitan, he has little purpose as their leader now. Players have long complained that we got more telling than showing about why Trahearne was worth supporting in the first place. He could use a bit more connection to the present and to the persistent, open world.

The source of Orr’s corruption has supposedly been cleansed, Zhaitan downed… but the zones linger on, still fully corrupted. Tequatl even got stronger. We could use some consistency.

The Personal Story and Living Story have been great (not perfect, but great), but they could really use some more relevance to one another. All the big guns of the Personal Story have been sitting around at home – except for Trahearne, who is supposedly in Orr, although we never actually see the guy.

I would like to propose a Living Story release that would help solve these problems, although it would need a fair amount of new resources and some new tech.

THE CLEANSING OF ORR

“Too long have the southern shores suffered the lingering influence of Zhaitan! Trahearne, Firstborn of the sylvari, calls on all able-bodied adventurers to strike back in a massive offensive!”

Trahearne is now a player-aligned “world boss”, who roams around cleansing bits and pieces of Orr. He has a commander tag, joinable squad, and everything. He may or may not provide buffs to players around him, but he DEFINITELY does not need player defense to stay alive; only to accomplish certain goals.

The usual take/lose defend/recapture events for all the old locations go on as usual, but when Trahearne is present, they take on additional significance. After a capture, Trahearne quickly sets up a cleansing ritual which must go on uninterrupted (more or less) to succeed. A defend event then begins. If the defend event succeeds, the location remains under Pact control… and is (partially, temporarily) cleansed of Zhaitan’s corruption.

Some of the grime and oil-slick shine retreats from earth and ruins. Lesser Risen die; greater Risen flee, weakened. And perhaps, slowly, life begins to bloom again.

Maybe the sounds of insects and birds begin to rise around us. Maybe plants grow, or the apparently dead coral towers open their polyp “flowers” once again. Maybe sylvari magic teases new life from the rocks.

I’d love to also see some non-corrupted animals about, although I’m not sure that could be justified lore wise. Also, for maximum impact, it’d be nice if some of the Orrian animals used new skins. Gorillas, for instance, I’ve never seen uncorrupted; and perhaps the chickens and cows Orrians kept were a different breed from those in other parts of Tyria.

If Orrians attack and recapture a location, it goes back to its corrupted state, of course.

If a “cleanse”/defend event succeeds, maybe a new merchant appears at the camp that is otherwise not available. For some currency (I’d suggest karma, which sure has stacked up on my account), they offer time-gated purchases, perhaps of T6 materials, sigils/runes, and whatnot. All “cleanse merchants” have the same items available and their cooldown is shared, so only one successful cleanse event per day is needed to get the max benefits out of the Cleansing of Orr meta event.

However, let’s make cleansing events a bit special… A cleansed location does have some resistance to being re-corrupted. This might come in the form of additional allies, a reduction in enemy forces, or a boon on players and debuff on Risen. In other words, it’s possible to gain some momentum in the fight against Zhaitan’s corruption.

Taking and holding all the locations in a map simultaneously may grant some additional reward, whether it’s a daily chest or a zone-wide buff.

CONTENT SPLITTING

Above, I’ve described what is seen by players who have completed the Personal Story, or at least Arah story mode; but not every character will do that. It’d be nice to not ruin things for the others.

Those who haven’t reached those key events still see Trahearne rushing around trying to cleanse things, but when he completes his ritual it doesn’t have quite the same effect. They’ll see him struggle and ultimately fail. He will manage to create a boon for the Pact at that location – mechanically, the exact same buff that slayers of Zhaitan will see – but the graphics and dialog involved are different. Trahearne and other Pact members will express frustration and regret, but a continuing resolve to push on into enemy territory. Instead of seeing the area cleansed and blooming, players will see a spark of magical energy build up – and then discharge (almost) uselessly, killing only the weakest and most wounded Risen, setting the rest fleeing. Maybe a small patch of ground goes green, but is quickly re-corrupted.

I think it’s possible to do all this in such a way that it presents a consistent picture, both before and after the death of Zhaitan.

Rewards would be available as usual, although the dialog/story accompanying them is once again different. The whole idea, here, is to make the same content available to all players, but have them perceive it differently based on the advancement of their character.

This story should generally be available to any player who has slain Zhaitan, regardless of whether their current character has. Perhaps an NPC (a “historian”?) would let you toggle your perception of events as long as they are unlocked on your account.

OTHER TASTIES

Additional, Slayer-of-Zhaitan-only content could be added around the periphery. Little areas could be created and blocked off with gates where slayers of Zhaitan can see additional events and more fully cleansed areas under tenacious guard. Some non-combat-oriented areas, like jump puzzles, might be fully and permanently cleansed to the eyes of a SoZ; some might be repopulated by mobs with the exact same mechanics, but different graphics.

Story instances could be available, some of them only when certain areas are cleansed. Some might be temporary, release-only instances, but some might be permanent and repeatable additions.

Given the impending danger of anti-sylvari sentiment, it will be very important for Trahearne (and others) to step up his game in representing the heroic side of the race. His example and active leadership could, at least, help keep the Orders fully open to sylvari members, even if other organizations are closed to them. His example could be the basis of an eventual reconciliation of other races with the sylvari, especially once we have additional dragon clean-up efforts going on based on his.

Certainly the Orders would take an interest in how well decorruption attempts worked, how long they could be sustained, and what forces were providing the pushback that recorrupted areas even after the apparent death of the dragon. Magical and Mundane Ecological Restoration could spring up as an area of study; it might come in handy later, too, in dealing with the aftermaths of other dragons. So might Historical Mageology – the study of deposited ambient magic in fossils, rock layers, tree rings and whatnot. It might provide predictive clues as to how, when, and where the dragons woke/will wake, and what effects they have on their environment even in rest.

Orr is a truly beautiful zone. Even in ruins, it is awe-inspiring and majestic. Getting little glimpses of what it was before is marvelous, even now; I’d love to see what even a small part of it looks like after a meticulous Priory restoration.

Necessary resources:

Uncorrupted versions of Orrian landscapes and perhaps of Orrian animals and plants.
New ambient sounds for uncorrupted Orr.
Lots of dialogue, with splits depending on what a given character has accomplished.
A reasonable working version of an NPC commander and scripting for reworked events.
Probably a few new minor characters to provide players with information or options.
The ability to split appearance of a world object by player/character accomplishments.
Optional new minor areas and events within Orr.

Pros:

Repopulate the Orrian zones by giving them some of the best zerg PvE content in the game. Maybe even lure the zerg out of Queensdale, making it function like a normal starter map again.
Encourage Personal Story completion without requiring it to access content rewards.
Trahearne gets street cred, and the past gets a link to the present.

Cons:

This content is strongly geared towards level 80 characters. You’d have to be level 70 to even start most of it.
Makes a bit less sense if you haven’t finished the Personal Story.
Risks temporal contradictions with the Personal Story, although I believe these can be mostly averted, or otherwise are already present in the base game.