Guild Wars 2

Before getting into my concern, I think there’s a fairly big distinction to make:
LS(Living Story) and LW(Living World) and very different, if complimentary, things.
The LS is an ongoing story that unfolds in Guild Wars 2, and progresses the narrative.
The LW is a concept based on events, progressed by the narrative, that somehow changes the game world, as well as progressing the real-time GW2 timeline.
Link to the GW2 timeline: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Timeline
I know the above can be somewhat subjective due to the nature of such concepts, and even though this is NOT the MAIN topic, I’d still like to know your opinions on these.

Now, we know that the current business model is as such:
“For Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, we didn’t want the core game’s price to be a factor in a new player’s decision to begin playing Guild Wars 2. In the future, if we release further Guild Wars 2 expansions, we plan to offer all of the prior expansions, the core game, and the latest expansion for one single purchase price.”

To be honest, I would understand this. It would make sense. Especially if WE, early adopters, got to experience the content, not only first, but to have the opportunity to change the world of Tyria, this would make it worthwhile.
The big issue here is that, although the Living Story is currently ongoing(to some extent), the Living World, and it pains me to say this, is currently NO WHERE TO BE FOUND. Living World, last time we saw it was with Season 1, where things actually changed at faster pace. If you “zoom out” and check the bigger picture you can include Season 2 and HoT into it, but that’s not a true Living World, that is just a Living Story.

My main concern, is that the current business model, due to the nature of the Living World concept not being active, is simply worth less than it could/should. You can include the time-limited free access Living Story Seasons, but you need to have the latest xpack and log in at the time of release.

Perhaps it’s still too early to talk about this, but considering 2015 saw a content draught and a somewhat dead Tyria for.. 7, 8? Months, and we’re nearly half way through 2016 and the same is applicable(except a few things such as Wintersday and The Shatterer), I can’t shake this feeling that Living World was the most interesting part of GW2, and now that we only have half of it(LS), it’ll forever feel incomplete, especially considering ANet managed to tap on part of the potential of the LW, and looking back, it was amazing, it made the ongoing Timeline have a much bigger meaning.

After the reception of the expansion, I saw the expansion as a 2 year re-sub to the game, which was fair considering the amount of content AND EXPERIENCES given to us, but now, 7 months in, no LW, no LS, the second content draught, my question now isn’t whether HoT was/is worth the buck for players. It’s whether the subsequent expansions, judging by ANets sudden change of vision for GW2, are worth THE DEVELOPMENT and the sacrifice to other forms of content.

If there were true Living World Events a la Season 1, where world-changing events happened it would make the early adoption of ongoing expansions much more feasible and worth not only the buck, but the time as well.
In Season 1 warriors of Tyria came together for world-impacting events. Season 2 and expansions are much more akin to linear Single-player games, and last I heard this is supposed to be an MMO.

Thoughts?

While Living World sounds like an amazing idea on paper and it was indeed great to see in the game, the reason they switched to a more Living Story based style is because of the limited availability of the Living World releases… 2 weeks and its gone “forever”. Even now, people are hoping the Season 1 things are re-released into the game.

It’s a difficult problem to solve.. You can’t make the Living World instanced or a reoccurring event, because that would still kill the point. But if you make it last only temporarily, what of the new players and everyone who can’t play during the small time gap that it’s available..

I would just like standard expansions personally like Guildwars 1 did, this whole changing the world thing is not working and half the world isn’t changed to this day, it for me just breaks my immersion to all hell… Especially doing the old story and seeing old Lions Arch, new Lions Arch old new old new…… :o

Honestly expand the world sure, please not half change it while making it all unbelievable at the same time.

In my opinion, 1325 dated map should be upgraded, at least to the next step. Make the Zhaitan arch available in episodes like ls2 for those coming in new.

Why?
Because old content is old. Making maps dynamic is cool and helps keep content relevant. Please just replace some risen with mushrooms or some mordrem in the beginning maps, and place some patches of green in the first map of Orr. You could make some advertising for F2P players(this is how HoT are looking) in the same way.
New races. Most oponents of lets say Tengu, argue that it would not make sense to introduce new races because it would break continuity. Although I find that argument completely hilarious after the introduction of the revenant and the wild mish mash of maps who are in diffrerent time zones, it would finally push that obstacle out of the way.

EragamerLG.2390:

Before getting into my concern, I think there’s a fairly big distinction to make:
LS(Living Story) and LW(Living World) and very different, if complimentary, things.
The LS is an ongoing story that unfolds in Guild Wars 2, and progresses the narrative.
The LW is a concept based on events, progressed by the narrative, that somehow changes the game world, as well as progressing the real-time GW2 timeline.
Link to the GW2 timeline: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Timeline
I know the above can be somewhat subjective due to the nature of such concepts, and even though this is NOT the MAIN topic, I’d still like to know your opinions on these.

Now, we know that the current business model is as such:
“For Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, we didn’t want the core game’s price to be a factor in a new player’s decision to begin playing Guild Wars 2. In the future, if we release further Guild Wars 2 expansions, we plan to offer all of the prior expansions, the core game, and the latest expansion for one single purchase price.”

To be honest, I would understand this. It would make sense. Especially if WE, early adopters, got to experience the content, not only first, but to have the opportunity to change the world of Tyria, this would make it worthwhile.
The big issue here is that, although the Living Story is currently ongoing(to some extent), the Living World, and it pains me to say this, is currently NO WHERE TO BE FOUND. Living World, last time we saw it was with Season 1, where things actually changed at faster pace. If you “zoom out” and check the bigger picture you can include Season 2 and HoT into it, but that’s not a true Living World, that is just a Living Story.

My main concern, is that the current business model, due to the nature of the Living World concept not being active, is simply worth less than it could/should. You can include the time-limited free access Living Story Seasons, but you need to have the latest xpack and log in at the time of release.

Perhaps it’s still too early to talk about this, but considering 2015 saw a content draught and a somewhat dead Tyria for.. 7, 8? Months, and we’re nearly half way through 2016 and the same is applicable(except a few things such as Wintersday and The Shatterer), I can’t shake this feeling that Living World was the most interesting part of GW2, and now that we only have half of it(LS), it’ll forever feel incomplete, especially considering ANet managed to tap on part of the potential of the LW, and looking back, it was amazing, it made the ongoing Timeline have a much bigger meaning.

After the reception of the expansion, I saw the expansion as a 2 year re-sub to the game, which was fair considering the amount of content AND EXPERIENCES given to us, but now, 7 months in, no LW, no LS, the second content draught, my question now isn’t whether HoT was/is worth the buck for players. It’s whether the subsequent expansions, judging by ANets sudden change of vision for GW2, are worth THE DEVELOPMENT and the sacrifice to other forms of content.

If there were true Living World Events a la Season 1, where world-changing events happened it would make the early adoption of ongoing expansions much more feasible and worth not only the buck, but the time as well.
In Season 1 warriors of Tyria came together for world-impacting events. Season 2 and expansions are much more akin to linear Single-player games, and last I heard this is supposed to be an MMO.

Thoughts?

Living world is coming back. Story is coming back with expansion. Confirmed by Anet.