Guild Wars 2

I find myself having to constantly Alt+Tab between the game and the walk-thru guide just to know what to do, where to go, how to make something work. Not much “living” about that….

Am I the only one that feels this way? I’m lost have the time and the 15 different names of the NPC’s are confusing.

Didn’t you receive the mails in game? The mails tell you where to go and what to do.

Yeah the letters you get should give you all the information you need, along with the gold star markers on the map. But maybe you’re having trouble with things like finding out where Gendarren Fields is, in which case nobody can help you…

Tharium, you could hover over the map level designations and see that the map directly above Lion’s Arch is Gendarran… And if you don’t want to do that, you could ask in map chat, “Where’s Gendarran Fields?” and people would say “Go north” (most people would not be jerks about it, hopefully). Plus, the letters have a specific “Show me!” button that you can click to see exactly where on the world map the suspects were. >_>

Sarcasm is a lost art.

It’s easy to be a bit confused. But the info is out there, I find myself wanting to know exactly what is going on too. It’s like an rush to do everything before it goes away. But once you figure out to just calm down you will have enough time to do what ever you need to do. And for the most part people will help you.

My comment is more a reflection on how poorly the “stories” are being told. I’ve got 1,400 hours on my Asura Engi, and 100% World Completion — so it’s not a matter of finding my a way around the maps.

It’s that Living Stories to date have been so dis-jointed and vacuous of any real mystery or suspense that I find the effort to complete them is greater than any possible reward. I don’t seem to be engaged with them enough to even care what is being said in the cut-scenes and immediately forget them. Much too cliche-ish.

Just give me new Maps to explore…..

Actually compared to previous living world dragon bash was actually the most no-guide-requiring (flame and frost I wouldn’t have been able to do without a guide). As far as the comment towards story telling, yes it’s not perfect but it seems to be getting better. Cut scenes do help, but I think the biggest problem is that ANet doesn’t make the story easier to get to. Sure if you talk to NPCs, read some of the books etc. but most users don’t know about that these or simply don’t put in the effort and usually those users don’t experience the majority of the story.

I feel like the more that ANet spoonfeeds the objectives, the worse people get at finding their way.

The storyline in Dragon Bash was’t confusing at all. You got mails saying where to go with a build-in “Show Me” function. Also, the conversations between you, Ellen Kiel and Marjory Delaqua make clear on where to go next, there are gold markers on the maps and the achievements point you in the good direction. There’s nothing wrong with the way the story in Dragon Bash is presented and there’s nothing to be confused about.

I think the main reason is that there are too many ways that are meant to tell you what to do next at the same time and that gets confusing over time. You have dialogue, you have letters, in the letters you have maps with circles and then on your actual map you have a lot of yellow stars. Then of course there’s also the wiki, patch notes and the event homepage.
Personally I feel that if I get directions from a conversation with an NPC, I’d like to follow those directions. If those directions can’t be followed because they’re wrong or not complete or not accurate enough and I need to start clicking through all the characters with yellow stars over them or cosnult other sources it starts to become trial-and-error, which is neither good gameplay nor good storytelling. It’s something I’m doing because it’s what the gameplay demands, but it doesn’t feel natural.
I think that if the dialogue or letters were written a bit clearer, we could get rid of all the other indicators like stars and circles and all that entirely and it would feel a lot more like a living world.

My issue with the Living World stories is that they release it too slowly. By this I mean one whole story arc isn’t released all at once, but it should be.

For example, the current one that started with Dragon Bash, we can only finish “No More Secrets” quest, after that, we’re just waiting. I’m curious about this “E” guy, the Aetherblades, and what Kasmeer has to do with this too. However, by the time the release the next part of the living story, I may not care anymore.

I would much prefer that Anet releases the whole story at once, so I can get through it while I’m still interested. What they’re doing now is like feeding us snacks off and on all day; I’d rather wait for a big meal.

Ya they do release it slowly and most of the time I think the limited time actually works against it I mean if it’s limited time to complete it people are gonna rush and just try and get done easiest way to do that just follow a guide.

I agree with ammayhem anet may want to slow down things instead of monthly living story bimonthly or something

I wouldn’t care so much about them releasing it slowly, if they made at least half the stuff permanent. New JP thats permanent, that about the only thing I like about this patch (besides the idea of sky pirates). The only other permanent ‘content’ is a one time only scavenger hunt that give 5 skill points. Woopdeedoo. Kitten dungeon is temporary again…
I just don’t look forward to any LS updates anymore. These updates just see like a waste of dev time now.

Given the content only stays for a limited time, we’re pressed to complete it asap, lest real life happens. That almost forces people to use walkthroughs and blitz through otherwise engaging content.

If it weren’t temp content, such problems wouldn’t exist.

well personally I think that there should be a seperate delivery system other than ingame mail for the story. Achievements are also kind okittenward implemented imho.

I’d love to see a compendium which can be stored in a collectible tab. In these books there would be story-relevant messages, lore, artwork, cutscenes and achievements for that specific story-arc.

Same here. It’s not they’re hard to follow, it’s just that the story is so bad I just follow a walkthrough to get the skin IF i like the skin.

Story in this game is horrible for the most part, the static and the living one. It’s dumb and uninspired almost all the time. I don’t understand why they build their mini expansions around their weakest feature. It always felt to me like a waste of resources and time they could be putting into new dynamic events.

But as long they add dynamic events and combat situations along whatever nonsense they add to their “story” and “lore” I’m happy to tag along.