Guild Wars 2

There are a couple things that I really liked about this episode.

- Ogden Stonehealer!!! After finishing “Hidden Arcana”, I almost exited the mission, but then I realized that Odgen has sooo much to tell. As a non GW1 player, hearing those stories about dragons and that kinda stuff was extremely interesting and the voiceover was really good!!

- Trahearne and Canach were… different, more interesting.

- The library…, glints lair, along with the music, fantastic. The immersion was real.

The only thing I still don’t like is Kasmeer. I can’t explain it. I just don’t like this whiner attitude, but that’s probably just me.

Storywise, this episode is the best. Keep it up!!

Leah Hoyer.9382:

Hi folks! Now that I’ve settled in a bit at ANet, I wanted to check in again on this thread. The first Living World episode that I was involved in, “Echoes of the Past,” has now been live for a few days. We’ve all been really pleased that people seem to be enjoying the story and content a lot. But I’d love to ask you all for more specifics. What were your favorite narrative moments? What did you like about the content? About the way it was told? And of course, I want to hear what you think we can still do better on.

Thanks in advance to everyone for their comments. I’m very excited to be part of such a great game, and to work with such an excellent team of creative people.

Leah I just wanted to say that whatever leadership, and organizational changes you made to the writing team really worked. This has been the best Living Story chapter we’ve had, period.

Specifics that I liked:

-The library quest had just TONS of extra lore love scattered about, and some books even had their own flavor depending on what character wrote them. Koss, Nicholas Sanders, and Melonni (who’s an AWFUL poet btw, but I take that was intentional and funny!) all had their own voice, despite being just 2 pages long or so. Your team did a lot with a little with those books. That said aside from some of the books that I mentioned where there was individual voice, some of the other books were a little exposition heavy. Instead of just opening the book and seeing a description of what the book contained such as Vekk’s thesis on dragons, an “actual” passage of the book would have been more effective. So there’s eomthing to improve on for the future.

-Dialogue with characters, less romancey and forced feeling, characters were more focused on what they should be doing, which I enjoyed more. A tiny bit exposition heavy here as well, but to be honest, I don’t really blame you, we have for a year and a half now, been so separated from Guild Wars 1 events and now we had to throw them at people all at once. Players deserved some explanation. Something that should have been happening since Season 2 began considering the origins of the Zephyrites but was largely ignored, most of the exposition and history lessons focused on Scarlet up until this chapter, we were frankly quite sick of Scarlet. Thanks for keeping any mentions of her minimal. Ogden’s dialogue I enjoyed as well, particularly his “show, don’t tell” method for the hourglass and Glint’s lair. In the future, a little less exposition and a little more showing rather than telling, but Glint’s lair did that very well, seeing scenes that leave a little mystery left to them, and gradually coming to an understanding of what was going on by the end.

-Friction between Canach and Caithe was great. I’m glad that not everyone is lovey dovey all the time and that there is still room for ego and disagreement in the world, even between allies. It’s no cause to cease working together, but it makes character relationships more interesting.

-Connection to Guild Wars 1. It felt like the last 2 years, the writers for this game have distanced themselves from Guild Wars 1 needlessly, like suddenly the world and lore that this game was built on was no longer an important aspect of making the world feel real like it had a history and generations of people lived and died there. This chapter brought in a LOT of Guild Wars 1 and reminded us that this is the same world, and it makes the story more rich and real in that way.

Leah Hoyer.9382:

Hi folks! Now that I’ve settled in a bit at ANet, I wanted to check in again on this thread. The first Living World episode that I was involved in, “Echoes of the Past,” has now been live for a few days. We’ve all been really pleased that people seem to be enjoying the story and content a lot. But I’d love to ask you all for more specifics. What were your favorite narrative moments? What did you like about the content? About the way it was told? And of course, I want to hear what you think we can still do better on.

Thanks in advance to everyone for their comments. I’m very excited to be part of such a great game, and to work with such an excellent team of creative people.

Mind if i just drop a bunch of bullet points?

• The pact camp. It felt like, pardon the crass language, kitten was getting done. It was bustling with activity and NPCs going everywhere and doing stuff, things were finally happening. It gave a sense of scale to the whole story that i felt was missing. The gameplay implementation of the Silverwastes map (compared to Orr) also really helps. In other words, the sense that things are finally in motion and the scale of the reaction being proportionate to the threat (instead of just a ragtag group of adventurers solving the whole world’s problems).

• The instance in the pact camp also had tons of little details and dialogue that put a huge smile on my face, from the NPCs commenting on you as you passed by, to the race/profession/order specific dialogue options, to the little questions that need to be asked (“does caladbolg even work against other plants?”). Special shout out to the library NPC that discusses the painting on the ceiling with you (and how your character can read new krytan and it shows through dialogue without having to translate it to players). speaking of which…

• That whole library. I don’t think I’m understating it when I say every lore fan in the game would love a version of that instance separated from the story mission that would get updated with tiny little story books every now and then. Doesn’t even have to be relevant to the plot, just new tidbits of worldbuilding.

• The story finally feels like Guild Wars again. Rather than simply creating story from scratch, we’re getting new stories interwoven with ongoing ones, from the GW1 plot points, to estabilished GW2 plot points and characters that disappeared (or lost importance) with no reason, like the pact or Caithe. This combination of old and new is what the game needed last season so badly.

• The one thing I don’t like, and I wish I knew how to be more specific on it… there’s just something about the way some dialogue lines are written that feel like fan fiction. Something about them are like someone snapped their fingers in front of me and I’m instantly pulled away. I think it has something to do with how you introduce certain themes or places, because it happened twice with me: once, during episode 3, when the pale tree is talking to you about wanting to get everyone together, and then on this episode, when Kasmeer says “Glint’s Lair!”. It felt forced for some reason.

Hope I didn’t write too much

Leah Hoyer.9382:

Hi folks! Now that I’ve settled in a bit at ANet, I wanted to check in again on this thread. The first Living World episode that I was involved in, “Echoes of the Past,” has now been live for a few days. We’ve all been really pleased that people seem to be enjoying the story and content a lot. But I’d love to ask you all for more specifics. What were your favorite narrative moments? What did you like about the content? About the way it was told? And of course, I want to hear what you think we can still do better on.

Thanks in advance to everyone for their comments. I’m very excited to be part of such a great game, and to work with such an excellent team of creative people.

I personally like a lot of the new season 2 writing. What I’d like to see less of however is the re-writing of established GW1 lore to fit the new story direction. I’m not saying everything that has already been established has to be set in stone, but I’d like to see a little more reverence shown to the world many of us know and love. Even new lore gets a rewrite too easily (sylvari firstborn, secondborn and Scarlett).

Hi Leah! Congrats, the current episode is quite good in almost all aspects imho.

my thoughts:
-) In general I don’t enjoy the UI for books in the game. Setting it apart from dialogues would make reading the books much more enjoyable if you ask me. At the moment it feels like I’m talking to the books which somehow just feels odd to me, I enjoyed a “book-like UI” in older RPG games. I guess that’s not in your department though…
-) I don’t like the hologram in Glint’s Lair. The transparent nature of the NPC makes it look like a half finished thing to me, the pantomime like story telling isn’t something I enjoyed when looking at those over-transparent model (I was kind of freaky to see the eyeballs of the npc as well)

+) almost everything else, it’s awesome to see a camp full of interesting and fun dialogues; especially since it’s the only waypoint in the map this makes a lot of sense. Maybe hide some dynamic events on the map and add some story to it, then it would be perfect imho (remember the kid in Kessex Hills who fell into a destroyer cave?).

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Hi Leah! Congrats, the current episode is quite good in almost all aspects imho.

my thoughts:
-) In general I don’t enjoy the UI for books in the game. Setting it apart from dialogues would make reading the books much more enjoyable if you ask me. At the moment it feels like I’m talking to the books which somehow just feels odd to me, I enjoyed a “book-like UI” in older RPG games. I guess that’s not in your department though…
-) I don’t like the hologram in Glint’s Lair. The transparent nature of the NPC makes it look like a half finished thing to me, the pantomime like story telling isn’t something I enjoyed when looking at those over-transparent model (I was kind of freaky to see the eyeballs of the npc as well)

+) almost everything else, it’s awesome to see a camp full of interesting and fun dialogues; especially since it’s the only waypoint in the map this makes a lot of sense. Maybe hide some dynamic events on the map and add some story to it, then it would be perfect imho (remember the kid in Kessex Hills who fell into a destroyer cave?).

It is kind of nice in the Elder Scrolls games how you open a book and there’s a book with pages you can turn on your screen. Even the MMO does this

pic for comparison to our UI for books.

All I can say is Bravo. This is exactly what GW2 needed and needs to continue to do. Whereas the story in the game has alrgely been shallow and forgettable when compared to the legacy left behind in GW1, Season 2 and especially episode 5 live up to that legacy and add depth and a connection to the rich lore that previously did not exist in the 2 1/2 years GW2 has been live.

Thank you.

And +1 for an actual book UI.

I’m impressed with the amount of people who are happy to see the Pact back in action. Many people hate Trahearne because he “stole the story”, becoming a central character at some point, instead of the player.

I never had problems with that, because i like to meet remarkable characters in games. Guild Wars 2 suffers in that part, while GW1 was great but could have been even better.

It is very important to show the full potential of the character that is on the cover of your game and in your merchandising. So i hope something amazing happens with Rytlock because he is the statue of the Collectors Edition! Caithe need to be improved too because the sylvari have something to do with Mordremoth and she always (since launch) appear in the patcher every time we open the game to log-in (I hope they change the patcher skin someday).

I really enjoyed listening to Ela Makkay lecturing and also like to see her interacting with other NPCs while we follow her. NPCs saying small lines that are not standard when i interact with them in the library are cool too. This makes everything fell more alive.

When i have to speak with the Aspect Masters i only needed to interact with one of them but i still reading everything all tree have to say, it was great.

Like everyone else I love the library.
Although I don’t know about the technical side, I suspect that the library is a easy and relatively cheap way of delivering lore (since it’s only text). Personally I would prefer longer pieces of text, although this leads to another comment.

Devildoc.6721:

It is kind of nice in the Elder Scrolls games how you open a book and there’s a book with pages you can turn on your screen. Even the MMO does this

pic for comparison to our UI for books.

Very much this. I’m not sure how difficult it would be to implement, but I do feel that it could only improve the experience.

Of course if you really wanted to make me happy I’d love it if ANet could implement a lore journal. Something similar to Mass Effects codecs. An in game source of lore that can be accessed anywhere. The ability to explore the world and unlock entries I think has a lot of potential. The issue with the library of course is that at present it’s only available via the living story. People who want to reference the lore might not feel like going through the effort each time (although I still think having to unlock it somehow would add a gameplay element).

I loved that that NPC actually acknowledge that I exists (in the pack camp… YEAH I’m hard as nail XD ). Referring to Elder Scrolls again, one of the things I liked was the NPC dialog and how it changed as you progressed through the game.

Dialog was also much improved. Previously the dialog required a lot of next, next, next if you weren’t particularly interested in said dialog. This time you could either end the dialog or if you wanted go through the dialog option. A example I can think of is the Zepherites in the pack camp, right off the bat you could choose to either end the dialog or you could ask them about more about the zepherites (but oh I wish I could have asked them even more!). I also loved that we got more dialog option (would be nice if you could introduce the old personality system again), which although they didn’t have much impact was still nice (previously we only had 1 dialog option and it didn’t always match the player attitudes or feelings regarding current events… the Phlunt and Tiami incident comes to mind).

BilboBaggins.5620:

I personally like a lot of the new season 2 writing. What I’d like to see less of however is the re-writing of established GW1 lore to fit the new story direction. I’m not saying everything that has already been established has to be set in stone, but I’d like to see a little more reverence shown to the world many of us know and love. Even new lore gets a rewrite too easily (sylvari firstborn, secondborn and Scarlett).

Retconning will eventually happen however. Since ANet couldn’t possibly have planned out more than a decades worth of lore when they started developing GW1 it seems only natural that as they go into new directions with the game things will be rewritten.
The only issue I have is with the communication (i.e. please Anet give us a lore journal ;D )

Regarding book UI, GW1 eventually had it, with nifty page flipping animations and all. While it was for books in your inventory as opposed to those found out in the world, and GW2 is a whole different game, I do believe it would be entirely possible to implement it here.

My first reaction was to the music. I just loved that war-preparation music as I entered the first story instance. And to be honest, though I can’t stand the twig, it was good to have Trahearne pop up again, and have pretty good dialogue with him. I liked the detail that a lot of npc’s respond to the fact that you arrive, and recognize you as the one who took down Zhaitan.

But the biggest thumbs up is for the library. That place is such a wealth of information, and I thoroughly enjoyed just this massive lore dump. Please keep doing this more often. I was excited to explore the secret floor, and there were just so many call backs to GW1, I loved it. I probably spent longer in the library than anywhere else, just reading each and every book, and examining every single artifact. I also like that giant tail of Zhaitan up there. It is good to have another confirmation that he is really dead, but also to see some follow up to his demise. I think a lot of us have been wondering what the Pact has been up to since Zhaitan’s defeat. And now we see them kicking into action, which is great. It makes logical sense that they would bring their airships to the fore front, and take action.

And the new explorable just really feels like it is at war, which is glorious. I love the wvw style mechanics (even though I never play wvw), and I like how alive it feels.

Glints Lair. That was amazing. Not only did it look amazing, but the mechanics were really good. It paid homage to the original trials from GW1, while updating it with new mechanics. This could simply be a permanent dungeon, if it were filled with more monsters.

The story was solid. I found myself able to forgive the whole bloodstones lore redcon, because it was properly explained in game for once. And it shone a new light on the human gods, and their involvement with Tyria. And I am excited that one of Glints eggs survived.

I really have nothing but positive feedback for this update. I just can’t think of anything negative…. at all.

Leah Hoyer.9382:

Hi folks! Now that I’ve settled in a bit at ANet, I wanted to check in again on this thread. The first Living World episode that I was involved in, “Echoes of the Past,” has now been live for a few days. We’ve all been really pleased that people seem to be enjoying the story and content a lot. But I’d love to ask you all for more specifics. What were your favorite narrative moments? What did you like about the content? About the way it was told? And of course, I want to hear what you think we can still do better on.

Thanks in advance to everyone for their comments. I’m very excited to be part of such a great game, and to work with such an excellent team of creative people.

While I do not think you deserve all the praise (It`s a team effort, so please extend it to everyone, give them an extra hug or a cookie ), I will say one thing: _"Very good job with this episode."

What did I like:

- The episode felt proactive. We are finaly doing something, as we take the fight to Mordremoth.
This is something that should have happened from episode 2 and it is good to finaly see it.
Subsequently the Pact is finaly useful.

- Biconics and Iconics.
It is great to see the amateur Biconics take a backseat, but still being useful in the narrative, while the Iconics are being reintroduced and are helping on the front.
I especialy was excited to see Zoija again and I hope we get some extra fun with her in the future.
There also seems to be a hint that Logan will getting some flag again in the future, as well as the rest of Destiny`s Edge in regard of the happenings with Glint. I hope it won`t be too much, because I believe Logan has suffered enough.

I really love how everyone gets used based on their abilities. Logan with his Seraph, Zoija with her Krewe, Caithe with her stealth, etc.

- Glints Lair looked and felt awesome, but I have some issues I will adress further down.

- The Library is just awesome, though I really wish we had a better interface to read these books. In the Lore section of the Forum we always had the Idea of something like a Codex of Tyria, where information is gathered as you reach points of interests, or defeat certain monsters. Something like that would be great.
For a book reading interface I would enjoy something like in Skyrim, where a book pops up (someone mentioned it before). It would be more immersive.

Overall the Library is very satisfying and I hope some of the hints will play out later (like the map on the floor, nature of the world).
Please make it an accessable area and add an “Artie” from Warehouse 13. He would fit in nicely with these unstable artifacts

What I didn`t like

- Belinda Storyline felt weird. There were unneccesary fights. The ghost behaviour made not much sense (as we haven`t seen such before in the world) and the whole ghost in sword thing better pays of in a meaningful way.
Overall it could have been a tender moment, but the whole thing just felt confusing. I hope it is a worthwhile mystery, since we had some needless in the past.

- No real feeling of dread.
Rejoice, the Pact is back and everyone is jelly. Everyone get`s kitten done… Overall the atmosphere feels very “Amercian Military Movie” like, with everyone high spirits. Kinda like Starship Troopers, however without the satire.
While there are some sour notes here and there, I got no real feeling that they are on edge, but really confident at the moment. However I might have not seen enough yet, since this is just my first impression. I could be wrong.

- New Artstyle, without explanation.
We got some NPCs describing that it is hard to get the new armor and that you have to earn it, however then we have the whole pact people running around with new pact weapons , based on the Glory of Tyria . While I do not mind that artisitc nature, we had pact weapons before. A little note on why they changed, maybe as a reference to the ship that brought down Zaithan would be nice.
It also raises the question why we got so many insect like themes at the moment.

- Glint`s Lair felt crammed in and unfinished
It is described as a construct. A place not really there, however by using such an historic place as something so unreal somehow feels wrong (I would have rather taken an expedition to the real thing, that is what I am saying. I hope we will go there someday)
I do not understand why it even had to be there, if Odgen already knew everything.
Why does everyone has to be so cryptic to someone who has proven himself to be reliable and trustworthy (aka the player).
The fact that he even states that we did not have seen everything and only what the construct deemed worthy at this moment is just mystery for mystery sake.
Why so much pretense? I know some mysteries have to be there, but this feels forced.

The lair itself while looking and sounding awesome, felt unfisnished. Facests being reused models are the biggest offender.
Glint not being present, but all we get is a cryptic hologram, where I thought it would be a human avatar of Glint at first (something I would have only facepalmed at) just feels weird.
If this is a construct, why could she not leave a message with a construct?

Furthermore Majory and Kasmeer, despit never actually seen the lair of Glint imedietly recognise it and begin exposition. They are very sure of it from the beginning and it feels weird.
I feel here would have been a place where some mystery could have worked.
Winning the trials and at the end, an avatar of Glint. Bam. A rewarding adventure.
The current form is just: Oh, it is Glints lair and we are sepperated. Go through it while we are cozy strolling along with some exposition.

Don`t take this point to seriously though, but it just rubbed me the wrong way.

- Kasmeer was just there. Someone who is supposedly to have become stronger was pretty useless this time, while Majory got back to her kitten persona, this time with a cool canthan blade to boot.
It would be nice to have a bit more consistence with her, as I thought she was supposed to become more confident, powerfull and usefull thanks to her endevour (political involvement, taking lead alongside the PC as Majory went away, etc.)

What I wish for the future

- Extend the impact. Right now these episodes change only certain regions. Have heralds proclaim the news of what is going on in every city.
Have NPC carwans send rescources towards the new frontlines (subsequently add some new events ), change topics of politicans in major cities. Continue the rebuild of LA, so it does not feel like something happened over night, etc…
Events can have a long reach, try to impliment that in the Living World.

- As the Episodes are here to stay, I would love some narrative fixes, where problems have been pointed out. The Mordremoth`s name incident could have been resolved with some little rewriting for example.

- More interaction with the community. I know yours is a stressfull job and the possibility of leaking some info is high, but I extend it to the team again. Please feel free to comment now and then. If you like a topic or the direction some of our thoughts and theories go, endorse it. Maybe tease us.
It is weird to feel like we are in a void, trying to puzzle our way through your maze of informations, with only a bit of feedback.
If you read our crazy theories and like them (you said you hold us dear), then please interact a bit with us now and then, so mysteries that are none and were just some things that got lost in translation from paper to game won`t be as confusing (for example of course)

- Have a plan to resolve your mysteries. I love a good mytery. Something that stirrs my anticipation, but I hate useless and forgotten ones.
While some of them are nice, big topics that never get resolved are just infuriating.
The same goes for things that got overlooked. If the community asks questions, please try to resolve them.

- Be honest. If you overlooked something, say so. If you plan to rectify it, do so. However leaving us guessing is just cruel and doesn`t cater to our confidence in the story and world you want to show us.

This really was an amazing update for me in almost all respects.

• I loved the lore callbacks, you even had the statue where you can ‘ahem’ do the thing you should never do because he doesn’t like it, and I never laughed so hard in the game before. Honestly, I am not even a super lore person, but you brought me back to the first time I played GW2 and ran across some familiar places in charr territory and was just amazed, beause I had played (grinded) those places so long they were ingrained in my spine and all of a sudden I see echoes of them and is overwhelmed by this nostalgia.

• I loved having Traherne back, and actually feeling like he had grown. In fact, all the character writing actually feels good. Something I am not used to.

• Good pacing, fun map, fun bosses. SW is what Orr should have been from the start.

• And finally, the one (very tiny) thing that made me REALLY feel immersed in the story: My character matters. When I went to the priory it actually felt like it mattered that I was one of them. The dialog, the way people talked to me made me feel not like an outsider but as a fellow scholar. I can’t wait to play it again with one of my sylvari and see how it works from an outsider perspective.

Having race and faction (and maybe even profession eventually) happen in dialog reactions and choices are such an important thing for immersion.

But seriously. GOOD JOB! I couldn’t be happier.

EDIT: More Canach! LOVE THAT PRECIOUS SALAD!

Positives

• Characterization in dialogue was very strong. Especially in spoken dialogue, but even the text dialogue felt like it was less about exposition and more about what the character might actually say in the moment.
• Bringing back old characters and icons was an absolute home run. There were so many people you could wander around and talk to in the first pact instance and, as many people have said, the library was full of interesting tidbits and a great way to introduce/reintroduce lore that might impact the game in future or tie up loose ends.
• Speaking of exposition earlier, so much was left hiding in plain sight. It’s a lot of fun to try and piece together clues about things and to learn about awesome easter eggs a few days later from a random poster on the forums.
• Once again, there were things you would only see if you were a certain race or class. This is always welcome.

Negatives

• Still not much in the way of user choice. I hesitate to even say this because the last patch was so well done, but having a little more in the way of “if user picks X, then…” might be interesting. What I’m trying to get at is that I would appreciate the chance to have an adversarial relationship with Phlunt. :-)
• The way that we could learn a lot from speaking to Ogden Stonehealer was really cool, but it shouldn’t be the way that we get all information like that, from one source in one specific circumstance.

Future Ideas

• I’d like to see more information like Ogden’s spread out across the world. If the game is able to tell that I’ve completed Dragons Reach Part 2, Pale Tree should probably be missing and Anise should have more to say than just “Nice to meet you, gotta go!”. I know there are concerns about changing a billion things in the open world, but since things like the throne room are instances that only I can enter anyway, seems like it might be easier to work with and an option for future development.
• Working in user personality options selected in the beginning might be too much work and/or awkward to reintroduce so far into the living story, but that still feels like something that could be used in future.

For me this living story was way too easy.

The librarians should say “Ssh!” if you use shouts in the secret basement.

Other than that, this is a huge improvement and I like it.

Devildoc.6721:

It is kind of nice in the Elder Scrolls games how you open a book and there’s a book with pages you can turn on your screen. Even the MMO does this

pic for comparison to our UI for books.

exactly, it also leaves room for decent artworks

Everyone above has pretty much covered what I really liked about this patch (the library and the connections back to GW1), but I just wanted to chime in and add that I was seriously considering putting GW2 down for a while and trying out FF14. This patch has gone a long way to restoring my faith in the game’s future.

I enjoyed the cutscene with Marjory and Belinda – particularly Marjory’s ‘acting’ – and the refreshing absence of unnecessary dialogue afterward.

I loved the cutscene with Marjory and her sister as well. I got distracted from the cutscene by two mobs who followed me to the dialogue-area though (I saw them fighting my “listening character” while the scene took place). I guess I just have to replay that mini-mission.

small idea for a lore-collection

Make finding books in the open world / instances a part of a collection. Finding 5 books unlocks a lore-compendium where all the texts of books you find are unlocked one by one. (great convenience if you want to re-read a book and don’t want to go for the wiki)

To each book-unlock maybe a small artwork too?

Leah Hoyer.9382:

But I’d love to ask you all for more specifics. What were your favorite narrative moments? What did you like about the content? About the way it was told?

First of all I really hope that this episode marks the change in the way you present your story because this stuff was really good. For me GW2 felt always disconnected from GW1, which is/was a real shame but now you guys seem to understand how to connect these 2 games and that’s what really excites me.

What did I like about the narrative moments? Something that I also enjoyed about the other S2 episodes… I always know exactly what’s going on. Season 1 had so many different small stories all over the world.. it felt so random and disconnected.

What did I like about the content? The libary! the lair! The ruins in the new map with new speculation material.

The way I was adressed as the commander felt more naturally in this episode aswell, I really liked that.

Leah Hoyer.9382:

What were your favorite narrative moments? What did you like about the content? About the way it was told? And of course, I want to hear what you think we can still do better on.

Trahearne was very well written and the whole representation of the pact was cool. I would like to do more stuff with the pact, I want to get the feeling that there is a whole army marching towards Mordremoth. Ofcourse, the scout mission was cool too but I would like to have both.

The library was excellent and I hope it will be made aviable outside the storymission too. I also hope that the library gets expanded every now and then. I also hope that some minor things in the world change. Some authors of the books we could read are still alive and I hope that they get more dialogue options based on those books they’ve wrote. I also would like to see some minor improvements like the guards in the Omphalos Chamber have still their standard dialogue eventhough the dialogue doesn’t fit anymore.

But I don’t know why Marjory knew everything about Glint. That did throw me off but I might’ve missed the explanation for that one (other than her mother told her).

On a final note, I hope we don’t have to wait another two years to get more detail regarding the carpet in the library.

the story of ep 5 was good. 1-4 felt like a remake of personal story without new elemnts just other charters. But ep 5 was something really diffrent.

The main issue in personal story was we were as players not in the center of the storyline. We were just bystanders. We did all the work and some Tarhan got all the crdit. sry lol.

Now we get adresses much better.

LS1 was an disaster in story telling and everything else.

Im not in the lore still pyed all capters and add on of gw1 since relase. And i found it great how i saw ogden stonehealer, and Glints story involved in this. U did a great job in ur duty.

Keep up its getting more intreseting.

Plz dont disappoint us anymore. The only thing in ls 1 i did were the aps and the meta reward. Cause i couldnt follow the story anymore it.

The good part is that story of scarlet got told again as flashbacks. Now we can understand her way more.

Most important part is i dont want to be a bystander in the story. I want to be the hero. Else i could watch a movie or read a book.

On the subject of the book UI… I don’t know. Personally, the bite-sized pages are far less intimidating than the huge walls of text. It feels more welcoming, and I’m more prone to actually read everything instead of lose interest because entire bricks of text were dropped on me.

The wall of text format has always, unanimously made me give up on keeping up with lore in RPGs (including GW1). On the other hand, if it’s kept in 3-5 line paragraphs, one at a time, I’m much more inclined to read.

As a note, the library has the potential for ALOT of side content (if it is made a part of the normal world) in the style of the tv show Warehouse 13. Not that that content should pull focus away from core story or anything, but this has definitely provided potential for short side stories that provide little tidbits of lore and either fills in gaps, give clarification, or even presents a twist on community speculation, started by talking to the archavist or other scholars. these things could just kinda of show up every few patches and be for both retrieving items or things like, here is a box with something in it, can you figure out what it is?

Also, how the information was given in the books and even the way the 3 npcs in silverwastes are talking about the luminescence armor, i think, is a good way to put wiki style information into the game. This could be a way to add mystic forge recipes, uncover hints about a lost chest tucked away somewhere that just happens to have a nice little item skin or recipe, or simply add in information. Of course, that is all aside putting in lore content which is great.

This franchise has a MASSIVE and multilayered story to work with and it should really take advantage of it.

As a note to Leah, Something I brought up in the raid CDI that was going on was bringing back old stories from GW1 as well as stories that we were simply told about that happened between GW1 and 2 and making them playable content that tells the story of those events. Lots of potential there as well.

Jaken.6801:

Korval.3751:

I wish Anet would hire someone like WoodenPotatoes. He knows his lore and is always offering some amazing ideas and suggestions for areas of improvement.

Too much speculation and a lot of (he says so himself) is summerizing others ideas in his videos.
While he did a lot of good stuff and is a dedicated player, i wouldn`t put him in a higher position than that.
Mostly because we would loose a great dedicated youtuber that way and GW2 certainly needs these.

I wouldnt want to see him be lost to youtube. That said, he does do a good job of tying things together as well as showing what part of the story is and isnt speculation. As such, ANet would do well to pay attention to (completely anonymously so as not to affect anything of course) videos like that because it gives them an idea of what they have/have not made clear in the story where they intended to/to not make clear.

Ah, a Dev made the mistake of asking for our opinions… let’s teach her the error of her ways

First of all: the narrative side of the living story has improved significantly, so, to the entire story team: good work. While the first chapters were sorely lacking, the storytelling has now become perfectly adequate. It’s not perfect, but it serves its purpose.

Second: the background buffs among us probably don’t mind reading. The latest chapter of the living world has finally shown that not everything the NPCs say has to be voiced, and that is the proper way. Don’t hide the character just because the voice actor isn’t available. We know the time of the voice actors is costly, but the writers can write a lot. The dialogues with Zojja and the rest of destiny’s edge were a nice touch.

Third: items could use some lore, too. A few lines of text can supply a nice touch to a weapon, and shouldn’t take too much effort. Even just a “The armour of the Lionguard is made by apprentice armorsmiths still on their way to mastery, but steel plate is still steel plate.” or similar. The reknown heart vendors items descriptions have not gone unnoticed. You could get away with a single description per, say, a weapon family or armor set.

Last: could we have something nice happen to Faren, in the long term? He may not be a great guy, but I still have a soft spot for him. Let him get some character growth, maybe let him meet that fan girl of his, take up sword and shield and hold the line in an important battle?

Leah Hoyer.9382:

Hi folks! Now that I’ve settled in a bit at ANet, I wanted to check in again on this thread. The first Living World episode that I was involved in, “Echoes of the Past,” has now been live for a few days. We’ve all been really pleased that people seem to be enjoying the story and content a lot. But I’d love to ask you all for more specifics. What were your favorite narrative moments? What did you like about the content? About the way it was told? And of course, I want to hear what you think we can still do better on.

Thanks in advance to everyone for their comments. I’m very excited to be part of such a great game, and to work with such an excellent team of creative people.

I have not yet completed this episode, though I intend to tonight. I got to the rescue caithe quest and just got completely distracted in silverwastes haha. However, from what I have seen in comments, experienced myself and seen in the trailer for this episode, you are taking alot of consideration for GW history. And this is a very good thing. These are meant to be real events taking place in the same universe as a previous game (and I am saying this as someone who didnt actaully play too much of the first game). As such, just like in our world, everything that happens takes place through the lens of the past. Not much happens that has not in some way been influenced by historical events. Telling stories with significance to history really feels more natural and real then a story that is standalone and mostly disconnected from any historical context. This also means new events, some even minor that can have lasting accidental effects.

If the last patch is an indication of the direction the story is going to go, I think its a great direction.

Jure Simich.6154:

Second: the background buffs among us probably don’t mind reading. The latest chapter of the living world has finally shown that not everything the NPCs say has to be voiced, and that is the proper way. Don’t hide the character just because the voice actor isn’t available. We know the time of the voice actors is costly, but the writers can write a lot. The dialogues with Zojja and the rest of destiny’s edge were a nice touch.

Third: items could use some lore, too. A few lines of text can supply a nice touch to a weapon, and shouldn’t take too much effort. Even just a “The armour of the Lionguard is made by apprentice armorsmiths still on their way to mastery, but steel plate is still steel plate.” or similar. The reknown heart vendors items descriptions have not gone unnoticed. You could get away with a single description per, say, a weapon family or armor set.

You (ANet/Leah in this case) have people that mine the world for lore/story. Hiding little nuggets in item descriptions, ambient objects, even audible npc conversations (I see more of this int he last patch ), adding road markets, warning signs (like you might see in front of an abandoned mine), etc, etc. is a great way to beef up or reinforce almost any part of any storyline anywhere in the game.

This is the best living story update so far. You have done a good job working with the terrible characters from the previous seasons. However, ghost-samurai-sword-sister was a bit much.

Everything else was good. Glint’s section was particularly good. I am looking forward to seeing the new content in the area that you can glimpse but not yet see – good use of a matte painting behind one of those doors btw (under the dead giant).

Aerk.1593:

However, ghost-samurai-sword-sister was a bit much.

If there is precedence for this kind of thing in lore perhaps we will get a reference int he next patch. The closest thing I can think of is the Mursaat soul batteries, but that is a bit of a stretch to this. Unless its foreshadowing a huge part of the coming story.

Definitely keep making me feel my own character’s identity. I am Asura, engineer, killer of Zhaitan. The last many episodes have been especially good at making the story feel about me; not the generic character but the combination of choices that I made, which together make up my character.

Someone did a very good job of making Trahearne, though only present for a brief moment, seem to be doing something. This is the Trahearne I wanted: a real leader. His moments of doubts are over, we’re now all trained in battle, and I felt that the few minutes I spent with him really worked this time. Keep making Trahearne someone we can like for his strategic abilities, as long as we get the credit for the hard work.

Now to something I found odd. The first mission, The Ghosts of Fort Salma, felt too coincidental. I show up in time to save the Priory girl, just as Marjory and Kasmeer do the same. I find it odd because I feel like the point of season 2 of the Living World was to make the world seem bigger. Obviously this has been achieved through actually expanding the world but we cannot have characters just bumping into each other while walking a distance that covers half of our know world, specifically from the Grove to the Priory, which is where Kasmeer and Marjory was headed. Maybe we should have covered this distance together, came in through the same entrance – something.

But other than that, I am really pleased with how everything is turning out and I am an excited fan for this story!

For me, what really brings out the feeling of a “Living Story” are the interactions with NPCs. When you first enter Camp Resolve, you are greeted with the respect that you have accumulated throughout the game. For example, to hear those two Blood Legion charr whisper that you are the “tough as nails” guy who helped to take down Zhaitan before they proudly salute you is an absolutely wonderful experience. Contrast this with games such as Skyrim in which NPCs still mostly treat you as the player you started out as even after you have achieved great feats. The race-specific interactions you have further flesh out the sense of a unique experience, like when you talk to the mysterious charr whom Rox was initially preoccupied with, you can, if you yourself are a charr, intimidate him and send him cowering.

Even better is discovering the interactions NPCs have amongst themselves. I absolutely love Chef Gristlemane’s mumblings and dialogue with the food inspector. The botched demonstration the asura gives those three Iron Legion charr is also wonderful, and I only wish their interaction lasted longer.

In short, I feel that a genuine Living Story comes not from new maps or new gear, but from meaningful character interactions, from seeing NPCs actually living in the world rather than standing still and repeating the same line like automatons. I hope that future episodes will have even more moments such as these.

I think the “Bind soul to weapon” is actually a legacy of GW1’s Ritualist skills – it seems to use the principles of weapon spells and ancestor ashes.

Leah Hoyer.9382:

What were your favorite narrative moments? What did you like about the content? About the way it was told? And of course, I want to hear what you think we can still do better on.

First off, this was one of the best updates I’ve seen since the ending parts of Scarlet’s arc (read that mostly as Marionette and such).
The big reason why this ranked high was the connection to the old GW1 stuff, but with enough differences to make the story its own.

I didn’t want only GW1 with better graphics for this game, but I did want some acknowledgement that there was a GW1. The Library did this in a spectacular fashion.
There were small references, outright blatant ones, and they meshed well.
Abbadon’s statue was a beautiful centerpiece.
The works of previous NPCs helped show that they did stuff besides the missions in GW1.
Glint’s crystal was a real treat in terms of mechanics, but Marjory and Kas could have been with us on map more. Instead they were more of ‘talking heads’.
Odgen’s performance and pacing was just want I wanted. He’s old, older than old, and probably tired of time. Yet he was able to answer my player’s questions with a respectful tone.

In terms of actual character designs, I love the menders. They remind me of the old Gargoyles.

With NPC interaction, the Pact base was great. We had old characters come back, our new biconics show up, and people talking in hushed whispers of awe in the background. The activity and energy did feel like a military base getting ready for war.

I hope we could revisit Orr with that.

As for what you can do more, tease us. The statue picture just before the release had me on my toes. Now we’re teased about Rytlock and I can’t wait to see what that’s about.

I feel like the pacing was better, but maybe a bit slow in terms of what the Master of Peace was doing at the end. Other than that this did feel like a GW mission and part of the story.

Leah Hoyer.9382:

Hi folks! Now that I’ve settled in a bit at ANet, I wanted to check in again on this thread. The first Living World episode that I was involved in, “Echoes of the Past,” has now been live for a few days. We’ve all been really pleased that people seem to be enjoying the story and content a lot. But I’d love to ask you all for more specifics. What were your favorite narrative moments? What did you like about the content? About the way it was told? And of course, I want to hear what you think we can still do better on.

Thanks in advance to everyone for their comments. I’m very excited to be part of such a great game, and to work with such an excellent team of creative people.

Hi Leah! Belated welcome to GW2!

I will try to keep this brief and east to skim-read.

Good job, well done. The Salma instance and Caithe’s Recon were both very decent. Short, but fun. The Hidden Arcana on the other hand had both the excellent and the bad aspects.

Positive

1. Good: good amount of content (even though it was “only” 3 chapters an “only” 2 of them had achievements)
2. Good: Using books/artifacts in the library. Active character approach. But making it not too much of a paper chase for impatient players either. It almost felt a little like a n old-fashioned point-and-click adventure, and who doesn’t like those. The same goes for the lecture at the priory that we witness at the beginning of the Arcana instance – I got some serious Lucas Arts Indiana Jones vibes there.

Negative

1. Bad: The Hidden Arcana was too long and should have been 2 or even 3 separate chapters. Especially felt too long on subsequent runs for achievements or skins because you couldn’t skip the dialogue.
2. Bad: Pacing was weird in the first chapter (at Fort Salma) – my character was still whacking foes while the NPCs were somewhere completely different, talking to each other. I think I missed some stuff there. I think that’s just a technical issue.

Suggestions:

1. Separate “mostly narrative” content and “mostly action / achievement” content into different chapters, so achievement runs don’t require you to read all the books and do all the dialogues again.
2. All dialogue should be skippable, but only on subsequent runs. But the scene at the end with the egg should have been the only one not to be skippable, as some players need the help of experiences players on their first run and end up not even seeing it as someone else skips it for them. Or maybe each player should be able to decide for themselves whether to skip or not, like in dungeons.
3. Consider creating 2 modes for the “story” run – one for players that fancy themselves explorer types and would actually like to solve riddles themselves – and one for players who lack the attention span or are too tired. i.e.: give players the option to disable the green stars that point them to the exact book to read. I think quite a few players would like that.

That’s about all I can think of right now. I enjoyed it a lot, and I kept finding new cool things in subsequent runs, so I was quite okay with running the same instances several times.

I loved all the little differences each of characters have had in terms of there dialog with other NPCs. Having a mesmer talk about the Mesmer Collective’s invitation policies when other professions said they’d have to talk with Kasmeer about it, or how charr characters could make another charr run out of the new base with their tail between their legs, were all big surprises. I think, however, I still feel like there’s some work to be done in giving the player back their voice.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not insinuating that I’d like to see out character’s voice back, but I’m more referring to the fact there seems to be moments where our characters are given a personality that is unlike the one we had been forming as we had originally playing the Personal Story. I know the actual Personality System is gone, but that doesn’t mean that our characters have to sound the same. We’ve seen moments where we can respond to characters with different tones, and I love that, but what I’ve seen in this episode, we weren’t given much options to express our character’s personality.
I’d love it if we were given more dialog trees to further allow us to express how we feel our characters would react when presented with certain characters or situations.

Take everything we loved in GW1, put it in GW2.

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

Take everything we loved in GW1, put it in GW2.

Please no, I want it to stay in GW1 where it belongs. If she takes it out, what’s left to draw me back to Spamadan?

Dropping in to give my feedback.

Firstly, I’d like to congratulate you guys on the great patch! This is one of my favorite pieces of post-launch content the game has ever seen, just behind the addition of Fractals in the Lost Shore patch, EOTM, and the one-path dungeons from Season 1. This was the perfect realization of the kind of thing you’ve been going for with Season 2.

I believe the best thing you did narratively was surprise the player by taking them in unexpected directions. Going into the library and Glint’s lair were new experiences that genuinely surprised me, and blazing my way through the new map had a sensation of discovery. There are a lot of themes of adventure running through GW2’s story, (I’m a sylvari, so I’m all about striking out into the world and fulfilling my Wild Hunt) so actually showing the player something new rather than telling them something is happening is the best way to go about this.

I also like how you distributed lore optionally. In the first half of season 2 there were a few forced exposition chapters that soured the pacing, but giving lore-hungry players the option to read books in the library is a great way to fit more story in without making players who couldn’t care less sift through it.

My major piece of advice would be this: Don’t let these characters become all-good or all-evil, each should be a different mixture of the two based upon their circumstances. I remember being annoyed at how always-good and successful Ellen Kiel was, which resulted in a boring story that felt too black and white. Canach is the most interesting character right now, in my opinion; he’s a tentative ally with a jaded past who we have to watch with caution. He’s not all good or all evil, he’s unpredictable. That’s exciting.

P.S: Please don’t let that beautiful library/Glint’s lair environment only occupy the events of this chapter! We need some more content that can be replayed for years, a-la dungeons, fractals, pvp maps, and WvW maps. Glint’s Lair could be massively interesting for anything like that.

Leah Hoyer.9382:

Hi folks! Now that I’ve settled in a bit at ANet, I wanted to check in again on this thread. The first Living World episode that I was involved in, “Echoes of the Past,” has now been live for a few days. We’ve all been really pleased that people seem to be enjoying the story and content a lot. But I’d love to ask you all for more specifics. What were your favorite narrative moments? What did you like about the content? About the way it was told? And of course, I want to hear what you think we can still do better on.

Thanks in advance to everyone for their comments. I’m very excited to be part of such a great game, and to work with such an excellent team of creative people.

Positive:
-Lore, the library was a very nice instance with plenty of lore and Easter eggs.
-Collections as a means to deliver an armor set; I like both the requirements and the way it was implemented.
-Ebb and flow combat on a large scale; It was fun organizing with my fellow commanders to hold the forts and succeed the breach.
-Mechanics were put to good use.

Negatives
-The first instance; the fort salma instance seems shoehorned in and did’nt really fit in with the overall narrative of the ark other than to introduce the required npc.
- The last instance is a tad too long splitting the library sequence and having the hourglass in a second story version of the library may have been a better idea.

Other
-Currently all the rewards can be gotten in under 10 hours, I’m assuming this is going to be added upon and the weapon set is going to pad it out so I’m not putting it under negative.
-I really like the whole map has to get involved things, but I think adding too many of them may lead to only the flavor of the month being active/usable long-term.

I love the music and storyline. Love the scenes, mostly scenery in hidden arcana story:)

The organization of silver waste, separated forts into colors makes me think multi-colored commander tags were made for this and possibly future events setup the same

It’s really nice to have a map where everyone separates into several zergs instead of one train. Nice for the community and for more leaders to be able to play together in same roles.

The library is a big hit with many and would be wonderful in a central setting in lions arch if you do rebuild it to be beautiful again.

Overall, the presentation and dialogue was much better in this episode than others. Someone else mentioned, and I think is right, that there wasn’t enough dialogue or story between Marjory and Belinda to make their close relationship feel legitimate. That first chapter could have had a bit more dialogue to enhance their bond and our feeling that this is legitimate.

I thought Trahearne’s dialogue was MUCH better than the majority of the personal story. The voice actor even seemed to deliver the dialogue with a bit more emotion, just the right amount to make him feel like a true General but not too much to make him a Metzen-esque type of character. Honestly, I think his character is much improved, even though you only see him for a brief moment.

The polish on the ambient dialogue is also quite good, and I like the changing of the camera angles to make it feel a bit more cinematic.

The Library is also a great touch. The length of the stories were just long enough to glean something substantial from them, but not too long that you didn’t feel like reading through it, or choosing to not read another for fear of being crit in the face with a wall of text.

Love Canach as well.

I loved literally everything about it (technical issues don’t count). Sorry if I am easily impressed.

Leah Hoyer.9382:

Hi folks! Now that I’ve settled in a bit at ANet, I wanted to check in again on this thread. The first Living World episode that I was involved in, “Echoes of the Past,” has now been live for a few days. We’ve all been really pleased that people seem to be enjoying the story and content a lot. But I’d love to ask you all for more specifics. What were your favorite narrative moments? What did you like about the content? About the way it was told? And of course, I want to hear what you think we can still do better on.

Thanks in advance to everyone for their comments. I’m very excited to be part of such a great game, and to work with such an excellent team of creative people.

to be frank, lately i’ve been a little disappointed in things that ArenaNet has done with new content and whatnot; Echoes of the Past has completely renewed my faith in ArenaNet and the future of Guild Wars 2. i love the lore-rich dialogue and how it flows so well. please keep it coming!

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

The story was solid. I found myself able to forgive the whole bloodstones lore redcon, because it was properly explained in game for once.

Wait what do you mean by this, now I think I have missed something…

I wanted to stay in the Library reading the books and exploring. For me it was all the details throughout that really brought this to life and makes me want to go back in, curl up and start reading books. The library would be a wonderful place to find more history and maybe some small hidden achievements and/or puzzles relating to the history of Tyria.

I am in agreement with others regarding the stilted initial dialogue between Marjory and Belinda though I absolutely loved the sequence of binding Belinda’s soul to the weapon. That was perfectly done. I think the conversations leading up to it could have been a bit longer and more revealing of their characters without being overly talky.

This episode really got me excited in completing the story this time. While I enjoyed the other episodes this one really made me feel more part of it and I certainly felt less a spectator than I had in the other ones. Great job overall on the story and I am enjoying Silverwastes and all the little touches there as well.

For me, as a long time player of the first GW, the library made me cry and sentimental, with Ogden, the loading screens of GW as pictures on the walls and all those books with their references to the first part.