Guild Wars 2

Here is an idea for next season of LS. I will put it simply and in short words.

1. Plan several branches of possible story development.
2. Give each participating player several choices to take those branches.
3. Count the totals and determine what choice the majority of the players made on each server.
4. Apply that plotline branch to that server.

Example:

Jade Quarry’s players majority made a choice not to finish off Scarlet.
Leave her alive on Jade Quarry.

Interesting but unfortunately downright impossible.

Its difficult as hell to add massive game changing stuff like this for server stability reasons as well as the amount of space it would take to actually add this to the existing game engine.

If what you want is choice, what we should have is more along the lines of the Captains Council vote but with a significantly greater impact.

Players from all servers are given a vote, the vote is put up on the website to show who is voting for what.

At the end of the vote, we are given a major change, and to make things interesting, possibly a fractal that shows us “the other” paths inevitable fate.

Example:

We choose to let Lions Arch get Rebuilt, or move all of LA’s future investments to Southsun Cove, and have it purged of all Karka permanently, allowing it to become a new capital city region.

After the vote is made, the players permanently see some changes invested into the choice made a month after the vote is presented, for example, over time, we will see either.

A) A story that revolves around LA needing help from allies to rebuild LA itself, which leads to alliances with the Tengu and interaction with them.

or

B) Southsun being purged, which upsets the Largos, and causes them to have a tense conflict with us before eventually becoming our business partners when fighting against a mutual enemy.

The choice should in my opinion give us teasers as to what would come if we made the decision, for example…

On the site it tells you that choosing path A or path B gives you this or that, and shows you a few concept art teasers so players can make their own decision which one they want more.

For the path that gets neglected, a fractal is later added reflecting the players who chose the other path, seeing what would have happened from a single scenario of one possible future of Tyria, of which you never got to see.

Often these future’s lead to tragedy, thus adding a degree of immersion to the game’s fractal possibilities.