Guild Wars 2

I believe there are a few serious problems with the Living World, some of which might cause problems with other parts of the game as well. I really love the Guild Wars franchise, and I don’t want to see it go to waste. I hope Arenanet takes the feedback from players in serious consideration and is even willing to rethink the whole approach to new content and Living World if necessary.

Let me start by saying that I think the idea of Living World is great. The idea is that Living World should replace expansions, to provide new content on a more regular basis. This is a very new and daring approach from Arenanet. One that can turn out great, or more on the terrible side. However, with each new Living World update I start to feel things are going into the wrong direction.

Content:
Although the content we get with the updates is fun and enjoyable for a while, it is not amazing. Most games (that are considered “good”) have a few mind-blowing elements or gameplay experiences in them. It is these moments that are most enjoyable, the moments that we will remember when we think of the game. It is these moments we want to play over and over. One of the problems is that we’ve already played the amazing content of Guild Wars 2 multiple times. I, and many other players, am growing bored, and need new mind-blowing experiences to stay interested. If Guild Wars 2 won’t provide these, I will find them elsewhere in other games. The current Living Story updates are too small and shallow to add the experiences that keep me interested in this game. This is mostly because they lack “scale”. Everything I do in Living Story feels somehow meaningless and insignificant, not like slaying one of the Elder Dragons that threaten Tyria.

Another content related problem is the lack of permanent content that Living Story provides. I believe every game genre has certain elements that keep players pumping hours into the game. For Shooter type of games this seems mostly to be multiplayer options, for MMOs it seems to be a fast amount and wide variety of content, along with its social aspect. If there is plenty of content and enough diversity between it, players will have plenty to pick from if they want to do something. This prevents the problem of having to play the same type of content over and over again. Normally MMOs add new, large amounts of content with expansions. However, in Guild Wars 2, Living Story has taken the place of these expansions. It is up to Living Story to provide us the fast amount of content to play through. If most of the content we’re getting is temporary, the game will never build up its library of content that will keep players interested in the game. An example is the Molten Facility, a beautiful and refreshing dungeon, which had clearly a lot of time infested in it. Players loved it and wanted it to stay, yet it was taken out as the Living World progressed. There was no real reason for this, as one way or another its stay could easily have been justified to prevent conflicts with lore and story.

A third content related problem is what we actually get to do in the updates. Most events are either reworked old events, or simply uninteresting. Let’s take a look at the latest two releases: Queen’s Jubilee and Clockwork Chaos. Personally I thought the Queen’s Gauntlet was great content (and again temporary). Unfortunately, that’s where it ends. The torch runs seemed like simplified versions of Guild Rushes, and the Crown Pavilion is just a farming arena. After that, we are provided with more events to farm, and pretty much nothing else. The first two times I took part in Scarlet’s Invasion it was a very enjoyable experience. This was mostly due to the large scale of the event, everyone in the zone working together towards a single goal. After those two times my enjoyment of the content immediately stopped. Basically the event comes down to zerg against zerg, which is all too familiar from WvW, and farming it as much as possible. What makes things worse is the fact we have to grind this meta-event to actually progress in the Living Story. We have to successfully complete this event five times for Vorpp, after which we have to do it another couple times to collect to components for the teleporter. A grindfest is not an enjoyable experience, and forcing players into it is not the direction Living Story should take.

The release of Clockwork Chaos got really hyped up, and I was really excited for it. Unfortunately it turned out to be a grave disappointment. When I logged in on the 20th, I had hoped to find Divinity’s Reach burning, citizens running around, screaming, looking for safety, the city overrun by Aetherblade Pirates. Yes, I really hoped that Divinity’s Reach would have been turned into a combat zone and we would have to give it our all to liberate the city. This would be one of those mind-blowing experiences, the battle for Divinity’s Reach, that players aren’t soon to forget. Instead, we just get a field event that turned into another farmfest. Was this small update really worth the hype up? I am aware that this would require more time and investment. Just because Living World took the place of expansions doesn’t mean we need new content every month. Take the three months needed to create larger events. One large event that players are sure to remember is better than three or four small events that are likely to irritate the players.

Even the current events could have been better if a bit more thought had been put into them. During the closing ceremony we have to disarm the bombs, so Divinity’s Reach wouldn’t blow up. Where is the timer? I feel absolutely no pressure to disarm the bombs as quickly as possible. I took my time to investigate the new enemies and felt no need to skip the little dialogue between the minstrel and Aetherblades. Bombs don’t wait for me to disarm them. If I didn’t disarm all of them in time, let me fail the event. Let me have to redo it. At least put me under some pressure that gives me the adrenaline which makes gaming fun.

Story:
The biggest problem with the story of Living World is that it is shallow. Where are the plot twists, the deep stories that tie into the lore of Guild Wars? I believe that a truly good story has a plot twist that blows the mind of the experiencers. One that leaves you speechless after you discover the identity of the true villain. Unfortunately, the story in Living World is too straightforward. Everything is explained nicely for the player, and there’s no room for guessing, speculation or one’s own little investigation. There are no plot twists, which make for a boring and non-compelling story. Furthermore, the released stories lack elements that invoke emotions. In my opinion, invoking emotions in the experiencer is a very important part of a story. If we go back in time and take a look at the story of Guild Wars 1, we notice elements that invoke emotions, such as sacrifice and betrayal. It is these elements that make me want more, that make me want to know what’s going to happen. They are completely absent in the Living World stories of Guild Wars 2.

Let’s take the last series of Living Stories as an example. Scarlet was behind everything, the Molten Alliance, the Aetherblades, the invasions. It is all just as was said and explained, nothing compelling or mind-blowing about it. This is such a shame, because there were some amazing speculations and theories out there as to what was actually going on. This guy for example ties the Living Story of the Aetherblades directly to the Thaumanova Reactor, Ellen Kiel’s election and even the Asura Personal Story. When I heard his theory my mind was blow at how deep it was, and everything made perfect sense. Ellen Kiel’s election ensured her with the funding to research the Thaumanova Reactor, which is responsible for portals to another dimensions as explained in the Asura Personal Story. The Steam creatures might come from this alternate dimension, and it is speculated that they are related to Scarlet and the Aetherblade. This might mean that the Aetherblade are actually from this alternate dimension. Kiel is working for the Aetherblade and uses the funding to recreate the portals to let the Aetherblade in for an invasion.
The scale of this is so huge, it makes for a much more compelling and interesting story than yet another villain that appears out of nowhere and holds a grudge against the world for whatever reason. Arenanet has multiple writers employed, so what’s stopping you from releasing such creative, deep stories for us to explore and enjoy?

A second problem related to the story comes down to the “living” part in Living World. The world doesn’t feel alive at all. Except for a few key NPCs that help the story progress, no one seems to have any clue of what’s going on. None of the NPCs in the world take any notice of all the invasions going on. No one feels threatened by it.
A great example of this is what Rox says during the closing ceremony of Clockwork Chaos: “No! They are slaughtering everyone!” however, I don’t see any of it. A few citizens got killed in the instance, but outside of it nothing is happening. Divinity’s Reach is the same as always, and no one is in any danger.
The only Living Story that actually felt somewhat alive was Flame and Frost. Civilians traveled south to escape the danger; settlements were being built to house these people. Although most NPCs were still unaware of the situations, the traveling refugees helped give the feeling something was actually happening. This in combination with a slowly progressing story, events that made you explore this world (helping refugees and looking for their belongings), rather than just kill a bunch of mobs, and the introduction of two great and welcome NPCs made for an overall enjoyable story. I would love to see this being improved on and return in the future on a larger scale.

Another problem is the actual plot and direction of Living World. What happened to the dragons, the powerful creatures that threatened to destroy Tyria? Everyone is so concerned with the contents of Living World that the real threats have been forgotten. Why is no one concerned with the possibility that Kralkatorrik might leave the Crystal Dessert at any moment to brand a second scar into the world?
I am well aware that Arenanet doesn’t want to rush through their main plot in a few years, but the game has been out for almost a year now and we have seen no new content relating to the Elder Dragons. There are still at least five of them out there, two of which have hardly any information released about them. We haven’t even seen hints of a possible new lieutenant. Add to this the continents Cantha and Elona, which fans are dying to return to, and you got more than enough content for quite a few years. Wasn’t this game advertised as a story about dragons after all? Right now it seems as if it has been taken over by a wave of steampunk related content.

Inconsistencies:
Currently there are three different time lines running parallel in the universe: that of the open world, the personal story and the living story. Mostly this is not much of a problem, as the personal story has only one direction (Orr) and the Living Story is mostly temporary content that wraps things up at the end to not interfere with the open world. However, there is some friction between theses timelines, mostly caused by Orr. This became most notable after the release of Southsun cove.
Whenever I go south of Tyria I come across Risen. Why is this? I, and most other players, have beaten Zhaitan by now, and killed over a thousand Risen. Shouldn’t we have mopped most of that up by now? I am aware that they can’t simply remove the Risen from the game, as this would interfere with the Personal Story of new characters. Now let’s add Living Story to this picture. It takes place after the Personal Story, so obviously there are no Risen there. This, however, causes friction with the timeline of the open world. If I travel east from Southsun Cove, I will come across the Vigil who are being pushed back by the Risen in Sparkfly Fen. If I travel west, I will see Risen invading the lands of the Sylvari. Zhaitan’s forces have completely surrounded Southsun Cove, yet there is no sign of them in that zone.
Right now this isn’t a huge problem, but I’m afraid that if no solution is found, it will become a serious problem. Players will eventually get so confused in the different timelines that they don’t understand what’s happening anymore, taking away from the experience.

Another example comes from the current Living Story, the Queen’s Jubilee and Scarlet. While more of a plot hole rather than an inconsistency, it shows similar problems as described above. It is stated that Scarlet excelled at all three Asura colleges, and people believe she is also Charr-, Norn- and Hylek-trained. This would probably make her the most intelligent Sylvari around. Why has no one ever spoken of such an amazing Sylvari before this Living Story update? Surely word of her achievements should have spread quickly.

Furthermore, there seem to be inconsistencies within the Living Story itself as well. It is believed that Scarlet was behind the creation of the Molten Alliance, forging an alliance between the Dredge and the Flame Legion to disrupt the north. However, during the Queen’s Jubilee she was taunting and picking on the Humans, mentioning how weak and good for nothing they are. She made it seem has if the invasion was planned for the Humans. However, with the release of Clockwork Chaos, the whole world gets invaded. So first the has a quarrel with the world, then just with humans and now it’s with the whole world again? Did I miss something?
One could argue that provoking the humans was only part of the bigger picture, that she planned to invade the world all along and the taunting of Humans was simply used to lure them into this war. However, she put no effort into taunting the Norn and Charr, why just the humans? She simply send an army to the doorstep of the north and that’s it. She put a lot more effort into her quarrel with the humans. Scarlet’s behavior and actions are too inconsistent to make the story believable and understandable.

Frequency of updates:
I believe that the boring updates aren’t so much caused by a lack of creativity of the Arenanet employees, but rather by the frequency of the updates we get. By now, it has become a habit to get a new Living Story update every month, or even two weeks. This means that the update feels rushed. Being able to roll out a good content update every month requires a huge team of employees dedicated to it, something I believe only few I companies can manage.
I don’t understand why Arenanet feels the need to roll out an update each month, I don’t recall the players asking for it. If more time is invested in these updates, more thought can be put into the story. There will be time for research into older lore and plots of other parts of the game, which can then be tied to the Living Story to great a deep and rich story. The same goes for gameplay content, as there will be more time to test new game mechanics and create larger pieces of content such as dungeons and new zones.

Another problem with the frequency of updates is that players feel pressure in completing it. We all want that special piece of gear or that exclusive minipet, as we don’t want to be the only one in the guild who doesn’t have it. And we most certainly don’t want to miss out on the large amount of achievements that every monthly update provides. Some people just don’t have as much time as others. They have to spend all their time in Guild Wars on the Living Story content, not being able to enjoy the other parts of the game, to keep up with everything, as the temporary content will be gone in a month. If I have a busy month at university or decide to go on vacation, I will immediately miss out on the content.

All in all, I want to see less frequent but larger updates that feature a compelling and engaging story, and interesting and creative content that keeps me interested in the game. Something I want to pay for. We need updates that do the name Guild Wars just, not rushed monthly updates that are shallow and boring.
I suggest Arenanet takes the idea of Living World back to the drawing board, considers if they have the resources to make such a daring new approach work, and then figure out how to improve on it.

After this release the teams will have 8 weeks to work on each segment. I love the 2 week release schedule; if one release is a dungeon I know a release that’s fun or at least different is only 2 weeks away:)

I’m going to need to read this more carefully than I did, but . . .

They’ll probably stick with the two week cycle since they’ve kinda committed to it after Frost and Flame’s slow pacing (for several reasons) made people get on them to be more frequent.

I’m expecting them to get the lead out on their story work now, too. I’m hoping it won’t disappoint . . . but I’m resigned to the fact the forum will STILL be full of disappointment even if the next chapter turns out to be the most awesome fight against Jormag/Bubbles/Primordius/etc.

The problem with Frost and Flame was that they released it too soon. The pacing was indeed too slow, because they released 4 months of work over 4 months.

When I mention I’d like to see them take 3 months for an update, I mean that we get a Living Story for a month, followed by two months of nothing, which is in turn followed by a single month of Living Story (which has been worked on for 3 months). We will have to do without new content for 2 months (except for playing the previous LS content as long as its permanent), but in return we get a month of quality content that isn’t slow paced as its released over a short interval.