Guild Wars 2

Probably a stupid question, but… what is the living world? I tried reading on the wiki, but it only tells me the story, not what it actually means for me as a player. My highest level char is 24, and I’ve barely started the personal story. I don’t have LS season two yet, either.

So let’s say I bought season two. How would that impact my game? Would I get new quests, and if so, where? Are there new dynamic events? New areas? I know I’m on season one, but other than that, I know absolutely nothing what it means. I don’t even know if the LS season 1 and personal story are the same. :-(

The “Living World” was the concept of the game changing and evolving as the story is told, for example Lion’s Arch getting destroyed, and the changes to the environments on the edge of the Maguuma Wastes since the game’s launch. The Living Story is the playable “quests” that involves these changes. Season 1 dealt with Scarlet Briar and her crazy schemes (not the same as the Personal Story which deals with an Elder Dragon). Season 2 which has recently ended dealt with the repercussions of Scarlet’s plans and the awakening of another Elder Dragon. Season 1 and 2 of the Living Story are all at level 80, but Season 1 is currently totally unavailable, you either did it when it was about or you’ll have to wait until they find a way to put it back in the game.

Nothing will change if you buy Season 2 until you get to level 80, then you will be sent into the Maguuma Wastes areas (Dry Top and The Silverwastes), which are totally available whether you buy season 2 or not. The only thing the purchase does is add the Season 2 story quests and related achievements and rewards.

Aaaah… thanks! That sounds pretty cool. Just one question, though. You say season 1 is unavaliable. What happens if I buy season 2 now, but don’t hit level 80 until season 3 is well under way? Can I still play season 2 first? Or should I just skip it and try to reach level 80 before season 3 starts? I’m a very casual PvE player, so the best gear doesn’t interest me. Neither does achivements.

if you bought/unlocked season 2, you can play it after you finish your personal story; you can start it from your personal story panel (H—> “star” icon). I’m guessing season 3 will work in the same way (that is, you can start it when you want to).

Also, I think you need to be 80 to play season 2 (not 100% sure though), so just enjoy the base game for the moment

And no, don’t skip it!! :P If you don’t want to pay for it you can ask a guildie/friend who has it to play through it with you; that way, you can experience the story (but won’t access the rewards/achievements)

Hehe, alright, I won’t skip it. I’m still struggling to decide what race and class to play, though I think I’m falling for Asura Engineer as my main. She’s level 26 already, and I do enjoy her a lot. But the rest of the classes are so much fun too… Plus, I bought the Shadow Assassin outfit for my human thief, and while it looks great, I hate the big ropes on her back. The asura doesn’t have those ropes, so I might as well start an asura thief just for that outfit. Which means starting a new human. Decision, decisions… hehehe.

The reason the Asura doesn’t have the big bow on the back is that outfit gives the male version to Asura and Charr. A male human would have the male version as well.

Clarifying on the Seasons — ANet keeps on experimenting. Season One was all huge open world events, if you miss them they’re history. They got enough feedback on that to do it differently in Season Two, so LS2 is replayable and permanently available to every alt you ever make on the account. LS3 will be further refined in HoT, again based on feedback and on them seeing what worked and didn’t work.

it´s really just a fancy word for frequent small scale expansions. Only player driven sandbox games can truly have a “living world”.

Living World is a failed experiment of making profit without making a game (expansion)

Started to be a bi-weekly update in the ‘ever-changing’-world of Tyria. That was the initial idea. Fact is: it’s no different than in other MMOs regular updates now and then. With the fact that living story season 1 isn’t even available anymore they mostly hurt themselves and hence introduced more instanced content in ‘season (ohman I hate this word in connection with games) 2’. We had roughly an update every 2 months what started to be bi-weekly.

It’s bi-weekly when season (sorry :P) is up; we can’t honestly expect bi-weekly updates all year long (for free nonetheless…)

Anyway, It’s “Living” because the world IS actually changing in time (see for example Lion’s arch Then&Now, or the fugly ex-tower in Kessex Hills), whereas in other mmos (at least the ones I played), the open zones are pretty much always the same (especially the starter zones)

Others call it Patchday, we call it living story

But in all honesty, the living world/story is a narrative context to everything that gets included into the game. At least they try it.
It also is based on the concept that the world evolves, the longer she exists.

Living story was, roughly, 4 bi-weekly mini-episodes of content every 6 months, which is, of course, why it failed.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Living story was, roughly, 4 bi-weekly mini-episodes of content every 6 months, which is, of course, why it failed.

I don’t think it failed at all. I like the fact that some will not experiance what I did at the beginning of the game.

Season one was slow at the start but got much better later on. Felt that it was better in terms of the stuff that went on than season two, such as the world bosses and one off events. Season two had a ton of delays and oddities which were explained by it simply being a lead up to the expansion. With no new content until then. At least we know a feature pack will hit. They did say they would like to bring season one back in the journal however that won’t be for a while yet.

They could implement the instanced stuff and have the one off events be redoable with a guild or in fractals while retaining the ‘I was here for when it really happened’ aspect. Each episode is basically like tv, bit of an overarching story but each episode is also self-contained. Hopefully they pull less from the tv aspect and more with how things are now.