Guild Wars 2

Grevender.9235:

Gilgalas.7860:

meaningless average

well…the OP asks to rate the whole thing, that’s what average is meant for

He may have asked an average mark, yet I find such a measure to be completely irrelevant in our context. It will be interesting once LS reaches more or less a steady state.

3 out of 10.

I wasn’t that interested in it but I played it for some of the larger battles and carrots. If this was a TV show I would not have finished it, due to a lackluster story and unmemorable characters.

Also bi weekly updates really hurt the quality of the story and the game play felt rushed, unpolished and copy/paste.

5/10

Nothing original, boring story, annoying villain, zerg fest, gem shop driven. No real content added. Everything gets removed.

2/10, that is rather generous given the writing quality.

2/10

They would actually have scored better in my eyes if they didn’t force connecting everything with Scarlet. Would still not be high, but they shouldn’t be getting top marks for a experimental trial anyway (unless it truly is amazing, which this system was not).

For example, I personally lost respect for the toxic alliance after I heard Scarlet was involved again, and my interest in them disappeared even though I was already seeing my Sylvari switch sides after first encounter. =P

Bazaar, minigames, the content that was actually added was good, and would have helped raise the score significantly if the majority didn’t just disappear as well.

The loss of a dungeon path instead of fixing it in the name of ‘living world’, resetting player progress, all tied to this form of content delivery (you lose content to gain content?)

I don’t think I’d even buy an xpack at this point if it came out. Not to be whiny, I just think this has been enough. Guess I’ll just wait and see XD

I played up until SAB 1 last year and stopped for a while. I recently came back during Origin’s of Madness. These last two events and after doing some research the others looked much better than Flame and Frost and finding refugee’s.

The whole Refugee thing left a bad taste in my mouth and now I wish I would of just stuck with the game after that because I missed a lot of stuff that looked pretty cool and now I can’t go back and do it again.

My real only complaint about LS is there are no re run’s.

My opinion on this topic is strange and mixed since i came into this game by a friends reference/request and he reminded me that i played the original Guild Wars prophecies back in the day.

Anyway coming into this game i had no idea what to expect, so i was surprised by the content in general this game had to offer overall and loved it. But my surprised enjoyment of this game became mixed after a year, and now at present negative.

Gonna give my reasons why for each patch update score out of 10 to be very specific, i’ll also include a sub-rating category for the characters that appeared because without key important character besides “we” the players it can make or break a game,movie or anime.

WARNING! | SPOILERS | Read with Caution! |

Part 1.

1. Flame and Frost: the Gathering Storm – 9/10
Reason: The score is very high here, almost perfect for me because i simply wasn’t expecting this game to do something like this, live updates at relatively quick intervals. It sounded like a very nice idea and i originally welcomed it. Please note the “Originally” new stuff is always welcomed to a game if it makes it more fun to play.

2. Flame and Frost: the Razing – 8/10
Reason: I expected more in Part 2 in the Flame and Frost Arc of the story but still liked it, i enjoyed the two new story characters Braham and Rox because male norn story characters are rare compared to female, the opposite being true for Charr, it was a change of pace, they were both likable as well. Also great voice acting, Braham’s voice actor sounds just like that guy from Fate/Stay Night only in a deeper manlier tone.

I would rate Braham a 9/10 and Rox a 8.5/10 from a writers point of view, whoever wrote these characters in the story made them an enjoyable duo. Good job to that person or team.

3. Flame and Frost: Retribution – 7.5/10
Reason: I enjoyed the grand finale of the Flame and Frost Arc, what i noticed most here was how much NCSoft has improved in terms of animation and rendering of the newer big boss models, they look and move amazingly compared to all vanilla bosses.

The reason it scores lower the the first 2 in my book is because simply expected a bigger finale to this Arc, but it was still okay.

Part 2.

4. The Secret of Southsun – 9/10
Reason: This story arc introduced Canach if i remember correctly, he was one of the few characters i liked in the living story/world, to be fair we the players thought he was a antagonist at first, which he ended up not being.

It also introduced Ellen Kiel, Lady Kasmeer, Majory and the still presently unknown illusive mysterious Mr. E. Oh and Lord Faren from the Human Story is present here too for some reason.

Canach ~ 8/10 ~ His voice acting was superb in my opinion whoever the guy that did his voice work is did splendidly! He was this loose cannon kitten that did as he pleased, kinda reminded me of certain hack n’ slash anti-hero’s from certain hack n’ slash video games.

The only downside for me is that he was Sylvari, like Traherne, Caith, Faolain, and Scarlet….. I just don’t like Sylvari characters in general. But Canach unlike the rest of the main Sylvari story cast, had a cool personality and i enjoyed it very much.

Ellen Kiel ~ 5/10 ~ I didn’t think much of her at first, she got a lot of screen time and was being portrayed as this cool edgy hero of this arc, but it came off as shallow and uninteresting to me. Women can be cool characters in games, but Ellen Kiel isn’t one of them. My first thoughts were about average at first, mainly because i paid little to no attention to her.

Lady Kasmeer ~ 7.5/10 ~ Tanned skinned elegant looking blonde lady in a bikini, whats not to like? From a design aspect it was pretty generic rich girl look, she reminded me of Lili from Tekken fame, and i like Lili. But looks only take you so far. Like in real life, Personality > Looks. At the time i thought hers was written well enough. I enjoyed her interactions with Lord Faren. It was nice comic relief.

Marjory ~ 9/10 ~ Black trench coat, Black Hair, New Hair Style, Asian looking, neat new weapons, and a cool-chick type personality.

I liked her! The first cut scene between her and logan was a refreshing art style change. I also enjoyed her voice acting at first. Also her last name reminded me of the main antagonist from the PS2 Classic Action/RPG Capcom made video game Chaos Legion, Victor Delaqua, that alone made her cool to me.

Mr. “E” ~ ?/? ~ I wanted to learn more about this “E” character, he seemed pretty cool and it made me think Order of Whispers or something. Also there is a extreme lack of male characters in the living story/world Season 1 so it is a shame he got little to no screen time.

5. Last Stand at Southsun – 5/10
Reason: It was this patch update that i started to get annoyed. The final battle with Canach was unique but i didn’t enjoy the mechanics plain and simple. Also it was at this point where i started disliking Ellen Kiel due to her attitude, my rating for her at this point was around a 3 out of 10 in terms of being likable.

But on the plus side, the Fervid Censor was and still is one of the nicer back items that has physics and particle effects. Perfect for Rangers and Nature based characters imo.

Part 3.

6. Dragon Bash – 5.9/10
Reason: This patch update felt very long to me for some reason. I didn’t like any of the mini games, and the character development of Majory and Kasmeer was unimpressive. Same for Ellen Kiel. At this point, Canach had Completely disappeared from the LS which i thought was strange considering all the chaos he caused.

I think this is when the Aetherblades were first revealed as well, i cant remember though, if that is the case though i will edit this bit and increase my score for this patch because anything related to SteamPunk style is great in my book. If that is the case though, Mai Trin is yet another Human Female character introduced to the story that continues to make the male to female ratio ever unbalanced! At this point we have reached japanese game/anime harem levels, it is bloody irritating.

7. Bazzar of the Four Winds – 9.5/10
Reason: 9.5 out of 10 mates! I was extremely impressed with the Four Winds, This patch update did so many things right i can’t even count them, Arena Net/NCSoft Scored a home run here. My personal favorite Highlights were…..

*The Introduction of the Three Elemental Back Items, Sun (Gold), Wind (Cyan) and Lightning (PURPLE!!!!! My favorite color!)
*Introduction of Evon Gnashblade being fleshed out as a crooked greedy ambition driven character.
*Introduction of Ellen’s superior Captain Magnus the Bloody Handed, Finally another male character to balance out all these ladies, and he is a Norn as well, again shocking considering.
*New Animations for controlling the elements, take that elementalists!
*Huge new zone to explore, it felt almost legitimate expansiony!
*Gravity Defying Platforming! It was fun, reminded me of Gravity Rush for the PS Vita.

8. Cutthroat Politics – ?/10
Reason: I can’t give a proper opinion on this one since at the time i was in the process of moving from one island to another. Turns out i didn’t miss much though, i also had a feeling Ellen would win, simply because the bias towards her was so great and that she is a woman that she would have the edge in a game world where most players a guys. It kittened me off to be honest because it was so bloody predictable it was at this point my dislike went from hating her character altogether.

9. Queen’s Jubilee – ?/10
Reason: Still can’t give a proper opinion because i was nearly done moving at this point, and it seems i missed out here because this patch brought a unique set of limited edition golden themed human inspired weapon skins, it woulda’ been perfect for my warrior.

10. Clockwork Chaos – 0/10
Reason: I was done moving at this point but was at my uncles house and downloading the GW2 on his PC would have been pointless because i wouldn’t have been able to play on max settings with silky smooth 60 fps that my powerful PC can do.

But since this was the official introduction of Scarlet, it automatically gets a Zero because like many of us in the GW2 community i hate her as a character and a bootleg cheap knock off tree harly quin dragging on for a year villain.

Part 4.

11. Tequatl Rising – 8/10
Reason: I was finally back into GW2 after a few months of hiatus, got my internet back online and was ready to go, and came back a pretty good patch update.

The new Black x Neon Green ascended weapons look like they were MADE for Necromancers, the design looked nice as well, like something right out of Bamco’s Soul Calibur V or the Soul Series in general.

I don’t know if there were any new characters introduced here, all i remember here was helping Rox with some stuff to report to Rytlock. I enjoyed her character development here because it showed why she was so obsessed with getting things done. +1 to her character development score and her interactions with Steve Blum.

12. Twilight Assault – 7.7/10
Reason: I was annoyed to see caith coming into to the LS, don’t like her at all as a designed and written character, she has a good voice actress but thats about it.

The actual gameplay in this patch was all over the place, it mixed things up and that was good! The final boss here was also challenging, it required true team work and precise dodge timing, loved it! It raised the difficulty without being too ridiculous, many people Pug groups i played with at the time thought it was too hard and the boss was OP but it was fair to be fair.

Also it ended up having more steampunk zones! good stuff, the main base reminded me of some Mako reactors from Final Fantasy VII.

13. Tower of Nightmares – 8.5/10
Reason: The trailer is Infamous for being out of place for this patch update that it threw many GW2 players for a loop.

But the patch it self? Great, i loved it, the scope and pure time to make that big kitten tower was impressive, and it changed one of my favorite zones in the game into an even cooler zone. I believe this was the patch that also introduced the Vincent and Blacklight dye colors for Armor/Clothes, they’re my favorite shades of purple so far in the entire game.

As for the Story aspects, i disliked the writers were trying to make Kasmeer seem important, when any highly skilled mesmer could have done what she did. my dislike of her character truly started beginning here, i hate Mary Sue type characters in ALL media and she started turning into one, just like Ellen. I was still cool with Jory though.

Don’t remember Braham or Rox here, so can’t say. But they included an entire slew of new female minor story characters though, so many i couldn’t keep count! It was at this point i was sure the writers are either all men with a one track mind or extreme feminists, and this is coming from a guy by the way, there is just a limit you should not cross.

14. The Nightmares Within – 9/10
Reason: Entering the Tower of Babel err- Nightmares was a neat experience, it was outright chaotic in there, the best part though? Running like hell to reach the top! It gave this feeling of almost a horror survival action, not sure if thats what anet was going for but it came off well like it because you didn’t know what would come around the next corner as you made your way to the top.

The boss here was a mixed plate for me though, i was expecting something truly kitten at the top waiting for us, instead we got some plant/snake freak of nature wielding twin kelp lightsabers doing spin2win moves.

15. Fractured – 5/10
Reason: Honestly i still don’t know how i feel about this patch update, on the blue side i feel it was cool and good, on the red side i felt hot and kittened. Eh, still on the fence on this one.

Story wise though, that asura girl in fractals that controls everything, i feel bad for her since it appears she is in some sort of endless loop and trapped in that realm, I wish there was some side quest to rescue her to be honest, that sucks. Also i hated Ellen a little less here since I am assuming she could kinda tell what was going on.

Part 5.

16. A Very Merry Wintersday – 0 / 10
Reason: I didn’t like the first Wintersday i didn’t like the second one. Plain and simple.

17. The Origins of Madness – 3/10
Reason: Scarlet Still? after a year this is just….. uncalled for already. Lets be real here, if she was a kitten super villain like Kefka from Final Fantasy VI or Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII, i’d be on board the Scarlet train as far as villains go, but she is just boring, lame, and predictable.

Also for some reason i hated the entire Destiny’s edge 2.0 cast here for some reason, they just annoyed me, or it could have been the whole bootleg power ranges theme.

Taimi was also an oddity, no real introduction, she was just kinda there, adorable character though, one of the few female characters introduced that i didn’t mind, she’d make a fine japanese mascot for some tech in japan. Also fun fact, i think her voice actress did Zach Bell from the anime…. Zach Bell that aired on toonami back in the day, early 2000’s i think. She sounds like him anyway, didn’t look it up so can’t be sure.

Oh and Canach is back, though i dislike even him now because for some reason the writers decided to turn him into a generic good guy repenting for what he had done, he kitten persona should have remained, they took away the one trait they made him unique to this game as a whole.

18. The Edge of the Mists – 9.5/10
Reason: I scored this one highly for the simple reason NCSoft has the potential to release huge worlds as a decent pace, the whole Edge of the Mists zone is beautiful! Well designed, and outright a fun to explore, it also takes it up a notch with the whole danger element because you could get ganked at any moment. This patch felt truly close to expansion worthy when it comes to these bite sized updates.

19. Escape from Lion’s Arch – 5/10
Reason: Oh, its Scarlet again….. Y-yay yee- yeah… I’m impressed that LA really got messed up something fierce but dunno…. there was something about it that just bored me.

20. Battle for Lion’s Arch – 9.5/10
Reason: The current patch we get to finally be rid of the abomination of a character that is Scarlet, that alone makes it worth a 9.

Other than that, the boss battles are intense, mainly the three fugly lady knights, the difficulty is unreal, almost unfair at this point given the conditions for proper victory.

From a Story perspective, where you come face to face with annoying incarnate, you are with the power rangers 2.0. The braham getting hurt bit and Rox refusing to leave him there was overplayed never leave a man behind delivery, but to be honest i liked it, it shows Rox prefers his friendship over a group of strangers with rank, good stuff and is always welcomed.

You know what is not welcomed? Fan Service (for the guys), Lesbian Kiss Scene! I had a feelin’ it was coming, pfft all i gotta say if arena net really cares about this kinda stuff why not two human men instead of women? Huh? I’m sorry, but this is just plain, in your face, made for the fella’s fan service. For record, nothin wrong with face service, if its executed with style, this wasn’t that unfortunately.

Also this patch introduced the Tormented Weapons, these were made for mesmers, i Finally have a greatsword to match my main which is a mesmer that looks very nice. They’re from Guild Wars 1 ~ Nightfall Expansion apparently, i never played Nightfall so getting an enhanced remodeled/animated GW2 version is great.

With all that said and done however It still isn’t done until the fat awaked blue underwater dragon sings. I’ll update this post later on, maybe.

In Conclusion: I liked it at the start, mixed feelings in the middle, didn’t like it at the end.

Final Score: 5.9 out of 10 in true GameTrailers Fashion.

I had more to add to this but too tired to mention it right now. One last thing though.

My advice for season 2? Anet/NCSoft, do the opposite of what happened in season 1.

1. Flame and Frost: the Gathering Storm – 2
2. Flame and Frost: the Razing – 4
3. Flame and Frost: Retribution – 4
4. The Secret of Southsun – 5
5. Last Stand at Southsun – 4
6. Dragon Bash – 8
7. Bazzar of the Four Winds – 10
8. Cutthroat Politics – 8
9. Queen’s Jubilee – 6
10. Clockwork Chaos – 5
11. Tequatl Rising – 6
12. Twilight Assault – 6
13. Tower of Nightmares -6
14. The Nightmares Within – 7
15. Fractured – 5
16. A Very Merry Wintersday – 4
17. The Origins of Madness – 8
18. The Edge of the Mists – 7
19. Escape from Lion’s Arch – 10
20. Battle for Lion’s Arch – 9

Gameplay content: 7.5/10
for free updates to keep people playing, the actual content was pretty cool. Marrionette was awesome, loved the crystal hunt in the Zephr. ToN was pretty cool.

Story:5/10
The worst part of the story was that is felt like a fan fic. like someone’s personal predilections. It didn’t feel like someone who had a passion for the GW lore, but someone who wanted to shoe-horn their biases into it. Tyria bowed to them, not the other way around. And it looks like we’ve got WAY more fetish incoming with an entire PS focused around the Sylvari. It wasn’t enough that the game was already slanted towards the Sylvari, shows disdain for anything Norn & is apparently nauseated by anything that keeps GW1 the way it was… now we have another entire massive story with Sylvari in the middle.

Conclusion
It doesn’t actually make the world feel alive. I thought it would, but it doesn’t really work. I see that having a single story that effects specific places doesn’t make things actually feel living. The story wasn’t even good, so I got nothing from that & there were no major features like new Races, Classes, Zones, skills… After a year of it, I think would have rather just had features packed into the game. If they want the game to feel alive they need to add far more ways to interact with the world than combat & canned mini games. The mobs also have to be dynamic. Move around the world, take over places & set down camps.
Worst of all: after a year & a half we have far less content than we get with an expansion. So the fact is an “expansion’s worth of content” would take 3+ years from the LS. On top of the cosmetic endgame being the Gem Store they don’t even have a cosmetic system like DCUO, making collecting skins impossible because they spend that time on an awful story arc.

I really can’t grasp what Anet thinks is a good idea anymore. I used to be the biggest fanboi, now the LS alone is making me play less & less.

1. Flame and Frost: the Gathering Storm – 4
2. Flame and Frost: the Razing – 5
3. Flame and Frost: Retribution – 9
4. The Secret of Southsun – 6
5. Last Stand at Southsun – 7
6. Dragon Bash – 7
7. Bazzar of the Four Winds – 10
8. Cutthroat Politics – 8
9. Queen’s Jubilee – 7
10. Clockwork Chaos – 7
11. Tequatl Rising – 9
12. Twilight Assault – 8
13. Tower of Nightmares -8
14. The Nightmares Within – 9
15. Fractured – 6
16. A Very Merry Wintersday – 8
17. The Origins of Madness – 10
18. The Edge of the Mists – 9
19. Escape from Lion’s Arch – 10
20. Battle for Lion’s Arch – 10

As to the whole idea of the Living World I think it is something very original and it is a new take on the MMO genre, so naturally there will be mishaps and hiccups ( hehe ). So I view this first Living story season as a test really. All in all I really liked some and not so much other releases, but kudos to Arena either way! They learned a tonne from it as you can see in last few releases and I am sure they will learn so much more with the next season.

I would honestly give it: 6/10 no more no less

The writing & the story itself is subjective. Personally, I missed everything leading up to Halloween 2013 & the Nightmare Tower, which is when I started playing the living world. I don’t think the story is that bad, but it’s servicable.

I believe what REALLY burned people is the execution.

Bugged world events, Scarlet, server problems, glitches, the living story was a drunken man telling an epic tale.

I give it a 4. Prefer a real expansion as the LS content doesn’t expand upon my personal story and after the events of the main storyline, it feels like to me, that everyone has sat around doing random LS content that doesn’t have any real back story as to whats going on. I don’t even know why i had to fight Scarlet.

Arena-net please add something for late players playing the LS content that reflects upon what is happening to the world and why. I don’t want to spawn in and see LA destroyed cos Scarlet (enemy) is attacking it for some unknown reason, and for another unknown reason I have to kill Scarlet. Out of all the NPC’s i spoke to not one could give me any back story. for all i know LA could be evil and scarlet was good trying to stop LA from conquering the world.

This was the best .Wrecked in the last few days.Reward content is abysmal.Time spent on it is a shocking waste of time.Shame it went kittens up. Three out of ten for getting me to try it in the first place.

Numu Boltar.6105:

The LS was the solution from anet for new content i needed to keep playing. I quit.

Haha, I agree. Though I’ll be nice and give it a 1/10, as there were a few positive things like the Labyrinthine Cliffs or the jubilee’s cages.

On the negative side, however …
- incredibly stupid story with a moronic villain
- just grinding stuff
- practically total lack of permanent content
- too slow pace …
- … which even cost us a lot of necessary balancing due to the management of the game development
- many more things

Since this format was used, and I don’t want to rate the whole thing without basically copping out.".

1. Flame and Frost: the Gathering Storm – 5. Not quite enough content during the time, despite it being interesting for the first few days. Very atmospheric.

2. Flame and Frost: the Razing – 7. Better play and kept good atmosphere, and gave me a few more things to do. Introduced two interesting major NPCs who felt better than others.

3. Flame and Frost: Retribution – 9. Much as I enjoyed the dungeon, many groups would shout at me for mining, despite this being the only way to get Azurite. Also, very little here to do other than the dungeon but most of the other achievements

4. The Secret of Southsun – 6. I took a break because I really hate Karka. Really hate them. And lacking a usual crowd to run with, having an issue with RL timing? I wound up giving most of this a pass.

5. Last Stand at Southsun – 7. Decent ending, but RL kept me from experiencing most of it. Do like the development of the story.

6. Dragon Bash – 5. Mindless and entertaining fun, but with a lot of repetitive events and came . . . if I recall, shortly after something similar. I liked it, but it was a bit much. Sky Pirates was very fun though.

7. Bazzar of the Four Winds – 9. I really liked the new area and the Aspect usages. For every frustrating thing in navigating there was a wonder of “so that’s how I do that” when I watched someone else do it. My only complaint was how it was really quite . . . little. Also, Obsidian Sanctum Kite can kiss a dolyak.

8. Cutthroat Politics – 7. Neat concept, really bad since there was/is a lot of sniping between those who wanted Evon to win and those who wanted Kiel to win, and those who thought the whole thing was a waste and “preordained”. Had fun with it for a few days, then it lulled big time.

9. Queen’s Jubilee – 8. Very enjoyable work through the Pavilion and the Queen’s Champions were very entertaining fights which could be solo’d. Still a problem of too much festivities in too short a time.

10. Clockwork Chaos – 9. Love the Invasion events, it really felt fun to just cut loose on an area with about fifty other people. Scarlet should have been toned down a little, my only big complaint.

11. Tequatl Rising – 6. Do not like the revamp to the encounter, primarily because I live on a server where there is simply no interest in doing him so it seems. It was a good idea, but its content was simply not for me.

12. Twilight Assault – 4. I don’t do dungeons and this made it harder for me to get involved. It didn’t help this coincided with a period of RL where I was at work almost every darn night for two weeks. Luckily I took one look at the content and went “yup, can safely miss this”.

13. Tower of Nightmares – 8. Hey, look, a LS bit which had an impact on a zone other than random events popping up. Hey, look, enemies which help each other and have some mild synergy. Also, distinct lack of achievements I felt were “repeat 100 times”; most of them completed themselves.

14. The Nightmares Within – 9. Fun tower romp, good end battle, third floor was total bull after they patched it to prevent running through it quickly. Highly enjoyed this.

15. Fractured – N/A. No, I’m not rating this unlike Twilight Assault because I didn’t partake at all of anything while I did take a couple stabs at Aetherpath.

16. A Very Merry Wintersday – 10. Enjoyed it, loved the return of the events from the previous year with little tinkering. A very fun month-long trip and allowing me to get one of the mini toys I missed was good. Also – thanks for not adding new limited items to drop tables or removing old ones.

17. The Origins of Madness – 10. Solid play, good work on the story more or less, and very fun. Frustrations were more due to my availability not being there for successful warden kills to round out my achievement list.

18. The Edge of the Mists – 9. Love the addition of the Edge, and the recap story instance was sorely needed.

19. Escape from Lion’s Arch – 9. If only the darn thing didn’t have connection issues inside LA. It’d be a 10/10.

20. Battle for Lion’s Arch – 9. Repeating above. This is so far entertaining, but technical frustrations have me wanting to kill quaggan.

Overall: 7/10. A decent start if slow with the pacing, several missteps with character work and story presentation, but it finished rather well. Hope they do better next time.

3. It’s nothing but a pointless, unrewarding zergfest.

3/10

LS before the Bazzaar part, ok.
Bazzaar of Four Winds i really liked.
After that, personally i didnt really care about Scarlet. Never liked her.
I mostly stopped with LS after Bazzaar.

I will say;
Experimenting with the concept that LS is sofar. Brave!!!
However, repeatedly bugged LS content, LS content patches introducing new other bugs.

And after a year i just have to really not understand all the bugs in the last LS part.
Did the LS team just accept that there will be new bugs and will be attempted to be fixed asap?!
Well, did anyone enjoy the last (bugged) LS part the last few days?!

dagrdagaz.4913:

Well, did anyone enjoy the last (bugged) LS part the last few days?!

Not exactly, but then I didn’t get a chance to play due to work and this weird effect which started not long ago of Lion’s Arch not running for me. I’m not sure it’s the LS or just something going screwy with the server hosting the LA zone. . .

What I did get a chance to play? I did enjoy. Especially the part where I got to stomp Scarlet.

Why are people giving Battle of Lions Arch 9/10? Its a bug ridden mess…

Escape from Lion Arch 9.5/10 awesome but Battle of Lions Arch 2/10 worst update for some time.

Are people getting mixed up with the two or are you all happy Scarlets dead and don’t care about anything else?

1. Flame and Frost: the Gathering Storm – 3
2. Flame and Frost: the Razing – 3
3. Flame and Frost: Retribution – 3
4. The Secret of Southsun – 5
5. Last Stand at Southsun – 5
6. Dragon Bash – 8
7. Bazzar of the Four Winds – 10
8. Cutthroat Politics – 6
9. Queen’s Jubilee – 9
10. Clockwork Chaos – 7
11. Tequatl Rising – 9
12. Twilight Assault – 6
13. Tower of Nightmares – 6
14. The Nightmares Within – 6
15. Fractured – 8
16. A Very Merry Wintersday – 7
17. The Origins of Madness – 7
18. The Edge of the Mists – 8
19. Escape from Lion’s Arch – 9
20. Battle for Lion’s Arch – 5 (the bugs really killed it but aside from that, its good overall)

Overall its felt decent but there is a real lack of memorable content. Dragon Bash, the first Wintersday and Halloween, and Bazaar Four Winds are the most memorable for me. I’ve enjoyed the changes to Tequatl and the combat mechanics introduced with Battle for Lion’s arch as well. The nice thing about the newest ones in Battle for Lion’s Arch is that its simple enough for people to get without allowing them to just stand and auto-attack till the creature dies. It keeps you moving and paying attention the whole fight without giving crummy rewards (talking about the holographic fight).

My average score is about a 6.5/10. This seems about right. I was surprised and impressed with the quality of some of the updates while very disappointed with others. I think the updates should be more about having fun and not so much grinding out achievements for a new back item or helmet. I’m also not an achievement person, I just want to play and not feel like I have to do content a certain way.

Wall of text incoming, please no triple post ban. ;_;

Well, I’d rate the LS in chapters and not individually for each update, part of the reason being that I can’t exactly remember what was when, really.
Apart from any rating being subjective anyway, take into consideration that I rarely do dungeon runs, because I hate pugging beyond belief and our guild is small so it’s hard to find organized times to do it, and since I hate pugging I don’t like open world content that requires me to rely on the incapability of Average Joe the Berserker Warrior who keeps dying and contributing nothing while making the event scale and fail.
Alas.

Flame and Frost
Overall, I really enjoyed it. I liked it being tied into the game world, I liked how refugees were actually moving, the dynamic world events, Braham and Rox, I didn’t mind the scavenger hunts or that it took a while between updates, because honestly, the 2-week- schedule is way over the top imo, but more to that later.
I adored the dungeon, because it was nicely put together, didn’t take too long, had decent rewards (yes, I liked those food recipes!), even though I didn’t get anything particularly special and I loved the boss fight, because it required combat movement and was very fun with the shockwaves and stuff. Admittably, it could have been hell with lag / on a slow machine.

The Southsun Incident
First part was amazing, because it revived a dead zone and the achievements were great. The scavenger hunt was the only one I liked so far in GW2, due to the fact that you actually had hints on where to go and with some looking around and following them, you got to find everything reasonably well. The rewards were great as well and overall I had a lot of fun doing it. The drops with the crates were so-so, low chance, not much gain, nice skins hidden behind RNG and account bound, so out of luck if you didn’t spend 400h or were lucky.
The NPCs were fun to listen to. Faren in speedos, who could not like that?

The second part with Canach was awful. The instance was laughable, at best. The story got wrapped up too quickly and way too anticlimactic and it just felt like Anet wanted to experiment with the mines to see whether it would be worth using them for more occasions and not like we were concluding any kind of story.

Dragon Bash
While more or less a filler content, it was okay. The achievements people moaned about were okay, too, since the moaners wanted to get everything in a day and not just play it. The bugs were awful and really dragged everything down. The new instances were okay, too. Fun for a bit, but overall repetitive really quickly.

Bazaar of the Four Winds/Cutthroat Politics
By far my favourite update. The map was great, the sprint was fun, the scavenger hunt for crystals was fun, too, with the special powers, lots of things to see and get and with different currencies as well. Nice skins and rewards and the Cutthroat Politics did its part in rallying the community and getting them into it, I felt. I was also engaged in it, making my votes for Kiel, even though it was pretty clear that nothing would be changing, really, and due to the nature of the LS, no matter who’d win would get a flavoured update of what was supposed to come, anyway.
I really hate that the Bazaar was only temporary (even if annually), and that’s a main problem with the LS, the temporarity of it all.

Queen’s Jubilee
Story was okay-ish. Scarlet being introduced had promise then, but once the story was done we got the Pavillon, a mindnumbingly boring 24/7 uberzergfest, and the Gauntlet, which was actually pretty fun but being let down by people exploiting fights for loot, being restricted with tickets that only drop, having queues because there’s only so many arenas in the pavillon, even though the idea of watching how others are doing was nice, and ultimately restricting a few classes / builds to really shine in the fights while others never saw the end of it.

Clockwork Chaos
Invasions, a neat idea on paper, turning into zergfests and having mechanics that make people actively choose not to complete the event (champion loot bags – to this date the worst update to have ever happened to this game, I find, but that’s another topic). I don’t even remember the story and what Scarlet was actually trying to do other than gifting players with wealth. Uninteresting after doing it once, and the remainder we still have fails 99% of the time because there isn’t enough people and a time limit.

Tequatl Rising
Not my cup of tea due to my opening paragraphs. Personally, I find such content has no place in the open world, because it blocks off parts of the map for unknowing / new players and actually causes grief to the guilds / groups that want to do it due to pugs, griefers/trolls and overflow mechanics. The introduction of world boss timers (was it that update?) was also unnecessary in artificially creating difficulty which only makes things into DPS races and such events impossible for small numbers of people. If you want people to not afk during boss fights, add mechanics like for the Golem MK II or Fire Elemental (still leaves the dead scaling the event up for no reason, but that’s another topic entirely).

Twilight Assault
I hated this path because it’s outright impossible with pugs and when you suffer through all of it, the loot is nowhere near worth the effort. Good for the crowd that constantly yells for ‘challenge’, though I don’t know how much they actually play this. Also made the key pieces drop, which is awful junk I need to manually delete from my inventory whenever I happen to be in the Maguuma Jungle. A small yet important detail for me, personally! plays dramatic music
I did the path once for the story, which was ‘Scarlet is here, Caithe wants to stop her, Scarlet knows something, we never found out what’. Okay.

Tower of Nightmares / Nightmares Within
Again, awesome idea on paper, let down by flocking mentality, minmaxing power players, hollow zerging and egoistic behaviour from players because it’s better to leave your mates to die so you can make it than helping them. What I found the worst was how obvious it got in this update that NPC spawn is utterly broken. Unless you run full glass, you can’t kill mobs quick enough before the ones you killed first in the group respawn. Not to mention the broken scaling mechanic that leaves Elites that are 4 levels higher than you from a zerg that triggered them and then died, which blocked off passages forever until another zerg tried breaking them.
The story was horrendous, your cartoon-villain going ‘you got to me, but I’ll just get away while you stare at me, inable to do anything, tataa’, while we learnt nothing, really, and only got a recap of the previous story, which was useless if you actually played it, as it didn’t tell you anything that wasn’t obvious to that point.
The follow-up step wrapping things up didn’t really do much, either, and the tower was mostly deserted at that point anyway.

Fractured
I don’t do Fracta
ls, so I can’t say anything, really.

Halloween
I heard from all my guildies that ‘12 Halloween was amazing and one of the best updates so far. I couldn’t play then due to moving.
‘13 Halloween left me disappointed, yet another boring zergfest in a labyrinth, insanely grindy rewards, if you can even call them that, and a story that was apparently following up on ’12’s events which I didn’t experience and a reward (gloves), that is part of a set that will probably see completion in ‘18 (yes I remember this because I’m tired of all the LS reward armor items that are one piece only because they don’t fit to anything, really ).

Wintersday
Filler content that’s fun and relaxing, love the Bell Choir minigame. Though unfortunately I liked it better in ‘12, except for Tixx’ dungeon, that was a lot better / less grindy in ’13. And the JP was tons better the year before, as the buggy (yet again) presents and the un-instancing of the JP lead to people camping at Tixx until an unknowing fool triggered the remaining presents so they could actually pass.

Origins of Madness
Analogue to Tequatl, encounter design in itself was pretty good, at least for the Marionette. I loved the design idea and what you had to do. Was let down by being reliant on about 100+ people with so many possibilities for failure I never ever saw a victory in the whole arc. At least you gave incentive with loot fragments, that was great, as it kept the population somewhat high. Problem were the dailies that made people join the first Lane, participate, then leave, but that’s a player base problem, mostly.
The Wurm is kinda like Tequatl 2.0, tried it once, but I’m not part of a 150 people guild, nor do I find the effort is worth the rewards. For the hardcore crowd, again. If they like it, fine, not my cup of tea.

Edge of the Mists
I rarely do WvW, I don’t know. Probably okayish for what it is.

Escape from Lion’s Arch / Battle for Lion’s Arch
First part was great, on paper. Unfortunately it was neither profitable, nor explained well, nor was incentive given through achievements to actually do what the event was about – saving people. So most people didn’t. And again it required effort and coordination and if you didn’t have a guild lending a hand in doing that, the pug didn’t either, because he was too busy zerging down champions for their loot bags. Getting heirlooms by not playing the event for one of the more desirable rewards was also a miss, I find. I did like tone and atmosphere, though, and the map looks great. But again bugs, scaling and respawn issues and the zerg-style of content that didn’t make me like it too much from a gameplay perspective.

The Battle I liked a lot, up until the change to the Knights. It was pug-friendly in that it was doable with pugging, more effective/faster with coordination, the loot was good if not even too much (the gear boxes, not the cores), the Scarlet battle was pretty epic the first time around, I liked the attunment idea and the audio feedback for getting them, the holograms were frantic to fight but still doable.
The ‘final encounter’, eh. Writing was okay, the kiss felt a kitteneesy, the cliffhanger for LS Season 02 was a bit annoying, because we still don’t have any closure, but overall it wasn’t that bad. At least it’s done for now.

Altogether, I found the LS great only in a handful of updates, mostly ‘meh’ and sometimes even awful.
My general criticism is:
- rushed content leaves us with tons of bugs, not well implemented ideas and a hectic environment, because you need to do a new LS content as soon as possible, since you either need to find exploits quickly, because everyone does and they only get fixed and people exploiting them are ignored, to keep up with everyone else getting rich and increasing prices on the demanded items; or simply because there won’t be enough people left to help you with it after some time, especially in zerg-heavy content (which has been most)

- the story itself often felt all over the place. I often had the feeling that the writers were simply trying to see what would work (i.e. the introduction of Marjory with the cutscene felt really out of place), coherence was questionable, at least from what you found out by just playing the content; many interesting details, hints and story bits were hidden in character dialogues in camps most people never ever got to hear at all.
The writing was okay, mostly, sometimes not really great and often full of open questions. For me most was only tied together before the Escape of Lion’s Arch update, where you had to figure everything out. I liked that, but I felt it was only there to connect stuff that didn’t really make sense beforehand.
- bugs, oh the bugs. The content is pushed out so quickly, every update had major issues. While many things that need improvement in the game felt ignored or pushed behind. I get that money needs to be made, and the LS and gem store sales tied to it are needed, but when you get the third update that was the same bugs as those before, because somehow nothing is learned from previous updates, it gets annoying. Overall, the LS often feels not as polished as it should or even needed to be. Another reason why I think this tight schedule must stop, it doesn’t do much good.

Personally, I’m still not sold on the LS. If the first season was to ‘test the waters’ and see what’s doable in terms of getting the community to rally behind it and what the engine is capable of doing, I can only hope the second season will blow us out of the water. Otherwise the LS is not much more than a biweekly loot pinata, with some story and characters attached to it, which in itself doesn’t really have any impact and thus doesn’t really add too much to the world, definitely not on the long run.

My suggestion, make the intervals longer, maybe a release every 1-2 months. Flesh things out before you do, write better backgrounds for the characters, iron out bugs, get the people away from the idea that the LS patch is to be rushed to get YOUR LOOTZ before going back to champion train farming in Queensdale, and make the LS have lasting impact on the world. Then I can see this being a replacement for an Expansion. Otherwise, I will take a proper expansion I’d need to pay for over this rushed content with potential (albeit often not exploited to its fullest or outright wasted) that often falls short and leaves me with nothing but a bank full of items I have no real use for.
I’m sure the LS dev team(s) would welcome some more breathing room as well.

That’s my 20.000 cents. I just felt like giving some honest feedback. Since I actually really like this game and I hope we can improve on the past LS season and learn from it.

3 out of 10

Before the last couple of months it was a zero. Scarlett was that bad.

On the whole, I would give Season 1 a 7/10.

I didn’t really participate in Flame and Frost. I joined the game at Retribution, and as a new player it didn’t feel accessible to me. So I am not grading the Flame and Frost arc at all.

I participated in the Southsun Arc, although I was still pretty new to the game. I spent most of that Arc following the Champfarm zerg. I give Southsun a 5, because the story was kind of uninteresting and it never seemed to go anywhere. After the wrap of Season 1 I still have no idea how Southsun figures into the main storyline.

Beginning with Dragonbash, the Living Story started to feel engaging and dynamic. The Dragonbash content was well done and a lot of fun, with nice rewards and gameplay. I give Dragonbash a 7.

The Living Story continued to impress me through Bazaar of the Four Winds and Cut-throat Politics, with BotFW being my favorite “Episode” of Season 1. The follow-through from Dragonbash to Cut-throat Politics gave a nice sense of continuity to the developing Storyline, which I think was much needed at the time. I give the BotFW/CTP Arc a 10/10.

I also really enjoyed the Queen’s Jubilee and Clockwork Chaos Arc. At this point it looked like the Living Story was starting to really hit, and I was excited to see what would happen next. I give the QJ/CC Arc 10/10.

The next two events, Tequatl Rising and Twilight Assault did not appeal to me. I felt like the Living Story kind of went off the rails a bit. Tequatl had no apparent link to Scarlet or the Living Story in general (and still doesn’t). And the Scarlet developments from TA just didn’t make sense to me. During this period I lost a lot of interest in the LS, and began to dislike Scarlet as a character and as a villain. I give TR/TA a fat 0.

The Tower of Nightmares Arc was a huge improvement in the Living Story in terms of presentation and storytelling, but it also made Scarlet seem like an even more improbable villain than ever. It was really cool to see permanent changes taking place in the world at large. However, The Nightmares Within content did not suit my playstyle (solo player) and I largely ignored it after it beat me up and took my lunch money. I did eventually run the Tower with some guildies and got to participate in the storyline developments. Although it seemed like the storytelling was improving, I felt that Scarlet was becoming an increasingly unrealistic villain, which undermined my faith in the storyline. This Arc was a mixed bag for me, so I give it a 5.

I ignored Fractured. I don’t do Fractals at all. I pretty much ignored Edge of the Mist as well, because I don’t enjoy PvP.

The Final Four I give a solid 9/10 (excluding EoTM). It was clear that the development teams spent a great deal of time and effort on these events.

The Marionette fight was very good overall, but I resented the poor team mechanics that made entire Overflows fail because of a few weak links in the player base. Teamwork is great, but the mechanics used in the Marionette fight sparked some of the most bitter animosity between players I’ve ever seen. The success of the event depended, literally, on the skills of the worst players participating in the event. The end result is that the event failed way more often than it should have.

On the other hand, I really enjoyed Scarlet’s Secret lair, and the reward system used for the update. The revelation of Scarlet’s Lair and the NPC conversations in Lion’s Arch and Divinity’s Reach helped to reposition the storyline back onto the tracks it had previously jumped. Not completely, but it helped a lot.

The Escape From LA/Battle for LA events were both very well designed and a lot of fun. The mechanics encourage teamwork while allowing for solo advancement, and accommodate on-the-fly coordination with any number of players. In my opinion, these mechanics should be the model standard of new large-scale event content going forward.

The rewards for the LA events are also very nice, except for the Meta Chest for completing the Battle for LA Achievements. As the final Meta Chest reward for the entirety of Season 1, I was expecting something special to commemorate the experience. I was disappointed in that regard.

tl;dr

Which brings me back to my Final Grade of 7/10. I would absolutely have given it an 8 if there hadn’t been so many bugs and hot-fixes. I am forgiving of the occasional adjustment here and there, but I have come to expect that each update will be followed by a series of fixes. I really shouldn’t have that expectation.

Flame & Frost: N/A
Secret of Southsun: 5
Dragonbash: 7
Bazaar of the Four Winds/Cut-Throat Politics: 10
Queen’s Jubilee/Clockwork Chaos: 10
Tequatl Rising/Twilight Assault: 0(zero)
Tower of Nightmares/Nightmares Within: 5
Fractured: N/A
Edge of the Mist: N/A
Origin of Madness: 9
Escape from LA/Battle for LA: 9

5.8 out of 10

While not horrible I felt that the game at time was simply unplayable for me. Given that the content for most patches involved “Zerging” to accomplish task in the most successful fashion. There have been a few patch’s which I enjoyed very much, such as Bazaar of the four winds and the first Halloween patch. Their are others but lets get into my main strife with the Living story which so happens to be the actual STORY!

For the most part, the story felt like we were simply traveling from one local to the next zerging down scarlets forces in her insane circus escapades. Which at the end of the day meant little to nothing considering she would simply laugh off our attempts as if we had failed. It confounds me even more after seeing the conclusion of the LS, It makes me wonder why was any of this necessary? Why awaken him now? Couldn’t we have skipped all these shenanigans and continued were the Personal story left off? Why add twist to a plot when we haven’t even finished the first chapter?

I can only hope that the conclusion will lead to an expansion.

Story: 2/10

Rife with missed opportunity and moving at a glacial pace, the story was extremely poorly presented with the meat often hidden off in some random corner of the world, or worse, simply existing as an out of game blog post or wiki update.
Additionally, despite solid voice talent, the dialogue was painfully cringe-worthy.

Gameplay/Content: 8/10

Generally excellent, with numerous highlights: Both new dungeons, Jubilee solo arena fights, EotM, everything about Bazaar and all the thoroughly brilliant minigames.

I am not personally a fan of the simple, ultra easy, zergy loot grind patches (nightmare tower, LA finale) but a lot of people really loved them, so it’s great to have that mixed in also.

All in all, it’s been a great ride with GW2 content wise and I’m very much looking forward to more (especially the new maps/modes for sPvP)

• Story got bit better over time but at the same time the ‘main’ story was too predictable. At certain times there wasn’t any story at all. Season 1 (summary):
  Scarlet goes insane and wakes up a dragon. There were no really interesting (or surprising) turn of events. A good story needs an unexpected turn of events: for example what’s more interesting:

1) Scarlet looks in a box, goes insane, gathers an army, builds a big robot and wakes up a dragon.

OR

2) Scarlet looks in a box, goes insane, gathers an army, builds a robot to free dhuum from his prison. Dhumm ‘revives’ abadon and in return abadon kill/sacrifices living creates every so often because dhuum gets stronger with every death. While dhuum is reviving abadon, scarlet is tapping into the lay lines to feed magic to abadon (so he becomes powerfull again). But all the turbulence suddenly wakes up an elder dragon who attacks LA from out of nowhere.

(The 2nd is just an example. So don’t start about how unlikely it is to have that happening :p )

• The sanctum sprint update was a pretty good (new zone were you had to use the power of the wind/sun/etc… as a (new) way of exploring that zone. It would have been fun to have an entire zone like like that (permanantly) that filled with jumping puzzles, vista, hearts, etc…

• Some zerg content is nice, but it’s way too much zerg. Have an update every so often that only requires small groups instead of entire zones to complete. This way the smaller servers also have a chance of being able to complete it.

• Several stuff is only valuable for the big servers. Tequatel, 3-headed wurm, etc… aren’t really possible on smaller servers

• While the idea behind the EOTM is good, it gives serious problems for smaller servers, because most people just go to EOTM and don’t care at all about defending our borderlands

• Last patch was bad and boring. Previous LA patch was great (a whole zone destroyed? Great ). But the last patch is bad: story is either incomplete or incorrect: defeating a hologram somehow mortally wounds scarlet? Scarlet didn’t even say why she did it? (The chance of the dragon telling us why scarlet chose to do all that is around 0%). Previous patch was all about "let’s rescue citizens until the mimosa get’s too strong. And in this update it’s like there never was any ‘mimosa’? You don’t even get to fight scarlet? But at the same time she is mortally wounded when you reach her?

• The LS didn’t really accomplish anything big. No new classes, races, zones, no guild vs. guild, no guild halls, no personal housing, no dungeon for more then 5 people, no mini-games/events/missions for you to do with your friends (that aren’t necessarily in your guild)…)? I’m currently hoping that at least LA will be rebuild into something that looks completely different… If we aren’t going to get expansions, at least give us new classes/races/zones through the LS.

• Some of the story wasn’t even in game, but on a separate blog! I’m not reading a blog to understand a story thats happening in a game! There have been good improvements lately to the story. Like that story instance 1 or 2 updates ago where we got some background information on the characters), but there is no time to rest now

• Sometimes achievements stay for 2 weeks and sometimes for a month. It would have been nice to see how long we’ll be able to get the achievements.

• Missed an update? Just started playing? I’m sorry but there is no way (in the game) for you know what happened and who scarlet is. An (easy) solution is to do something like you guys did for the personal story (a.k.a. a menu option that has a summary of important events).

• bugs, bugs, bugs everywhere…

If all the future seasons are going to be like season 1 was: 3/10
If Season 1 was just some ‘Introduction’ to the LS then 6/10

Overall, i really had fun with some of the updates. But sometimes it feels like there is too much achievement hunting and too little story)

Concept of LS 9/10 giving it a 9 cause that means less focus or plans to do a true expansion.

As a whole I’d have to say 6.5/10 some are good some are bad and lots of them could’ve been a lot better most likely if they had more time to work on them. As a form of story telling I’m not too sure how good it is. With the ending of this latest one I’m looking forward to the next so that’s good.

Flame and Frost: the Gathering Storm – 1
Some interesting things came with this patch (Guild Missions, for example), but the LS part was completely uninteresting.

Flame and Frost: the Razing – 2
Character introduction and 2 pointless mini story-quests. Not much to say.

Flame and Frost: Retribution – 8
A new dungeon is always welcomed, and this one was a quite good one, specially the end boss. A little bit too easy unfortunately.

The Secret of Southsun – 2
Traveling across the island gathering samples is not the kind of content I enjoy. I disliked the minigame too.

Last Stand at Southsun – 2
Didn’t like the minidungeon mechanics. I also dislike zergy content.

Dragon Bash – 4
Quite enjoyable minigame. Everything else was uninteresting.

Sky Pirates of Tyria – 9
Liked both the dungeon and the JP (even if the goggles were a bit frustrating).

Bazzar of the Four Winds – 8
I like Sanctum Sprint. The Scavenger hunt became interesting for once, probably cause the JP nature of the map (even the world wide one made us revisit JPs).
The introduction of Skyhammer could bring the score to zero, but since it’s not part of the LS i’ll ignore it :P

Cutthroat Politics – 6
Liked both minigames. Disliked Candidate Trials.

Queen’s Jubilee – 8
Mostly because the Gauntlet, which could have used a better camera and a less overpopulated zone, with PC performance not being affected by a zerg farming happening behind which I couldn’t care less about.

Clockwork Chaos – 1
Zerg farming anyone? Scarlet Playhouse was also absolutely disappointing.

SAB: Back to School – 10
Best LS release ever.

Tequatl Rising – 6
Not a big fan of zerg content, but this looked like an improvement (and permanent). Too blobby mechanics for my taste.

Twilight Assault – 7
New permanent dungeon path (unfortunately, at the cost of an already existing one).
I like the path, but the reward is awfully balanced for the tame it takes (when compared with other dungeons/paths).

Tower of Nightmares – 2
Zerg + generic awful scavenger hunt. It should be zero, but I actually liked some monster combat capabilities.

The Nightmares Within – 7
Awesome experience climbing the tower solo (did it many times even if rewards were crap). Instanced chambers and final boss looked ridiculously easy when compared with the “open world” tower.

Fractured – 7
I like most of the new/recycled content (specially the 4th stage bossfights). On the other hand, the new scaling system, both for rewards and difficulty, is quite awful (and easily “cheated” by selecting some specific levels).

The Origins of Madness – 9
The Marionette fight is, by far, the best casual massive content designed for this game (even if still frustrating to rely on so many random players).
I haven’t played Triple Trouble seriously, but it looks like a big improvement if compared with Tequatl.
It also seemed that ANet learned from Clockwork Chaos to how not set up the loot for massive events.

The Edge of the Mists – NA
The LS playable content was almost nonexistant and I don’t like WvW for anything but eventual solo roaming.

Escape from Lion’s Arch – 5
Origins of Madness was just an illusion; devs still don’t know how to properly set up loot.
The whole thing looks epic and it could have been really interesting if zerg farming would have not been way more profitable than trying to top the rescue score.

Battle for Lion’s Arch – NA
I don’t dislike the content, but until now it has been quite buggy and poorly balanced.
Achievements that promote playing against the common goal and, now again, a complete reliance on other random players are quite negative points, inadmissible for a season finale taht should try to be as perfect as possible.
Won’t give a score because I still trust on things getting better.

Overall: 5.5
Barely passes :P

I would rate it 5/10 because even if I respect the work arenanet did, it was really flawed in the end.

The story was badly explained, rushed and thin in every aspect. Our party of heroes almost came up at random because, even if spent months meeting them, the main characters where so irrilevant that we couldn’t even recognize them as ones at first. Let’s take Kasmeere, when we first meet her, she was sunbathing at southsun cove and having some funny conversation then we found her again at dead end with Marjory because…..we don’t really know, it had to happen. Talking about Marjory, we got involved with her so little during dragon bash but somehow we got best friends forever with both of them.
Even the villain suffers of the same problems. I don’t hate Scarlet for being a lunatic maniac but when she came out at queen jubelee it was totally random and even after threatening the whole Tyria nothing happened. We learned nothing on her, nobody went after her, nobody talked on her and nobody investigated her. We had to wait the origin of madness and her lair to have some answer and the simple and thin story who put somehow all the bits togheter.
And then there we are! Yeah, we are part of this LS but we are not actually living it, we are watching it an get lived by that. We don’t talk much, we don’t choose nothing (except during cutthroat politics) and we can’t even tell dumb Braham to shut his trap and let the mad girl spill everything out. In the end we are the great heroes who asked Rox if when her warband, that she refer as family, and her lover goes squashed by rocks she was sad and that we finished off the grounded Scarlet Briar by stabbing her with a flagpole and not by our weapon.

The other problem were the events, because most of them involved working as a zerg without using a single brain cell caring only about loot and achievements. There were some great moment like the add of Southsun Cove, the Bazaar of four winds, the super adventure box, Tequalt revamp, the Killer Marionette and I didn’t dislike the fight to get and on Scarlet’s flying drill fortress but still they can’t make up for the lots of let down we have.

Still I see the potential of the LS and I admit the last months of it showed a lot of improvement that let hope for further developments and a better care of details from Arenanet, expecially if they decide to work on a little less tight schedule to achieve better quality and big bug proof contents.

While preferring new explorable maps, I was fine with trying out the LS. Yes, for a whole year.
There were parts of the LS that I enjoyed and parts that I intentionally played little or none of. The Marionette was fun. Bringing finishers in LS was no fun whatsoever. The correct allocation of achievement points could have eliminated much of the content that was done in a zerg. I don’t understand why that wasn’t done.

There doesn’t really seem to be any point in trying to assign numbers to the first 19 chapters of the LS because the final chapter has become something I cannot provide positive feedback on, and eliminated any good feeling I had toward the LS.

0/10 Pretty useless content which was ultimately the same. “Go and farm for a box so you can get a few blues!”

Should just focus on PvP content, better balancing, and weapon/armor skins that don’t need to be farmed via LA tickets. Better drops would be nice too.

2/10 maybe. I did not enjoy it. I didn’t missed anything, but it did not felt like an adventure even. This was still very far from what they should call “Living Story”.
Next season, I:

1. want to make decisions
2. want to get new items without BS RNG & overpriced items
3. want to meet new undiscovered places

3/10

Pretty bad. I appreciate the effort, but.. Yup. Pretty bad. A nonsensical story that felt completely random and out of place in the game until they shoved you-know-what in there at the end.. Wasn’t particularly interesting and the random alliances didn’t make much sense.

SirMorgenStar.6721:

3/10

Pretty bad. I appreciate the effort, but.. Yup. Pretty bad. A nonsensical story that felt completely random and out of place in the game until they shoved you-know-what in there at the end.. Wasn’t particularly interesting and the random alliances didn’t make much sense.

I think they made a certain level of sense when you saw what the end result was. The Molten Alliance generated special drilling techology and some sonic weaponry. The Toxic Alliance obviously made the miasma possible. The Aetherblades had their portal tech and . . . I’ll be honest, they’re the only fragment out of the three which actually is dangerous to me with the amount of stuns and such they throw out.

The randomness was a real issue, as it seemed there was no real . . . flow . . . of the chapters from one to the next. A staggered mess.

snailboyjr.4592:

Guys keep it up! You do good work! Don’t get discouraged, and don’t take the unhelpful critiques to heart.

I’m sorry? “Unhelpful critiques?” lol

Just because you don’t share the opinion of these critiques doesn’t mean they’re unhelpful.

2/10

The bad:
-Completely uninteresting, lore breaking, boring and intelligence insulting villain and plot.
-Focus on zerg content, farming, grind and gear progression.
-Mobs with tons of HP and one shot mechanics.
-Buggy content, forced 2 week schedule.
-Mostly temporary content, almost no new areas, no real improvement of the existing world areas.
-Complete desolation of the open world besides the current LS area.
-Completely ignored personal story and the story of the world
-OVERFLOW, OVERFLOW, OVERFLOW, OVERFLOW, just the stupid in-your-face message that pops up every time is annoying enough to deal with not to mention the system itself. Districts and a global/regional server NOW!
-Cash shop only weapon and armor sets, too many backpacks and other uninteresting items as the actual content rewards.
-Bad new content introduction – Where do i go, what do i do? – check Dulfy!
-ANETs ignorance of the many points listed above and other issues that keep getting brought up. Also their lack of proper communication with the player base.

The good? There s a few but far less than the bad ones:
-Numerous small game improvements such as acc wallet, party search…
-The B-iconics are good and interesting
-Zephyr sanctum
-SAB
-Various artistic design of mobs/locales etc.

Comparing this 1,5 years of “living story/world” to 2 full campaigns of GW1 released in the same time frame i dont even know where to begin. The difference in content quality and volume makes GW2 seem like some third rate Korean F2P MMO compared to GW1.

Drakonis.4579:

snailboyjr.4592:

Guys keep it up! You do good work! Don’t get discouraged, and don’t take the unhelpful critiques to heart.

I’m sorry? “Unhelpful critiques?” lol

Just because you don’t share the opinion of these critiques doesn’t mean they’re unhelpful.

I think he means the stuff which are just “dis sucks” or “stop the Living Story” and not the things with at least one reason why people didn’t like it.

I won’t talk too much about the Halloween and Wintersday events mostly because they are separate from the Living Story plotline and because they are seasonal festivals that are for the most part impermanent. I will say that I enjoyed the first two a great deal, but that I didn’t play during the 2013 events because I was so disgusted by this game and company that I didn’t play at all. That being said, I’m glad that someone made a thread for this again. I had little interest in the SAB content so I won’t talk about that either. While novel, it literally has nothing to do with GW and shouldn’t have taken up as much time or resources as it did. Anyway, on to the review:

The Lost Shores 9/10
Truly epic content, though it was slightly flawed due to reward bugs which didn’t work for everyone and frustrated many. I was one of the lucky ones that received an exotic and all my loot as the patch had intended. I loved that they created a whole new area to explore, though I wondered a little why they were deviating from the main storyline a bit. Still, the Karka were unique and the encounters and ideas were inspired. I loved the monster rising out of the sea theme which somewhat relate to Kaiju movies. Great start to the living world concept. The introduction of ascended weapons have been debated forever, but I think this was a badly timed move for Anet if nothing else because it really divided the playerbase and drove a lot of people away. I suppose that could also be attributed to misleading advertising, but that is another issue entirely. Overall this patch was a fun addition to the game.

Flame and Frost: Prelude, The Gathering Storm, The Razing, and Retribution 9/10

I’ll just talk about these all at once since they are thematically related. Braham and Rox are introduced in a fantastic way and are legitimized by their ties to two members of Destiny’s Edge, Eir and Rytlock. They are both generally more likeable than either of those two since they don’t have quite so many hang ups. Brahams story and conflict with his mother was interesting and his motivations for saving the woman he had a crush on were cute. Rox’s introduction as a charr trying to prove herself and earn her place within Rytlock’s warband worked well and having her adopt Frostbite made her more endearing too. I also like how her voice was treated, her voice over was more serious and believable. On a larger scale the introduction of a growing threat in their respective zones were interesting, since it was mixed in with the land itself with the appearance of vents in the ground and portals. The alliance between common enemies could have been so great. While Guild Wars does admittedly have a history of fighting off one Big Bad enemy at a time, (Lich lord, Shiro Tagachi and Abaddon) it would have been so cool if it were more politically inclined. Like if the Dredge somehow felt they were displaced unfairly and were some kind of rising imperialistic power that wanted to combine their military might with the Flame legion in order to gain power and influence for themselves. Maybe the Flame Legion would betray them and instead offer them as sacrifices to their most powerful Shaman in order to fuel their ambitions and disgust with their more technologically inclined brethren at the Black Citadel. Aside from that helping refugees and fighting off the first invaders was a great step toward making the player seem relevant and heroic. The Molten dungeon was fantastic and very well made, repeatable content that felt rewarding aside from the exclusive RNG jet pack that virtually no one could get. Although I said that longer content releases would not be good, I must admit that the shorter, content updates from the last year were less than satisfactory, for the most part. Though I don’t think long, drawn out storylines are the answer either. Real content expansions are a must have for players to feel like they are getting their money’s worth and are better for the overall health of the game.

The Secret of Southsun: 7/10

This block started out in a somewhat interesting manner. I enjoyed the development of the Consortium as a shady business and their rising tension with the refugees worked nicely and it was great returning to Southsun. I don’t remember when exactly Ellen Kiel was introduced but this was when I began to notice her more. She’s a rather bland, pointless character and a poor attempt at creating a kitten female character. She was basically like, “Listen to me because I am strong and qualified and stuff!” Look at old GW1 characters like Gwen, Jora, Livia or even Zenmai! They were all believable, nuanced, flawed and yes, kitten female characters. Gwen was motivated by per personal suffering and enslavement via the Charr and would often mix justice with revenge which put a strain on her shaky alliance with the likes of Pyre. Livia was a mysterious and determined woman who would do virtually anything to save her people even if it involved sacrificing a great many things to get there. The player earned Jora’s loyalty by helping her with her personal journey to regain her lost honor and her power, not to mention put her corrupted brother to rest.
In any case, the introduction of more activities and mini games were excellent and added some fun competitive play to the experience. Though they aren’t all perfect, games like crab toss were fun and actually ended up being cooperative which is what I have always enjoyed most about group gameplay in GW and GW2.

Last Stand at Southsun: 6/10

While Canach himself is a decent character, his motivations weren’t always clear to me and that was probably due to the manner in which his story had been executed. I only remember seeing bits and pieces about it and it was unclear to me at the time what was going on with him, other than the fact that he sort of tricked people and was turning the animals against everyone. I thought he was some sort of misguided environmentalist or something. I also gave this patch a lower score because the last dungeon against him was very poorly made. I did not enjoy having to jump through pointless hoops just to kill him off. Plus the explorable mode was very poorly conceived and made life difficult for everyone playing, especially rangers.

Dragon Bash 9/10 (maybe a 10)

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Great spiritual successor to the Dragon festival and suitable for the GW2 world. Though it is technically a festival it was tied into the living story and leads up to the introduction of the aetherblades. Aside from the gemstore fiasco, the free drops were fantastic and rewarding. Exactly what you would expect from a festival event. So many cool items and skins, fireworks, decorations etc. Dragonball arena was so much fun, I enjoyed every second of it!

Sky Pirates of Tyria 4/10

Generally a pretty iffy release for me. It looked like an excuse to introduce more steampunk into the game, though technically you had that already with the molten alliance. Also they ended up just being so many useless and expendable drones for the big badie to be revealed later on which was annoying. I kind of liked that you could fight small groups of them for items throughout the Tyrian map. Also introduced the most annoying Jumping Puzzle to date. It was so much harder for me to navigate on my charr Mesmer, though I was able to drop ports for people once I finally got to the top. Mostly just frustrating and not very fun at all. The Aetherblade dungeon was also a huge let down and massively frustrating. If you had not played it in the first few days after the Tuesday release, then you were out of luck and it became almost impossible to find a decent group since no one wanted to play after they had acquired their achievement.

Bazaar of the Four Winds 10/10

I loved this area and the environment throughout. It was so refreshingly different from anything else introduced so far, not to mention that it had briefly hinted at ties to Cantha and was so much fun to participate it. While all the environments in GW2 have been beautiful, this zone was particularly exquisite with all the attention to detail and the concept of this trade center was created on what is essentially a massive, multi-tiered, bamboo kite. The lightning, wind and sun mechanics were fun and the introduction of nodes for your home instance were a great addition. The music was really cool too and I loved the concept of a small, isolated colony that flew high above the world and was more or less indifferent to what happened below. I liked that there were so many karma vendors that sold ingredients for cooking, though I would have liked to see more mats sold too.

Cutthroat Politics 7/10

This was a somewhat unique update in that the community was directly involved in choosing new content for upcoming patches. I am still very disappointed that the Abaddon path was not chosen and I still feel that the election was heavily biased in Kiel’s favor with the temporary waypoint discounts. Still it was interesting to see how the community in game and in the forum interacted.

Queen’s Jubilee 5/10

This release was ok. I wasn’t too thrilled about the introduction of robotic sentinels in Divinity’s Reach but whatever. Queen Jenna is sort of…there I guess she really isn’t all that interesting. Logan was just as off putting as ever which is a waste of such an excellent voice actor. :p I did like the boss arenas though, it was fun to farm in a group and the loot was decent. I didn’t care much for the cages up on the scaffolding, but other players seemed to like those just fine for its challenging aspects.

Clockwork Chaos 4/10

The introduction of Scarlet? Who knows, who cares. Stock dialogue and really lame concept, not to mention poorly written. I did not enjoy her dungeon. It was slow, and boring with dull mechanics that were aggravating and not fun. The zerg content across the map were pointless but decently fun. I just remember becoming really disenchanted at this point with the game.

Tequatl Rising 6/10

It was a great concept that was deeply flawed. I liked that the story went back to Zhaitan’s surviving minions and attempted to revamp a large boss fight. Greater rewards were good, however the execution of this event were poorly conceived. The massive effort required to complete this event was virtually impossible for smaller servers to accomplish. My server at that time was unable to beat him once. I’ve recently moved to a larger server so that I can enjoy more of the content, which is really unfortunate because this should not be happening in the first place. Again it was related to the issues with overflows that have been a consistent problem with this game for many releases. However at this point I became so frustrated with everything that had been happening over the last few months that I quit after I found out that the next release would be related to Scarlet again.

Twilight Assault – N/A
Blood and Madness – N/A

Tower of Nightmares – N/A (though I did log in once to look at it. I missed the old Kessex and wished they hadn’t changed it for the sake of Scarlet.)

The Nightmares Within – N/A

Fractured – N/A
I definitely wanted nothing to do with this, though I read up on the instance and was not impressed with the story behind the Thaumanova reactor. Yet again, more Scarlet rubbish. She was using the inquest to locate the magical laylines connected to Mordy. Still would have preferred Abaddon,with GW2 graphics.

A Very Merry Wintersday – N/A
The Origins of Madness – N/A
The Edge of the Mists – N/A

Escape from Lion’s Arch 9/10
Fantastic release to return to. I liked that we would be rescuing people out of LA and was curious to see what they would do to the city. It worked well because there was a sense of urgency and you could choose what you wanted to do in order to contribute, or simply run around like a looter, collecting heirlooms. I’m assuming that was the concept behind the Selfish and Selfless potions? Your overflow would receive greater rewards for rescuing more citizens, but you would get less supply bags in return. It was great and had a lot for people to do. I absolutely loved it. Plus you only see scarlet in the cutscene and she doesn’t say anything!

Battle for Lion’s Arch 7/10

Scarlet dying via a finishing move was fairly anti-climactic and not very fun. The cut scenes were too long and corny even for me, when I usually love stuff like that. I was happy to see Mordremoth reviled for future updates, though I hope we see more baddies or GASP! Actual dragons!? Like smaller than Tequatl but with the unique look GW2 creatures tend to have. It still isn’t entirely clear if Scarlet was corrupted by the dragon, or if she was simply too curious for her own good after hearing the dragon’s creepy whispers in her head. Not that I want to know. Please don’t bring up Scarlet anymore, for the love of Dwayna. No flashbacks, no nothing, can we please just forget that she existed from now on?
Aside from that, the boss fights are ok, though heavily bugged. Loot problems are frustrating and should be addressed far before release dates. The ending fight was ok too, I just enjoy farming at the moment so I can get my colored back piece. I like that there is some coordination involved with the overflows, though it took people a while to get a system down that everyone will follow.

Overall, I did like that previous content from the last patch could still be played for achievements but generally I’m still holding out hope that Anet will give us a real expansion sometime in the future. The LS felt like an experiment exploring mediocrity. Some of the releases were either too rushed or were completely disjointed from one another to retain interest in the plot over a long period of time.

Just to give a number, since everyone else is doing it, 5/10 sounds fair.

3/10. I rate it that low simply because living story has driven me away from the game.

There have been a few good living story updates, but majority of them have been lackluster and unforgettable.

7.5/10. Story wise it improved greatly for me from the Tower of Nightmares on so I think that the LS can be great. I really enjoyed Escape from LA and Battle for LA