Guild Wars 2

(Not sure which forum this should go in, but it seems like here’s as good a place as any.)

Having seen the Gates of Maguuma trailer, I’m starting to wonder if the Living Story – and by extension, GW2 as a whole – isn’t my kind of thing any more.

The Zephyr Sanctum is clearly destroyed in the trailer. Back when I played more frequently, I loved the Labyrinthine Cliffs and Zephyr Sanctum. They were a haven untouched by the mad sylvari, an escape from the rest of the world. If they’re dealt a blow with the beginning of the new season… well. I don’t think I’d be okay with that.

My biggest concern with the new season is that there were no real victories in the previous one. To explain: the Tower of Nightmares, while destroyed, was repurposed. The destruction of the Molten Weapons Facility didn’t change much. Mai Trin escaped Lionguard custody and vanished somewhere into the Mists, a pack of her followers with her; she remains at large. The Aetherblades, Moltens, Twisted and Toxics marched in countless hordes no matter how many we killed or how many of their outposts we conquered. And even though she died, Scarlet got what she wanted.

There were no victories in Season 1, no winner of ’Scarlet’s War’. Pretty much everything the heroes did was countermanded, turned against them, or just plain ignored. As far as I see it, there were some heroics but no heroism (which is what I look for in my escapes from the real world). And to be honest, after seeing next week’s trailer, I’m inclined to think the same might very well be true of Season 2.

’Course, this is just the first update of many to come, so I could be completely wrong, but first impressions leave the longest-lasting effect and the Gates trailer makes me uneasy.

My apologies for the ramble, but I feel it needed to be said.

You mean there were no victories, just like in the real world?

This isn’t a fairy tale, stuff doesn’t end well just because we happen to defeat an enemy.

Well, according to the Devs, Season One was just the beginning of the whole story. Something like Part One of Four. So, everything wouldn’t be wrapped up completely, as it is part of a longer story. At least, that was my impression of what they said.

Obviously, from the trailer, the Zephyr Sanctum takes a major hit…..but I don’t know if I would agree with you that they are destroyed. Guess I am just viewing it all more positively…..I think new and stronger alliances will be formed, as well as enemies being more clearly defined. And I think the Zephyr Sanctum will survive….and relocate.

But then again, who knows? I am really excited about LS2….that’s all I know

lordkrall.7241:

You mean there were no victories, just like in the real world?

I don’t know what “real world” you’re referring to, but in the actual real world people win and lose all the time.

lordkrall.7241:

This isn’t a fairy tale, stuff doesn’t end well just because we happen to defeat an enemy.

If it’s not a fairy tale then why did every named protagonist live happily ever after? For whom did it not end well? The antagonist? The nameless NPCs? The statue in Lion’s Arch? Let me tell you, my heart bleeds for all those nameless NPCs and the statue in Lion’s Arch.

lordkrall.7241:

This isn’t a fairy tale

Yes, that’s exactly what Living Story is.

darkace.8925:

lordkrall.7241:

You mean there were no victories, just like in the real world?

I don’t know what "real world" you’re referring to, but in the actual real world people win and lose all the time.

*Insert cynical comment about the unconquerable nature of time and the inevitability of death (maybe a Thor vs Elli reference?)*

I do get where you’re coming from, we won some and we lost some. Inevitably we mostly played a defensive game, minimizing Scarlet’s damage by beating back her various machinations. However in the Personal Story we basically won ever single time, so maybe ANet tried to do it differently in S1. Hopefully in S2 we get more meaningful victories.

I have to say, this is a concern I share, and a major one. If you take a look at the major events of season 1 and remove the heroes from them, what changes? Ultimately, I suppose, Scarlet would have lived if there hadn’t been anyone there to take her down, but everything leading up to that point would have been essentially the same. You could argue that common people would have died in greater numbers without someone to destroy the tower of nightmares, molten facility and atherblades, but that does nothing to ease my sense of pointlessness in the whole affair.

Despite having an organization designed to fight dragons, no action was taken to hunt Scarlet until very late in the story. And when the time came to find her secret base of operations, you simply went to the star on the map when finding her should have been a major part of the story.

Despite belonging to the organization responsible for defeating a dragon, no one believed us when we said there was danger coming to Lion’s Arch. We were unable to save the city because it was arbitrarily written into the story that this would be an impossibility.

If the idea of this game is to have a living world – a world that breathes and changes by the actions of its players – then the very idea should be that the actions of the players impact and change the world. That by saving a certain number of citizens we could have turned the tide in Lion’s Arch. That by defeating the hybrid more quickly in the tower of nightmares we could have mitigated the danger.

If Season 2 is another story on railroad tracks, where the main characters are destined to stumble and lose the entire course of the story no matter how hard they try, what’s the point?

I’m not saying it should be easy. I’m not saying the heroes should always succeed at everything they do. But there has to be a balance somewhere. We have to be able to do something good at some point, or why bother?

Lions arch being destroyed didn’t impact me really.

But seeing the sanctum hit? I really feel hurt. I always loved the atmosphere (no pun intended) there.

@OP – you first complain because you don’t want change and then you complain that there isn’t enough change? Make up your mind.

StarbornStriker.6493:

If Season 2 is another story on railroad tracks, where the main characters are destined to stumble and lose the entire course of the story no matter how hard they try, what’s the point?

This is the utterance from most tabletop RPG groups from time to time. The story is generally always on railroad tracks (even if you can’t see them) with the exceptions when a group decides to go “off the rails”. Of course, that’s possible to do in tabletop because if you’re lucky you have a GM who can adapt rapidly and adlib their balls off.

Depending on your individual GM . . . Your Mileage May Vary.

Video games with a well-crafted narrative cannot really do that well. Yet. There has to be some amount of developers thinking ahead of the players in order for it to really work.

I’m not saying it should be easy. I’m not saying the heroes should always succeed at everything they do. But there has to be a balance somewhere. We have to be able to do something good at some point, or why bother?

I gave up on doing something good when I couldn’t steal ghostfire and drop it on Rata Sum.

StarbornStriker.6493:

I have to say, this is a concern I share, and a major one. If you take a look at the major events of season 1 and remove the heroes from them, what changes? Ultimately, I suppose, Scarlet would have lived if there hadn’t been anyone there to take her down, but everything leading up to that point would have been essentially the same. You could argue that common people would have died in greater numbers without someone to destroy the tower of nightmares, molten facility and atherblades, but that does nothing to ease my sense of pointlessness in the whole affair.

Despite having an organization designed to fight dragons, no action was taken to hunt Scarlet until very late in the story. And when the time came to find her secret base of operations, you simply went to the star on the map when finding her should have been a major part of the story.

Despite belonging to the organization responsible for defeating a dragon, no one believed us when we said there was danger coming to Lion’s Arch. We were unable to save the city because it was arbitrarily written into the story that this would be an impossibility.

If the idea of this game is to have a living world – a world that breathes and changes by the actions of its players – then the very idea should be that the actions of the players impact and change the world. That by saving a certain number of citizens we could have turned the tide in Lion’s Arch. That by defeating the hybrid more quickly in the tower of nightmares we could have mitigated the danger.

If Season 2 is another story on railroad tracks, where the main characters are destined to stumble and lose the entire course of the story no matter how hard they try, what’s the point?

I’m not saying it should be easy. I’m not saying the heroes should always succeed at everything they do. But there has to be a balance somewhere. We have to be able to do something good at some point, or why bother?

Season 1 of the LS was stated early on that is was happening at the same time as your PS. The pact was busy taking down Zhitan. Secondly we are playing out a story. No matter how well we do, if the enemy is supposed to win then they will. If this where a single player game like Mass Effect or Dragon Age where they have branching story and the choices you make effect the out come then I’d say you have a point. But it’s not. I’m guessing you like my self are not a game designer, or work at ANet, so we don’t know how hard it is to make content, not to mention the wasted time and money for content that might never be seen if ANet where to go down the rout of “if the avarage kill time for the scarlet fight is less than (X) we do the rainbows and unicorn ending”. That would mean the total destruction ending could never be seen and people would be on ANet then for wasting time on content we are not even seeing.

I enjoyed the game play of season 1, I just hope the story flows better so I don’t feel to disjointed from the story.

As for people saying about this story being a fairy tail, it’s not. It’s a story of life. There are not always happy endings, just endings. And just because you won the battle, it will not mean you win the war. We beat scarlet, but she won. That’s how life works sometimes. Is it fair? No but then what in life is? Someone told me once, “only one thing you can be serten of in life, and that’s you’ll die, everything else is luck, chance or your just charming enough to get it.”

What?
So… your problem is that stories contain adversity and turning points for the main characters? that victories come at a cost? that the villain was always one step ahead through the arc?
I don’t really see a problem with any of this, it seems pretty standard if anything. I guess you just want more clear-cut victories sprinkled in?

BrotherBelial.3094:

Season 1 of the LS was stated early on that is was happening at the same time as your PS.

Nope. Living Story events occur after the Personal Story.

1325 AE – Events of the personal story take place: Claw Island is assaulted by Blightghast the Plaguebringer. The Pact is founded, and Zhaitan is defeated.
The karka attack Lion’s Arch, and Southsun Cove is discovered.

1326 AE – The Living World begins. Events from now on take place in approximately real time, as opposed to the floating timeline that has been used exclusively until now (excepting some parts of Guild Wars Beyond).

Formation of the Molten Alliance, who assault settlements in the Wayfarer Foothills and Diessa Plateau. Aetherblades disrupt the Dragon Bash festival. Ellen Kiel is elected to the Captain’s Council. Formation of the Toxic Alliance, building (and destruction) of the Tower of Nightmares.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Season 1 of the LS was stated early on that is was happening at the same time as your PS.

That was never ever stated. LS season 1 took place after the Personal Story.

Chronologically, the Season 2 story will take place after Season 1, which in turn occurs after your character’s personal story and the story of Zhaitan in Guild Wars 2.

Source

CureForLiving.5360:

darkace.8925:

lordkrall.7241:

You mean there were no victories, just like in the real world?

I don’t know what “real world” you’re referring to, but in the actual real world people win and lose all the time.

Insert cynical comment about the unconquerable nature of time and the inevitability of death (maybe a Thor vs Elli reference?)

I do get where you’re coming from, we won some and we lost some. Inevitably we mostly played a defensive game, minimizing Scarlet’s damage by beating back her various machinations. However in the Personal Story we basically won ever single time, so maybe ANet tried to do it differently in S1. Hopefully in S2 we get more meaningful victories.

I think what Anet was trying to do with Scarlet is just say she was too smart for us (ya know, graduating colleges, yada yada). Though we really didnt find out till the end, the second this war started, we lost, no matter what we did. They had it that she planned everything out all the way back to the reactor going off, (chances are, if the god scenerio won, she probably wouldve been in some ancient library or something to find the leylines).

Basically, she knew every move we were going to make before we made it (toxic tower, we just gave her a stronger syrum really by injecting our antidote). The marionette was a test to find the weaknesses in her bot to make better, smaller versions. And it was all planned out that even IF she died, she would win. Seven Movie SpoilerJust like at the end of the movie Se7en, the villian wins, despite dying.

Really, Scarlet was the perfect villian, no flaws, nothing, just perfect, which I reallllly hate when making a character. Flaws are what define a character better, but seeing how Scarlet was perfect, made her unlikeable. But once we got into her base, and saw the dragon, I believe that was Anet’s way of trying to say “yeah, scarlet is bad, but the worse is yet to come.” But we focused more on the scarlet than the one in the shadows.

And lets face it, scarlet and the dragon have chosen the best time TO attack. Our forces and supply lines are stretched and cleaning up in Orr. LA being reconstructed, Captain’s council a bunch of idiots, Mia free, and we are already trying to recover from throwing everything we had at Scarlet just to try and stop her.

Heck, while this dragon was attacking and sending its forces at us, if I were the flame legion, I’d be trying to resurrect the titans or heading down to the Ring of Fire and maybe find a new ‘god’ to awaken….

lordkrall.7241:

You mean there were no victories, just like in the real world?

This isn’t a fairy tale, stuff doesn’t end well just because we happen to defeat an enemy.

We didn’t defeat the enemy. We killed Scarlet, but she claimed victory anyway.

Astralporing.1957:

We didn’t defeat the enemy. We killed Scarlet, but she claimed victory anyway.

Exactly.

There were a lot of victories in S1 but no victory is ever absolute. We liberated cragstead but it had to be rebuilt and the even though we stopped the motlen alliance the refugees are full of sad stories about the loved ones they lost. was that a win or a loose though? a loose would have meant that cragstead remained burned down the ground in ashes. It would have meant the refugees never found a home to return too and had to continue enduring the consortium bullying because as bad as it was there at least they had a roof and that beats living in tents out in the open.

Same can be said about many of the victories we had including the final one against scarlet. Sure her plan still moves forward and she achieved the goal she set herself (well if she did really have full cognitive abilities and wasnt possessed like part of the story suggests) but she also died and I am sure that was never part of her plan and was actually something she wanted to avoid. So did she really win? was she really perfect? no and no, she didnt win at all but no win or loss is absolute, she achieved some of what she wanted but lost the most precious thing in doing so… her life.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Video games with a well-crafted narrative cannot really do that well. Yet. There has to be some amount of developers thinking ahead of the players in order for it to really work.

My point here is that the developers profess to want to create a living world; meaning a world in which player actions have impact. In order to do that, there does need to be at least the illusion of choice or impact based on what the players do. Does that require creative thinking and planning? Absolutely. And that’s exactly what this game needs more of. If this game actually wants to do something new and innovative at some point, there needs to be a lot more thinking outside the box.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Season 1 of the LS was stated early on that is was happening at the same time as your PS. The pact was busy taking down Zhitan.

This makes no sense. If I was in the middle of fighting Zhitan how was I present for anything involving Scarlet? Also I believe the Dragon Bash was a celebration of the achievements of the personal story.

BrotherBelial.3094:

I’m guessing you like my self are not a game designer, or work at ANet, so we don’t know how hard it is to make content, not to mention the wasted time and money for content that might never be seen if ANet where to go down the rout of “if the avarage kill time for the scarlet fight is less than (X) we do the rainbows and unicorn ending”. That would mean the total destruction ending could never be seen and people would be on ANet then for wasting time on content we are not even seeing.

No I’m not a game developer, but I am a coder. I know the man hours that go in to making programs that do simple things, so I can guess the sheer amount of energy and effort that goes in to making a game on this scale. It isn’t MMO magic to me, I have enough understanding of code to guess why certain features are implemented the way they are and why certain things will never be added no matter how many times people request them.

I am not asking that Arena Net create two different versions of every outcome, actually, because it’s probably a safe assumption that the players will always do enough content in the game to achieve the set goal unless it’s a ridiculously impossible number.

But if we had more creative planning, like I said above, we could at least have the illusion that our actions had impact. Conversely, it would be nice if there were some battles we did win as well as some that we lost, instead of a long string of failures leading up to a shallow victory.

No one needs to tell me that stories don’t always have happy endings. I’m always the first do defend sad endings. But what we have with the first season of the LS isn’t a case of a sad twisted tale. Instead it’s a comedy of errors, where the people who are supposed to be heroes and protectors can’t get their act together enough to do anything meaningful until it’s too late. Someone put up a feedback thread after the LS ended where they pointed out that one of the major things the first season lacked was the ability for the heroes to have meaningful interaction and confrontation with the enemy, who instead stood on a high mountain and shouted from afar.

I am not asking for unicorns and rainbows. I’m asking for my character’s presence to matter.

What bothers me is how we all knew well in advance that Scarlet was planning to attack Lion’s Arch. We’d gathered the clues, put two and two together, and yet there was still nothing we could do. I wish some player involvement had been allowed. I hate being tied to a fixed script, where all the side characters around us are dumber than a headless skritt. I understand that the attack on Lion’s Arch was inevitable, and I’m fine with that. But I hate not being able to put our clever conclusions to use in the story. They don’t have to include a myriad of different outcomes to the living story, just the option to do some things differently.

@StarbornStriker

What you suggest would be amazing but not really doable I am afraid. Providing multiple endings to releases would be either considered super gimmicky (you might get different dialog or a different cut scene but in the end everyone ends up in the same point making those choices feel a cheat rather then a real choice) or fork the story which will quickly become unfeasable. Its already hard to create 1 update per 2 weeks imagine if at the end of the story you’d need to create 8 releases (even if just subtle variations of each other) for a single week to cater for every fork and thats assuming only 3 forks in a season that could only go 2 ways. Not to mention is how you’re going to merge the differences if say in one storyline an npc is dead while in another is not.

I dont really see S1 as twisted as you do. Scarlets ultimate aim was clearly to disrupt the laylines and wake up the dragon. So one has to ask what was the purpose of the molten alliance, sky pirates and toxic alliance? Granted she needed an army to do what she wanted to do but what good did attacking villages here and there, the clockwork invasions and the general mayheam she created really serve? seems to me like they were meant as distraction so she could look for the layline nexus in peace. I am sure you’ll agree no attack force is going to achieve anything by engaging diversions. Beating the molten alliance didnt disrupt scarlet’s plan for sure? So was it all useless? No I wouldnt say that either. Our victories throughout s1 weakened scarlet’s forces which ultimately made her vulnerable and we were able to take her down on the breachmaker but think about it what could any group of heroes have done before that? We had no clue where Scarlet was physically located until she was ready to strike at Lions arch. Each time we engaged her it was on a ground she didnt really care about so had no problem fleeing when things turned sour for her. Heroes could have gotten their act together as much as they wanted but before the encounter on breachmaker we never got a chance to engage scarlet in a position where retreat was not an option for her and its not like she doesnt have the technical capabilities to secure a retreat for her if thats what she really wanted right?

I haven’t really read every post, but I did read the first. Here’s my opinion. Yes, the Zypher Sanctum was destroyed, but given the ammount of ships that the Zyphers have, I doubt that it’s the end of them as a people. As far as game lore goes, I have no reason to believe that they wouldn’t recover from such a disaster. As for what you called a “real victory” you’re quite correct. Even with Scarlet dead, something much worse woke up. But look at it this way, no story starts off with the final climactic battle. There wouldn’t be any point to a “season 2” if the first release went straight for the dragon.

Galen Grey.4709:

@StarbornStriker

What you suggest would be amazing but not really doable I am afraid. Providing multiple endings to releases would be either considered super gimmicky (you might get different dialog or a different cut scene but in the end everyone ends up in the same point making those choices feel a cheat rather then a real choice) or fork the story which will quickly become unfeasable. Its already hard to create 1 update per 2 weeks imagine if at the end of the story you’d need to create 8 releases (even if just subtle variations of each other) for a single week to cater for every fork and thats assuming only 3 forks in a season that could only go 2 ways. Not to mention is how you’re going to merge the differences if say in one storyline an npc is dead while in another is not.

This isn’t really what I’m asking for, as I’m quite aware it would be unfeasible.

But I ask, what was the point of rescuing citizens during the siege against Lion’s Arch? To get a better reward? Why didn’t the devs use this in some way when they set up the next part of the living story. You know how easy it is to add an NPC that says ‘because x number of citizens got saved we have this advantage?’ It’s probably really easy. And would the players ever know whether or not we would have had that advantage otherwise? No. No we wouldn’t, no matter how much people speculated.

We could even take it one step further and say that they could have built a mechanic into the release whereby rescuing citizens gave you boons to other areas of the event rather than just better reward bags, so that there would have been a reason for people to help the citizens of Lion’s Arch other than ‘I want the best reward bag.’

The issue I have is that I feel like my presence in the story is useless. What did I really do that wouldn’t have happened the same without me? How did my actions hinder Scarlet? In the end they didn’t. That’s my complaint. And what impact did electing Kiel have? I still have really yet to see this or feel it in the game.

These are issues that can easily be fixed via the framing of the narrative. By wrapping the narrative a little bit more into the activities of each release rather than having the point be achievement points or a meta reward. Rewards are great, but I would like to see the story play a larger role in the living story. And I would like to feel that my character contributes to the events of that story, even if I’m not the big hero who does the ultimate thing in the end.

StarbornStriker.6493:

Galen Grey.4709:

@StarbornStriker

What you suggest would be amazing but not really doable I am afraid. Providing multiple endings to releases would be either considered super gimmicky (you might get different dialog or a different cut scene but in the end everyone ends up in the same point making those choices feel a cheat rather then a real choice) or fork the story which will quickly become unfeasable. Its already hard to create 1 update per 2 weeks imagine if at the end of the story you’d need to create 8 releases (even if just subtle variations of each other) for a single week to cater for every fork and thats assuming only 3 forks in a season that could only go 2 ways. Not to mention is how you’re going to merge the differences if say in one storyline an npc is dead while in another is not.

This isn’t really what I’m asking for, as I’m quite aware it would be unfeasible.

But I ask, what was the point of rescuing citizens during the siege against Lion’s Arch? To get a better reward? Why didn’t the devs use this in some way when they set up the next part of the living story. You know how easy it is to add an NPC that says ‘because x number of citizens got saved we have this advantage?’ It’s probably really easy. And would the players ever know whether or not we would have had that advantage otherwise? No. No we wouldn’t, no matter how much people speculated.

We could even take it one step further and say that they could have built a mechanic into the release whereby rescuing citizens gave you boons to other areas of the event rather than just better reward bags, so that there would have been a reason for people to help the citizens of Lion’s Arch other than ‘I want the best reward bag.’

The issue I have is that I feel like my presence in the story is useless. What did I really do that wouldn’t have happened the same without me? How did my actions hinder Scarlet? In the end they didn’t. That’s my complaint. And what impact did electing Kiel have? I still have really yet to see this or feel it in the game.

These are issues that can easily be fixed via the framing of the narrative. By wrapping the narrative a little bit more into the activities of each release rather than having the point be achievement points or a meta reward. Rewards are great, but I would like to see the story play a larger role in the living story. And I would like to feel that my character contributes to the events of that story, even if I’m not the big hero who does the ultimate thing in the end.

Isn’t that exactly what the Writing Team said they were aiming to do in Season Two? And why the story is now instanced through the Journal?

In well written stories you care about the damage done by the villains. You feel the hurt of the characters. If that can be done in GW2 with the Zephyrites then lets give the writers some credit. (I expect that the Zephyrites will be back in the air by the end of LS2 though).

StarbornStriker.6493:

This isn’t really what I’m asking for, as I’m quite aware it would be unfeasible.

But I ask, what was the point of rescuing citizens during the siege against Lion’s Arch? To get a better reward? Why didn’t the devs use this in some way when they set up the next part of the living story. You know how easy it is to add an NPC that says ‘because x number of citizens got saved we have this advantage?’ It’s probably really easy. And would the players ever know whether or not we would have had that advantage otherwise? No. No we wouldn’t, no matter how much people speculated.

We could even take it one step further and say that they could have built a mechanic into the release whereby rescuing citizens gave you boons to other areas of the event rather than just better reward bags, so that there would have been a reason for people to help the citizens of Lion’s Arch other than ‘I want the best reward bag.’

The issue I have is that I feel like my presence in the story is useless. What did I really do that wouldn’t have happened the same without me? How did my actions hinder Scarlet? In the end they didn’t. That’s my complaint. And what impact did electing Kiel have? I still have really yet to see this or feel it in the game.

These are issues that can easily be fixed via the framing of the narrative. By wrapping the narrative a little bit more into the activities of each release rather than having the point be achievement points or a meta reward. Rewards are great, but I would like to see the story play a larger role in the living story. And I would like to feel that my character contributes to the events of that story, even if I’m not the big hero who does the ultimate thing in the end.

There are three issues that underlie everything you’re talking about.
The first is that development starts about 4 months before release. That makes it impossible to react to what players do or to really incorporate much of their feedback into changing the immediate story. As a programmer, I’m sure you understand what long lead times can be like in development.

The second issue is something they’ve talked about a fair bit and that is the quality of writing. They recognize a lot of the issues with the story and event designs (the plot holes, the railroading, the lack of sense behind some things, etc) and how it was presented and they want to fix it. Season one was a lot of experimentation for them and, hopefully, we’ll see the results of what they’ve learned in season two. Unfortunately, the only fix for this problem is experience.

The third issue is player agency. How to make players feel like they have an impact and are important. This ties into the quality of writing, but it also has it’s own problems. A lot of MMO’s have tried dealing with this, most of them not very well. Heck, it’s not even something non-mmo’s have a good track record with. It is perhaps one of the most difficult challenges of making a video game story.

I think season two will be an improvement over season one for a lot of the story issues. I wouldn’t expect significant changes until season three but I’m hopeful for season two. I suppose the best thing I can say is I’m looking forward to it.

Going on how the story develops, I think the writers are influenced by the current pop culture (Game of Thrones). While they adding new characters, and no one from them died yet, the destruction of Lion’s Arch and Kessex Hills was the twist that shocked everyone. Even if teasers about that event were released beforehand.
It would be ideal if Magus Falls/Manguuma stay permanently( and included to map completion if necessary), instead being instanced for the Living World S2. They can write the next set of story to a new area of Tyria(GW2) / also known as old maps of GW1 area. It would be quite interesting how those areas changed after 300 yrs.

StarbornStriker.6493:

My point here is that the developers profess to want to create a living world; meaning a world in which player actions have impact. In order to do that, there does need to be at least the illusion of choice or impact based on what the players do. Does that require creative thinking and planning? Absolutely. And that’s exactly what this game needs more of. If this game actually wants to do something new and innovative at some point, there needs to be a lot more thinking outside the box.

I wouldn’t put it that way. I say “thinking outside the box” is a buzz-phrase which needs to die. Because there’s always some box which you’ll be thinking inside of, that’s just how it works.

Also, the “living world” was not meant entirely to be “players shape the world” so much as “players take part in a world which lives and goes on its own direction without player input”. Sort of how DEs were supposed to be a part of that “living world” feel – if no players are around, the centaurs are still going to assault Beetletun or the Ascalon Settlement. They don’t wait for players to come around before attacking, or wait for someone to start the quest signal.

They do need to do better with player agency, though that’s a problem across the board with games.

I am not asking that Arena Net create two different versions of every outcome, actually, because it’s probably a safe assumption that the players will always do enough content in the game to achieve the set goal unless it’s a ridiculously impossible number.

Not to mention there’s a logistics problem of planning out in advance if you don’t know the ending or details of how one Chapter would end. It becomes a maze of potential branches and it drives one crazy.

But if we had more creative planning, like I said above, we could at least have the illusion that our actions had impact. Conversely, it would be nice if there were some battles we did win as well as some that we lost, instead of a long string of failures leading up to a shallow victory.

I wouldn’t term the LS1 as “a long string of failures”. We had successes almost for a whole long stretch . . . just not total, overwhelming success. The feeling I got as we hit the last third of the story was “Scarlet’s goal is not simply to do X and hope it sticks, she’s in pursuit of particular pieces which she wants for later use.” Which happened to be the Battle of Lion’s Arch, where just about everything she did is shown to have had a goal beyond merely “winning”.

The Molten Alliance having its weapons development set back so fully was secondary to developing the basic sonic weaponry technology in the first place. The Toxic Alliance’s Tower was secondary to developing the spores into the miasma. The Aetherblades were secondary to getting a framework for quick-striking forces being able to hit fast and with minimal warning. The Clockwork minions were shock troops which could be deployed and recalibrated easily into myriad forms and designs.

None of the smaller parts needed to win outright, because that wasn’t the complete goal. The complete goal was to have the Breachmaker disrupt the ley lines under Lion’s Arch, and having a means to hold the city long enough to do that. Scarlet got exactly enough time to do that (thanks to dramatic license) but not much more.

The heroes did win, almost every encounter. The problem was more how the battles’ outcomes were less meaningful than the information.

1/2

No one needs to tell me that stories don’t always have happy endings. I’m always the first do defend sad endings. But what we have with the first season of the LS isn’t a case of a sad twisted tale.

No, it’s not a sad ending, it’s a somewhat realistic ending for what we were up against. Bearing in mind, this isn’t the first time ANet has pulled this either. (For instance, what happened when we foiled Shiro’s presence in the Sunjiang District? How about defeating Varesh Ossa in the Ruins of Morah?)

Instead it’s a comedy of errors, where the people who are supposed to be heroes and protectors can’t get their act together enough to do anything meaningful until it’s too late.

And that’s where you’re mistaken. The people who were supposed to be heroes were doing their best to stop the primary threats being let loose and keep the damage to a minimum with regards to things like the invasion events and the Tower of Nightmares. They got their act together, the problem was . . . Scarlet didn’t care about whether those succeeded or failed. She wasn’t after their success, she was after the information she could gather.

I am not asking for unicorns and rainbows. I’m asking for my character’s presence to matter.

Individually matter? That’s . . . exceedingly unlikely. This is not the same as GW1 where your character was the driving force to move events along. Events are going to go along whether you’re there or not.

Matter in the form of “the adventurers of Tyria”? More likely, but difficult to work with because I don’t think there’s going to be much. Considering the players, I doubt we’ll have any real chance of things failing outright or having a “best possible outcome” fly by. About the only thing we could probably expect to see is a ‘vote’ type thing where we may be able to shift the path of the story into who lives or who dies.

(Which would mean another round of Kiel vs Gnashblade type crap.)

2/2

Just to add my thoughts to some of the things mentioned…

Another thing is that you do not know the future, so you do not know if you changed something. This in regards to the ‘rail road track’ feel… In other words we would only know if there was something to change if we were told there was something at stake we could or could not prevent…

On the other hand I do agree with the OP in a sense that efforts could be made to ‘hide’ these facts. And that with clever writing, planning and organisation the impact of the players actions could have more of an impact…

Now personally I really liked the fact that LA got destroyed, I am of the firm conviction that in battle (or war) ‘in the end’ all that remains is the losses that everyone suffered. There is no true ‘victory’, there may be a short relief the thing ended, and a bit of cheer for not having died through it all. But as soon as that buzz is over, the reality of it all hits like a ton of bricks. Showing this in LA, to me, was one of the great parts of the LS1, and I truly felt emotionally hit by it as well (being a long time GW player, seeing the rebuild LA in ruins brought back a lot of memories of times shared in LA). I do not mind it was inevitable, most of the destruction was done in the initial invasion the rest when the whole thing blew up (in our face).

Thing is, due to not knowing if we changed something, because we can’t know if our actions changed anything as we only live through the events as they unfold…
- What we didn’t destroy the tower.
- What if we didn’t destroy the marionette.
- What if we didn’t destroy the molten alliance manufacturing plant.

Well, thing is, we will never know, and can only guess… Yet I agree that some of it felt like what we did didn’t matter, mostly in regards to the LA invasion. Or that what happened in the LS didn’t impact the world (f/e the Centaur ‘invasion’ in the tower of madness chapter.) Well a lot has been said about this already…

What could have been better, f/e:
- What if we found some scriblings in the airship plant, and Anet set a internal ‘time’ for us to decipher it IRL. Which could even be ‘unlimited’… And in those scriblings were clues to the other facilities. because there had to be others, we smashed one and still the invaded with airships … Now, sure, you will say, why another facility to smash… well, it could have well been cleared out, it could have some nice hints at the time it was operative… This would have told us there was a considerable amount of airships ‘around’, thus increasing the tension, and the invasion with airships in LA would have felt less ‘lame’ after smashing that facility to bits…

- The story could have still unfolded the way it did if we f/e managed to totally destroy an alliance… This is something I also sort of missed, and what you seem to be asking for. I mean, lets say we smashed the molten alliance. This would obviously mean we wouldn’t see that many molten foes in the fray (f/e in the invasions), but would that make the content any different? It would be even more interesting I think if Scarlet had acknowledged our victory with a ‘You may have won this battle, but you are far from winning this war’ comment. Still, our impact would be visible in the content, yet the outcome could have still been the same…

In regards to writing, planning & organisation
I think there is a writing form that suits itself for the type of content we sort of long for (besides the examples I gave just above here). That is the ‘split group’ story lines. You see this in books at times, where multiple groups are followed that at some point merge or sometimes never even meet. Yet still paint the same story, but from different angles…

It is a bit more difficult to pull off seeing ‘we’ have to still be a part of it all the time, and it might feel somewhat weird at times, for us being in ‘two or even three’ places at once. But, it reduces the workload considerably, and it voids the making of ‘never seen content’, though, yes, there are void storylines…

What if our ‘group of heroes’ were to split up, possibly because they disagree on course of action. Now instead of throughing a choice in our faces on how to persue, we get to go along with each group, and within each individual persuit there are actions or choices that defy how that line of the story unfolds. Each ‘instalment’ of the LS could focus on one ‘group’ and we follow along and make the choice or make an impact. Now the next instalment would be with the other group, and then the last group. For a total of 3 instalments of 1 story step in 3 story lines all focussed around a different approach to the same issue.

Then there be enough time, to factor in the actions of a previous step, sure the outlines might have to be written beforehand, but once a focus group’s story step has ended there are 2 instalments time to build w/e needs to be build to factor in the actions of the players within that story line.

And if the ‘stage’ (scenery) in which these actions are to unfold remain the same, but the that what happens on ‘stage’ is different, the work can be planned even more efficiently…

This kind of story telling also gives the writers more options and us as players opportunities for more experiences. An approach may fail, and we would have to acknowledge ‘defeat’ or ‘dispair’ within one story line, while another storyline might yield an easy success, or a hard fought success with a unexpected outcome. Even what seemed to have been a failure, might yield a bit of information that, combined with another storyline, might offer a new angle of approach, or give the info to make the correct informed decision.

Combine that with showing just a tad more of what is going on behind the scenes, even if we have no impact to make on what will unfold (aka. the empty airship facilities). Or giving us a clear success in a battle that will change what will happen on the stage, yet not the ultimate outcome, and I think this could give us all the feeling we are having this impact, while at the same time the workload for Anet remains manageable, be it with a bit more preparation on the side of the GM for as far as what happens ‘On stage’.

Will it feel like less of a ‘rail road’? Well, seeing we can not know the future, and thus we are unable to know we changed the future that remains to be ‘lived’. But as long as we can see that our actions have an outcome that is to be expected, and we are ‘informed’ of things that we didn’t prevent or even ‘changed the course of expected action’ from our foe. Then chances are we will at least feel like we are in the locomotive and not riding along in one of the carriages…

StarbornStriker.6493:

This isn’t really what I’m asking for, as I’m quite aware it would be unfeasible.

But I ask, what was the point of rescuing citizens during the siege against Lion’s Arch? To get a better reward? Why didn’t the devs use this in some way when they set up the next part of the living story. You know how easy it is to add an NPC that says ‘because x number of citizens got saved we have this advantage?’ snip…
The issue I have is that I feel like my presence in the story is useless. What did I really do that wouldn’t have happened the same without me? How did my actions hinder Scarlet? In the end they didn’t. That’s my complaint. And what impact did electing Kiel have? I still have really yet to see this or feel it in the game.

These are issues that can easily be fixed via the framing of the narrative. By wrapping the narrative a little bit more into the activities of each release rather than having the point be achievement points or a meta reward. Rewards are great, but I would like to see the story play a larger role in the living story. And I would like to feel that my character contributes to the events of that story, even if I’m not the big hero who does the ultimate thing in the end.

okey I get what you mean now, sorry for the misunderstanding before..

well to be fair nothing really happened since the events of LA for a chance for the people we rescued to be involved. That being said they might never be involved in anything major and thats fine. It made total sense to have us rescue the npcs for story reasons and I feel it would be perfectly fine if it all ended there. If nothing else I am sure they’ll be involved with rebuilding LA.

They might also get some central role in the future like it happened with the refugees we saved in Flame and Frost. You surely remember how they moved to southsun helped build a lot of infrastructure there and were directly involved in an insuraction against the consortium. Even after that they were the ones who moved and rebuild cragstead from the ground up after it was reduced to ashes in Flame and Frost.

As for motivation, thats really a hornets nest. Different people are motivated with different things. Taking this even for example I would have saved villagers even if there was no reward of any kind attached to it? why you may ask? because it was really well done. the cries of help from the distance carried by the wind, the smoke from the burning all around. The general feel of despair. The whole event felt really immersive and saving the npcs felt like it was the right thing to do. Other wouldnt care about that sort of thing at all and would only do something like that for the rewards. Other like you say may be motivated with buffs. But I assure you others would really hate that too cause they’d feel they’re being forced to do it when all they care about is the events that accompanied that release and thought that saving the npcs was a waste of time. Different people like different things.

Yes and No. Gw2 doesnt make characters the center pivot of the story and I think thats actually a really good thing. I mean taking the siege of LA if any one character can resolve it all then how on earth could LA with its army of lion guard fail to hold scarlet back? Gw2 does the right thing and scopes its encounters in such a way that it is a collective player effort that turns the tied. But does that mean your contribution doesnt count? I wouldnt say that, an army if we want to call it that is made up of individuals and while the single contributions of an individual dont make a big difference there collective contribution make all the difference. So yeah if you had waited the event out scarlet would still have fallen but if more people decided to do the same? There would have been a point where not enough people would be there and the knights wouldnt have fallen and thus we would never even have made it inside to confront scarlet.

Its like in real life in a way. No soldier can ever claim we won the war exclusively thanks to me. But that doesnt mean the soldier wasnt instrumental to winning the war.

Gw2 always was about doing a little exploration to get all the story and LS events weren’t no different. I Assure you there was a ton of story but to experiance it you had to talk to NPCs. Gw2 never forced everyone to experience the whole story whether they wanted to or not. It did make it available to those who sought it out though. For example this is all the dialog that one could experience in Escape from LA
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Escape_from_Lion's_Arch_

I think its possible to have 1 or 2 events where player choice could matter but like arghore said there is no way we’d know we made a difference without making the whole exercise feel cheap.

Lets go with the molten facility. Lets say the LS release was done as such that if the boss was beaten in less then I dont know say 5 minutes 10k times (across all servers) The event would be considered a win for the players it not the flame alliance got their prototype weapon and the event is considered a loss for us. The result could be communicated through a cinematic at the end of the ls release or at the start of the other one. Nothing fancy required success would be just 2 protagonists talking about how lucky we were to stop the flame legion before something bad happened and the loss cinematic could be some dredge scientist walking away from an exploding lab with a weapon in hand saying ohh scarlet is going to be pleased or something. 4 months down the line that would mean a new type of molten allaince soldier using this new weapon that’s more damaging than the existing skills we had before then and if we won this just wouldnt have happened. However like arghore said we wouldnt know our actions made a difference if arenanet didnt come out and flat out said they would. For us its just the flow of events like the new foe was always meant to show up in the seige of LA or if we actually won it would be even less apparent than that.. ohh look defeating the molten alliance didnt change anything!

Its tricky but I do like the idea of something like this especially living story releases that can actually fail and are not always a guaranteed win.

StarbornStriker.6493:

My point here is that the developers profess to want to create a living world; meaning a world in which player actions have impact.

I am not asking for unicorns and rainbows. I’m asking for my character’s presence to matter.

You realise that there are thousands of other players in the game, right?

How are they all supposed to have an impact on the game, unless it’s predetermined?

And please don’t suggest that the outcome should depend on collective effort. The queens pavilion demonstrated that the player base has less intelligence than a herd of cattle.

It’s called Living World. It’s not supposed to be “wins” all the time. As the story can go on for many years they have to start somewhere and ArenaNet choosed to start the story with a loss, BUT the Living Story is a continuation of the Personal Story. What happened in the Personal Story? We won the fight against Zhaitan. So I’d say we won the first fight.

ESC Raven.7410:

As far as I see it, there were some heroics but no heroism (which is what I look for in my escapes from the real world).

“ohmehgerd where power fantasy at arenanet”

Sorry… I couldn’t resist.

Season 1 had a lot of flaws but pursuing convention wasn’t generally one of them.