Hi,
This is a pretty quick post. I wanted to talk about Living World as it occurs in the Seasons. I really didn’t get involved with Season 1. The semester was too involved, I’d just moved, and it was very hard to know anything was going on from what information was getting out to us as players. Scarlet’s attacks were also like this for me, something I regret not ‘being there’ all the way through. By the time we came to the final few episodes with Scarlet leading up to Lion’s Arch I was still going, “Huh? Who’s this?” and “Oh wow, I hope we can join her. She’s really something.”
Scarlet inspired me to build my second Legendary, Incinerator and to really start using my first – Predator. She and the whole aesthetic of the Aetherblades brought about my continued playing of Guild Wars 2 from where I’d almost, by then, abandoned it as a dead game too neglected by its developers for it to be around much longer. It really seemed as though the game was finally going to live up to all those things it had promised to be before launch. The world was finally coming alive. Real changes were happening. While I loved the old Lion’s Arch I loved Scarlet as she burned it to the ground. Whoever was involved with all to do with her, thank you.
There really ought to be a calendar system in the world of Tyria that is BB and AB for before and after Scarlet. She really was that much of a change for how this game had been going. It was also the first time a non-racial firmly recognizable and not super-shoulders-ridiculous aesthetic was brought into the game with the Aetherblade armor, weapons, and related dyes. It established the firm motion of the Tyrian world’s shift from a sort of 16th century Tyria of GW1 to its present Steampunk 1860’s feeling with hints of 1904.
I’m fairly certain this was accidental. We haven’t seen so much concentration of thematic direction since where armor, world events, and antagonist galvanize and compliment so comfortably. This is probably just as well it was an accident because now we’re living through something of a transition as the world move from pre-industrial to industrial developments with much falling back and holes all over the landscape as different groups/peoples of the world lag behind.
Unfortunately, much of this advancing into a more flushed out game is still being held back by a fairly inconsistent story telling in the instances. I decided to make Mawdrey finally and while doing this I realized just how much I really cannot get into (and actually often dread) the Living Story Instancing. It really drags down the game, but also has a sort of rare charm that brings out a kind of balance question.
On one hand I like having this sort of mini-boss / challenge aspect to the Instancing sections of the Living Story. On the other hand, I absolutely do not want to do the Living Story more than once. Having to do it character after character just feels like a chore that has no joy in it. It’s a sort of long walk without a real outcome once it has been done. The achievements get pushed onto the backburner as often I just want it over with by the 3rd character. So, I stop experiencing the Instancing as a story and start experiencing it as a barrier to keeping up with the changing world. For instance, it’s necessary to do Living Story to reach Silverwastes. It starts to breed a kind of contempt for the story that really is more to do with being forced to do it again and again than because the story is usually touch and go. It really ought to be we only have to do the story once per account and then our characters can just go to the next map when they’re appropriately leveled. We shouldn’t have to do the whole thing for every single character.
Another thing, and this is an easily addressed practical concern that you really should fix … the areas where the instances take place are often copies of the actual world. For some reason you usually put a very narrow boarder around these instances that if we touch ends our participation with that instance. While that may have a technical purpose for being there you frequently clip these things into areas where we have to have combat. So, a creature does a knockback and suddenly we’re forced to the whole thing again. This adds to the building contempt for living story that eventually comes from this sort of thing.
There’s more to talk about, but I’m probably running out of text to type so I’ll stop here. These areas need greater analysis and reconstitution. You’re really starting to understand how to be game designers and not some sort of guardianship. Keep up the great work!