Guild Wars 2

We’re 7 episodes in to this story, and given the pace of carapace armor, we’re going to be done with this Living Story season in 2 weeks. It’s obvious we’re not going to get into the meat of the story this season, and I’m starting to get frustrated.

The storywriting is actually very good, but the pacing is off. It’s time to start getting into some plot progression, and another whole season of teasers without real movement is disappointing. And that’s not even getting into the length of the episodes, which make it very difficult to get properly immersed in the story.

What’s the answer? Should we just not bother starting a story until the whole season is complete? Our generation is the one that likes to binge-watch shows on Netflix, serialization isn’t fun it’s just frustrating.

The carapace armor appears to be tied more to the Silverwastes zone than to Living Story season 2.

Who knows, perhaps the season will continue with a new zone after Silverwastes is completed (and a two-week Wintersday break).

After all, Season 2 did not end with Dry Top.

BINGO.

Op hit it on the head.

its like taking a movie meant to be watched in one sitting, and breaking it into 8 15 minute shorts. even worse, because you have to deliver these episodes every 2 weeks, you make poor narrative/pacing choices that often seem rushed, not considered, and underdeveloped…….all things that with a less regular release schedule (like an expansion) would have time to be refined,

It seems allot of people are feeling this way, lets downvote all the fanboys! lol

Everyone realizes that you have the option, entirely in your control, to WAIT until the whole Season is released to play the fewking Story if it bothers you to get the releases in dribs and drabs.

Right? Everyone knows this?

I binge watch whole multiple seasons on Netflix all the time.

i hardly ever comment / visit these forum but the recent LW has caused me to seek out other commentary on season 2.

OP is right on the money. This season has just left me frustrated and that is breeding resentment.

What can I say? I happen to be enjoying season 2.

Kuldebar.1897:

Everyone realizes that you have the option, entirely in your control, to WAIT until the whole Season is released to play the fewking Story if it bothers you to get the releases in dribs and drabs.

Right? Everyone knows this?

I binge watch whole multiple seasons on Netflix all the time.

So you just don`t play for half a year and be through with in an evening or two? depending if you come back half season or the whole?

If you are mostly here for the story, you expect a lot of people.

Yes, there are other things to do in-game, other things to play outside, but this is a problem that is not only on the lenght side, but also on the narrative content side.

S2 fails to deliver a good pacing. For almost 8 episodes we did not accomplish much in terms of reaching a clear goal, aka Mordremoth.
All we did were “sidequest” and " Characterquests".
Our main objective is an unexplained egg, which may or may not help us.
We have no direction, or urgency.
We patrol along a danger zone, ignoring the thread to us mostly.

I am sorry, but E8 has to end with a bang and a big announcement, because for every good episode we got two or three lackluster in content.

I’m fine with it. It gives me something new to do, and about an hour or two of new content each week, same as a TV show.

If the serialization really frustrates you, there’s a simple solution, binge-play. Just log in each fortnight to unlock the story but do not play it. Chill out for several months until the season ends, then go in and play all the story chapters back to back, problem solved.

Ohoni.6057:

I’m fine with it. It gives me something new to do, and about an hour or two of new content each week, same as a TV show.

If the serialization really frustrates you, there’s a simple solution, binge-play. Just log in each fortnight to unlock the story but do not play it. Chill out for several months until the season ends, then go in and play all the story chapters back to back, problem solved.

Well, Anet won`t get any money from the people who do that then, won`t they?
I think that might be something of concern for them.

I like your idea though.

Ohoni.6057:

I’m fine with it. It gives me something new to do, and about an hour or two of new content each week, same as a TV show.

If the serialization really frustrates you, there’s a simple solution, binge-play. Just log in each fortnight to unlock the story but do not play it. Chill out for several months until the season ends, then go in and play all the story chapters back to back, problem solved.

Season 2 has been in progress since April. Should I simply not play the game for 8 months in order to complete a weekend’s worth of content at the end of the season? I think Anet’s marketing team would not appreciate that kind of attitude considering the whole purpose of the LW is to get people in game and constantly exposed to the gem store.

I just dislike the untold lore and side story potential that is being lost throughout the releases…

I like the pacing. I can do some new stuff every now and then and return to my favourite things, I don’t have to exhaust myself by completing large chunks of content and then going back to the old stuff for months. I don’t see any problems with multiple plot lines staying unresolved for a long time. On the contrary, the “monster of the week” concept with no connection between episodes is what actually describes the state of today’s audience preferences… which actually looks like what you want – “everything here and now or I tend to forget what happened last time and feel frustrated”.

If people really dislike the pacing then log online every 2 weeks to get access to the episodes and then do them all after the season is over. Problem solved.

Plot?
Is this a TV series?
This is a frekkin MMOrpg, and its only purpose is to play together with / against other people.
And from what I see, there was no mmo-related development in the past few months.
I don’t speak about balancing little things here and there, I speak about developing and implementing content that can be played together with people.
So, what have we:
Eotm, almost a year ago since implementation, and its just a queue-overflow map with no impact on wvw whatsoever
Courtyard: 3/4 year ago and its just available for private arenas, with no impact on team or solo queue whatsoever
and thats it.

Have we got actual content (new maps / objectives) for WvW?
nope
Have we got actual content (new maps / gamemodes) for PvP?
nope
Have we got new skills or traits?
Yes, on march 20 (3/4 year ago, again) all classes got 5 new, mostly useless grandmaster-traits. And almost exactly 1 year ago, we got 1 new healing skill for each class, whom most are useless again.
Did the bug-lists for classes got shorter?
Kinda. Some bugs got fixed, a good load of new ones got introduced.

So here we are, 7 chapters deep into the current living world, with 2 new farmfests, 3 hours worth of dialogues, and a couple of new skins.
#Slowclap

You know, some studios actually go into a long break, then silently start to work on the next expansion, push the release-date a bit further to have time for polish and then amaze their player-base.
Read it from my lips, a-net:
You don’t have to be special snowflakes, just follow the path to success, laid down clearly by all the good MMO-predecessors out there, including GW1.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

The carapace armor appears to be tied more to the Silverwastes zone than to Living Story season 2.

Who knows, perhaps the season will continue with a new zone after Silverwastes is completed (and a two-week Wintersday break).

After all, Season 2 did not end with Dry Top.

Also remember mawdrey? Still I do kinda feel that we’re getting close to the end of Season 2.

Well, Anet won`t get any money from the people who do that then, won`t they?
I think that might be something of concern for them.

I like your idea though.

Well, you can always continue to play the rest of the game, the non-story elements. I actually have guildies that never play Drytop+ content and have just been running world bosses, dungeons, etc. over the past few months. That’s no skin off ANet’s nose. Sure, if you play in the newly unlocked areas that involves some minor plot spoilers in that events are progressing, but not so much that you won’t be surprised by the details as you play through the PS.

Season 2 has been in progress since April. Should I simply not play the game for 8 months in order to complete a weekend’s worth of content at the end of the season? I think Anet’s marketing team would not appreciate that kind of attitude considering the whole purpose of the LW is to get people in game and constantly exposed to the gem store.

You’ve exactly described what would happen to someone binge watching a network TV program, yes.

And from what I see, there was no mmo-related development in the past few months.
I don’t speak about balancing little things here and there, I speak about developing and implementing content that can be played together with people.

That’s complete nonsense. I’ve spent the majority of my play time over the past six months or so playing the Drytop and Silverwastes content that they added over that time, which is some excellent “MMO” content, requiring significant cooperation between a hundred or more players in order to advance the content. You may not like it, but you cannot claim that it is not the purest definition of “MMO content.”

DarcShriek.5829:

What can I say? I happen to be enjoying season 2.

You and me both.

I prefer serialization to bi-annual super-rush, followed by months of boredom.

Errant Venture.9371:

…just not bother starting a story until the whole season is complete? Our generation is the one that likes to binge-watch shows on Netflix…

THIS.
9001% THIS.

CureForLiving.5360:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

The carapace armor appears to be tied more to the Silverwastes zone than to Living Story season 2.

Who knows, perhaps the season will continue with a new zone after Silverwastes is completed (and a two-week Wintersday break).

After all, Season 2 did not end with Dry Top.

Also remember mawdrey? Still I do kinda feel that we’re getting close to the end of Season 2.

Dude I was expecting Season 2 to focus a lot more on Mordremoth and making actual progress towards engaging him. Instead all we have is a makeshift Pact base, and a bunch of characters running around on tangent side stories with Glint’s egg and stuff. I get that the egg is important, but its a tangential direction for the story to go. How deep does this rabbit hole go? They could have easily just had us catch up with Caithe in THIS release, but no. Instead we have to wait for a SECOND cliffhanger, and who the hell knows if we will even find Caithe next episode? What if they decide to stretch it even further? What if this crap never ends for 7 seasons? Like I’ve said before, this story is quickly becoming like Lost.

Xenon.4537:

CureForLiving.5360:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

The carapace armor appears to be tied more to the Silverwastes zone than to Living Story season 2.

Who knows, perhaps the season will continue with a new zone after Silverwastes is completed (and a two-week Wintersday break).

After all, Season 2 did not end with Dry Top.

Also remember mawdrey? Still I do kinda feel that we’re getting close to the end of Season 2.

Dude I was expecting Season 2 to focus a lot more on Mordremoth and making actual progress towards engaging him. Instead all we have is a makeshift Pact base, and a bunch of characters running around on tangent side stories with Glint’s egg and stuff. I get that the egg is important, but its a tangential direction for the story to go. How deep does this rabbit hole go? They could have easily just had us catch up with Caithe in THIS release, but no. Instead we have to wait for a SECOND cliffhanger, and who the hell knows if we will even find Caithe next episode? What if they decide to stretch it even further? What if this crap never ends for 7 seasons? Like I’ve said before, this story is quickly becoming like Lost.

In the personal story, how long was it until they actually engaged Zhaitan and the risen directly?

Ayrilana.1396:

Xenon.4537:

CureForLiving.5360:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

The carapace armor appears to be tied more to the Silverwastes zone than to Living Story season 2.

Who knows, perhaps the season will continue with a new zone after Silverwastes is completed (and a two-week Wintersday break).

After all, Season 2 did not end with Dry Top.

Also remember mawdrey? Still I do kinda feel that we’re getting close to the end of Season 2.

Dude I was expecting Season 2 to focus a lot more on Mordremoth and making actual progress towards engaging him. Instead all we have is a makeshift Pact base, and a bunch of characters running around on tangent side stories with Glint’s egg and stuff. I get that the egg is important, but its a tangential direction for the story to go. How deep does this rabbit hole go? They could have easily just had us catch up with Caithe in THIS release, but no. Instead we have to wait for a SECOND cliffhanger, and who the hell knows if we will even find Caithe next episode? What if they decide to stretch it even further? What if this crap never ends for 7 seasons? Like I’ve said before, this story is quickly becoming like Lost.

In the personal story, how long was it until they actually engaged Zhaitan and the risen directly?

Quite a while I guess, but look at the formatting of the personal story. It was delivered along with the entire game as a whole package. You didn’t have to wait 2 weeks in between instances. Also the story was told as needed, not with 2 week breaks in mind. When you actually plan for a 2 week break, you end up creating unnecessary plot twists, cliffhangers, and stalling. It’s disingenuous story structure.

Ayrilana.1396:

In the personal story, how long was it until they actually engaged Zhaitan and the risen directly?

all races: 3rd chapter, right before choosing between the 3 factions.
this would be lvl 30 currently.

Arantheal.7396:

Ayrilana.1396:

In the personal story, how long was it until they actually engaged Zhaitan and the risen directly?

all races: 3rd chapter, right before choosing between the 3 factions.
this would be lvl 30 currently.

They didn’t directly start assaulting Zhaitan until they took back Claw Island. Even then, you could make an argument that it may not have happened until they reached Orr.

Xenon.4537:

Ayrilana.1396:

Xenon.4537:

CureForLiving.5360:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

The carapace armor appears to be tied more to the Silverwastes zone than to Living Story season 2.

Who knows, perhaps the season will continue with a new zone after Silverwastes is completed (and a two-week Wintersday break).

After all, Season 2 did not end with Dry Top.

Also remember mawdrey? Still I do kinda feel that we’re getting close to the end of Season 2.

Dude I was expecting Season 2 to focus a lot more on Mordremoth and making actual progress towards engaging him. Instead all we have is a makeshift Pact base, and a bunch of characters running around on tangent side stories with Glint’s egg and stuff. I get that the egg is important, but its a tangential direction for the story to go. How deep does this rabbit hole go? They could have easily just had us catch up with Caithe in THIS release, but no. Instead we have to wait for a SECOND cliffhanger, and who the hell knows if we will even find Caithe next episode? What if they decide to stretch it even further? What if this crap never ends for 7 seasons? Like I’ve said before, this story is quickly becoming like Lost.

In the personal story, how long was it until they actually engaged Zhaitan and the risen directly?

Quite a while I guess, but look at the formatting of the personal story. It was delivered along with the entire game as a whole package. You didn’t have to wait 2 weeks in between instances. Also the story was told as needed, not with 2 week breaks in mind. When you actually plan for a 2 week break, you end up creating unnecessary plot twists, cliffhangers, and stalling. It’s disingenuous story structure.

Then log in every two weeks to get access to the episodes. After the season is over, play through all of them.

Ayrilana.1396:

Xenon.4537:

Ayrilana.1396:

Xenon.4537:

CureForLiving.5360:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

The carapace armor appears to be tied more to the Silverwastes zone than to Living Story season 2.

Who knows, perhaps the season will continue with a new zone after Silverwastes is completed (and a two-week Wintersday break).

After all, Season 2 did not end with Dry Top.

Also remember mawdrey? Still I do kinda feel that we’re getting close to the end of Season 2.

Dude I was expecting Season 2 to focus a lot more on Mordremoth and making actual progress towards engaging him. Instead all we have is a makeshift Pact base, and a bunch of characters running around on tangent side stories with Glint’s egg and stuff. I get that the egg is important, but its a tangential direction for the story to go. How deep does this rabbit hole go? They could have easily just had us catch up with Caithe in THIS release, but no. Instead we have to wait for a SECOND cliffhanger, and who the hell knows if we will even find Caithe next episode? What if they decide to stretch it even further? What if this crap never ends for 7 seasons? Like I’ve said before, this story is quickly becoming like Lost.

In the personal story, how long was it until they actually engaged Zhaitan and the risen directly?

Quite a while I guess, but look at the formatting of the personal story. It was delivered along with the entire game as a whole package. You didn’t have to wait 2 weeks in between instances. Also the story was told as needed, not with 2 week breaks in mind. When you actually plan for a 2 week break, you end up creating unnecessary plot twists, cliffhangers, and stalling. It’s disingenuous story structure.

Then log in every two weeks to get access to the episodes. After the season is over, play through all of them.

You are ignoring the problem of formatting. Even if I waited until the entire season was released before doing it, that doesn’t change the fact that each episode is just a tangent with a cliffhanger. Each of these is just chained together ad nauseam.

If they worked on the whole thing at once and released it at the same time, it would have a more fluid form of story arcs without the arbitrary pauses, cliffhanger,s and cuts.

The problems with not doing Living Story when it is out is that I fall so far behind that I end up in “Who… wait… what?” conversations with everyone I know about the Living Story. Then, the ever more pressing issue is finding the time to dump into all that content I held off on doing later. Better to do it right now than have it bunch up and drown me.

Also, if you really want to be disgusted with this style of narrative go find an episode from “the History Channel”. Every single episode from that reads like it was made for Clive Wearing. For the TV show begins by telling you about what the show is about… then there is an advertisement. Then the TV show begins to tell you what it is about… then there is an advertisement… repeat this for 45 minutes to an hour. Random imagery is shown that may or may not have anything to do with what is being spoken about. Usually what is being spoken about is still trying to remind you what the TV show is about. There’s never any narrative. No structure. Nothing informative. Only a bizarre series of imagery and a few repeating motifs of spoken words.

Eirdyne.9843:

The problems with not doing Living Story when it is out is that I fall so far behind that I end up in “Who… wait… what?” conversations with everyone I know about the Living Story. Then, the ever more pressing issue is finding the time to dump into all that content I held off on doing later. Better to do it right now than have it bunch up and drown me.

Also, if you really want to be disgusted with this style of narrative go find an episode from “the History Channel”. Every single episode from that reads like it was made for Clive Wearing. For the TV show begins by telling you about what the show is about… then there is an advertisement. Then the TV show begins to tell you what it is about… then there is an advertisement… repeat this for 45 minutes to an hour. Random imagery is shown that may or may not have anything to do with what is being spoken about. Usually what is being spoken about is still trying to remind you what the TV show is about. There’s never any narrative. No structure. Nothing informative. Only a bizarre series of imagery and a few repeating motifs of spoken words.

Welcome to what 90% of the entertainment industry thinks we are: Brain-dead piles of meat with eyes. They think we just consume… like cattle… There’s little consideration for our level of intelligence.

Xenon.4537:

Ayrilana.1396:

Xenon.4537:

Ayrilana.1396:

Xenon.4537:

CureForLiving.5360:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

The carapace armor appears to be tied more to the Silverwastes zone than to Living Story season 2.

Who knows, perhaps the season will continue with a new zone after Silverwastes is completed (and a two-week Wintersday break).

After all, Season 2 did not end with Dry Top.

Also remember mawdrey? Still I do kinda feel that we’re getting close to the end of Season 2.

Dude I was expecting Season 2 to focus a lot more on Mordremoth and making actual progress towards engaging him. Instead all we have is a makeshift Pact base, and a bunch of characters running around on tangent side stories with Glint’s egg and stuff. I get that the egg is important, but its a tangential direction for the story to go. How deep does this rabbit hole go? They could have easily just had us catch up with Caithe in THIS release, but no. Instead we have to wait for a SECOND cliffhanger, and who the hell knows if we will even find Caithe next episode? What if they decide to stretch it even further? What if this crap never ends for 7 seasons? Like I’ve said before, this story is quickly becoming like Lost.

In the personal story, how long was it until they actually engaged Zhaitan and the risen directly?

Quite a while I guess, but look at the formatting of the personal story. It was delivered along with the entire game as a whole package. You didn’t have to wait 2 weeks in between instances. Also the story was told as needed, not with 2 week breaks in mind. When you actually plan for a 2 week break, you end up creating unnecessary plot twists, cliffhangers, and stalling. It’s disingenuous story structure.

Then log in every two weeks to get access to the episodes. After the season is over, play through all of them.

You are ignoring the problem of formatting. Even if I waited until the entire season was released before doing it, that doesn’t change the fact that each episode is just a tangent with a cliffhanger. Each of these is just chained together ad nauseam.

If they worked on the whole thing at once and released it at the same time, it would have a more fluid form of story arcs without the arbitrary pauses, cliffhanger,s and cuts.

The story has been fluid. It’s just that the gap between episodes have caused people to forget and give the illusion that there isn’t. You’d see the same thing with TV episodes. I’m pretty sure that the story was completed well in advance of them designing season 2.

Eirdyne.9843:

The problems with not doing Living Story when it is out is that I fall so far behind that I end up in “Who… wait… what?” conversations with everyone I know about the Living Story. Then, the ever more pressing issue is finding the time to dump into all that content I held off on doing later. Better to do it right now than have it bunch up and drown me.

Excellent point. The other issue, if you don’t do the Living Story when it’s released, is that you may end up trying to do them in an area where no one goes to anymore. Or worse, one that requires a huge amount of people (zerg) to complete in order to get the rewards.

It a huge reason everyone rushes to do it now, now, now. Because it may be impossible later.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Eirdyne.9843:

The problems with not doing Living Story when it is out is that I fall so far behind that I end up in “Who… wait… what?” conversations with everyone I know about the Living Story. Then, the ever more pressing issue is finding the time to dump into all that content I held off on doing later. Better to do it right now than have it bunch up and drown me.

Excellent point. The other issue, if you don’t do the Living Story when it’s released, is that you may end up trying to do them in an area where no one goes to anymore. Or worse, one that requires a huge amount of people (zerg) to complete in order to get the rewards.

It a huge reason everyone rushes to do it now, now, now. Because it may be impossible later.

Nothing from season 2 requires a zerg. Everything can be done very few people. If the complaint that people will stop doing the zones is being used as an argument against the current distribution method, well it wouldn’t be any different under an expansion. The actual story instances can be done solo.

Ayrilana.1396:

The story has been fluid.

You call stopping at that cave door fluid? That was the most jarring, frustrating cut-off I’ve ever experienced. I gave me blue balls, seriously. If the entire season was developed as a cohesive package, there would have been no cutoff right there. You wouldn’t even have that door. The only reason for that door is to give you and Jory an excuse to stop and wait till the next episode.

Xenon.4537:

Ayrilana.1396:

The story has been fluid.

You call stopping at that cave door fluid? That was the most jarring, frustrating cut-off I’ve ever experienced. I gave me blue balls, seriously. If the entire season was developed as a cohesive package, there would have been no cutoff right there. You wouldn’t even have that door. The only reason for that door is to give you and Jory an excuse to stop and wait till the next episode.

It’s a cliffhanger. Play the entire season from start to finish once the next episode is released.

Ayrilana.1396:

Xenon.4537:

CureForLiving.5360:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

The carapace armor appears to be tied more to the Silverwastes zone than to Living Story season 2.

Who knows, perhaps the season will continue with a new zone after Silverwastes is completed (and a two-week Wintersday break).

After all, Season 2 did not end with Dry Top.

Also remember mawdrey? Still I do kinda feel that we’re getting close to the end of Season 2.

Dude I was expecting Season 2 to focus a lot more on Mordremoth and making actual progress towards engaging him. Instead all we have is a makeshift Pact base, and a bunch of characters running around on tangent side stories with Glint’s egg and stuff. I get that the egg is important, but its a tangential direction for the story to go. How deep does this rabbit hole go? They could have easily just had us catch up with Caithe in THIS release, but no. Instead we have to wait for a SECOND cliffhanger, and who the hell knows if we will even find Caithe next episode? What if they decide to stretch it even further? What if this crap never ends for 7 seasons? Like I’ve said before, this story is quickly becoming like Lost.

In the personal story, how long was it until they actually engaged Zhaitan and the risen directly?

Most people thought the personal story was terribly paced too…

im okayish with this season ending with story aslong as next season is all out total global warfare between the pact and mordremoth with hints to other elder dragon influence threw out the season to hint at who we fight next.