Guild Wars 2

I’m a fan of the Living Story / Living World concept. I actually look forward to the updates every 2 weeks. PLEASE KEEP LS GOING!

The main storyline of this game says we’re the dragon hunters. Certain PS storylines (like the Sylvari PS) reinforce this concept. Let’s keep it that way. All those players who don’t want to be the protagonists can play Secret World and Second Life. *Millions of players bought GW2 to be the hero who kills dragons. That’s is what Anet advertised 2 years ago in this trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xTTdYkOzzg
At the 4:12 mark in the video, it says “Now is the time… Claim your destiny! Forge your legend!” This trailer is why players like myself bought the game in the first place. *

Scrapping Scarlet was the best move EVER! Her death helped to progress the Sylvari PC’s Wyld Hunt, and she prepared the Dreamers for the dragon fights ahead of them. The words Scarlet said before she died indicated that Nightmare could be connected to Mordremoth. If we take out the plant dragon, we’ll destroy two baddies with one stone: The giant lizard and the Nightmare Court. IMO, Scarlet has gone from being annoying anarchist villainess to being the Obi Wan / Gandalf / messiah character of the series! That’s right. She stole the title of Tree Jesus (aka Tresus) title from Trahearne! (LOL!) Don’t’ let her death be in vain; Let us kill those dragons!

ANET: Keep with your original vision: Let us kill the dragons… in the same style as Tequatl or Twisted Marionette! We all love killing Teq & Shatterer every week. Marionette was a treat for most of us. We want to see many more dragon battles on the level of Tequatl, Twisted Marionette, or better.

No more stalling, Anet. Most of us are not here to watch Majory get it on with Kasmeer or become Trahearne’s personal servant. Those NPC generated events don’t contribute to the main storyline either. After what happened to Lion’s Arch, we want to turn Mordremoth (aka Exorcist dragon) into compost. Yeah, you can’t pull the wool over our eyes. It’s obvious who was controlling Ceara like a puppet for the last 15 months. It’s time for that b———- to go down once and for all.

While we’re at it, we want to avenge Glint’s death by hunting down Kralkatorrik. Jormag needs to be thawed out, and we’re more than happy to drown Bubbles.

Primordius is giving Tyria grief again? Bring him out here, so we can put him back in his place once more! We defeated him in Eye of the North, we players can defeat him again.

As for Zhaitan, we want a re-do. The final fight with this guy in the Arah dungeon was extremely pitiful. We want to see an open world Teq styled fight with this guy. This dragon is supposed to be undead, and it’s common knowledge that the undead don’t go down with necromancer hocus-pocus stuff. That’s been demonstrated time and time again in every zombie video game in existence. Sorry, but one needs holy power to permanently destroy the undead. He should be the hardest and final enemy we take down in this game. Why? The game’s story began with his forces encroaching on the lives of our heroes. Ending this game with Zhaitan’s final defeat will help the story come full circle and be the perfect closure to GW2. One possible way to defeat this guy: Our heroes could go through the Rite of Acension quests to take this dragon down. Again, I’m expecting the second battle with Zhaitan to be the final one.

The only NPCs we care about is Taimi and Caithe. Why? They’re interesting, and they don’t take over the story. The rest have to be scrapped because they’re all doing the job of the PC. Rytlock’s and Rox’s struggles can easily become the struggles of the Charr PCs. Braham’s struggle to be a legendary norn is the storylines of the Norn PCs.

Who’s been the one really protecting the queen? The human PC. Which human character figured out where Scarlet was going to strike next? The human PC. Which human character helped to save LA? The human PC. The only humans we want to see caring for the queen and other stuff related to humanity are the human PCs.

The only romances we want to see are the romances involving the PC. :P

Censorship within Anet

I don’t believe it is fair to completely blame certain writers for the issues regarding the LS. It takes a group to create a game. Myself, creative professionals, and other gamers on this forum have suspected that there are way too many people with conflicting views who have a say in what goes into Living Story (writers, animators, programmers, lawyers, etc.). As the old saying goes, “Too many cooks spoil the stew.” Somewhere along the video game creation pipeline there are most likely folks who are hampering the production process because of their personal beliefs. Everyone must be on the same page when it comes to completing the vision for LS Season 2

I know some of the Anet staff obsess over the game’s Teen rating. If you’re not sure what should go into a teen video game, take some time to examine the games that are already on the market. You would be very surprised to find out what the ESRB has allowed into Teen games. I believe that the rating won’t be affected if the storyline gets more serious and darker. Just don’t forget the occasional bits of humor (like Quaggan and Skritt related stuff), so that the tension can be released.

ANET WRITERS: Here are a few resources that could help you as you write LS Season 2:

(1) “Don’t Let Worry Drag You Down” by Writer’s Digest (http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/dont-let-worry-drag-you-down)

(2) “Tighten the Tension in Your Novel” by Writer’s Digest (http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/tighten-the-tension-in-your-novel)

(3) Writing with Emotion, Tension, and Conflict by Cheryl St. John (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G8OIFYU/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=2A4ESFQSKMVDU&coliid=I17VT3M2WZDTF7)

(4) There’s alot more articles on writing at http://www.writersdigest.com/ and http://nanowrimo.org/

Regarding Animation:

Animators: Please use the animated cut scenes to show off your animation skills. We players want to see amazing cut scenes involving the PCs and the bad guys, not just scenes showing buildings & ships. It’s good for your resumes, and it will make the audience happy! As always, there should always be a skip button for those players who don’t want to watch the stuff.

Temporary vs Permanent Content

The problem with temporary content is that it defeats Arena Net’s original vision for the Guild Wars franchise: To be the MMO for people who hate MMOs. You guys created a company with the idea of being different “other guys” (mainly Blizzard). Unfortunately the temporary content in LS creates the feeling of the same old MMOs that everyone has come to dread. It places too much pressure on the players to log in everyday and finish the achievements within 2 weeks. Some of your busier player base can’t log in during the week due to work or school. Plus, lack of permanent content keeps new players in the dark when it comes to the LS storyline. The new players have to be given a chance to play through the old stuff, so they can be more emotionally involved in the story.

Lastly, temporary content is bad for the developers’ resumes. When the devs decide to move on to other employers in the future, how are future employers going to see all the amazing stuff they made if it’s not available in GW2?

Next: Quit nerfing the Engineers!

Since I began the game six months ago. I’ve seen my main class (Engineer) get nerfed one too many time because others who don’t play the class claim that we’re overpowered. My class isn’t overpowered at all. In fact, my class has gotten weaker after every update and I’m having to reset traits every 2 weeks because my build stops having any effect on baddies in the dungeons and LS. Engies have guns, bombs, and machines. We’re supposed to be as powerful as the warriors and the guardians. We should get bonuses (esp WvW related bonuses) for building and repairing stuff. At the very least, Engies are supposed to be more powerful than the pet-lovng Rangers. Our range should be as great as the characters who fling arrows.

(BTW I don’t play warrior or guardians because all it requires is pressing 1 on the keyboard. Being an Engineer requires more skill in dodging and timing attacks. Plus I’m required to hit more buttons on the keyboard too.)

And finally: Quit listening to the folks who want GW2 to be Second Life

I’m a bit upset that you guys at Anet are listening a bit too much to the players who insist on playing a GW2 version of Second Life. NPCs have taken over the story because we got players who insist that we shouldn’t be the hero. Like I said in the first paragraph, this game was intended for players who want to play the dragon-slaying hero. There are other games on the market for folks who want to play ordinary characters who lead ordinary lives.

PHEW! That was a really long, long post! It took me all weekend to figure out what I wanted to say and write it all down!

I hope what I said helps you out, Anet. Good luck on making Living Story Season 2! Most of us are looking forward to what you guys come up with!

kta.6502:

The only NPCs we care about is Taimi and Caithe. Why? They’re interesting, and they don’t take over the story. The rest have to be scrapped because they’re all doing the job of the PC. Rytlock’s and Rox’s struggles can easily become the struggles of the Charr PCs. Braham’s struggle to be a legendary norn is the storylines of the Norn PCs.

I disagree. The only NPC I cared about during the living story was Marjory for the longest time, and then Kasmeer when she started to get more back story. Caithe is alright, along with the other members of destiny’s edge, but I’m not invested in her at all.
Side note: Don’t speak for all the players about opinions like this because they’re not universal opinions.

Darkhayle.2473:

kta.6502:

The only NPCs we care about is Taimi and Caithe. Why? They’re interesting, and they don’t take over the story. The rest have to be scrapped because they’re all doing the job of the PC. Rytlock’s and Rox’s struggles can easily become the struggles of the Charr PCs. Braham’s struggle to be a legendary norn is the storylines of the Norn PCs.

I disagree. The only NPC I cared about during the living story was Marjory for the longest time, and then Kasmeer when she started to get more back story. Caithe is alright, along with the other members of destiny’s edge, but I’m not invested in her at all.
Side note: Don’t speak for all the players about opinions like this because they’re not universal opinions.

I’m basing my comments about this on the various comments on this forum as well as the comments from players in-game. If you go back into the forum’s previous posts over the last 15 months, you’ll see a lot of people have made the same comments about the NPCs over and over again: Too one-dimensional, bland storylines, takes over for the PCs, Majory x Kasmeer relationship feeling exploitative, etc.

Alot of players don’t want to see a repeat of the disastrous LS Season 1.

Taimi is the character with the most positive comments since her introduction earlier this year. There are alot of pro-Taimi posts that are much easier to find. As for Caithe, she doesn’t cause the negative knee-jerk reaction that many of the other NPCs tend to cause. Plus, Caithe’s situation plays a big part of the Personal Story (see the story step “A Light in the Darkness” as well as the Sylvari PS storyline — her Wyld Hunt is to take down the dragons). Plus, alot of people want to know more about the secret that Scarlet claimed Caithe is carrying. *A lot of folks on these forums do want LS season 2 to focus more on the Personal Story again.

EDIT: If you want to find posts that talk about flaws in the Living Story NPCs, you can search the forums via Google. Go to Google and type the NPC’s name followed by the words “gw2 forum” (Example: Majory gw2 forum). With 2 novels to write and a WvW team that depends on me, my schedule isn’t allowing me a whole lot of time to go back to read the past posts so I can create links to them here. To make matters more complicated, some of the critical posts are mixed in threads that talk about the NPCs in a good light. I’ve been visiting the forums at least once a day for the last six months, so I’ve seen a lot of posts that are critical of the LS NPCs. My hope is that Anet will fix the characterization of the NPCs and get rid of characters that don’t move the story forward.