Guild Wars 2

ColinJohanson.2394:

Any updates to the fractals will need to include additional update to the reward systems as well, agreed.

As for the jet pack, those specific rewards are intended as limited rewards you can only earn during that time, thus making them valuable. It wouldn’t be fair to the people who did earn jet packs for us to bring them back, and suddenly undercut their value entirely.

And yeah that F&F dungeon updated for size would make a good fractal wouldn’t it? =)

You know, Colin, a different jet pack would be a lovely substitute in that case…

ColinJohanson.2394:

We feel like our fractals dungeon is the perfect fit for this kind of “historical” experience, similar to the way the BMP worked in Gw1. Even better, it already exists and has explanations behind why these slices of time are available to discover and experience within.

In the future, you’ll see certain types of content that was part of larger story experiences be updated to work within the fractals dungeon and return there where it makes sense to do so. Of course, the specific rewards and achievements will not return since those are intended to be completed as the story unfolds, but the content itself will be used to expand out our fractals experience and serve as a place to continue to experience great (and strange) moments in history.

Myes but what about the first part of the suggestion. The recap of the story with the relevant cutscenes? We’ve just been given a book item that essentially does that, what about an NPC that has a different cutscene to tell the story of each of the living story arcs, without filling our inventories up with items that recap it.

I will need more space to put enough +1’s to NornBearPig’s idea!!!

One major complaint I hear here is that the rewards and content are not fair because new players don’t get to experience them. Well, there will always be new players, and maybe you missed out on F&F, I missed out on lost shores, but together we both did Southsun and dragon bash, which is something the next newbie wont be able to do. So in the end, it all evens out, you win some, you lose some.

-er, after reading a couple post, I fell into the river of off topic and forgot why I came here. Let me amend my previous statement. The reward for playing this content would fit the historical requirements the OP asked for. If they made that available to anyone -and not just the people who played and completed the event- perhaps in a lions-arch library, or on a self in your character’s home, then they would successfully bridge the gap between old events that one might have missed or forgotten and current ones.

I was gutted to have missed out on virtually all of the Flame & Frost content as I was away travelling (I know I can’t complain really!). For me it is having incomplete achievements (agree that removing them from panel is a good idea – I would forget eventually then :P) and actually missing certain gem store items, as crazy as that might sound. For instance, I bought the southsun sickle tool thingy from the gem store – imo a nice item and something I don’t mind spending gems on (unlike RNG chests). However, by missing Flame & Frost, I missed out on the molten alliance mining pick, which I also would have bought – I would love to see these back in game even if it was just a week where anet said for a limited time only you can buy these items. I don’t think this would take away from players who were there at the time because it’s not like you have to EARN these in terms of putting effort into the game. It’s gonna bug me massively if I get the unlimited sickle and woodcutting axe and then I’m missing the mining pick! Gahhh

Atonement.8021:

(agree that removing them from panel is a good idea – I would forget eventually then :P)

Bad idea. Whats the point of earning achievements if your record of completing them disappears?

The OP gets all my thumbs-ups.

@Lorelei

You do have limited control over what fractals you get; you can determine which one you want to start on. Got dredge first? Head back to Dessa’s lab and reroll. That said, I’m surprised you took three underleveled toons in and got to the end. Kudos!

Fractals are nowhere near as intimidating once you learn the mechanics and learn how to find the tells to dodge the big hits

ColinJohanson.2394:

Any updates to the fractals will need to include additional update to the reward systems as well, agreed.

As for the jet pack, those specific rewards are intended as limited rewards you can only earn during that time, thus making them valuable. It wouldn’t be fair to the people who did earn jet packs for us to bring them back, and suddenly undercut their value entirely.

And yeah that F&F dungeon updated for size would make a good fractal wouldn’t it? =)

Making neat items available for people to have a chance get again? I fail to see how that would undercut the value of such items. The true value of any of these items are their cosmetic worth, not its rarity. Why do you think people value the molten weapons so much? Its not because of its rarity, but because of how neat looking they are. Making them so impossible to get was biggest issue. And worse, it involved no effort, just plain stupid luck. That is no way to introduce content. Winterday weapons, even now that the event is over, is not valued that much. Its not because of rarity, but because they do not have a large visual value compared to Molten Weapons.

You are fooling yourself if you think the true value of these items are because of its rarity. Its not.

sweetmesquite.5024:

@Lorelei

You do have limited control over what fractals you get; you can determine which one you want to start on. Got dredge first? Head back to Dessa’s lab and reroll. That said, I’m surprised you took three underleveled toons in and got to the end. Kudos!

Fractals are nowhere near as intimidating once you learn the mechanics and learn how to find the tells to dodge the big hits

Good to know. Still… If I want to hear a story, I’d rather not do a dungeon to hear it. I loved the scrying pool in GW. Not as intense, but yet fun.

Another good point though is I think the mining picks/axes/sickles should be permanently available in the Gem Store. I also hope they’re account bound… IMO you should be able to have one on each char once you buy it, also (they’re too expensive for me to just lug around on one char and have to switch them around to me). They’re $10 each, so they’re a significant investment and they’d be very popular item for people to buy consistently. TBH they’re too high-priced for me as I’d want all three for myself and my husband (which would total $60 – the price of the game!), but I’m sure some people would buy them if they were around all year.

TheMagickDoll.7594:

You are fooling yourself if you think the true value of these items are because of its rarity. Its not.

Of course rarity makes it more valuable. Notice how the dragon wings have gone from selling at 80g when Dragon Bash first came out to under 10g now because they are far, far less rare? They’re appearance hasn’t changed but they’re decreasing rarity has drastically undercut their value.

On the other hand, i’ve literally had people yell at me in game, jealous of my jetpack. Why? Because people value something that’s rare that they desperately want. Of course rarity adds value to aesthetically desirable items.

TheMagickDoll.7594:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Any updates to the fractals will need to include additional update to the reward systems as well, agreed.

As for the jet pack, those specific rewards are intended as limited rewards you can only earn during that time, thus making them valuable. It wouldn’t be fair to the people who did earn jet packs for us to bring them back, and suddenly undercut their value entirely.

And yeah that F&F dungeon updated for size would make a good fractal wouldn’t it? =)

Making neat items available for people to have a chance get again? I fail to see how that would undercut the value of such items. The true value of any of these items are their cosmetic worth, not its rarity. Why do you think people value the molten weapons so much? Its not because of its rarity, but because of how neat looking they are. Making them so impossible to get was biggest issue. And worse, it involved no effort, just plain stupid luck. That is no way to introduce content. Winterday weapons, even now that the event is over, is not valued that much. Its not because of rarity, but because they do not have a large visual value compared to Molten Weapons.

You are fooling yourself if you think the true value of these items are because of its rarity. Its not.

I’m sorry but this is complete nonsense. First off Molten Weapons can’t be traded so they are not even part of the same discussion. For Molten Weapons they cannot bring them back as an in-game reward because then they would lose a ton of customers who bought them with real money because they were rare, unique, and limited time only. That would be bad business and possibly even illegal.

For items that are sellable on the TP, which is what Colin’s statement was addressing there is a value associated with them and that value was determined by the fact that the items had a low drop rate and were limited time only. It was stated this was a one-time event and the price reflects that. On the other hand, holiday weapons never rose to such prices since they are assumed to be making a comeback the next year. The exception to this are the Halloween gem store exclusive skins which have a higher value due to their low drop rate during the event from chests.

By making items tradeable there is a real economic impact that needs to be considered in future changes. Failure to do so would lead to multiple market crashes which in turn would lead to lost confidence in the market and the results would probably not be to your liking.

As for the OP, I like the idea of a historian to tell the story, but I agree with Colin that FotM is a much better outlet for bringing back the dungeon/instance parts of the story.

Soul.6572:

Azure.2407:

All the new players of this game will see their forever uncompleted living story achievements. How they feel if they are hardcore players or just want to be an achiever?

I don’t understand why not encourage all the players to chase for all the achievements. Some perfectionists like me will give up all the remaining achievements if they miss just one living story achievement before. If you want to make the hardcore players feel “Pride”, just provide them more difficult achievements, that will be better than time-limited achievements. In my opinion, the orientation of GW2 is not to force players to be online all the time. Casual play style will make the game live longer, am I right?

Please, think about it.

I totally agree with this, why make achievements that aren’t possible to get for new players. It’s completely discouraging for those who like to hunt achievements like me.

You missed it its your own fault you dont have or can’t get the achievments.
Didnt have the game then? who’s fault is that again?

The issue which is brought up here is a clear misconception about issues in the game: either a) its ANETs fault, or b) its the players fault. I believe we are being too kitten either party in that there is an option c) no party at fault.

In this case Living World Achievements being missed can at times be the players fault – such as a person deciding to go on holiday during the time period even after knowing about the event. However, there are many external factors outside of both ANETs and the Players’ control which make participation in the event very very hard.

Case in point – Tornado hits the main power plant in your town – you lose power for 2 days, you miss the dragon bash fireworks (at least until next year).

Everyone should understand just because these “acts of nature” occur ANET or the Player are not intrinsically at fault. Rather we are suggesting here in this thread that ANET could add some type of way to accommodate our busy schedules which has a) minimal impact on the game economy, b) is easy for them to implement, and c) satisfies a minimum desire for linking past events and completing some achievements.

Adding Molten to Fractals is better than not having it at all, so I’m all for it!

VoxShatterfall.5470:

The issue which is brought up here is a clear misconception about issues in the game: either a) its ANETs fault, or b) its the players fault. I believe we are being too kitten either party in that there is an option c) no party at fault.

In this case Living World Achievements being missed can at times be the players fault – such as a person deciding to go on holiday during the time period even after knowing about the event. However, there are many external factors outside of both ANETs and the Players’ control which make participation in the event very very hard.

Case in point – Tornado hits the main power plant in your town – you lose power for 2 days, you miss the dragon bash fireworks (at least until next year).

Everyone should understand just because these “acts of nature” occur ANET or the Player are not intrinsically at fault. Rather we are suggesting here in this thread that ANET could add some type of way to accommodate our busy schedules which has a) minimal impact on the game economy, b) is easy for them to implement, and c) satisfies a minimum desire for linking past events and completing some achievements.

Agreed. In my case I missed the end of the Halloween content because of Hurricane Sandy (the storm put our work at an ‘all hands on deck’ level several days before it hit, and there was some fallout from the stock markets closing).

Overall I didn’t mind at the time, though, because 1) they at least handed out something afterward, just in case, and 2) I did not have a character to 80 yet and was still new to the uplevel mechanic anyway. Also, I realize there’s a good chance they’ll replay some of it again this fall, and I really didn’t like anything I saw from a skins perspective too.

For Living Story, however, the issue is that a new player (starting this September, for example) will be hip-deep in whatever is current, but when he/she asks around about certain items showing on characters, the answer will be “Oh, that was at event X some months ago, its gone now, you can’t get it anymore.” There is a good chance the player may drop at that point for something else – in particular if everything is available there in some form, even if you have to work harder for it now.

While the concept of constantly updated content seems a good one on paper, you will eventually paint yourself in a corner from a rewards standpoint, related to new player retention. It’s going to take forever to undo that mess (see: Eve Online – two years on and still restructuring – maybe another two to go), so its to ArenaNet’s and NcSoft’s financial benefit to look at this now, before it gets too out of hand.

Edit – Related to the Historian, I think that will also help with new player retention, if only to help a new character be ‘jumpstarted’ into the existing story without being thrown into the deep end (again, I would reference Eve and its ‘learning cliff’ – though they are getting better).

I think a Historian type NPC is a good idea, simply for those that would like to ‘catch up’ on the back stories they may have missed. Some people don’t enjoy dungeons, or simply may not want to do Fractals and shouldn’t necessarily ‘need to’ just to get a back story. Now, if they want to, say, experience the dungeon from a specific back story, then sure, Fractals is great.

I want to add my voice in support of a Historian or Scrying Pool like device for the temporary dungeons.

While Fractals make sense thematically, they don’t make sense mechanically.

A) They are randomized. Yes, you can drop out for another roll of the dice hoping to get the dungeon you actually want to play, but that is a work-around for a problem. When phase retreat used to bug you under the world on a regular basis, but leave you in combat so you couldn’t waypoint, was “just log out and log back in” a legitimate answer for why it should just be left as is? Fining a work-around to a problematic design (dungeon randomization) is not an excuse to leave the problematic design.

B) The dungeon gets tied up with the Fractal Level and Agony mechanics. Someone wishing to get a crack at one of the temporary dungeons now has to deal with finding a group willing to do fractal levels appropriate for them and the level of AR they have on their gear.

Fractals worked as a step toward appeasing the more hardcore players calling for endgame back when they were introduced. Those players are the ones who have run the temporary dungeons many times during their two week lifespan because they have the playtime and dungeon running skills to do so.

The people who are having problems with 2 week available dungeons are the ones who need to take them at their own pace, when time allows. They are not the members of the player base that regularly run fractals.

My suggestion for how to deal with the removed content, without punishing completionists or substantially devaluing the acquisitions of those who were there for the event, would be to reinstate the content in a limited fashion for a limited time.

Say, a weekend event of some sort, for instance, commemorating the defeat of the Aetherblades. Dungeons and story instances would be available once again, with the associated achievements intact. Things such as holographic terminals could be placed back in the world in perhaps smaller quantities. Event specific drops would have to be adjusted carefully, so that the scarcity be maintained such that it doesn’t affect the perceived value, but would allow new players access, either through extreme luck or being willing to shell out the gold on the TP.

I think this is a reasonable compromise for all parties, but I feel that philosophical decisions will be bigger barriers than any implementation problems would.

This is an excellent idea. Haven’t they already tried some of this. I remember being about to repeat Brahm’s instanced mission. Also, we have the journal.

The only thing I disagree with is the statement about achievements. With the adding of rewards to achievements, I think people should be able to obtain some if not all. However, all is a challenge since some relate to open world.

That is the one area where I think Arenanet would struggle. However, the other parts of your concept could be implemented without damaging their design goal.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We feel like our fractals dungeon is the perfect fit for this kind of “historical” experience, similar to the way the BMP worked in Gw1. Even better, it already exists and has explanations behind why these slices of time are available to discover and experience within.

In the future, you’ll see certain types of content that was part of larger story experiences be updated to work within the fractals dungeon and return there where it makes sense to do so. Of course, the specific rewards and achievements will not return since those are intended to be completed as the story unfolds, but the content itself will be used to expand out our fractals experience and serve as a place to continue to experience great (and strange) moments in history.

I don’t know if you posted about this but why do you feel it was ok to include difficult achievements with a limited amount of time, I believe it was only 2 weeks unlike the usual month.? You nerfed the achievement for the Doylaks for Wintersday but that will be back again. You did not do anything with the difficult achievements for AR, some were even buggy and people lost out on it just because it did bug out. I love putting in the work to do those achievements but it was a lot of effort and time to try and do them.

Those should of not been temporary and what is the point of scaling us lowbies if some of the stuff is out of reach? Do you personally know how hard it was for me to get a group to kill Captain in 15 mins as a lowbie? I am dead serious that it was far harder to get a group, muchless a good group then any achievement in this game. I am also not a big social person so I don’t have people to just carry me.

Bump, because I still think this is relevant and needed.

Putting historical story content into fractals is NOT a solution. Fractals are high end content, you’re putting another barrier up for content that players should have ready access to. If you want people to enjoy your story then let them play it -_-
/rant

He is most likely referring to possibly putting former DUNGEONS in as Fractals, which they have already started with.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We feel like our fractals dungeon is the perfect fit for this kind of “historical” experience, similar to the way the BMP worked in Gw1. Even better, it already exists and has explanations behind why these slices of time are available to discover and experience within.

In the future, you’ll see certain types of content that was part of larger story experiences be updated to work within the fractals dungeon and return there where it makes sense to do so. Of course, the specific rewards and achievements will not return since those are intended to be completed as the story unfolds, but the content itself will be used to expand out our fractals experience and serve as a place to continue to experience great (and strange) moments in history.

The dungeons arnt all the story though.

For example, I missed the introduction of Rox, and both southsun events, and barely caught the tail end of the introduction of the aetherblades.

So how am I supposed to be invested in a story, like you want me to be, if I have no idea of who the characters are or what has happened up to this point? It doesn’t make sense that there is no way to learn what has happened in the story if you want me to really give a crap and be invested in how it turns out.

I get the idea of time gated content, it sounds great on paper. Give players a reason to keep logging in week after week after week. All that happens though is the players that can’t play as often are lost in the story, don’t have enough time to finish the content for the skins from it.

I myself have found I don’t have a real drive to play the game because of this. I missed the southsun events due to work, since the very first parts of the LS were kind of rough. All these updates involve characters I don’t know, can’t learn about, and thus don’t care about. When your main draw to the game is a story I don’t know that I can’t learn ingame (Yes I can go read about it on the wiki but I shouldn’t have to), then what’s drawing me in? Yes letting us replay the dungeons is a very good step but getting an npc in the game to tell us whatever we’ve missed should be the first priority. Really it wouldn’t even be that hard. Just attach it to the current living story criers and give them an exposition dump. Or make it a public priory archive giving us a real reason to go back to the order’s bases.

It would also be nice to be able to rewatch cutscenes that we’ve seen before (both from the LS, PS, and dungeons). I can’t replay any of the PS, let alone watch any of the scenes again. Also some of the mini encounters can’t really fit into fractals; the solo southsun mini-dungeon comes to mind. I’m not saying that we should be able to replay that exactly, but it would be nice. The things that are going to repeat (like Halloween, Wintersday, dragon bash proper, SAB, etc.) don’t need to be included, but it would be nice if the history/story bits were included.

And none of these things technically need rewards. Hell, the most I can think of giving is just the standard “gold medal” from doing a dynamic event.

one nice thing about the bonus mission packs was the fact that you could solo them. It was something players could do without the need of other people.

As we have no holy trinity in GW2 I think it would be possible to scale these encounters back to less than 5 players (or even 1 player).

ColinJohanson.2394:

Any updates to the fractals will need to include additional update to the reward systems as well, agreed.

As for the jet pack, those specific rewards are intended as limited rewards you can only earn during that time, thus making them valuable. It wouldn’t be fair to the people who did earn jet packs for us to bring them back, and suddenly undercut their value entirely.

Isn’t their participation value pretty much nonexistent, given the fact you can buy them?

No thanks. It’s a Living World. Things happen and then the world moves on. That stuff is in the past now, where it belongs. There are remnants floating around, and stories and trophies and such. As it should be.

We don’t need to be able to play everything that ever happened in the history of the game. The story moves forward and so do we. Let it go. Move on.

StarbornStriker.6493:

What about the limited time RNG skins?

I have to say, I don’t like this idea of ‘prestige items’ and ‘destroying value’ that seems to have appeared in GW2. In GW1 there were no items and weapons that were yanked out of the game forever after introduction and never able to be found/achieved/farmed again.

Festive hats.

jsduke.6537:

We don’t need to be able to play everything that ever happened in the history of the game. The story moves forward and so do we. Let it go. Move on.

This is a moot point if there is no way for (newer) players to find out what happened in the game world in the past. There should be a way for players to learn (or be reminded) of Living World stories that happened in the past.

For example, if a player participates in The Nightmare Within without any prior knowledge of previous Living World stories, that player will have no clue who the nasty sylvari lady is, or who Marjory and Kasmeer are, and will have absolutely no idea who these “Molten Alliance” monsters are who pop up as hallucinations.
If there is a passing reference to Queen’s Jubilee, there is no way for players to find out what “Queen’s Jubilee” was about, without resorting to asking other players (which may yield biased or incorrect information), or consulting an outside source (like the GW2 Wiki).

Unless players already witnessed the start of the Living Story, there is no way they are ever going to be invested in it, because there is currently no way to get them up to speed. This also breaks the immersion of the game world, because after a change in the open world landscape, the new content is indistinguishable from the content that has been there since launch (e.g. the “Second Aetherblade Site” in Gendarran Fields, or the reworked Tequatl event, or the Twilight Assault dungeon path). Players will only get a sense that Tyria has an evolving history, if they are made aware of how much the world changes, and has already changed in the past.

What the Living Story needs is something like the scrying pool in Guild Wars: Eye of the North, or the campaign mission books from that game. Or some other interface to learn of the in-game history – while in-game. The content of such an interface could be brief write-ups of the Living Story, as well as the cutscenes and cinematics developed for those past chapters.
(The Heralds can not and do not serve that purpose, by the way. The Heralds are only meant to point players in the direction of the current Living Story events.)

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Putting historical story content into fractals is NOT a solution. Fractals are high end content, you’re putting another barrier up for content that players should have ready access to. If you want people to enjoy your story then let them play it -_-
/rant

I think you missed the whole point: Historical Content is NOT readily accessible henche the expression: Historical. I think putting in new high end content into the fractals with some NPC historian telling you, how, why and what was happening during that fractal of time would give people more reasons to play fractal.

About OP: whoa what a good worked out idea. I also love the fact that it is being worked on to fit into the world ( without disrupting it ).

Jornophelanthas.1475:

This is a moot point if there is no way for (newer) players to find out what happened in the game world in the past. There should be a way for players to learn (or be reminded) of Living World stories that happened in the past.

I really like the idea of other players being the primary source of that information. Tales and stories of the past. Ask your guild, “anyone know who this Scarlet chick is?” Sure, you’ll get a mad ramble of responses, some mix-and-match of truth, personal bias, and speculation, and I think that’s awesome. REALLY awesome. In any case, there are several ways for a new player to get “up to speed” on the recent events in Tyria.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

For example, if a player participates in The Nightmare Within without any prior knowledge of previous Living World stories, that player will have no clue who the nasty sylvari lady is, or who Marjory and Kasmeer are, and will have absolutely no idea who these “Molten Alliance” monsters are who pop up as hallucinations.
If there is a passing reference to Queen’s Jubilee, there is no way for players to find out what “Queen’s Jubilee” was about, without resorting to asking other players (which may yield biased or incorrect information), or consulting an outside source (like the GW2 Wiki).

It’s always like that with games like these. I didn’t bother to read the “Complete and Historical Annals of The Lands of Tyria” when I installed GW2 on my computer. I didn’t even bother to research the GW1 lore. It didn’t make my entrance into the game any less interesting. I enjoyed meeting these mysterious new people, and finding out what they’re about for myself. Mystery and exploration is a HUGE draw for a lot of MMO players. For players like me, not knowing is at least as much fun as knowing. Often, it’s more fun.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

Unless players already witnessed the start of the Living Story, there is no way they are ever going to be invested in it, because there is currently no way to get them up to speed.

No part of that sentence is true.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

This also breaks the immersion of the game world, because after a change in the open world landscape, the new content is indistinguishable from the content that has been there since launch… Players will only get a sense that Tyria has an evolving history, if they are made aware of how much the world changes, and has already changed in the past.

When a new player enters the world, everything is new, no matter how much it has changed. Players will learn, as they explore and interact with NPCs and other players, that the world has changed over the years, and will continue to change. None of that has to break immersion.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

What the Living Story needs is something like the scrying pool in Guild Wars: Eye of the North, or the campaign mission books from that game. Or some other interface to learn of the in-game history – while in-game. The content of such an interface could be brief write-ups of the Living Story, as well as the cutscenes and cinematics developed for those past chapters.

I’d love to see some kind of record of the history of the game in an in-game form for people to enjoy. Personally, I think the Priory is the perfect place for that kind of thing. We don’t need to invent some wacky new game mechanic to relive the past. It’s already there at the Priory.

I also think it would be really cool if ANet adjusted NPC dialogue in those areas where the most dramatic changes have happened, just to give a sense that they are aware of the changing world around them.

I’ll take it further than that. I’d love to see people like Ellen Kiel and Logan Thackeray get old and retire. How cool would it be if, a few years from now, we could go to that bar in Divinity’s Reach and find a crippled, blind, and half-crazy Logan Thackeray telling tales of his glory days as the Captain of the Queen’s Guard?

Or if those kids running around unsupervised in Lion’s Arch grew up and got jobs and became proper NPCs?

How cool would that be?

Bring back in-game books? Please? It was a good idea, and I don’t think it should be abandoned. They could solve the fleeting Living Story problem and more…so much more (Stories only found on the official site? Fixed).

And dare I also ask for a book shelf in the home instance to collect these books? Unlocked after finding them in the world…? Good idea? Probably been suggested already, though (because it’d be insanely cool).

The only plus side to this over the OP’s suggestion is that these books were already very roughly implemented in the press release of the game, so there’s a precedent. Or so I’ve heard.

@jsduke:
At least we agree on the main point I was trying to make, even if you disagree with all of my arguments leading up to it.

@Theundersigned:
While that would be a nice idea, the game currently has no proper way to present the contents of such books. Currently, you interact with books in the same way as with NPCs: through dialogue windows. However, these dialogue windows only have very little room for text, and multi-page dialogue trees cannot be navigated very intuitively. In short, the dialogue windows are suitable for representing fictional conversations with NPCs and for registering player choices in the Personal Story, but they are not suitable to be used for looking up information in a user-friendly way.
If a new interface can be created for in-game books and bookshelves that allows them to properly serve as containers of information (rather than presenting snippets of text, two sentences at a time), your idea has merit.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We feel like our fractals dungeon is the perfect fit for this kind of “historical” experience, similar to the way the BMP worked in Gw1. Even better, it already exists and has explanations behind why these slices of time are available to discover and experience within.

No Thanks

this is being requested because people specifically do not want to have to go into fractals to experience it, i have 0 desire to run in and out of an instance for 30+ min hoping this time ill randomly get the living story fractal i want, i further have 0 desire to participate in the VP grind fest associated with fractals. i didn’t have to go into fractals to do the content originally, i shouldn’t have to now.

i doubt you are implementing hero’s/henchmen making the living story releases that were solo-able originally forced group now

just make the npc a copy of Nick Sandford and have him travel and offer experiences relevant to the zone he is in at that time this has the added bonus of getting people back into the dead zones around the world so it appears more “living”

Shadow Blade.1324:

ColinJohanson.2394:

We feel like our fractals dungeon is the perfect fit for this kind of “historical” experience, similar to the way the BMP worked in Gw1. Even better, it already exists and has explanations behind why these slices of time are available to discover and experience within.

No Thanks

this is being requested because people specifically do not want to have to go into fractals to experience it, i have 0 desire to run in and out of an instance for 30+ min hoping this time ill randomly get the living story fractal i want, i further have 0 desire to participate in the VP grind fest associated with fractals. i didn’t have to go into fractals to do the content originally, i shouldn’t have to now.

Bingo. No one is saying that Fractals are a bad system (or, if they are, they’re not saying it for these reasons). The problem is that Fractals is just plain not the right delivery system for deep lore and/or story related content. In fact, the system as it exists is pretty much designed to be be bad for that sort of content in it’s random selection, enforced short length and limited time to properly take in the environments.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

@Theundersigned:
While that would be a nice idea, the game currently has no proper way to present the contents of such books. Currently, you interact with books in the same way as with NPCs: through dialogue windows. However, these dialogue windows only have very little room for text, and multi-page dialogue trees cannot be navigated very intuitively. In short, the dialogue windows are suitable for representing fictional conversations with NPCs and for registering player choices in the Personal Story, but they are not suitable to be used for looking up information in a user-friendly way.
If a new interface can be created for in-game books and bookshelves that allows them to properly serve as containers of information (rather than presenting snippets of text, two sentences at a time), your idea has merit.

Actually, this was apparently part of the “very roughly implemented” book system. The books at the time of the press release seemed to be in a format very much like an actual book—with paragraphs and pages, not snippets. (Although very rough and ugly, obviously)

So, again, more precedent.

And for a while during development, there were a lot of people excited about Arena Net’s whole “There’ll be books in our game about the lore!” thing. But people’s excitement just sort of sputtered into nothingness and they were removed by the time the Beta started.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/Living-Story-Lore-vehicle-needed/first#post2783300

Bobby Stein talks a bit about it a little over halfway into this thread.

if you can farm sentry gems from the fotm that would be enough of reward to make everyone happy

I just think the story needs to unfold from the perspective of the player instead of being forced on all players simultaneously (which actually just breaks immersion instead of enhancing it), and creating a massive drain on development resources. This can best be accomplished by dismantling their current vision of the LW and instead focus on expanding the story through new permanent content and sequential updates to the PS, which would include adding back in a lot of the instanced content that was removed in the past. The dynamic part of the world exists within the DE system which needs further polish and refinement.

Instead of having 2 highly polished systems that work well together they have 3 highly unpolished systems that don’t work well together. To that end, this is really just a band-aid fix and I don’t agree that temporary content has much positive going for it unless it only comprises a small percentage of new content.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We feel like our fractals dungeon is the perfect fit for this kind of “historical” experience

But it doesn’t give you the complete story in chronological order. You need to create some kind of in-game way of revisiting what has happened to date. A timeline/historian/ journal that can be opened from the menu and has the LS laid out in a way that it is easy to see events, characters, outcomes, lore etc.

Just having the Molten Furnace dungeon in the fractals doesn’t tell you the full story.

ColinJohanson.2394:

… It wouldn’t be fair to the people who did earn jet packs for us to bring them back, and suddenly undercut their value entirely…

And yeah that F&F dungeon updated for size would make a good fractal wouldn’kitten =)

What a bizarre way of thinking. The value of the jet pack is having a jetpack not others not having a jetpack, nor is the value taking advantage of players by selling them items for tons and tons of money that they cannot otherwise get.

If you want to reward people who started playing the game earlier than others, then make it easier for them, not impossible for the others.

Thobek.1730:

ColinJohanson.2394:

We feel like our fractals dungeon is the perfect fit for this kind of “historical” experience

But it doesn’t give you the complete story in chronological order. You need to create some kind of in-game way of revisiting what has happened to date. A timeline/historian/ journal that can be opened from the menu and has the LS laid out in a way that it is easy to see events, characters, outcomes, lore etc.

Just having the Molten Furnace dungeon in the fractals doesn’t tell you the full story.

Which is why just throwing old content in the Fractals isn’t a real solution and I was seriously hoping that wasn’t what they had in mind. It would have been much, much better to actually add all those stories back to the game in their entirety through the PS.

Einlanzer.1627:

I just think the story needs to unfold from the perspective of the player instead of being forced on all players simultaneously (which actually just breaks immersion instead of enhancing it), and creating a massive drain on development resources. This can best be accomplished by dismantling their current vision of the LW and instead focus on expanding the story through new permanent content and sequential updates to the PS, which would include adding back in a lot of the instanced content that was removed in the past. The dynamic part of the world exists within the DE system which needs further polish and refinement.

Instead of having 2 highly polished systems that work well together they have 3 highly unpolished systems that don’t work well together. To that end, this is really just a band-aid fix and I don’t agree that temporary content has much positive going for it unless it only comprises a small percentage of new content.

That would indeed be a complete dismantling of the current LW vision.

So… no thanks. I like the Living World. It happens with or without me. “Expired Content” like dungeons from previous content updates would only belong in Fractals. Because that’s what the Fractals are.

The system works great for me. I like it a lot, and I think it’s awesome that ANet has the balls to do something so controversial in order to create something so unique.

Einlanzer.1627:

I just think the story needs to unfold from the perspective of the player instead of being forced on all players simultaneously (which actually just breaks immersion instead of enhancing it)

This sentence is kind of a mess, and I’m not sure what exactly you think is “breaking immersion”. Can you elaborate?

ColinJohanson.2394:

We feel like our fractals dungeon is the perfect fit for this kind of “historical” experience, similar to the way the BMP worked in Gw1. Even better, it already exists and has explanations behind why these slices of time are available to discover and experience within.

In the future, you’ll see certain types of content that was part of larger story experiences be updated to work within the fractals dungeon and return there where it makes sense to do so. Of course, the specific rewards and achievements will not return since those are intended to be completed as the story unfolds, but the content itself will be used to expand out our fractals experience and serve as a place to continue to experience great (and strange) moments in history.

You’re missing the point. Fractals aren’t for everyone, and that should be apparent. There needs to a neutral medium to experience the historical events, and it needs to be easily accessible.

Why is it so hard to have a dungeon finder? Why is it so hard to make this game a bit clearer and straightforward? That’s all that’s needed here. I don’t get ArenaNet’s insistence on being different past the point of practicality.

jsduke.6537:

Einlanzer.1627:

I just think the story needs to unfold from the perspective of the player instead of being forced on all players simultaneously (which actually just breaks immersion instead of enhancing it), and creating a massive drain on development resources. This can best be accomplished by dismantling their current vision of the LW and instead focus on expanding the story through new permanent content and sequential updates to the PS, which would include adding back in a lot of the instanced content that was removed in the past. The dynamic part of the world exists within the DE system which needs further polish and refinement.

Instead of having 2 highly polished systems that work well together they have 3 highly unpolished systems that don’t work well together. To that end, this is really just a band-aid fix and I don’t agree that temporary content has much positive going for it unless it only comprises a small percentage of new content.

That would indeed be a complete dismantling of the current LW vision.

So… no thanks. I like the Living World. It happens with or without me. “Expired Content” like dungeons from previous content updates would only belong in Fractals. Because that’s what the Fractals are.

The system works great for me. I like it a lot, and I think it’s awesome that ANet has the balls to do something so controversial in order to create something so unique.

Einlanzer.1627:

I just think the story needs to unfold from the perspective of the player instead of being forced on all players simultaneously (which actually just breaks immersion instead of enhancing it)

This sentence is kind of a mess, and I’m not sure what exactly you think is “breaking immersion”. Can you elaborate?

There is nothing messy at all about that sentence. People want to be able to play content when they want to play it and not have to worry about missing it forever so frequently. Also, when lore is progressed by simply adding new content, the narrative can unfold from a player or character perspective as they experience the content. When lore is progressed by removing or changing content in order to replace it, the narrative becomes disconnected from the player experience and becomes forced, which they seem to think enhances immersion but I think it’s easy to argue has the opposite effect.

More importantly, though, there are just massive compatibility issues between the LW and the PS. They need to more or less get rid of one so that the other one can work better. Personally, I like the idea of the PS more than the idea of the LW and think that most story content should be permanent and should unfold from a character perspective rather than being forced onto the world by Anet’s development schedule. But, if they decide they just love the LW exactly how it is now, then they need to make major changes to the PS if not remove it altogether.

This is a common sense thing. I very surprised this wasn’t implimented the moment the Living Story was created.

Guild Wars 2 is very content driven. It is the life of this game. Guild Wars has so much lore, such great and many stories to tell. If we, the players can’t experience them all, we will be turned off. If the historian was created and provided us with the right amount of information and interaction, then the living world wouldn’t be nearly as nagging (which right now, I feel it’s very nagging).

It looks like the Molten Facility and Mai Trinn fights are coming to fractals, but without the annoying and long dungeons that accompanied them. (Escorting NPCs, insta kill rooms, high HP trash mobs).

Descent into Madness hopefully gets the same treatment. The players have spoken!

The pvp mini games, Queens Pavillion, and Zepherite jumping puzzle area are sure to periodically return, and Super Adventure Box is guaranteed to return. Hopefully the best of Wintersday content (the tower defense mini game, the jump puzzle, the pvp mini game) returns, but nobody would be bothered by the other stuff returning or not. (As long as snowflakes and sigils of Generousity still drop).

The TA path and the boss revamp are here to stay.

What’s left? I mean what’s left that we really want to have back, other than the above and other stuff I haven’t mentioned that is likely coming back. (Other than the toxin tower, we’ll have to see what happens to the tower)

We just got a good cutscene summing up the story to date. A historian NPC with new content that resells the old content in story missions would be a great addition at some point in the future, but Im sure players would prefer that the new content keeps coming.

Einlanzer.1627:

When lore is progressed by removing or changing content in order to replace it, the narrative becomes disconnected from the player experience and becomes forced, which they seem to think enhances immersion but I think it’s easy to argue has the opposite effect.

That is the whole point of a Living World. It’s a “chain of events”. It happens with or without you, just like a Living World does. The LW approach makes the game world a dynamic place where things change, develop, and grow over time. You can be a part of that if you want to, but it’s going to happen whether you show up or not. Because that’s the whole point.

Einlanzer.1627:

More importantly, though, there are just massive compatibility issues between the LW and the PS. They need to more or less get rid of one so that the other one can work better. Personally, I like the idea of the PS more than the idea of the LW and think that most story content should be permanent and should unfold from a character perspective rather than being forced onto the world by Anet’s development schedule. But, if they decide they just love the LW exactly how it is now, then they need to make major changes to the PS if not remove it altogether.

I sure hope they decide they love LW exactly how it is now. I don’t much care for the static world design of literally every other MMO ever.

I haven’t had any compatibility issues between LW and PS, either. It sounds like you have a very specific idea of what you want the game to be. I’m glad it’s not up to you, though, because I like this LW design so much more than what you’ve described.