Guild Wars 2

I hope this is a sign of what they can do for future release.

In terms of content/Story for it, we got the end of the tower with a super cinematic.

All the NPCs at Thunder ridge camp got new dialog.
There’s also tons of added “idle” chatter.
Braham and Rox meeting with Marjory and Kasmeer. The two Quaggans in love. Kasmeer being naked.

On top of that most Quaggans you’ll find on the map are now homeless, and their text points to that too.

Black Haven (PoI) got a consortium npc, saying that we better watch out for when they take over the BLTC, there’s also a guard there to take care of the refugees, and that Quaggan looking for a way out of Kessex hill.

The DO NOT TOUCH towers have been renamed mysterious probes. So yeah, this is the kind of update I want. Tons of stories, tying what just happened, and what might happen next. This is how these Living story updates should work, make us want more, make us want to know what’s coming next. Give us stuff to speculate about.

Thanks Anet, for a great update!

I gotta agree, even though I really can’t stand Scarlet and by extension everything related, so I was reluctant to try it for few days. I’m glad I have tried it!

I am impressed by very noticeable improvement in quality of that update and +1 to all the good things OP mentioned!

The only two things I could point out as a minus would be:
1- the fact that you can bypass solving the riddles (I personally dislike that solution, though I understand why it was necessary)

and 2- the fact that you have to almost all the content twice to finish the met achievement BUT you can’t skip the cinematic. It is a very nice cinematic, still I don’t wanna watch it twice within 15 minutes.

And I haven’t found the Kasmeer naked thing yet, gotta dig around!

Oh I totally forgot about that puzzle inside the tower.
WE NEED MORE OF THIS! PLEASE!

And will agree with your #2. I think they need to better manage their Achievements.

Like you either solve it with the puzzle (which i did) or brute force. Another place this bothered me a lot was during the Cutthroat politics, when they had two branches of achievements. It should’ve been, you pick one or the other. Not do both.

For the Kasmeer naked thing, it’s idle chatter at the camp. I’d recommend staying around for like 15 minutes. lots of stuff going on over there.

Yeah, the way it was handled in Cutthroat Politics is exactly the same case of ANet wanting players to eat the pie and have the pie at the same time. Well we can’t have that, either we loose one of possibilities when we choose, or our choice doesn’t matter.
I prefer the first option, because it is pointless to make a choice otherwise. Without getting into quantum physics of course :P.

Aye, I was sure I saw everything in the camp, but I must have missed the naked dialogue…

Actually, one more point in minus, more of aesthetics than actual complaint:

3 – all the important characters are powerful women. Not that I have anything against women, or women in power, but this is getting silly, there are only THREE male characters of any importance:
- Braham, whose sole purpose is to be a counterweight to Rox, any contribution he makes is A. comedy relief, B. Mommy issues. Braham did receive a very nice dialogue this time around, but only to put ground for the rebute from Marjory, it would seem.
- Then there is Lord Faren. Well…. Yeah.
- Then there is Magnus, who is a male character in power and not a clown, I give you that, but is a background character for Kiel.

It’s not a big complaint, and again, a matter of aesthetics. It simply seems a bit of an overuse of a female heroine stereotype to me. Some diversity I would like, but again, not a complaint really.

I was one of the people asking for more of this stuff (especially relating to Scarlet) and tbh I haven’t seen a good chunk of these things. I saw all the conversations at the Kessex Hills camp (the quaggan, Marjory, Kasmeer, Rox, Braham, the friends of Scarlet’s mentor) but I’ve not bothered to find the asura that mentions Scarlet in Lion’s Arch(?) mentioned last month nor did I bother to go to Caledon Forest to talk to the Consortium NPC despite being interested in the possible implications of that plot resurfacing. The ones in Kessex Hills were easy to come across, the others strengthen the story’s tie to the world imo but you will only see them by small chance (out of the way areas to the current Living Story and I expect most players don’t explore Caledon Forest every other week) or if you deliberately go looking for them. Is this a bad thing? For now, I don’t think so. As much as it sucks that most players won’t see this stuff, I think a “Living World” needs to have current events reflected in idle chatter. It’s nice that current events are reflected in areas outside the immediate sphere of the content’s influence – that’s what a real world would do.

Why would someone who claims to want this kind of stuff not be exploring it? I guess part of the reason is I’ve already cleared these zones. I have eight level 80s, I’ve completed Caledon about six or seven times, Kessex probably about five. When I read on the forums that these things pop up, I usually visit them myself if they are interesting enough. Even if I’m unlikely to come across them naturally in the game, I’m glad they are there.

As far as the overall release goes (not Wintersday, the other content) I have found it the hardest to get involved with. I just don’t care about the toxic alliance or Kessex Hills any more. The novelty wore off and the thought of doing more toxic stuff makes me want to exit the game. I did the instance but I am putting off the other achievements (I wouldn’t even know where to look at first glance).

Well, I must say that it’s ok in my books, that if someone won’t go looking for the little details, he/she won’t see them. It’s important to present the main story to everyone with eyes and ears in a fashion that makes sense but leaves some questions, but answers and details must be there to find for those that look, and need not to be separately announced.

Nothing offends my intelligence like a big red arrow pointing somewhere saying “here is the answer you seek”, but the exact opposite is just as bad.

As for Scarlet added dialogues and NPC’s I personally haven’t seen them either, but only because I don’t give a little kitten about Scarlet after how she was being presented thus far (up to Nightmare Ends) I simply don’t care about her enough to go see, at least as long as Job/Hobo/Ho Ho Tron has more depth and character development than she does.

Still, it IS without doubt a step in a very good direction to have the little cookies added into the game, absolutely!

And for the future I wish for myself, and everyone else (my pocket Djinn ran away with my MP player, that rat kitten, so I can’t guarantee the results!) that those cookies will be there at right time, and right place, and will give us the story and villains/heroes we will love to love/hate/be ambivalent about.

PS. I would personally be thrilled to see more Palawa Jokos and Varesh Ossa type characters than Trahearnes and Kormirs. I simply don’t like black and white characters, grey is where my fun in stories is!

Please, don’t encourage the living story. It needs to go.

That or actually let me do the content that I’ve missed.