This is just some thoughts aimed towards what might make the living story flow better.
Back at the start of the living story, or at least when ANet started referring to the living story as a thing, the first release they gave us under that name was… pretty poorly received. Anybody that was present likely remembers how it started with nothing but refugees and occasionally ice/dust tornadoes appearing for a brief event. There’s also recently been a disconnect between events in the Living Story… things feel too sudden.
The build-up from F&F made it feel like things were changing more gradually, instead of simply “Tequatl just got stronger. Kill him. And now Scarlet has a base in Twilight Arbor, go smash it” – this style’s made things feel more like episodes from a children’s cartoon series where the events feel unconnected, rather than something more plot-oriented where events are clearly related to previous events, or the connection becomes more obvious in a short period of time. That F&F didn’t feel that way was probably one it’s greatest strengths as Living Story.
The biggest issue with the start of F&F, of course, was that we had nothing else to do in that time. I think a slow build-up like that can be used effectively, but it needs to happen during other parts of the story. That is, to give the players something to do, while slowly building hints towards future releases. If at the time we had other major new content and the refugees just… happened, players may still have become genuinely interested in what’s going to happen with them, but wouldn’t have felt like it was a wasted update. We would’ve had something to do, while the people that were interested in the story would have a prelude towards something later on.
So for example during the Tequatl Rising update, ANet could’ve added, without announcement, a few aetherblades that occasionally appear near Nightmare Court areas and strike up a conversation with the residents. Maybe a week after that, a pile of broken Aetherized weapons appears somewhere in Twilight Arbor. Players might pick up on that, come up with theories, and when the Twilight Assault was released, it would feel as if the world had actually been building up with evidence that lead Caithe and the Lionguard towards discovering Scarlet had a base there.
I think going forwards, it’d make the Living Story a lot stronger if this was applied as sort of a hints system towards future updates on a more regular basis. Drop in small changes to the world which players have to find on their own, let us come up with theories… perhaps have multiple, unconnected threads that resolve in their own time to keep us guessing as to the exact nature of what’s happening, or when. Some things build up in a short period of time before the update they’re hinting towards happen, another thread might only slowly be added to over the course of several months. Avoid having the world in a state where only one plot thread is in play, as that really makes things feel disjointed.
Anyways, this has just been in my head recently and I wanted to put it up here.