Guild Wars 2

Hello!
After a 1.5 year break I just returned to the game. I never hated GW2, I just wasn’t looking for a casual mmo at the time and now I am. When I played 1.5 years ago I was pretty hardcore into some aspects of the game (wvw, fractals, made a legendary) but just didn’t really care for the personal story and never finished it.
This is where my problems started:

disclamer: I don’t have a large amount of patience when it comes to these things, but more importantly I have worked with game designers and assisted in designing areas in video games, so I’m not just being a whiny kitten, it’s how badly things are implemented that really gets me frustrated like that. Also, this is a feedback thread, as opposed to a “QQ PLEASE HALP” one. But yeah, lots of QQ ahead, brace for impact!

- I had to do a bit of research to find out that the living story stuff wasn’t available for me as someone who never finished their personal story? I’m sure that was evident when the living world stuff first started but a little mail with a basic summary for returning players would have been nice!

- Expecting to start at season 1 part 1, I proceeded to where the mail told me to go for my first living story mission: err, nope! I ended up in a radom instance with random NPCs I didn’t know that talked to me like we were old friends and I was supposed to know all that?
If anet want to capitalize on old living story chapters I guess that’s their prerogative, I’m not into the story enough to pay for it (I maybe would’ve payed for one or two chapters if that’s all I would’ve missed, but I missed like 20 or something), but that’s no reason to drop me off into a random instance without any explanation or summary of what had happened. I’m not the type that gets really immersed into a video game story, but if I were maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan that would’ve killed the game for me right there and then. Who are these people? Why am I there? Who is Scarlet? What drama are they all referring to? Can I google it? Sure! (I tried, I pieced some of the information together but got bored after an hour) Should I HAVE to google it? Absolutely not!!!! You’re trying to sell me a story here anet, you’re trying to make me want to play your story so give me a bit of handholding and at least send me a mail that kind of explains what has happened until now. Get some intern to update that mail after each living story part has concluded so it’s up to date, can’t be that hard!

3) Drytop. The wha…? So I click my way through my first mission thinking “okay, I googled who these people are, I got this”, then I get a mail telling me to get to some grayed out spot on the map. ‘Cool!’, I think ‘a new area!!’. But… how do I get there? Right, back to google. Long story short, for someone who had no idea about drytop it was incredibly frustrating to navigate! The jumpy thing was alright (though I didn’t know where to go and obviously headed straight for the jumping puzzle thinking that was the way), but how do I access that cave? No clue. Googled it – nada. Asked people – “hug the wall and go right”, didnt happen! Maybe I’m having a major kitten moment but I seriously can’t even find the way to the place I need to go. But even if I’m having a stupid moment – this shouldn’t be this hard. You really need to handhold your returning players a bit more when it comes to drytop anet. First time I enter the area I should get a mail giving me a very basic overview and a basic explanation of how I get where the game is telling me to go. I ran around in drytop for a day and while it had been fun at first, it really stopped being fun in the end. I got discouraged from pursuing the story and just went back to wvw.

tl;dr:
- returning players as well as I imagine new players are randomly thrown into a story that acts like you have the context to know what’s going on when you don’t. That’s terrible! I shouldn’t be expected to google things and read a novel to even have a basic understanding of what everyone around me is talking about!
- drytop is ridiiiccullouuuuusss and the online resources explaining the place are rare and scattered at best.

p.s: let me add some spoons for people that aren’t really sure what I’m trying to create discussion about here:

• Do you think the living world format in it’s current form will provide new and returning players with a good experience?
• What would be a simple, easy to implement way to fix the problems you see?
• What would be a way to fix this that would cater to people that want to immerse themselves in the story?

Most of the things you mention are explained in the story. You have missed 3 or 4 episodes, all of which lead you further into Dry Top.
I agree that it would be hard to find your way without doing the story, but the handholding you request is already there, for a few gems. Alternatively you can team up with someone who has all parts unlocked and play through the story for free.

Ashandar.2570:

Most of the things you mention are explained in the story. You have missed 3 or 4 episodes, all of which lead you further into Dry Top.
I agree that it would be hard to find your way without doing the story, but the handholding you request is already there, for a few gems. Alternatively you can team up with someone who has all parts unlocked and play through the story for free.

Why would I pay for additional story if the story that is already there leaves me hanging like that? I’m not saying it’s impossible to find your way, I’m saying it’s bad game design. Why would a returning (and new, I’m assuming they have the same issue) player want to stick with this game and it’s story if you have to turn to outside sources, or worse even: pay, to even know where to go and who the characters are?
See, I think you think I’m crying a river because I can’t find the way – I’m (mainly) crying a river because of how bad the experience for new and returning players for the living story is. If they redesign the leveling experience to appeal more to new players they clearly have issues having new players stick around.

I apologise for mistaking your intent, I thought you were after som kind of solution, but this is clearly not true.
Anyway, I wish you a nice day

They do provide a little hand holding, it’s called the part of the compass that points you in the direction you need to go(the little green arrow around the edges and/or green star on the map the points the the next location), also, this game is designed to be free roaming and not hand holding. There are no set paths in most of the locations, Dry Top is the first area that makes you take only one route to reach your next destination, it’s almost linear in that sense, but it fits the terrain so it makes sense.

Ashandar.2570:

I apologise for mistaking your intent, I thought you were after som kind of solution, but this is clearly not true.
Anyway, I wish you a nice day

nah, this is more of a feedback thing You have a nice day too!

Zaklex.6308:

They do provide a little hand holding, it’s called the part of the compass that points you in the direction you need to go(the little green arrow around the edges and/or green star on the map the points the the next location), also, this game is designed to be free roaming and not hand holding. There are no set paths in most of the locations, Dry Top is the first area that makes you take only one route to reach your next destination, it’s almost linear in that sense, but it fits the terrain so it makes sense.

as someone has already mentioned, you do apparently get assistance finding your way through drytop, which you don’t if you haven’t played the other living story parts up until now. Again, not complaining that things are too hard or whatnot – hard is good, especially in a low skill cap casual game like GW2, but my point, as evident in the title, is that the living world concept doesn’t take new and returning players into consideration and provides an offputting experience to them.

As a returning player you are bound to miss the stuff implemented when you are gone.
Don’t expect a mail in game to explain in detail which skill/trait has been updated.
Same thing with the living story.
The compass since the september patch is pointing where you have to go, follow it.

TKIB.9061:

As a returning player you are bound to miss the stuff implemented when you are gone.
Don’t expect a mail in game to explain in detail which skill/trait has been updated.
Same thing with the living story.
The compass since the september patch is pointing where you have to go, follow it.

But of course I’m going to expect to be told who characters that act like they know my toon are, anything else would be madness! If I really cared about this stuff I’d be devostated because I’d feel like my character wasn’t my own anymore because she apparently had all these adventures and interactions since I was gone. And what about new players? It’s their fault because they didn’t pick up the game at launch too? Do you think it’s advantageous for the game to scare new people away like that?

Let me ask you this: why are you opposed to new and returning players recieving a basic written introduction of what’s going on? How would that make the game, the world or anything worse in your eyes? You dislike my idea – I get that.. but… why? What’s bad about it?

Perhaps a mail directing new players to https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/ would do the trick. As for returning players, I am not sure. Same thing, I guess? How long must said ‘returning player’ be gone before the mail is generated? A month? Six months? Again, not sure.

Good luck.

Liz.1497:

TKIB.9061:

As a returning player you are bound to miss the stuff implemented when you are gone.
Don’t expect a mail in game to explain in detail which skill/trait has been updated.
Same thing with the living story.
The compass since the september patch is pointing where you have to go, follow it.

But of course I’m going to expect to be told who characters that act like they know my toon are, anything else would be madness! If I really cared about this stuff I’d be devostated because I’d feel like my character wasn’t my own anymore because she apparently had all these adventures and interactions since I was gone. And what about new players? It’s their fault because they didn’t pick up the game at launch too? Do you think it’s advantageous for the game to scare new people away like that?

Let me ask you this: why are you opposed to new and returning players recieving a basic written introduction of what’s going on? How would that make the game, the world or anything worse in your eyes? You dislike my idea – I get that.. but… why? What’s bad about it?

Here’s my take, I intentionally did not partake in the Living Story Season 1, for several reasons of my own. When I did return to playing GW2 this past summer and LS S2 started, I should have felt the same way as you. Questioning who are these people that I supposedly know, but never met. However, I didn’t have those questions, as I knew who they were from keeping up with GW2 through the website and wiki to see what I might have missed, but maybe I’m unique in that way.

Zaklex.6308:

Liz.1497:

TKIB.9061:

As a returning player you are bound to miss the stuff implemented when you are gone.
Don’t expect a mail in game to explain in detail which skill/trait has been updated.
Same thing with the living story.
The compass since the september patch is pointing where you have to go, follow it.

But of course I’m going to expect to be told who characters that act like they know my toon are, anything else would be madness! If I really cared about this stuff I’d be devostated because I’d feel like my character wasn’t my own anymore because she apparently had all these adventures and interactions since I was gone. And what about new players? It’s their fault because they didn’t pick up the game at launch too? Do you think it’s advantageous for the game to scare new people away like that?

Let me ask you this: why are you opposed to new and returning players recieving a basic written introduction of what’s going on? How would that make the game, the world or anything worse in your eyes? You dislike my idea – I get that.. but… why? What’s bad about it?

Here’s my take, I intentionally did not partake in the Living Story Season 1, for several reasons of my own. When I did return to playing GW2 this past summer and LS S2 started, I should have felt the same way as you. Questioning who are these people that I supposedly know, but never met. However, I didn’t have those questions, as I knew who they were from keeping up with GW2 through the website and wiki to see what I might have missed, but maybe I’m unique in that way.

Imagine we’re talking about a new player here – want him to keep up with the story too before he even starts playing the game? It’s nice that you worked around it yourself, but that doesn’t stop the concept of living story being flawed in the sense that it drops new and returning people off in in the middle of a context-less story, it’s just bad game design. You shouldn’t have to put in that amount of effort to have a basic understanding of what’s going on in your own character’s story.
As mentioned in the first post – I’m not really asking for a solution for my situation… I stopped caring about the story and went back to wvw, I’m good. I’m just trying to generate a discussion and present feedback to anet over how the living story in it’s current form doesn’t work for new and returning players.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Perhaps a mail directing new players to https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/ would do the trick. As for returning players, I am not sure. Same thing, I guess? How long must said ‘returning player’ be gone before the mail is generated? A month? Six months? Again, not sure.

Good luck.

I guess this would be better than nothing, but not sure if it would do for people that crave immersion. For returning players – I’d let them know what they missed from the moment they missed unlocking a story chapter. If you worded it right and cliff-hanger-y you could even use it as a bit of an advertisement tool to get people to actually want to spend the gems and replay that episode they missed.

If you started watching Game of Thrones halfway through Season 2 you’d have no idea what was going on either.

You could read a few wiki pages to catch up.

IMHO the first two episodes of season 2 was the best part of the living story, so it’s probably worth paying a few dollars for.

And Dry Top is hardly the only map in the game that twists and turns. Most of the maps are pretty convoluted.

Wanderer.3248:

If you started watching Game of Thrones halfway through Season 2 you’d have no idea what was going on either.

You could read a few wiki pages to catch up.

IMHO the first two episodes of season 2 was the best part of the living story, so it’s probably worth paying a few dollars for.

And Dry Top is hardly the only map in the game that twists and turns. Most of the maps are pretty convoluted.

This is an mmo, not a TV show. GoT runs on HBO which you have to pay for in the first place while GW2 finances itself through people that like the game enough to spend money on the cash shop – with GoT you pay before you get your content, with GW2 you pay after you get it, and only if you like it. How does it make sense for this game to alienate it’s playerbase, especially since they want… scratch that need our money? Why would I spend money on those two episodes you thought were so great if I found the one that I could play utterly confusing, random and pointless? Surely I’d be more inclined to financially support the content you enjoyed if I actually enjoyed the content I was provided.
What’s so terrible about the idea of providing new and returning players a quick, 5 sentence summary of what has happened – would that make the game any worse for anyone in any way, shape or form?

Pretty much every response in this thread so far is opposed to my suggestion for the sake of being opposed to it, while not being able or willing to provide one single reason why it’s actually a bad idea… very strange forum!

Liz.1497:

Pretty much every response in this thread so far is opposed to my suggestion for the sake of being opposed to it, while not being able or willing to provide one single reason why it’s actually a bad idea… very strange forum!

I think the issue is the point of view. From your point of view new/returning players should be able to drop in mid-season and be provided with a summary of what they’ve missed. From the perspective of some of the replies, you can’t really cry foul if you didn’t take the time/effort to go through earlier releases.

As far as issues go there is the fact that first season is not available for play. There are summaries but they aren’t available ingame. That’s, as you said, an issue for both new and returning players.
Another thing to consider is what one of the replies already mentioned, and which I’m gonna paraphrase now – summaries of missed content would have to be tailored to each individual player. You said you worked in game development. Taking into consideration current technology and resources available to ANet, how do you envision these summaries?

Solutions usually come from compromises, so I’m going to offer one: If youtube video of S1 summary was made available ingame, would your LS experience be sufficiently improved?

Freeelancer.2860:

Liz.1497:

Pretty much every response in this thread so far is opposed to my suggestion for the sake of being opposed to it, while not being able or willing to provide one single reason why it’s actually a bad idea… very strange forum!

I think the issue is the point of view. From your point of view new/returning players should be able to drop in mid-season and be provided with a summary of what they’ve missed. From the perspective of some of the replies, you can’t really cry foul if you didn’t take the time/effort to go through earlier releases.

As far as issues go there is the fact that first season is not available for play. There are summaries but they aren’t available ingame. That’s, as you said, an issue for both new and returning players.
Another thing to consider is what one of the replies already mentioned, and which I’m gonna paraphrase now – summaries of missed content would have to be tailored to each individual player. You said you worked in game development. Taking into consideration current technology and resources available to ANet, how do you envision these summaries?

Solutions usually come from compromises, so I’m going to offer one: If youtube video of S1 summary was made available ingame, would your LS experience be sufficiently improved?

Why would anyone think it’s a good idea to tell new players “well, your bad you missed stuff… better pay up for old stuff or google what you missed sucker”? Don’t people understand that a game without new players equals dead game equals server shut down? Luckily this game has more to offer than the living story (which I personally don’t care for much, so it’s not a deterrent to me at all, I was just shocked how poorly thought out this decision was by the design team). How is it in anyone’s interest to deter new and returning players from playing the game and perhaps even purchase older chapters because they found the current one enjoyable?

As for how I think it could be solved? From the top of my head I can think of a number of ways:
an easy to implement incredibly economical way that’d take the dev team a couple of hours at the very very most to implement would be to compose one mail per living story season sent out to all characters that missed the season (because they weren’t around or because they simply haven’t been created yet), and one mail per season chapter missed. These mails should only trigger if the player actively peruses the living story in order to avoid information overload spam. Any halfway decent writer could compose these in a way that they sound engaging and actually advertise the content missed, while making the new chapters accessible.

Ideally it should be a cutscene or a short instance with NPC dialogue that gives you a visual of what’s been missed in order to give a good experience to roleplayers that crave immersion. The cutscene could be a vague cinematic summary of what has happened in the story, while the instance would probably be either a celebration or a meet up with the other heroes of the stories where you can hear different perspectives of what’s happened while getting an impression who the NPCs are and what relationships they have to one another.

Obviously the ideal solution would require a bit more work, but seeing that anet just re-designed the leveling experience makes it pretty evident that they see problems with their new player retention. I didn’t find the old starter areas at all confusing myself, but I have read that some people did, and obviously enough people had issues to be turned off by the game enough to leave. What I’m describing in my first post is just another facet of the same problem.

Well, A.net created the Journal just for this issue, and the hope is that they will be able to recreate the LS1 and place it in the Journal for those that missed it(I highly doubt it will include the Open World Meta events though, unless they somehow change those to be small group events). This would give a short summary of each ‘episode’ should give you enough of a back ground to give you the information you’re looking for, though when that will be is anyone’s guess, and I’m personally in no rush for it.

I had a similar occurrence/situation. After Season 1 was over and there was that long “dry spell” of no updates, I stopped playing regularly. I didn’t play any of season 2 until the Dry Top patch and didn’t know how to get there or where to go once I got there. I did figure it out relatively fast though (an hour). Idk. It wasn’t a puzzle or anything. It was kinda like “go here” on the mini map to follow my living story. That and the whole “hug the wall and go right” part is how I did it. The Dragon’s Reach, Part 1 I the section of the living story you were in I presume?
Anyway, /thread please. This is just a troll thread. Too obvious with your negative counters to any suggestion. Even after reading your main post I was able to figure that you were just here to hate on this game. If you don’t like it, go play something else (that’s what I do when I get bored because there is no updates). There are way too many other games out in the mmo market to sit around in another community bashing their game.

Lets get theses living story patches rolling again. I haven’t played for a month lately because all there is atm is this WvW Fail Tournament. I guess updates stop for these Tournaments? Without Living story there is nothing to do but repeat things I’ve done 100 times over. My only complaint. I did like GW1’s method of campaigns over this living story idea. But that is just one person’s opinion.

Liz.1497:

Why would anyone think it’s a good idea to tell new players “well, your bad you missed stuff… better pay up for old stuff or google what you missed sucker”? ….. How is it in anyone’s interest to deter new and returning players from playing the game and perhaps even purchase older chapters because they found the current one enjoyable?

The 200 gems “punishment” is actually an active way to address player retention. The only thing that is required of players is to log in once in those 2 weeks/month and they’ll have the episode unlocked forever. If someone does miss the chapters and find current ones enjoyable they can buy the older ones, or if they are too stingy the can play them through with a buddy who has them already unlocked.

Liz.1497:

an easy to implement incredibly economical way that’d take the dev team a couple of hours at the very very most to implement would be to compose one mail per living story season sent out to all characters that missed the season (because they weren’t around or because they simply haven’t been created yet), and one mail per season chapter missed. These mails should only trigger if the player actively peruses the living story in order to avoid information overload spam. Any halfway decent writer could compose these in a way that they sound engaging and actually advertise the content missed, while making the new chapters accessible.

That really is an elegant solution, and a good suggestion (IMHO) but as you said so yourself, I’m a bit worried about the oversaturation with information.. I doubt anyone who was on a year long hiatus would care to read through a dozen (or more) walls of texts just to get up to speed. I’d reckon gameplay from the latest episode would do much more to persuade him to buy the older chapters (and commit some more time to the game in order to avoid the fee in future).

I understand why you’re being a bit defensive considering some of the hostility in replies, but I think your initial stand is not as rock solid as you might think..
Since you dismiss the comparison with a TV show, allow me to put it this way: If I started playing Mass Effect 3, would it really be fair of me to ask who the hell is this Wrex guy and why is my character all buddy-buddy with him? Or jumping in Walking Dead ep.3 and asking who the hell are all these people and why should I care for/hate them? Or any of the number of serial games with any kind of story?

Accursed.7146:

I had a similar occurrence/situation. After Season 1 was over and there was that long “dry spell” of no updates, I stopped playing regularly. I didn’t play any of season 2 until the Dry Top patch and didn’t know how to get there or where to go once I got there. I did figure it out relatively fast though (an hour). Idk. It wasn’t a puzzle or anything. It was kinda like “go here” on the mini map to follow my living story. That and the whole “hug the wall and go right” part is how I did it. The Dragon’s Reach, Part 1 I the section of the living story you were in I presume?
Anyway, /thread please. This is just a troll thread. Too obvious with your negative counters to any suggestion. Even after reading your main post I was able to figure that you were just here to hate on this game. If you don’t like it, go play something else (that’s what I do when I get bored because there is no updates). There are way too many other games out in the mmo market to sit around in another community bashing their game.

Lets get theses living story patches rolling again. I haven’t played for a month lately because all there is atm is this WvW Fail Tournament. I guess updates stop for these Tournaments? Without Living story there is nothing to do but repeat things I’ve done 100 times over. My only complaint. I did like GW1’s method of campaigns over this living story idea. But that is just one person’s opinion.

Dear Accursed,
If you already take the time out of your day to respond to a thread you apparently didn’t read much of, may I suggest you at least stick with the spoons? I’m not sure how you can suggest a thread that a) provides a personal experience as a means of feedback and makes that clear in bold letters, and b) spoon-feeds questions to discuss in case anyone is still unclear what this thread is about while c) actually giving a solution for the problems raise in the first post is a troll thread.
Either way, let me just return my advice back to you: if you don’t like my thread, there are plenty others you can chose to participate in and simply skip this one. If you feel I’m breaking forum rules, please feel free to report me. I do however not believe that it’s your place to go around accuse me of such while encouraging people to stop responding to a thread.
ty and have a nice day!

Zaklex.6308:

Well, A.net created the Journal just for this issue, and the hope is that they will be able to recreate the LS1 and place it in the Journal for those that missed it(I highly doubt it will include the Open World Meta events though, unless they somehow change those to be small group events). This would give a short summary of each ‘episode’ should give you enough of a back ground to give you the information you’re looking for, though when that will be is anyone’s guess, and I’m personally in no rush for it.

Yeah, I felt those journal entries were a good way of summarizing the story. I had never payed much if any attention to them when I first played, but when I returned I had a quick glance at my last one to refresh my memory on where I was in the story. Now that you mention it, I actually think that a journal entry would be a better solution than host of mail, with maybe one mail subtly pointing out that those journal entries are available if the player chose to read them.

Freeelancer.2860:

The 200 gems “punishment” is actually an active way to address player retention. The only thing that is required of players is to log in once in those 2 weeks/month and they’ll have the episode unlocked forever. If someone does miss the chapters and find current ones enjoyable they can buy the older ones, or if they are too stingy the can play them through with a buddy who has them already unlocked.

Do you personally think it’s a good idea to punish people for not logging in/not having acquired the game though? I’d much rather see them encourage people to stick around through positive reinforcement. Personally, I feel having a 200 gem penalty fee for not playing feels like a purposely casual game that’s trying to elevate itself for a job. I never really thought about it as a penalty feel personally, but I suppose that could have been their intention. If so, I feel that would be an even worse decision than just the mere oversight I thought I was pointing out: there are so many MMOs out there and I’ve always really respected the monetization route anet chose to chose (money for cosmetics, no game breaking/influencing stuff in cash shop), so just for that alone I’d hate to see the game do badly.

That really is an elegant solution, and a good suggestion (IMHO) but as you said so yourself, I’m a bit worried about the oversaturation with information.. I doubt anyone who was on a year long hiatus would care to read through a dozen (or more) walls of texts just to get up to speed. I’d reckon gameplay from the latest episode would do much more to persuade him to buy the older chapters (and commit some more time to the game in order to avoid the fee in future).

I understand why you’re being a bit defensive considering some of the hostility in replies, but I think your initial stand is not as rock solid as you might think..
Since you dismiss the comparison with a TV show, allow me to put it this way: If I started playing Mass Effect 3, would it really be fair of me to ask who the hell is this Wrex guy and why is my character all buddy-buddy with him? Or jumping in Walking Dead ep.3 and asking who the hell are all these people and why should I care for/hate them? Or any of the number of serial games with any kind of story?

Well, someone made a suggestion to continue the journal earlier, and I do actually believe that is superior to the mail suggestion I presented earlier, for exactly the reason you mention: information overload. It’d be nice to know that the info is there and available, and for all the immersion-craving people in a roleplayish ingame way, but other than that I’d much prefer it if this wasn’t thrown at new/returning players on their first day back, unless they look for it of course.

I get that people keep comparing this to a tv series and other such things, but the truth of the matter is that this is an mmo, and regardless of what the developers want it to be, players will approach it with the expectation of playing an mmo. Even in the best case scenario, where players like the game, stick around, learn about how the episodic format works, “get” that it’s meant to be like a tv show and roll with it, they will still initially expect this to an mmo . At the very least the game should make it clear to new and returning players how their story is set up in a really straight forward way ingame. I may not personally agree that the direction the design team chose was the best one, but if they chose it that’s their prerogative seeing that it’s their game. I do however strongly believe that it is in no one’s interest if new and returning players are left in the dark without the additional information.

Liz.1497:

Wanderer.3248:

If you started watching Game of Thrones halfway through Season 2 you’d have no idea what was going on either.

You could read a few wiki pages to catch up.

IMHO the first two episodes of season 2 was the best part of the living story, so it’s probably worth paying a few dollars for.

And Dry Top is hardly the only map in the game that twists and turns. Most of the maps are pretty convoluted.

This is an mmo, not a TV show. GoT runs on HBO which you have to pay for in the first place while GW2 finances itself through people that like the game enough to spend money on the cash shop – with GoT you pay before you get your content, with GW2 you pay after you get it, and only if you like it. How does it make sense for this game to alienate it’s playerbase, especially since they want… scratch that need our money? Why would I spend money on those two episodes you thought were so great if I found the one that I could play utterly confusing, random and pointless? Surely I’d be more inclined to financially support the content you enjoyed if I actually enjoyed the content I was provided.
What’s so terrible about the idea of providing new and returning players a quick, 5 sentence summary of what has happened – would that make the game any worse for anyone in any way, shape or form?

Pretty much every response in this thread so far is opposed to my suggestion for the sake of being opposed to it, while not being able or willing to provide one single reason why it’s actually a bad idea… very strange forum!

Well, not all. There was an NPC that summarized Season One, but I don’t know if he is still around.

I’m not sure if all games give you a summary of what has gone on before or not. But GW2 is a bit like a TV series, and you do have to pay to access it, just like HBO. Some of us are old enough to remember when there weren’t such things as Pay On Demand, or boxed DVD sets, or even the internet. If we happened to join a series mid-season, we just had to figure out what was going on from there forward.

As I said, the game might consider sending a link to a summary of sorts…or, if people are truly interested, they could ask around or use Google. I’m pretty sure most people know how to do that, nowadays. /shrug

Liz.1497:

Do you personally think it’s a good idea to punish people for not logging in/not having acquired the game though? I’d much rather see them encourage people to stick around through positive reinforcement…..

Inherently, I’d think it’s a bad idea. Then again, considering how little effort one needs to keep up to date with the story (as far as cost goes at least) I don’t mind it one bit. If I were for some reason unable/unwilling to spend one second every two weeks/months to just log in, then I’d have no issues with paying for the content I’ve missed.

Liz.1497:

Well, someone made a suggestion to continue the journal earlier

Isn’t there already a journal entry for each episode? Even those that weren’t played AFAIK give a brief summary of the content.

Liz.1497:

I get that people keep comparing this to a tv series and other such things, but the truth of the matter is that this is an mmo, and regardless of what the developers want it to be, players will approach it with the expectation of playing an mmo.

MMO is not a game defining genre. Uninformed people coming in GW2 could expect holy trinity, traditional combat, 10 skill bars, mounts, P2W and all other sorts of traditional trademarks of MMO’s. None of those are however present in GW2.
GW2 has never attempted to shoehorn itself in the traditional MMORPG expectations, and that is one of the primary reasons I’ve played it much longer then any other MMO out there (and I’ve tried quite a few).

I personally love the feel of LS and prefer it vastly over what competition has to offer. Some might not, and some might think that’s a gamebreaker, and while that saddens me, it’s also fine with me.

Freeelancer.2860:

Inherently, I’d think it’s a bad idea. snip

If you feel that way about returning players – fair enough. Personally, being a returning player I obviously disagree but we can agree to disagree on this. What about new players though? Surely they can’t be expected to unlock content before they even purchase a game? On that note, some people have very legitimate reasons to not log in every 2 weeks to unlock content either (“I don’t feel like playing this game” is valid enough for me personally, but we’ve already discovered that we have different views on this), but what about people that were deployed, or sick, or didn’t have a computer or internet? I’m not asking for everyone who missed the opportunity to unlock the content for free to be given that same content for free, but why not a quick summary? Even though I’ve never gotten into any MMO’s story, I’m actually an avid reader and I used to write myself, so I can definitely appreciate a good story… who knows, a good sneak peak could’ve enticed me to actually purchase earlier episodes.

Isn’t there already a journal entry for each episode? snip

There is a very brief journal entry for every part of living world season 2 so far, consisting of 2 sentences each that only give a very vague impression what I suspect is the beginning of the episode. Let me give you a sample:

“When a roar was heard out west, many worried that Scarlet Briar managed to rouse an Elder Dragon with her attack on Lion’s Arch. Now, mysterious incursions into Brisban Wildlands have alerted Tyria’s heroes to a new threat reaching across its frontiers to tear at its foundation.”

This is the journal entry sneak peak of the first chapter – that’s all we get. Perhaps these summaries make sense to people who have played the prior chapters, but to people new to the living world story – let me tell you: They don’t. Rather than a summary or even just a vague idea of what happens in the chapter, you get a rough outlining of what sounds like the first 30 seconds of the chapter. And more importantly: There is no mention whatsoever of Living World Season 1. You can’t even purchase the season 1 chapters, so even if you wanted to you wouldn’t be able to replay them!
I do feel that these entries could fulfil the function I feel needs to be fulfilled, but right now they don’t.

MMO is not a game defining genre. snip

The lack of holy trinity is obvious and gets explained to you when you chose your class in character creation, the combat doesn’t strike me as particularly unorthodox (if you call dodging un-traditional.. how would you describe tera’s combat??) and the game teaches you it’s combat mechanics throughout the early levels while making sure to explain it to you very carefully, there is a skillbar so again I don’t feel the game is being very unorthodox here and that as well is explained to you in detail. All these things that you could argue makes GW2 different from other MMOs are explained to the player. I don’t hate the way Living Story is set up or functions, I just think it’s not new user friendly in the sense that you don’t get an explanation of what’s going on! That is entirely my point!
(Also, about the other two examples you bring to the table: GW2 has in fact mounts. They don’t add runspeed or any other particular function, but the broom and carpet are most definitely mounts. Pay2win is hardly a traditional MMO feature as until just a few years ago MMOs were predominantly subscription based with WoW still holding on to that model.)
Again: I don’t hate the idea of a Living World with an episodically evolving story, I just think it’s not at all user friendly towards new and returning players. I really don’t see how giving new and returning players a stepping stone into the story would cause any negative effects to any party. I’m frankly still waiting for anyone to tell me why my idea is actually bad.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Well, not all. There was an NPC that summarized Season One, but I don’t know if he is still around.

I’m not sure if all games give you a summary of what has gone on before or not. But GW2 is a bit like a TV series, and you do have to pay to access it, just like HBO. Some of us are old enough to remember when there weren’t such things as Pay On Demand, or boxed DVD sets, or even the internet. If we happened to join a series mid-season, we just had to figure out what was going on from there forward.

As I said, the game might consider sending a link to a summary of sorts…or, if people are truly interested, they could ask around or use Google. I’m pretty sure most people know how to do that, nowadays. /shrug

If there is such an NPC I don’t know where it is, and it hasn’t been pointed out to me by the game at all. In that sense, it may or may not exist but it likely won’t be of much help to most new and returning players.

To my knowledge there aren’t a lot, if any games that have a storyline that you can actually “miss” like in GW2. I’ve never come accross a quest or story or cutscene in any mmo where the NPCs acted like they knew my character and were in the middle of an adventure with them, unless this was a storytelling tool to explain the context of a quick tutorial to you. Have you come accross anything like this in any other game before? I get that GW2 want to have a great and immersive story going on, kind of like something you’d see in a game like mass effect, but how is it good game design to start mass effect, get confused, put the game down, google stuff for 2 hours, and then maybe pick it up again and maybe have fun?

Sure, you can google everything – but is it good game design to have to?

Please enlighten me why my idea is bad and how adding a summary and stepping stone for new and returning players would make the game in any way worse.

I for one am not saying your idea is bad, what I am saying is that is what I think the Journal is supposed to do, only it doesn’t quite live up to that portion of it’s ability to do so. As for LS Season 1, A.net has said they are going to try and reintroduce it into the journal format, but there is no timetable on when this is going to happen, or if it is really even feasible. It would make sense for a game designed for casual players to want to provide some sort of mechanism to give information of prior released content to returning(not necessarily new players, as while they are playing, if they are playing during when new content is released they get the content, but are only unable to unlock when they’ve reached level 80, whether or not they’ve finished the Personal Story. Living Story and Personal Story completion are not tied together, you can actually reach level 80 and go right into the Living Story S2 without completing the Personal Story).

The Season 1 recap cinematic is linked in game somewhere, i thought. Not sure where.

Zaklex.6308:

I for one am not saying your idea is bad, what I am saying is that is what I think the Journal is supposed to do, only it doesn’t quite live up to that portion of it’s ability to do so. As for LS Season 1, A.net has said they are going to try and reintroduce it into the journal format, but there is no timetable on when this is going to happen, or if it is really even feasible. It would make sense for a game designed for casual players to want to provide some sort of mechanism to give information of prior released content to returning(not necessarily new players, as while they are playing, if they are playing during when new content is released they get the content, but are only unable to unlock when they’ve reached level 80, whether or not they’ve finished the Personal Story. Living Story and Personal Story completion are not tied together, you can actually reach level 80 and go right into the Living Story S2 without completing the Personal Story).

Are you sure new players can skip the personal story and just go straight to the living world stuff`? When I returned to the game a friend actually started playing with me, yes he is lvl 80 (I recommended he play through a couple of pve areas and a bit of the story to familiarize himself with the game, but as soon as he found out that there’s those trains in eotm he just went there for a day and a half and came out a lvl 80…) and he made it out like all he had access to was the personal story. (Then again, it’s possible that he has access to the Living World Story and just doesn’t know how to trigger it because the UI doesn’t make it completely obvious to him.)
And yes, I completely agree on the casual part – GW2 prides itself on being a casual game! I played Lineage 2 and tera before, which arguably are among the, if not the most hardcore MMOs out there (at least L2 was the most hardcore for a long time until they dumbed it down). Those games didn’t provide much if any handholding, but they were all about being harsh, competition, and survival of the fittest. GW2 is not, it’s all inclusive, happy and actually does a great job encouraging people to be nice to each other! It doesn’t make sense to me that the traditionally most casual and least competitive part of a game treats new and returning players quite harshly.

But thank you though! Finally someone’s agreeing that, at the very least, the idea wouldn’t really hurt anyone and is thus not terrible. It’s a bit surprising that it only took something like 20 responses? I really don’t get why people are so defensive of this design decision – sure, it only effects new and returning players badly, but how does that make it a point of offense for people who were around for the whole story?

Scryeless.1924:

The Season 1 recap cinematic is linked in game somewhere, i thought. Not sure where.

Well, I’m not sure where that would be either. It wasn’t pointed out to me by the game in any way, so it may as well not exist – it doesn’t really help new and returning players at all unless they randomly happen to stumble upon it, or another player happens to point it out to them. I did actually ask my guild about the Living Story stuff – out of the 25ish people online at the time no one knew anything about that NPC.
On that note, a friend of mine started playing with me when I returned and he actually was incredibly confused about Lion’s Arch as a whole: Why was the main city nothing but a pile of rubble? Why did roads and bridges lead to dead ends everywhere? He’s been lvl 80 for a week now, visited LA daily and still has trouble finding anything but the trading post, crafting station and racial city warpgates.

for everyone who thinks that this thread is about a non-issue, please check out this thread, in particular the last response to it: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/Question-about-Living-World-1

I swear this isn’t my friend or an alt of mine haha…

but no, seriously… how can anyone think this isn’t a problem?

(off to watch that half hour video linked in that thread now!)

Liz.1497:

Zaklex.6308:

I for one am not saying your idea is bad, what I am saying is that is what I think the Journal is supposed to do, only it doesn’t quite live up to that portion of it’s ability to do so. As for LS Season 1, A.net has said they are going to try and reintroduce it into the journal format, but there is no timetable on when this is going to happen, or if it is really even feasible. It would make sense for a game designed for casual players to want to provide some sort of mechanism to give information of prior released content to returning(not necessarily new players, as while they are playing, if they are playing during when new content is released they get the content, but are only unable to unlock when they’ve reached level 80, whether or not they’ve finished the Personal Story. Living Story and Personal Story completion are not tied together, you can actually reach level 80 and go right into the Living Story S2 without completing the Personal Story).

Are you sure new players can skip the personal story and just go straight to the living world stuff`? When I returned to the game a friend actually started playing with me, yes he is lvl 80 (I recommended he play through a couple of pve areas and a bit of the story to familiarize himself with the game, but as soon as he found out that there’s those trains in eotm he just went there for a day and a half and came out a lvl 80…) and he made it out like all he had access to was the personal story. (Then again, it’s possible that he has access to the Living World Story and just doesn’t know how to trigger it because the UI doesn’t make it completely obvious to him.)
And yes, I completely agree on the casual part – GW2 prides itself on being a casual game! I played Lineage 2 and tera before, which arguably are among the, if not the most hardcore MMOs out there (at least L2 was the most hardcore for a long time until they dumbed it down). Those games didn’t provide much if any handholding, but they were all about being harsh, competition, and survival of the fittest. GW2 is not, it’s all inclusive, happy and actually does a great job encouraging people to be nice to each other! It doesn’t make sense to me that the traditionally most casual and least competitive part of a game treats new and returning players quite harshly.

But thank you though! Finally someone’s agreeing that, at the very least, the idea wouldn’t really hurt anyone and is thus not terrible. It’s a bit surprising that it only took something like 20 responses? I really don’t get why people are so defensive of this design decision – sure, it only effects new and returning players badly, but how does that make it a point of offense for people who were around for the whole story?

Yes, pretty sure you can access with any lvl 80 without doing the Personal Story, I have 5 lvl 80’s, and only 2 have completed the PS. The other 3 are in various parts of the last chapters in Orr, 2 are in fact at the last story mission(the fifth not quite there yet), but 3(or 4) of them have started LS S2, with 2 of them having completed it. Now if you’re friend had not logged in at any time during which each LS S2 was originally available(they’re unlocked for free future use if you logged in anytime during the initial 2 week release of each chapter, if you missed the free unlock period they then become available for purchase at a cost of 200 gems).

Each chapter is activated through the Journal, and you’re friend would get a letter letting him know about the incident in Brisban Wildlands. If he didn’t get that letter, then it sounds like he may not have been logged in during the free period, but that part I’m not absolutely sure about….hmm, now that I think about it, he wouldn’t get the letter until he selected to play the first episode I think…ok, I just checked one of my characters. If he opens up the Story Journal and has a tab for Living World Season 2, if you open that it gives you the option to “Start” the season, that activates the letter introducing the first chapter.

Zaklex.6308:

Liz.1497:

Zaklex.6308:

I for one am not saying your idea is bad, what I am saying is that is what I think the Journal is supposed to do, only it doesn’t quite live up to that portion of it’s ability to do so. As for LS Season 1, A.net has said they are going to try and reintroduce it into the journal format, but there is no timetable on when this is going to happen, or if it is really even feasible. It would make sense for a game designed for casual players to want to provide some sort of mechanism to give information of prior released content to returning(not necessarily new players, as while they are playing, if they are playing during when new content is released they get the content, but are only unable to unlock when they’ve reached level 80, whether or not they’ve finished the Personal Story. Living Story and Personal Story completion are not tied together, you can actually reach level 80 and go right into the Living Story S2 without completing the Personal Story).

Are you sure new players can skip the personal story and just go straight to the living world stuff`? When I returned to the game a friend actually started playing with me, yes he is lvl 80 (I recommended he play through a couple of pve areas and a bit of the story to familiarize himself with the game, but as soon as he found out that there’s those trains in eotm he just went there for a day and a half and came out a lvl 80…) and he made it out like all he had access to was the personal story. (Then again, it’s possible that he has access to the Living World Story and just doesn’t know how to trigger it because the UI doesn’t make it completely obvious to him.)
And yes, I completely agree on the casual part – GW2 prides itself on being a casual game! I played Lineage 2 and tera before, which arguably are among the, if not the most hardcore MMOs out there (at least L2 was the most hardcore for a long time until they dumbed it down). Those games didn’t provide much if any handholding, but they were all about being harsh, competition, and survival of the fittest. GW2 is not, it’s all inclusive, happy and actually does a great job encouraging people to be nice to each other! It doesn’t make sense to me that the traditionally most casual and least competitive part of a game treats new and returning players quite harshly.

But thank you though! Finally someone’s agreeing that, at the very least, the idea wouldn’t really hurt anyone and is thus not terrible. It’s a bit surprising that it only took something like 20 responses? I really don’t get why people are so defensive of this design decision – sure, it only effects new and returning players badly, but how does that make it a point of offense for people who were around for the whole story?

Yes, pretty sure you can access with any lvl 80 without doing the Personal Story, I have 5 lvl 80’s, and only 2 have completed the PS. The other 3 are in various parts of the last chapters in Orr, 2 are in fact at the last story mission(the fifth not quite there yet), but 3(or 4) of them have started LS S2, with 2 of them having completed it. Now if you’re friend had not logged in at any time during which each LS S2 was originally available(they’re unlocked for free future use if you logged in anytime during the initial 2 week release of each chapter, if you missed the free unlock period they then become available for purchase at a cost of 200 gems).

Each chapter is activated through the Journal, and you’re friend would get a letter letting him know about the incident in Brisban Wildlands. If he didn’t get that letter, then it sounds like he may not have been logged in during the free period, but that part I’m not absolutely sure about….hmm, now that I think about it, he wouldn’t get the letter until he selected to play the first episode I think…ok, I just checked one of my characters. If he opens up the Story Journal and has a tab for Living World Season 2, if you open that it gives you the option to “Start” the season, that activates the letter introducing the first chapter.

He started playing when I came back, which is about 3 weeks ago. So he’s not going to have any Living World chapters unlocked except for the current one. Not sure if stories are his thing, but I’ll make sure to get his feedback on whether he felt confused and alienated if he does decide to try it out.

Liz.1497:

- I had to do a bit of research to find out that the living story stuff wasn’t available for me as someone who never finished their personal story? I’m sure that was evident when the living world stuff first started but a little mail with a basic summary for returning players would have been nice!

No you don’t need to have completed your personal story first. You just go to your story interface and click the start LS button.

Liz.1497:

- Expecting to start at season 1 part 1, I proceeded to where the mail told me to go for my first living story mission: err, nope! I ended up in a radom instance with random NPCs I didn’t know that talked to me like we were old friends and I was supposed to know all that?

Yeah that could have been better communicated in game. Was communicated out of game but that’s not really a excuse. Again though if you go to your story interface you can see which ones are locked and unlocked.

Liz.1497:

Who is Scarlet?

Actually even if you had the entire Season 2 you still would have been a bit vague in regards to who she was :P
Basically to summarize: crazy Sylvari, blew up LA awakened a sleeping Elder Dragon.

Liz.1497:

Long story short, for someone who had no idea about drytop it was incredibly frustrating to navigate!

Completely agree. The problem is that there’s only 1 way to move between the various sections of Dry Top. Now Dry Top was released bit by bit, so you can basically see the logic here (i.e. each section had to be fairly self contained), but I do think ANet could have built a few more ramps here and there (just because going through a runnel at the back of the small room is kinda not easy to stumble across).

Liz.1497:

• Do you think the living world format in it’s current form will provide new and returning players with a good experience?

Not a bad system, although you’ve basically noted some of the sort comings.

Liz.1497:

• What would be a simple, easy to implement way to fix the problems you see?

ANet needs to include a diary or some other in game system of conveying lore (the current story interface isn’t good at that I’m afraid). Even if it’s just a collection of NPC bios (although it could be far more than that).
In the case of Dry Top, I think the nature of the events are somewhat to blame. The lack of event chains (which worked so well in Malchor’s Leap and other zones in terms of getting players to explore the area, and well as well a narrative) is non-existent in Dry Top and have been replaced by short, high repetition, isolated events.

Zaklex.6308:

They do provide a little hand holding, it’s called the part of the compass that points you in the direction you need to go(the little green arrow around the edges and/or green star on the map the points the the next location), also, this game is designed to be free roaming and not hand holding. There are no set paths in most of the locations, Dry Top is the first area that makes you take only one route to reach your next destination, it’s almost linear in that sense, but it fits the terrain so it makes sense.

And ANet has received a lot of hate for the hand holding (even though it’s clearly needed in some situations). But yeah Dry Tops single path of navigation is something that needs to be improved (surely some innovative Skritt can build a ramp!).

TKIB.9061:

As a returning player you are bound to miss the stuff implemented when you are gone.
Don’t expect a mail in game to explain in detail which skill/trait has been updated.
Same thing with the living story.

Not skills / traits but an explanation of the Living World and how it works wouldn’t hurt (at least for players returning after a long time).

Wanderer.3248:

If you started watching Game of Thrones halfway through Season 2 you’d have no idea what was going on either.

Different expectation however mainly because of different mediums. I think it’s up to ANet to decide how high they want to make the barrier to entry (which in the case of games is ideally very low).

Zaklex.6308:

Well, A.net created the Journal just for this issue

I’ve attached some screens of a alt who hasn’t started LW yet. The issue with the Journal is that the text descriptions are kinda short and not too informative. Also players such as Liz seem completely unaware of its existence (or else she would have noticed the ‘play this episode’ button which would have allowed her to not have to complete her personal story first.

CureForLiving.5360:

I think you raise a few great points, especially about the lack of event*chains* in drytop and how they could’ve helped navigating the area in a really organic and immersive way. Imagine something as simple as an NPC that was previously part of an event saying something like “I gotta go talk to my cousin in the [whatever it was called] cave” and walking to the hole in the back of the house to start the next quest inside the cave or on the other end: people will take notice and follow. That wouldn’t take away from the design idea of the area while adding a definite hint to where one needs to go.

Skills and traits actually kind of explain themselves when you mouse over them – the Living World doesn’t. I still don’t get why anyone thinks a casual game should make it hard for new and returning players to understand what’s going on. First of all it’s completely counter intuitive and opposed to the design philosophy of this game, and secondly no one – neither old nor new nor returning players – benefits from the lack of an explanation of how the Living World story works and a quick summary of what has happened so far.

I actually tried to jump into the Living World story without having finished my Personal Story – as mentioned previously I hadn’t finished my PS yet, and the reason I was interested in the LW story was because I had seen that the first season rewarded some shineys, and I do like myself some free stuff. I tried clicking on the first chapter of season 2 in the journal (season 1 was all listed but there was nothing click able about it) but it told me I had not yet unlocked the content and asked if I wanted to pay to do so. I can’t say for sure if the current chapter would have been available to me, but I’m thinking I would’ve noticed if it had a different icon to the earlier chapters – there definitely was no big “Begin this Story” button. Either way, not knowing how the releases are episodic and you only unlock the ones you’re logged in for I didn’t know to try. I naturally assumed that I would start at chapter 1 because… well, things usually start at chapter 1. A new player won’t know either – one more reason this needs to be explained.

After having watched the 30 min video from the other thread I must say that season one actually looked really really cool. I think I would’ve enjoyed playing through it – I liked all the philosophical implications (though the “zzee draaaagoonnnn was talking to her” resolution seemed a bit underwhelming), and the steampunk designs were fantastic. I would probably pay 200 gems to play the chapter with that gigantic marionette if I could. Even if these chapters were available for purchase though, the two sentence teaser from anet would’ve never made me want to spend money on the story – seeing a couple of images and cut scenes from the story did though. I genuinely believe that adding these would not only help new and returning players enjoy the current chapters, but also really advertise the old stuff to them – it’s a win/win!
(Seeing the video actually made me re-consider my decision to drop the current story as well – I’m going to keep playing it, at least for a while, in hopes it’ll be as epic and visual as Season 1)

All in all though, I don’t think the Living Story is a bad idea nor is it particularly badly implemented for existing players. A lot of people don’t like the 2 week format but I actually think that’s fine too. The only thing that I can tell so far bothers me is how it’s very user-unfriendly for new and returning players.

There’s only one little problem with that tunnel/cave in the back of Scarlet’s home in Prosperity in Dry Top, the only way to get in there is to play the episode that includes the mission that opens that up, and if you don’t have that mission unlocked or want to pay for it(and don’t know which episode it is from the meager description), then you’re up a creek without a paddle.

Zaklex.6308:

There’s only one little problem with that tunnel/cave in the back of Scarlet’s home in Prosperity in Dry Top, the only way to get in there is to play the episode that includes the mission that opens that up, and if you don’t have that mission unlocked or want to pay for it(and don’t know which episode it is from the meager description), then you’re up a creek without a paddle.

It’s not that little to be honest: I ran around in that are for a day and even when I asked all I got was “stay right and hug the wall”. It really stopped being fun after a bit and is completely out of line with the casual and effortless design philosophy of the game.
Not referring to you personally (as you agree this is a problem) but I do find it amusing that people who obviously played the story update you’re referring to and got hand-hold through that cave don’t think this would be hard to find if you didn’t play said story update.

You can still get through that gate by partying up with someone who has the mission. Once you complete it, you’ll be past the obstruction and can then unlock the waypoint at the centaur camp to travel there in the future.

Zaxares.5419:

You can still get through that gate by partying up with someone who has the mission. Once you complete it, you’ll be past the obstruction and can then unlock the waypoint at the centaur camp to travel there in the future.

You can just go through it without having any relevant quest or story either, but as I’ve mentioned before, I’m not looking for work-arounds, I’m looking for ideas and feedback to improve the overall userfriendlyness of the Living Story for new and returning players.

As a returning player myself, who missed most of season 1 and the first part of season 2, I think Liz has the right of it and some great suggestions on how to improve the experience. I LIKE story and demand it in my games, so I was willing to put in the effort to find a summary of season 1 and was willing to spend the gems to catch up on season 2. But I don’t expect everyone else to share my tastes. A little more hand-holding would be a good thing.

One thing I would suggest is a scout of some sort placed in the town of Prosperity. Every day a surprisingly-large number of people want to know how to get out of Prosperity Valley. Some have only the latest episode and can’t understand how to get where the story says they need to be. Others don’t care about the story at all and just want to get to the events and resources. I take time to explain and/or show these people how to get to the tunnel, but an NPC could do that just as well and be on duty 24×7. This kind of help needs to be in the game, not something you have to google or rely on other players to tell you. Dry Top is a busy place and there’s no guarantee some kind-hearted player will stop and take the time to help out someone who is confused.

BrettM.9062:

As a returning player myself, who missed most of season 1 and the first part of season 2, I think Liz has the right of it and some great suggestions on how to improve the experience. I LIKE story and demand it in my games, so I was willing to put in the effort to find a summary of season 1 and was willing to spend the gems to catch up on season 2. But I don’t expect everyone else to share my tastes. A little more hand-holding would be a good thing.

One thing I would suggest is a scout of some sort placed in the town of Prosperity. Every day a surprisingly-large number of people want to know how to get out of Prosperity Valley. Some have only the latest episode and can’t understand how to get where the story says they need to be. Others don’t care about the story at all and just want to get to the events and resources. I take time to explain and/or show these people how to get to the tunnel, but an NPC could do that just as well and be on duty 24×7. This kind of help needs to be in the game, not something you have to google or rely on other players to tell you. Dry Top is a busy place and there’s no guarantee some kind-hearted player will stop and take the time to help out someone who is confused.

I’m glad to hear the voice of another returning player on this (and not just because you agree with me! Clearly I’m convinced that some, if not a lot of people are bothered by what bothered me, but regardless of what conclusion any returning player would’ve reached for themselves I’d be very curious to hear it).
I have a question though: did you do the research on what you’d missed before you jumped into the next chapter of the story? If so, did you know that you were going to have to because you had been around for some of Season 1? If that’s the case then at least the confusion over the format of Living Story is at least only an issue for people who left before Season 1 started.
I definitely agree with you that it’s very possible to google information regarding the Living World storyline, but I also think we agree that players shouldn’t have to turn to sources outside the game to do something as simple as participate in story chapters and know what’s going on.

I think the scout would be an easy to implement way to fix the drytop area navigation blurb right away. See, I actually tried googeling how to progress from Prosperity, but I wasn’t entirely sure what to google for because I didn’t know what I was looking for: for example I didn’t know progressing had anything to do with Prosperity, so my googleing ended up being somewhat general like “how to navigate drytop” which didn’t produce anything helpful. (Not surprised after hearing that people who were around for the story update were hand-held into discovering that cave and navigating the area in general.)

Another question too: Seeing that you’re someone who appreciates story and has experience with game/mmo stories, do you think the current journal entry summeries for episodes not played and unlocked (the 2 sentence ones I posted a sample of a couple of threads ago) make much sense to players who have missed/haven’t played a large chuck of said story?

Zaklex.6308:

There’s only one little problem with that tunnel/cave in the back of Scarlet’s home in Prosperity in Dry Top, the only way to get in there is to play the episode that includes the mission that opens that up, and if you don’t have that mission unlocked or want to pay for it(and don’t know which episode it is from the meager description), then you’re up a creek without a paddle.

Um… this… isn’t true…
…
…
Although that’s a rather abrupt response, so I’ll explain. You see changes to the open world we can classify as Living World (i.e. like adding Dry Top or adding new areas to Dry Top) while the instanced story content would be Living Story. Living World is free and available for everyone.
Now you have to remember however that the doorway to Scarlet’s Room isn’t always open, and undoubtedly you stumbled across it while it was closed and so might erroneously believe that access is limited to those who have access to the Living Story. But in honesty the door is closed when the town event is up. If you go there while the event is not up, or just finish the event than the door will open.

CureForLiving.5360:

Zaklex.6308:

There’s only one little problem with that tunnel/cave in the back of Scarlet’s home in Prosperity in Dry Top, the only way to get in there is to play the episode that includes the mission that opens that up, and if you don’t have that mission unlocked or want to pay for it(and don’t know which episode it is from the meager description), then you’re up a creek without a paddle.

Um… this… isn’t true…
…
…
Although that’s a rather abrupt response, so I’ll explain. You see changes to the open world we can classify as Living World (i.e. like adding Dry Top or adding new areas to Dry Top) while the instanced story content would be Living Story. Living World is free and available for everyone.
Now you have to remember however that the doorway to Scarlet’s Room isn’t always open, and undoubtedly you stumbled across it while it was closed and so might erroneously believe that access is limited to those who have access to the Living Story. But in honesty the door is closed when the town event is up. If you go there while the event is not up, or just finish the event than the door will open.

Interesting, because in the hundreds of times I’ve been there on my various characters(of which only 2 have gone beyond Prosperity) I have yet to see the door the Scarlet’s home open(whether the event was just ending or not even going on), and regardless, the cave in the back of the room would not even be there unless you had discovered it by doing that particular ‘mission’…unless they decided to change it since that particular episode was released, which in case they did wasn’t every forward thinking as it creates a huge whole in the story anyways. Why they would want something open that shouldn’t be just so people could access content that they are supposed to reach through doing a series of Story missions is beyond me and makes no sense.

As for the description of each Story chapter in of itself, those 2 lines leave a lot to be desired, and I have a feeling one additional line of text could be added to really provide sufficient information of what to expect, if you had really good writers doing the summaries.

Zaklex.6308:

Interesting, because in the hundreds of times I’ve been there on my various characters(of which only 2 have gone beyond Prosperity) I have yet to see the door the Scarlet’s home open(whether the event was just ending or not even going on), and regardless, the cave in the back of the room would not even be there unless you had discovered it by doing that particular ‘mission’…unless they decided to change it since that particular episode was released, which in case they did wasn’t every forward thinking as it creates a huge whole in the story anyways. Why they would want something open that shouldn’t be just so people could access content that they are supposed to reach through doing a series of Story missions is beyond me and makes no sense.

As for the description of each Story chapter in of itself, those 2 lines leave a lot to be desired, and I have a feeling one additional line of text could be added to really provide sufficient information of what to expect, if you had really good writers doing the summaries.

I actually walked into that house and through that cave without having unlocked anything prior to the current storyline. I took me a while to find it, but once I did it was open and accessible to me.

Liz.1497:

Zaklex.6308:

Interesting, because in the hundreds of times I’ve been there on my various characters(of which only 2 have gone beyond Prosperity) I have yet to see the door the Scarlet’s home open(whether the event was just ending or not even going on), and regardless, the cave in the back of the room would not even be there unless you had discovered it by doing that particular ‘mission’…unless they decided to change it since that particular episode was released, which in case they did wasn’t every forward thinking as it creates a huge whole in the story anyways. Why they would want something open that shouldn’t be just so people could access content that they are supposed to reach through doing a series of Story missions is beyond me and makes no sense.

As for the description of each Story chapter in of itself, those 2 lines leave a lot to be desired, and I have a feeling one additional line of text could be added to really provide sufficient information of what to expect, if you had really good writers doing the summaries.

I actually walked into that house and through that cave without having unlocked anything prior to the current storyline. I took me a while to find it, but once I did it was open and accessible to me.

So they did change it, shows you how long it’s been since I tried it…and that makes more sense really, otherwise you’d end up stuck in only that small part of Dry Top, which would seem odd for an Open World zone. I stand corrected.

Liz.1497:

I have a question though: did you do the research on what you’d missed before you jumped into the next chapter of the story? If so, did you know that you were going to have to because you had been around for some of Season 1? If that’s the case then at least the confusion over the format of Living Story is at least only an issue for people who left before Season 1 started.

No, I didn’t research in advance because I had no idea things had gotten so complicated during season 1. Last thing I remember was escorting some refugees from some undefined menace to camps in Diessa. I had no idea this was building up to something so momentous, or that it would result in enormous permanent changes to the world.

When I returned, I found myself with a bunch of strangers acting as if I knew everything about them, calling me boss, and dropping references that left me mystified. Plus, in the open world, I kept running into strange enemies and ruins and more mystifying conversations with NPCs who seemed to know me. So I realized that I had missed a LOT and went looking for a summary on the wiki.

Liz.1497:

Another question too: Seeing that you’re someone who appreciates story and has experience with game/mmo stories, do you think the current journal entry summeries for episodes not played and unlocked (the 2 sentence ones I posted a sample of a couple of threads ago) make much sense to players who have missed/haven’t played a large chuck of said story?

It might take a few more sentences, but even two would be a good start. Heck, complicated TV shows offer frequent recaps and reminders that are useful even to dedicated fans who never miss an episode. I don’t mind going outside the game for a more complete treatment of the story, just as I haunt the lore forums for games. But the basics need to be covered within the game, which would benefit both story fanatics and those who are more casual about it.

The continuity and immersion in this story is terrible not only for new and returning players but also when making new characters. It just dumps you straight in to the same spot with these people who really if you just play PS and then go onto LS2 you should have never met. Likewise on my Asuran engineer I made a month or so back i 100%ed the Grove and decided to see what was up with the Pale Tree after the last patch. In our conversation she referred to me as the hero who killed Scarlet. This character was only a few hours old and level 30 something – definitely did not kill Scarlet.

When LS2 came out I tried to get my friend who’d left the game a year or so ago without really playing LS1 at all to come back for the story. He plays RPGs for the story and was so unimpressed with the dodgy immersion from all this in episode 1 he hasn’t been back.

Sorting this out needs time and resources from Anet sure, but its driving players away and should definitely be addressed imo. Even if it’s just a cinematic from an NPC in LA that anyone can watch to catch up on the events of S1

I’m not sure how easy this would be to implement, but it seems rather simple. But here’s what I think would be a good way for new/returning players:

First of all, they need to have clearer signs to the npc’s that summarise past events. Either do this by mail for people who’ve missed patches or do this with a pop-up box when you’re starting a new chapter.

Instead of the summaries being walls of text, I’d suggest them making a summary video for every patch. Nothing too fancy, some existing footage from important cinematics/gameplay while being summarized by a voice. These videos get added to the npc after every patch. The player can choose what season they want to see the cinematic from and what chapter/patch.

This video doesn’t have to be fancy footage that absorbs alot of time or high-end voice acting. I think people will understand that it’s just to get them up to speed. I think the current state of those npc’s is quite weak. E.g. I don’t think reading about your friends will actually give you any kind of band. (not unless it’s accompanied by full characteristics like in novels). In a video you might feel more connected to them.