Guild Wars 2

As the exploits of the living story and events are playing out, I would like to know what is planned for when we start to repeat events. Will Halloween just be a repeat of last year and Wintersday, etc. etc.?

I ask because I have 7 level 80 toons and am getting a bit bored. I played Rift. WoW, and GW1 but once I realized that after the first year the events just repeated it became more boring.

I Understand the premise of repeating a event for players who did not play before or did not finish everything last time. That’s fine! But I really think you should build on the previous content for the players who want to continue on and add more content to these events. So I’m looking for the old but want new content that will keep me busy. But not looking for instance dungeons.

But as an aside, I gotta say one of the most magical moments in my playing history was watching all those Wintersday Presents drop with your name on them in GW1.

i think the holidays months will repeat but with more stuff will be added(much like holidays in gw1 was done) but in the other months we will get new living story content like we are geting now how they tie them together is up to the crew working on it i guess

I’m thinking that what we’re seeing with the dragon bash event may be a good indicator of how festivals will be different each year. That is, we currently have a month long festival, but there’s a story element happening at the same time. This way, certain elements of the festival can be repeated each year, but the story elements change.

I just wanted to take a moment and voice that I hope you guys are being cautious about the dungeons-to-fractals thing from these living story events. Obviously the Molten Facility is too long of a dungeon to just be thrown into the fractals as is, so I’m sure the Molten Facility we experienced during Flame and Frost will never be seen again in its original form. With the upcoming Aetherblade dungeon, it sounds like you guys are planning on giving it the same treatment.

Do you guys also consider bringing back these living story dungeons as permanent additions? Rather than relegating them to fractals, creating explorable modes for them and rewards? Not everyone is going to run fractals in the hopes of randomly getting the dungeon they wanted to replay. And considering we’re set to have 3 sets of armor and Aetherblade-themed weapons coming out, the Aetherblade dungeon seems to be a perfect candidate for this. It’s no secret that people are clamoring for permanent content based on all the groans and eye-rolling we see when a release indicates that something that sounds fun and exciting is only available for a limited time, as well as new rewards that don’t come from the gem store.

Basically, I’m hoping you’re not using “we can put it in fractals” as a crutch when you make new, temporary content. Personally, I would be much more interested in seeing the upcoming Aetherblade dungeon return at a later time with a new living story release, like “Revenge of the Sky Pirates” or something that introduces the explorable modes and new sets of dungeon gear, turning it into a full-on, legitimate dungeon alongside the current ones. For fractals, I’d rather see new fractals being built specifically to be fractals, rather than converted from some other content.

Cliff.8679:

I just wanted to take a moment and voice that I hope you guys are being cautious about the dungeons-to-fractals thing from these living story events. Obviously the Molten Facility is too long of a dungeon to just be thrown into the fractals as is, so I’m sure the Molten Facility we experienced during Flame and Frost will never be seen again in its original form.

Basically, I’m hoping you’re not using “we can put it in fractals” as a crutch when you make new, temporary content. For fractals, I’d rather see new fractals being built specifically to be fractals, rather than converted from some other content.

I think the same, but we dont know how they will implement this. I imagine that the living story dungeons could be added in a different way rather than adding it to the fractal rotation, like having an Asura that show you the “present time” events, having cutscene (like Marjory’s cutscene) that tell you, for example, about the Molten Alliance, Braham, Rox and the context. And replacing the exclusive rewards for fractal rewards like a chest and a daily chest (similar to Jade maw)

Yeah as others have said. Fractals are all good and all but expanding out the number of actual dungeons with 3 or more exp modes should also come “when it makes sense”.

Which kind of brings up the Molten Facility Dungeon. There could be some great explorable modes in there. The “Story” of all the dungeons are effectively set in the past with the story of Destiny’s edge etc, so running the story now (when other living story has happened) is still fine, you are just going back in time. Certainly it would be cool for new players, whereas fractals can be a little gated for entry etc. The Explorables are always set afterwards but made in a way that it could be anytime afterwards. Why not just bring back the Molten Facility as a story but this time with added explorables??

Also Wayfarer foothills and Diessa Plateau haven’t changed for good as promised (in original game update blurb). Why not leave remnants of the Molten Alliance (now broken) in a bit of the maps possibly around the dungeon entrance etc??

Molten Weapons Facility shouldn’t have been removed. It’s just dumb. We don’t get “enough” content nowdays, and then you throw it away. Why?

MWF could stay in-game forever, just as it was during the event, with no changes, and it would be fine. People would still play it for the new recipes, the azurite and the molten backpack. Maybe even add low fused ticket drop chances. Or maybe remove all the special rewards.

Same for the living story missions, like Cragstead, Canach’s Lair…

Which by the way brings me to this point: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1gqnur/shouldnt_the_living_story_use_the_personal_story/

You should really integrate the living story into the personal story system.

I’d like to know if each time the living story returns that the items you can acquire through them only also return, like all of them. It’d be rather disappointing to miss out on things like the fervid censor or other “achievement only” items.

The Crimson.7852:

I’d like to know if each time the living story returns that the items you can acquire through them only also return, like all of them. It’d be rather disappointing to miss out on things like the fervid censor or other “achievement only” items.

I doubt most living story will return at all, especially the open world stuff.

So does this mean we’ll “Have a Dungeon team” once again?

Or does it just mean that all requests for Dungeon changes will have to be cumbersome-ly forwarded through the Mods to the current Living story team and no interaction in between will continue to be the status quo?

ColinJohanson.2394:

…This should help answer any of the more specific questions about what to expect in the future in regards to the living world in Gw2.

Somehow, somewhere can we get some closure on some of the questions that was left from GW 1.

Like the Mursaat, Seers
Scepter of Orr, Livia
Dwarves, Bloodstones…and other things.

Just to name a few of the things left hanging. I know not all of them will get addressed and some like the dwarves makes sense when / if we face Primordus.

As a long time GW 1 player, I would like at sometime to get a bit more information on some of these things.

Hey, Colin, has your team ever considered revamping current dungeons to have a structure similar to molten alliance’s, where you have a single path (that maybe generates itself) instead of three different explorable paths? This, to me, seems like it would improve party searching, and even allow more dungeons to be created in the future without stretching dungeon players too much.

I’m not sure if I should be happy about the work on more dungeons since the old dungeons were supposed to get reworked… and only AC got some love if I remember correctly.

Also I think the rework should rather go in the direction of making explorable modes hard. At the moment I don’t know if anyone would consider explorable modes as “hardest content in the game”. I guess it’s Anets goal to create better rewards for dungeons and then make them more difficult since everyone who plays dungeons probably has the full set of his favourite dungeon without too much challenge getting it. It would make no sense to make the dungeons harder and leave the rewards the same.

Sometimes it seems that living story development hurts dungeon development. Roberts team, the dungeon team (?!) has worked on the Southsun Cove content (which I found quite ok).

just to add something: I was posting a thread in the dungeons-forum that the last developer-reply was months ago. A cc-mod told us to forward it to a dev but there hasn’t been any answer yet. I guess it’s because of the athmosphere in this section of the forums. Most dungeon-fans seem to be quite angry and frustrated. If I were a developer I wouldn’t answer in these forums since it mostly isn’t a constructive environment anymore imho. There should be done something.

HappyDale.5398:

Somehow, somewhere can we get some closure on some of the questions that was left from GW 1.

Like the Mursaat, Seers
Scepter of Orr, Livia
Dwarves, Bloodstones…and other things.

Just to name a few of the things left hanging. I know not all of them will get addressed and some like the dwarves makes sense when / if we face Primordus.

As a long time GW 1 player, I would like at sometime to get a bit more information on some of these things.

The Mursaat and Seers are actually mentioned quiet a bit in the game (Arah Explorable).
There are also hints that the Mursaat is behind certain stuff happening in the area around Divinity’s Reach.

Scepter of Orr and Livia is indeed something that would be interesting to find out more about.

The Dwarves and bloodstones are all talked about quite a bit (again in Arah Explorable, and a Dwarf is introduced quite a bit earlier in the Priory Storyline)

AntiBodies.8342:

Also Wayfarer foothills and Diessa Plateau haven’t changed for good as promised (in original game update blurb). Why not leave remnants of the Molten Alliance (now broken) in a bit of the maps possibly around the dungeon entrance etc??

They each have a small area that wasn’t there before Flame & Frost. Leaving the Sonic Periscopes and their guards (which annoyed most players anyway) wouldn’t make sense, because we defeated the Molten Alliance. It’s a “living story”, it wouldn’t make sense if they were still hanging around.

lordkrall.7241:

Just to name a few of the things left hanging. …
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There are also hints that the Mursaat is behind certain stuff happening in the area around Divinity’s Reach.

Also lots of reference’s to Mursaat up in the Vizier’s tower (though it’s understandable if most people couldn’t get up there… I couldn’t find any "pedestrian’ route to it). …References you wouldn’t have expected from GW1 b/c it’s apparent there was some kind of obsession with them that really makes no sense unless it was some kerfuffle around the Bloodstones themselves that was the catalyst for Orr being dragged into the last Guild War.

It’s really convoluting, especially since there’s no direct lore anywhere between the Margos & the Mursaat (not even in Madness of Prophecy which goes really deep), only this ancient connection to Zhaitan which predates the first Cataclysm & Lord Jadoth (the first human to be given “Magic”) … but it’s also more Fertile lore potential than what we’ve been getting lately.

The only connection I can see here… (and it’s reaching) …is that the first masters of Magic and the only ones to retain it along with numbers great enough to be relevant, are the Forgotten & Mursaat. And at the heart of that connection, is humans themselves. …the only beings in the world who seem capable of ascending to Godhood. If Humans keep defeating the Elder Dragons, then who’s going to be seen by the other races as the bigger threat??

As to what the OP is saying, I think you have a lot of new content all the time with the living story. Every month you are getting the content you want while the holidays will be like visiting an old friend. It will be the same stuff with more added on to it. Most games just trot out old content or release permanent zones very slowly. I love the way ANet has been bringing out new stuff that we get for a month. It keeps the game fresh. The best part about not having a sub is if you get bored you can take a month off and just come right back or you can just play the new content and spend only a little amount of time in the game and see what is new and then take a break til the next month. It really offers something for all types of players and that is refreshing.

What exactly is the point in putting effort in creation of a dungeon you leave ingame for only 2 or 3 weeks and then remove it?
Why not just giving the fractal system a second “function”? Something like standard fractals and a “replay-ls-dungeon” mode?

macuill.4623:

What exactly is the point in putting effort in creation of a dungeon you leave ingame for only 2 or 3 weeks and then remove it?
Why not just giving the fractal system a second “function”? Something like standard fractals and a “replay-ls-dungeon” mode?

I have to say, they keep defending it but it really doesn’t make much sense. My biggest problem actually is that it is internally inconsistent. None of the dungeons that were in the game at launch, which all involved specific stories, were removed after a few weeks, why would any subsequent dungeon/story be?

I don’t want to see some chopped up versions of them as fractals – Molten Weapons facility and Aetherblade retreat, in their original forms, should just be added to the current lineup of dungeons with their own rewards.

Frankly, the game will only be made better (as in more appealing to existing and returning players) by the addition of permanent content. Temporary content and one-time events are cool but should only act in a supplementary role and should never include full-scale dungeons that are only around for a couple of weeks- that’s a total waste of development.

Also, by focusing so much on temporary living story stuff, they’ve gotten behind (and will stay behind) on actual permanent content, so to anyone starting the game new or returning after months it feels like there’s not really anything new going on. The whole thing is just a bit ill-conceived.

In other words, these temporary events are cool in some ways, but they are not a replacement for permanent content, and dungeons should pretty much always be permanent content. Here is my shameless plug for the Maguuma Waste and the Crystal Desert!

It maybe small to think this, BUT wasn’t there supposed to be minigames in cities like the shooting range or the bar brawl?

Is that going to be permanent content, rare holiday events, or just “never going to happen” teasing us?

Soulstar.7812:

LE EPIK MEME LOL XD

Stop trying to force your meme in everyone’s faces please.

I want to see Magus Falls opened! I’d love to see some development on the estranged sylvari Malyck and all of the other sylvari born of a different Pale Tree west of Tarnished Coast. Malyck leaves Sylvari players promising us he’ll find his origins and bring back an army to aid the fight against the Elder Dragons. Releasing that western region will involve shedding light on these alien sylvari, and Malyck’s promise offers possibilities that can be easily tied into the main storyline of GW2. I really hope they will follow through with this =)