Guild Wars 2

I think the system is a vast, vast improvement over the current one and deals with problems on multiple levels (most importantly, the personal/living story conflict). I don’t mind in the least paying a modest fee for content, especially if it’s in turn funding more new content.

The fact that new players are always punished more relative to older ones is the only thing that seems a little off, but surely they’ll do bundles and stuff frequently to mitigate that.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Turin.6921:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

I like that they are going to make this material permanent but I’m really not impressed that the story line is monetized in any way. In my opinion that is a step in the wrong direction.

If you remeber to just login it does not cost a thing. Only players that bought the game after these releases will have an issue. And 200 are even easily made with gold too if you are an 80 LvL player…So as far as monetizing is concerned its pretty friendly..

If you’re at home and not on vacation, it does not cost a thing. Returning players will be kitten outta luck, and will have to pony up to play. That wont exactly encourage players to return. Like I said, it’s a step in the wrong direction.

Whether or not the price is “friendly” is debatable. I would note that game gold to gem prices have never gone down.

In all it’s not a bad idea, but there is a fly in the soup.

200 is either 30g that for 80lvl players is not a big deal or 2.5 bucks…You are not going on vacation for 6 months. This is pretty friendly. At most you will miss 1-2 of the releases. And also how many of the rerutning players will care about releases they missed 1 year ago. They will just participate on the current ones. Unless of they so huge and well made that would justify the price.

I am also against ripping off players with pay to win or subscription models but to consider any monetization as a ¨fly on the soup¨ is being irrational. Anet has to have some kind of steady income to sustain the game. This time instead of just mini pets or other cosmetic stuff you actually spend it for sth more potent. And yes 2.5 bucks or 3-4 days of moderate playing to raise the funds per patch is pretty friendly.

Reading these comments tells me how people only look at the surface of things and ignore the truth.

First of all, there is not a lot of new players in NA and EU who go and purchase the game today. Most people who want to play GW2 already have the game. That means this is directed to another group of people: China market.

Second of all, this direction goes against everything that GW2 has stood by and that is the free contents updates they always advertised. The cost of 200 gems or the gold exchange rate is irrelevant here and a waste of space on the forums.

Last but not least, this strategy by ANet doesn’t sound promising financially. I understand a game studio needs money to survive but this sounds a bit like a cry of depression for cash.

Just my 2 cents….

Zylonite.5913:

Reading these comments tells me how people only look at the surface of things and ignore the truth.

First of all, there is not a lot of new players in NA and EU who go and purchase the game today. Most people who want to play GW2 already have the game. That means this is directed to another group of people: China market.

Second of all, this direction goes against everything that GW2 has stood by and that is the free contents updates they always advertised. The cost of 200 gems or the gold exchange rate is irrelevant here and a waste of space on the forums.

Last but not least, this strategy by ANet doesn’t sound promising financially. I understand a game studio needs money to survive but this sounds a bit like a cry of depression for cash.

Just my 2 cents….

So what you want a game to be sustained absolutely for free without any kind of monetizing?How many new players would care about the past content anyway… A new player has to first go through:

-leveling
-personal story
-world events
-dungeon and fractals
-WvW and sPvP
-World completion
-The current Living Story
-High level crafting

And after all these he might be thinking of checking on the past content. I really doupt that anyone will care that much unless the patch are huge and meanigful (like extra maps or races and amazing dungeons etc). But then they will actaully worth the price.And that he can still take the episodes for FREE with like 2-4 days of very moderate game times.
And that is without the festivals- you can easily make 20-30g in 3 hours in the pavillion.

Looking forward to this. Reminds me of the campain, bonus mission pack structure from gw 1. Replayability, playing at your own pace, like it. :-)

Turin.6921:

Zylonite.5913:

Reading these comments tells me how people only look at the surface of things and ignore the truth.

First of all, there is not a lot of new players in NA and EU who go and purchase the game today. Most people who want to play GW2 already have the game. That means this is directed to another group of people: China market.

Second of all, this direction goes against everything that GW2 has stood by and that is the free contents updates they always advertised. The cost of 200 gems or the gold exchange rate is irrelevant here and a waste of space on the forums.

Last but not least, this strategy by ANet doesn’t sound promising financially. I understand a game studio needs money to survive but this sounds a bit like a cry of depression for cash.

Just my 2 cents….

So what you want a game to be sustained absolutely for free without any kind of monetizing?How many new players would care about the past content anyway… A new player has to first go through:

-leveling
-personal story
-world events
-dungeon and fractals
-WvW and sPvP
-World completion
-The current Living Story
-High level crafting

And after all these he might be thinking of checking on the past content. I really doupt that anyone will care that much unless the patch are huge and meanigful (like extra maps or races and amazing dungeons etc). But then they will actaully worth the price.And that he can still take the episodes for FREE with like 2-4 days of very moderate game times.
And that is without the festivals- you can easily make 20-30g in 3 hours in the pavillion.

Again it is sad to read another useless comment on how to farm gold to pay 200 gems for living story chapters.

The issue is much deeper than the cost of the contents but nobody sees it. The promise of free contents are now false and this MMO is now moved from a complete buy to play model to pay to play. It doesn’t matter if it is the past contents or whatever….

The point here is that how far will ANet go and will we ever see a gem price on future living story or other contents? Is this a sign that GW2 model of buy to play has failed abd are they just testing the community on how far we will tolerate.

That said, I understated a game studio costs money to run and the devs need to pay thier bills. But has the direction of the game brought this on itself? Did they push us to kitten the bi-weekly gem stories that everyone finally got turned off by it? And now the gem store is nothing more than a show room of stuff with no buyers….

nexxe.7081:

Nimarrna.5924:

nexxe.7081:

I like what i’ve read so far, but i’ll have to try it when it goes live to see if it’s good enough.

Charging gems for story content is a terrible idea though. That’s akin to a monthly subscription, but at least in a subscription mmo, you get all the content, instead of having it in piecemeal chunks. Just terrible.

You do realise that the story content is free……only if you missed out on an episode now you have the option to buy it.

Really,you only have to log in once every 2 weeks to get all the stories unlocked for free.

GW2 has no sub,has no expansion you must buy, and you don’t have to buy the LS Episodes either (even if u miss out on some of them its not a must to complete them only if you want to)…so what is ooooh soooooo terrible?

I’m thinking long-term here.

Hypothetical: In 6 months, or a year, someone buys gw2. They finish their personal story, which comes free with the game. Then Season 2 ends. Season 3 starts, but the new player missed out on Season 2.

Does this mean they have pay for each update to Season 2 to catch up to Season 3? Season 1 had around 20 story updates added to it.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/
Flame & Frost, Secret of Southsun, Sky Pirates of Tyria, Bazaar of the Four Winds, Blood & Madness, etc.

That’s 20 × 200, which equals 4000 gems.

That’s very unreasonable for a new player just starting out.
I’m just trying to get clarification here, because we don’t know all the details yet.

It’s unreasonable to think that this is unreasonable. That’s $50. I’ve paid that for expansions in other games, what’s the problem? I think most of the people complaining on this forum have never had to pay for a single thing in there life, nor do they buy the things they enjoy, probably they have never ate out at a restaurant and paid because they think ramen noodles are the only meal there is. Cheaper/free isn’t always the best solution and I think you are mildly kittened if you think that is the only solution to anything.

Zylonite.5913:

Turin.6921:

Zylonite.5913:

Reading these comments tells me how people only look at the surface of things and ignore the truth.

First of all, there is not a lot of new players in NA and EU who go and purchase the game today. Most people who want to play GW2 already have the game. That means this is directed to another group of people: China market.

Second of all, this direction goes against everything that GW2 has stood by and that is the free contents updates they always advertised. The cost of 200 gems or the gold exchange rate is irrelevant here and a waste of space on the forums.

Last but not least, this strategy by ANet doesn’t sound promising financially. I understand a game studio needs money to survive but this sounds a bit like a cry of depression for cash.

Just my 2 cents….

So what you want a game to be sustained absolutely for free without any kind of monetizing?How many new players would care about the past content anyway… A new player has to first go through:

-leveling
-personal story
-world events
-dungeon and fractals
-WvW and sPvP
-World completion
-The current Living Story
-High level crafting

And after all these he might be thinking of checking on the past content. I really doupt that anyone will care that much unless the patch are huge and meanigful (like extra maps or races and amazing dungeons etc). But then they will actaully worth the price.And that he can still take the episodes for FREE with like 2-4 days of very moderate game times.
And that is without the festivals- you can easily make 20-30g in 3 hours in the pavillion.

Again it is sad to read another useless comment on how to farm gold to pay 200 gems for living story chapters.

The issue is much deeper than the cost of the contents but nobody sees it. The promise of free contents are now false and this MMO is now moved from a complete buy to play model to pay to play. It doesn’t matter if it is the past contents or whatever….

The point here is that how far will ANet go and will we ever see a gem price on future living story or other contents? Is this a sign that GW2 model of buy to play has failed abd are they just testing the community on how far we will tolerate.

That said, I understated a game studio costs money to run and the devs need to pay thier bills. But has the direction of the game brought this on itself? Did they push us to kitten the bi-weekly gem stories that everyone finally got turned off by it? And now the gem store is nothing more than a show room of stuff with no buyers….

I think you need to retire that tinfoil hat mate. Gem store purchases are booming and ‘buying’ old content you may have missed is perfectly reasonable. I find it hard to believe that most people couldn’t log in for 15 seconds to unlock the story during the 2 week period…

Zylonite.5913:

Turin.6921:

Zylonite.5913:

Reading these comments tells me how people only look at the surface of things and ignore the truth.

First of all, there is not a lot of new players in NA and EU who go and purchase the game today. Most people who want to play GW2 already have the game. That means this is directed to another group of people: China market.

Second of all, this direction goes against everything that GW2 has stood by and that is the free contents updates they always advertised. The cost of 200 gems or the gold exchange rate is irrelevant here and a waste of space on the forums.

Last but not least, this strategy by ANet doesn’t sound promising financially. I understand a game studio needs money to survive but this sounds a bit like a cry of depression for cash.

Just my 2 cents….

So what you want a game to be sustained absolutely for free without any kind of monetizing?How many new players would care about the past content anyway… A new player has to first go through:

-leveling
-personal story
-world events
-dungeon and fractals
-WvW and sPvP
-World completion
-The current Living Story
-High level crafting

And after all these he might be thinking of checking on the past content. I really doupt that anyone will care that much unless the patch are huge and meanigful (like extra maps or races and amazing dungeons etc). But then they will actaully worth the price.And that he can still take the episodes for FREE with like 2-4 days of very moderate game times.
And that is without the festivals- you can easily make 20-30g in 3 hours in the pavillion.

Again it is sad to read another useless comment on how to farm gold to pay 200 gems for living story chapters.

The issue is much deeper than the cost of the contents but nobody sees it. The promise of free contents are now false and this MMO is now moved from a complete buy to play model to pay to play. It doesn’t matter if it is the past contents or whatever….

The point here is that how far will ANet go and will we ever see a gem price on future living story or other contents? Is this a sign that GW2 model of buy to play has failed abd are they just testing the community on how far we will tolerate.

That said, I understated a game studio costs money to run and the devs need to pay thier bills. But has the direction of the game brought this on itself? Did they push us to kitten the bi-weekly gem stories that everyone finally got turned off by it? And now the gem store is nothing more than a show room of stuff with no buyers….

No its not a pay to play. What you are saying is factually incorrect. Everyone that has the game will still get everyhting that is available now and they WILL still get FREE upadates every 2 weeks. How is the promise of costant free content false. The fact that you can buy the past content with in-game money is basically a play to buy model. Similar in idea of EVE online and Wildstar. pay to play is sub based games. The buy to play model that GW1 introcuded based its sustainnability with expansion and bonus mission mission packs. How is this any different? Actually it is…Because you could not buy those with in game money in GW1

Plus are you kidding…Have you seen how many players have mini-pets, armor pieces and black lion weapons skins out there that are bought only with gems

I’m very happy that it does require you (the player) to finish your original PS and reach level 80 before you can access LS-S2. I was getting tired of seeing up-levels dying all over the place, whose only purpose is only making it impossible for a.net to deliver truly challenging content to level cap players

This had to happen in order to provide more challenging content.
Allowing any level to play LS-S2 would have resulted in inferior content difficulty for level cap players.

I do have a few questions about the new system though:

• The S2 LS seems to be a continuation of the PS as such does that mean that LS2 will be mainly instanced 1 player content ?
• How will big epic Boss encounters be handled going forth ?
• Will there be 5 man type instances for LS-S2 boss fights ?
• Will these Boss fights also be replayable forever ?

Yeah I have to echo that the level 80 requirement makes a lot of sense, and it makes it a lot more likely that players will experience stories in the proper order, which is a good thing for the overall narrative structure.

Zylonite.5913:

The issue is much deeper than the cost of the contents but nobody sees it. The promise of free contents are now false and this MMO is now moved from a complete buy to play model to pay to play. It doesn’t matter if it is the past contents or whatever….

The point here is that how far will ANet go and will we ever see a gem price on future living story or other contents? Is this a sign that GW2 model of buy to play has failed abd are they just testing the community on how far we will tolerate.

That said, I understated a game studio costs money to run and the devs need to pay thier bills. But has the direction of the game brought this on itself? Did they push us to kitten the bi-weekly gem stories that everyone finally got turned off by it? And now the gem store is nothing more than a show room of stuff with no buyers….

Nothing from the system weve had since the game launched is being taken away. We will still be getting free content every two weeks – just like we did in S1. Everything they are talking about is an addition to the game system.

So, if someone wanted to play the game exactly the way they have for the past 2 years, they can – no problem. The idea that the game is going p2p is just ridiculous.

This is an extremely positive announcement. There is no money grab here. If there were, then they would just make everyone pay gems to access old content – not just those who miss it.

They want people to log in at least every few weeks because they want people to see the new stuff and remain excited about the game.

The TINY price for not doing so (only if you want to see what you missed – even that is optional) is only about encouraging people to log in every couple of weeks. Business wise, it makes a lot lot of sense (and most people understand why they are doing it).

Blaeys.3102:

Zylonite.5913:

The issue is much deeper than the cost of the contents but nobody sees it. The promise of free contents are now false and this MMO is now moved from a complete buy to play model to pay to play. It doesn’t matter if it is the past contents or whatever….

The point here is that how far will ANet go and will we ever see a gem price on future living story or other contents? Is this a sign that GW2 model of buy to play has failed and are they just testing the community on how far we will tolerate.

That said, I understated a game studio costs money to run and the devs need to pay thier bills. But has the direction of the game brought this on itself? Did they push us to kitten the bi-weekly gem stories that everyone finally got turned off by it? And now the gem store is nothing more than a show room of stuff with no buyers….

Nothing from the system we’ve had since the game launched is being taken away. We will still be getting free content every two weeks – just like we did in S1. Everything they are talking about is an addition to the game system.

So, if someone wanted to play the game exactly the way they have for the past 2 years, they can – no problem. The idea that the game is going p2p is just ridiculous.

This is an extremely positive announcement. There is no money grab here. If there were, then they would just make everyone pay gems to access old content – not just those who miss it.

They want people to log in at least every few weeks because they want people to see the new stuff and remain excited about the game.

The TINY price for not doing so (only if you want to see what you missed – even that is optional) is only about encouraging people to log in every couple of weeks. Business wise, it makes a lot lot of sense (and most people understand why they are doing it).

p2p ? are you serious ?

1 episode costs $2,50 (2 weeks)
52 weeks /2= 26 episodes x $2,50 = $65,00 (1 year)

a sub costs $15×12=$180,00 (1 year)

even if it was which it isn’t by the way I’d be happy to pay the $65

Pinkus.2860:

Zylonite.5913:

Turin.6921:

Zylonite.5913:

Reading these comments tells me how people only look at the surface of things and ignore the truth.

First of all, there is not a lot of new players in NA and EU who go and purchase the game today. Most people who want to play GW2 already have the game. That means this is directed to another group of people: China market.

Second of all, this direction goes against everything that GW2 has stood by and that is the free contents updates they always advertised. The cost of 200 gems or the gold exchange rate is irrelevant here and a waste of space on the forums.

Last but not least, this strategy by ANet doesn’t sound promising financially. I understand a game studio needs money to survive but this sounds a bit like a cry of depression for cash.

Just my 2 cents….

So what you want a game to be sustained absolutely for free without any kind of monetizing?How many new players would care about the past content anyway… A new player has to first go through:

-leveling
-personal story
-world events
-dungeon and fractals
-WvW and sPvP
-World completion
-The current Living Story
-High level crafting

And after all these he might be thinking of checking on the past content. I really doupt that anyone will care that much unless the patch are huge and meanigful (like extra maps or races and amazing dungeons etc). But then they will actaully worth the price.And that he can still take the episodes for FREE with like 2-4 days of very moderate game times.
And that is without the festivals- you can easily make 20-30g in 3 hours in the pavillion.

Again it is sad to read another useless comment on how to farm gold to pay 200 gems for living story chapters.

The issue is much deeper than the cost of the contents but nobody sees it. The promise of free contents are now false and this MMO is now moved from a complete buy to play model to pay to play. It doesn’t matter if it is the past contents or whatever….

The point here is that how far will ANet go and will we ever see a gem price on future living story or other contents? Is this a sign that GW2 model of buy to play has failed abd are they just testing the community on how far we will tolerate.

That said, I understated a game studio costs money to run and the devs need to pay thier bills. But has the direction of the game brought this on itself? Did they push us to kitten the bi-weekly gem stories that everyone finally got turned off by it? And now the gem store is nothing more than a show room of stuff with no buyers….

I think you need to retire that tinfoil hat mate. Gem store purchases are booming and ‘buying’ old content you may have missed is perfectly reasonable. I find it hard to believe that most people couldn’t log in for 15 seconds to unlock the story during the 2 week period…

So you are saying they will never start to charge for future living story patches? The way I see it, this is just a test to see how the community will react to the pay for content idea. If it works out and people like yourself OK this model, then ANet can easy add a gem cost for future contents. That said, see you in 8 months when the living story 3 will cost gems to unlock for everyone.

THANK YOU!! Temporary content has been my only complaint about this game. Now I can play when I want and how I want.

Latinkuro.9420:

I’m very happy that it does require you (the player) to finish your original PS and reach level 80 before you can access LS-S2. I was getting tired of seeing up-levels dying all over the place, whose only purpose is only making it impossible for a.net to deliver truly challenging content to level cap players

This had to happen in order to provide more challenging content.
Allowing any level to play LS-S2 would have resulted in inferior content difficulty for level cap players.

I do have a few questions about the new system though:

• The S2 LS seems to be a continuation of the PS as such does that mean that LS2 will be mainly instanced 1 player content ?
• How will big epic Boss encounters be handled going forth ?
• Will there be 5 man type instances for LS-S2 boss fights ?
• Will these Boss fights also be replayable forever ?

There is no requirement to finish your Personal Story before playing any Living Story Season Two content. The only requirement is that the character playing must be Level 80.

I believe ‘Big Boss’ -type encounters will be Open World, and thus be the other part of Living Story Season Two content, rather than Journal content. As such, they will like be permanent, much like the Triple Wurm (and other World Bosses).

People, PLZ think deeper about stuff. This isn’t SIMPLY a matter of “yay, permanent content, so cool!” or “not cool, boo ArenaNet!”.

The Story Journal effectively MONETIZES part of the Living World. It’s only logical that ArenaNet would try to make people PAY for this content and feel like they are GETTING something in return, so expect the next Living World content to focus on the kind of things available through the Journal.

And WHAT will be available through the JOURNAL? That’s also a matter of logic. OPEN WORLD activities – big world events, dynamic events for a lot of people, and etc – will NOT be available through the Journal. One, the logistics isn’t there – think about trying to do Teq without a timer used by a lot of people to know when the event is going to HAPPEN, now add the issue of playing through an event that isn’t available to the ENTIRE community, and you end with something that SIMPLY cannot be done. It would be like TRYING to do the Marionette with only THREE other players.

Two, ArenaNet itself mentioned how open world content is different from the story steps available through the Journal:

ArenaNet

content from Living World episodes will be a mix of new story steps and open world content. Story steps will work just like existing story steps in the game today by taking you on a journey specific to your selected episode, which ties into a broader narrative from the season’s continual story progress.

SOOOO, the Journal will give ArenaNet money. The Journal will focus not on open world content, rather on story steps. Ergo, ArenaNet will focus more on story steps than on open world content.

Ergo, ArenaNet won’t work as much on the open world content, which happens to be the BEST and most promising aspect of GW2 (and that’s NOT simply MY opinion; does anyone else remember THIS?). Instead, they will focus on content like the STEPS of the personal storyline, which are, well, INCREDIBLY mediocre.

THIS is a loss. We will have LESS development of the open world events, which are still a flawed aspect of the game but that was beginning to show SOME potential (see the marionette), and instead MORE of a kind of content that NO ONE has been asking for.

I wasn’t sure about this at first, but now that I think about it, this seems like a great deal.

Think about it. It takes a year to produce a living story season. And how much will it cost? $68. How much is an expansion? $68.

Not to mention, we actually get to use ingame gold by paying 20g per episode.

Best part? We can actually choose which episodes we want to buy!

Although as a fair bit of concern, I am worried we will just be paying for Personal Story v2.0….

The new system looks absolutely fantastic! I’ve always called for new content introduced into the game to be permanent, using a similar structure to the Personal Story. The Story Journal is basically what I’ve been asking for; players have all the time in the world to attempt the achievements or work towards the rewards at a time and pace of their choosing.

Paying to unlock past Living Story chapters is a fair trade-off, I think, similar to the Bonus Mission Pack from GW1. One question though: Can only players who have the content unlocked can enter instances relating to LS2? Or is it possible for players to party up with players with the unlocked content to join in anyway?

Test.8734:

The Story Journal effectively MONETIZES part of the Living World. It’s only logical that ArenaNet would try to make people PAY for this content and feel like they are GETTING something in return, so expect the next Living World content to focus on the kind of things available through the Journal.

If we follow your logic, there’s no guarantee ANet would focus 90% on Journal story steps and 10% on open world content, as you fear. First, they’re only charging 200 Gems for each episode, which is peanuts compared to some other items in the Gem Store. Second, they’re offering the content for free just by logging in – 15 seconds of peoples’ time – ONCE during the 2-week period the episode is live. Both of those facts don’t suggest the Journal story steps being super-top-notch, AAA+++ content that would take significant development time away from open world or any other type of content.

Now, is ANet going to do their best to make the Journal stories good? Of course. But I wouldn’t expect them to be much different than S1 or Personal Story episodes, which in my opinion were good (not great, but good).

I’m not saying we’re gonna get more open world content – I hope so – but it’s unlikely we’re gonna get any less. I’m looking forward to either a new dungeon, or an entire zone (which we should at least get in part if we go deeper into Maguuma). It’s nicely set up by having the level 80 requirement for LS content, since they’ve already added a level 80 zone in S1.

Besides all that, the big question is whether any content is going to be gated by episode completion. If it isn’t, I think the value of the episodes is undermined somewhat, but I’d be fine with either direction.

I love the idea and paying for “missed” living stories only contribute to the balance. i mean common guys, they need something and we cant have everything handed over to us. i think 200gems for inactivity is fine if u wish to have that storyline. goodjob anet, keep it up, i hope to see a focus on PVP after this. the PVE is becoming perfect and all it needs is an expansion, now i would really wana see PVP being perfected too.

awesome move by Anet……regular fresh content that’s playable at your own pace.

hopefully monetizing the LS installments for those who missed it while it was live, will drive them to make stronger content in the vein of SAB/Marionette/ Aetherblade dungeon/Assault on LA and the current Boss Blitz and sky crystal “jump puzzle”.

if the update/content is good/fun, then the 200 gem fee is more than fair…..i would easily pay more for a permanent SAB or marionette event.

Corax.7381:

I’m not saying we’re gonna get more open world content – I hope so – but it’s unlikely we’re gonna get any less.

We VERY likely will get less. This is the conundrum ArenaNet has placed THEMSELVES into.

Think about SEASON 1. Which story steps did we have? Do you actually remember story steps that were MEMORABLE enough to justify a purchase? Most of them were just to PRESENT a character, many without ANY combat at all.

ArenaNet will likely have MORE story steps than that, or they wouldn’t have MUCH to sell. Using MORE resources for story steps means LESS resources for open world content. Which means, either less open world content, or less polished open world content.

Besides, ArenaNet itself said in the beginning of 2013 that they would FOCUS on open world content, and they have just told us that we will do this year BOTH story steps and open world content. Those two comments by themselves hint that open world will be LESS of a focus on 2014 than it was on 2013, hence it’s likely we will get LESS.

Test.8734:

People, PLZ think deeper about stuff. This isn’t SIMPLY a matter of “yay, permanent content, so cool!” or “not cool, boo ArenaNet!”.

The Story Journal effectively MONETIZES part of the Living World. It’s only logical that ArenaNet would try to make people PAY for this content and feel like they are GETTING something in return, so expect the next Living World content to focus on the kind of things available through the Journal.

And WHAT will be available through the JOURNAL? That’s also a matter of logic. OPEN WORLD activities – big world events, dynamic events for a lot of people, and etc – will NOT be available through the Journal. One, the logistics isn’t there – think about trying to do Teq without a timer used by a lot of people to know when the event is going to HAPPEN, now add the issue of playing through an event that isn’t available to the ENTIRE community, and you end with something that SIMPLY cannot be done. It would be like TRYING to do the Marionette with only THREE other players.

Two, ArenaNet itself mentioned how open world content is different from the story steps available through the Journal:

ArenaNet

content from Living World episodes will be a mix of new story steps and open world content. Story steps will work just like existing story steps in the game today by taking you on a journey specific to your selected episode, which ties into a broader narrative from the season’s continual story progress.

SOOOO, the Journal will give ArenaNet money. The Journal will focus not on open world content, rather on story steps. Ergo, ArenaNet will focus more on story steps than on open world content.

Ergo, ArenaNet won’t work as much on the open world content, which happens to be the BEST and most promising aspect of GW2 (and that’s NOT simply MY opinion; does anyone else remember THIS?). Instead, they will focus on content like the STEPS of the personal storyline, which are, well, INCREDIBLY mediocre.

THIS is a loss. We will have LESS development of the open world events, which are still a flawed aspect of the game but that was beginning to show SOME potential (see the marionette), and instead MORE of a kind of content that NO ONE has been asking for.

except that the megaserver system allows them to essentially make “open world instances” for those with access to the LS content and the desire to play it. those with access get sent to a version of the zone with the living story event running….those that don’t (or choose not to play that content) get sent to a version without it.

so i don’t think you can discount open world events from the LS journal just yet…..

Test.8734:

Corax.7381:

I’m not saying we’re gonna get more open world content – I hope so – but it’s unlikely we’re gonna get any less.

We VERY likely will get less. This is the conundrum ArenaNet has placed THEMSELVES into.

Think about SEASON 1. Which story steps did we have? Do you actually remember story steps that were MEMORABLE enough to justify a purchase? Most of them were just to PRESENT a character, many without ANY combat at all.

ArenaNet will likely have MORE story steps than that, or they wouldn’t have MUCH to sell. Using MORE resources for story steps means LESS resources for open world content. Which means, either less open world content, or less polished open world content.

Besides, ArenaNet itself said in the beginning of 2013 that they would FOCUS on open world content, and they have just told us that we will do this year BOTH story steps and open world content. Those two comments by themselves hint that open world will be LESS of a focus on 2014 than it was on 2013, hence it’s likely we will get LESS.

you sound like a person who just likes to complain, try to see the positive side of it, plus the promise that th content will continue to become more “memorable”, plus this is a great step forward.

Apologies if these comments have been made, I’ve been working long hours this week and can’t stay up late enough to read the whole thread. But no one said this in the first few pages:

Looks like the CDI did have a big impact, along with ongoing discussions in the LS subforum. A lot of this Journal implementation sounds like a response to suggestions and concerns aired over time by the community.

A question I have is, can you invite friends in to experience your unlocked content if they have not also unlocked it? And can they get achieves and rewards by riding your coat tails? Or is this a matter of not only finding someone that wants to do the step you’re on, but has him/herself opened it?

Vol.7601:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/introducing-the-story-journal/

I don’t quite get the concept of charging 200 gems for previous releases.

I don’t mind it in concept – after all, it’s a ‘convenience’ fee for accessing something you did not experience in the 2 week period, but who would pay 200 gems for a story instance that lasts no more than 10 minutes?

With any luck, they’ll play more like solo-able dungeons than the fairly simple steps in the personal story, with explorable mode then being the same general story, but expanded gameplay and challenge, like the bonus objectives in GW1 missions.

Although if they’re putting in a whole season of content geared toward a solo player and NPC helpers, with player party members being optional, they might as well move back toward a GW1-style henchman or hero mechanic outside of open-world play. If nothing else, it would be something else to monetize.

does this mean we have a chance to get the molten jetpack from S1 LS…. ?

From what is souns like the Journel will be revamped to include replay feature.

So anyone who missed out on certain Live story will get the chance to experience it.

As for our character story it seems the game designers have decided that the Live Story will be our next chapter for our Personal Story which is why the dialogues and events will relect on our character having already completed the Personal Story.

I think the question that needs to be answered is, what do they mean by story steps? Are they talking the individual arcs which are then broken into submissions, or just the individual submissions? I’m under the impression that its the former; that each LS update will involve 1-2 arcs of 4-5 missions a piece, on top of the adjustments to open world content.

If I’m tracking their plans accurately, we’re basically going to be looking at three different updates semi-cycling with one another:

Living Story: These updates will most likely include connected story arcs with perhaps half a dozen personal missions coupled to a major open world activity, such as an invasion or world boss. The missions would remain as repeatable content, and its likely the world bosses will as well; invasion events may or may not. (Scarlet’s Invasion did remain active long after its LS point had ended, but was then removed AFAIK for lack of interest. The refilling of maps with the megaservers may make maintaining that sort of quest more viable in the future.)

Festivals: These will periodically interrupt the LS updates for a bit of a breather. There are six of these currently, I believe: Festival of the Winds, Queen’s Pavilion, Dragon Bash, SAB, Halloween, and Winterfest. I expect this is where we will see more of the player driven but less plot critical events to occur, IE the election between Kiel and Evon.

Feature Packs: If I recall correctly we’re going to be getting one of these about every quarter or so; expect this to be where they introduce material developed via the CDIs.

Kain Francois.4328:

I wasn’t sure about this at first, but now that I think about it, this seems like a great deal.

Think about it. It takes a year to produce a living story season. And how much will it cost? $68. How much is an expansion? $68.

Not to mention, we actually get to use ingame gold by paying 20g per episode.

Best part? We can actually choose which episodes we want to buy!

Although as a fair bit of concern, I am worried we will just be paying for Personal Story v2.0….

But it is not an expansion. There are similarities but it looks like the real expansion-like content (if introduces) will be in the world itself and so available. This are also small instances to go back to. So it’s a list of episodes much like the PS and that’s what you can unlock not an real expansion.

They now put up a pay-wall for something that’s not an expansion. It’s not really a problem that they ask gems to unlock previous episodes and I can see why they do it but they should just have the option “unlock all past episodes for 200 gems and also the upcoming x (no need to log in) .

A pay-wall on itself is not to bad thing if it’s not to big and if it’s for an expansion, but it’s not for an expansion. Sure they might come with reduced prices to unlock a full season at the end but it stays a pretty big pay-wall and you will then up set people who did just unlock a few episodes. I however don’t think people will do it a lot if you ask gems per episode so I even think they would earn more for asking 200 gems to unlock all previous ones (and x upcoming) then if they ask 200 gems per episode. “oow I missed 3 episodes, nah not going to pay 600 gems to unlock them just skip them” vs “oow I missed 3 episodes, I guess I can throw in 200 gems to unlock all missed episodes.”

azizul.8469:

does this mean we have a chance to get the molten jetpack from S1 LS…. ?

When / if they add in season 1 it should yes. But that still might take a while.

BobbyStein.2315:

We’re also trying to put a little more info in the Story Journal once you’ve completed a Living World story instance, like a slightly more detailed recap that not only includes the plot and action details, but also touches upon the character moments.

Living World story instance – these are the keywords and can only mean we receive more instanced content just like Personal story.

I hate the PS because it´s mostly very bad singleplayer content in a game that´s supposed to be a MMO-game (though I also don´t like the instanced group content at the end of the PS).

If the permanent LW-content brings mostly instanced content Anet is bound for their next big fail. Personal Story 2.0 b2p incoming?

nexxe.7081:

That’s 20 × 200, which equals 4000 gems.

That’s very unreasonable for a new player just starting out.

That’s $50 US. For a whole season worth of infinitely re-playable content (essentially an expansion) that is totally reasonable. It’s just like any other MMO with expansions. If you want to be up-to-date on the story, you need to purchase all expansions released thus far.

HyruleanHyroe.1473:

nexxe.7081:

That’s 20 × 200, which equals 4000 gems.

That’s very unreasonable for a new player just starting out.

That’s $50 US. For a whole season worth of infinitely re-playable content (essentially an expansion) that is totally reasonable. It’s just like any other MMO with expansions. If you want to be up-to-date on the story, you need to purchase all expansions released thus far.

But it likely is not like an expansion. Or are they going to lock of zones and new races and guild-halls and so on behind episodes? If it would be really like an expansion (then just selling expansion would still be my option of choice so they can really earn the money that way from everybody) you would be true but that’s likely not the case. The blog-post at least did no suggest that.

HyruleanHyroe.1473:

That’s $50 US. For a whole season worth of infinitely re-playable content (essentially an expansion) that is totally reasonable. It’s just like any other MMO with expansions.

LOL, those must be VERY BAD “other MMO”. Let’s look at what we got with the GW1 new CHAPTERS, shall we? We got MULTIPLE new areas, MULTIPLE new skills, MULTIPLE new armor and weapon skins (without a LOTTERY system asking for MORE payments), MULTIPLE new mechanics, and so on.

What did we get in Season 1? Was that “an expansion” worth of content?

MORE importantly, what ArenaNet will sell will be only the “Living World story instance” content. Has the season 1 story instance content been even REMOTELY similar to “an expansion” WORTH of content?

No? Yep, think NOT.

This is NOWHERE near buying an expansion. It’s almost the price of a FULL game, just for more of the very MEDIOCRE single player personal storyline instanced content.

Let me clarify. $50 to buy season 1. People really need to get it through their heads that going forward EVERYTHING IS AVAILABLE FOR FREE IF YOU JUST LOG IN. Let’s see, that’s a double-click to open up the .exe, another click to log in and one to start the game. One last click to start playing a character….. carry the seven…. five mouse clicks! Can you all click your mouse five times every two weeks? Can you ask a friend to do it? I’m confident in my ability to do so.

I think that if they’re not going to release just short boring single player dungeons, this change could be really interesting. The 200gems price is only for the past LS, so it’s not a big issue (they could unlock them automatically for those who were already playing back then, just an idea).
I like the idea of a difficult story we can repeat any time to do achievements and unlock new titles/minipets/skins (hopefully they will all be account bound).

If together with that they keep on releasing some open world zerg content and every 6 months or so also a new boss for 150 players (into an instance this time, please… let us organize fast with the LFG tool avoiding the megaservers), I think the game will be amazing

HyruleanHyroe.1473:

$50 to buy season 1.

EXACTLY.

$50 = MORE than the price of a MMORPG’s EXPANSION.

Do you REALLY think that the instanced living world content of SEASON 1 was AS MUCH content as an EXPANSION?

So THAT’s how good ArenaNet’s new PRICING model is.

Test.8734:

HyruleanHyroe.1473:

$50 to buy season 1.

EXACTLY.

$50 = MORE than the price of a MMORPG’s EXPANSION.

Do you REALLY think that the instanced living world content of SEASON 1 was AS MUCH content as an EXPANSION?

So THAT’s how good ArenaNet’s new PRICING model is.

I’m pretty sure that Living World Season 2 will be free since all you have to do is log on once every two weeks. You don’t even have to do them to unlock them, just log in, log out if you want. Is that really difficult? And Season 1 – I very much doubt they’ll charge anyone for that, if they include it in the journal system at all, since it wasn’t designed with that in mind.

Why so many conspiracy theories by paranoid people? ArenaNet want the best for us all, not just themselves guys. Don’t like what they’re doing? You don’t have to like it, go play another game, preferably one with a monthly subscription fee.

Test.8734:

HyruleanHyroe.1473:

$50 to buy season 1.

EXACTLY.

$50 = MORE than the price of a MMORPG’s EXPANSION.

Do you REALLY think that the instanced living world content of SEASON 1 was AS MUCH content as an EXPANSION?

So THAT’s how good ArenaNet’s new PRICING model is.

I think WE should COUNT ourselves LUCKY that THEY’RE even CONSIDERING releasing SEASON one AS a PERMANENT unlock-able, AS this WASN’T the ORIGINAL plan. PLUS, as LOLINDIR said, IT wouldn’t BE surprising IF they UNLOCKED episodes FOR players WHO have ALREADY completed THEM, perhaps BASED on META-ACHIEVEMENTS. That MAKES an EPISODE-by-EPISODE price MODEL ideal.

IT also SEEMS silly TO rant ABOUT how TERRIBLE season ONE was AND demand IT be MADE more EASILY available IN the SAME post. DO you WANT it OR not?

I missed my chance to kill Scarlet in Season 1 – If they did put it in the journal thing, I’d be happy as Larry* whether I’d pay for it or not. But I still doubt they’ll make us pay for Season 1.

If they did make us pay for Season 1 (I emphasise they probably won’t) then maybe 800 Gems is a reasonable cost since that’s less than £10 (GBP – it’s about £8.50) for what I see it as a “Bonus Mission Pack” and you can still convert from gold anyway.

(*If you’re on Piken Square, I don’t mean the Cave Troll it’s a figure of speech!)

HyruleanHyroe.1473:

Let me clarify. $50 to buy season 1. People really need to get it through their heads that going forward EVERYTHING IS AVAILABLE FOR FREE IF YOU JUST LOG IN. Let’s see, that’s a double-click to open up the .exe, another click to log in and one to start the game. One last click to start playing a character….. carry the seven…. five mouse clicks! Can you all click your mouse five times every two weeks? Can you ask a friend to do it? I’m confident in my ability to do so.

If they do season 1 the same way it would be unlocked for most players (I guess if you have at least one achievement of an episode?). However people here are not complaining for themselves, not because they are afraid they need to start paying gems. Most people will like you say yourself log In anyway. Many people here are talking about people who took a break for 3 months, 6 months or come back after a year or new players. And also the fact that every two weeks more you don’t log in returning becomes less interesting.

Hope that cleared up your confusion.

siiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh

Khorrax.2108:

They just had to monetize story as well, didn’t they?

I would not mind this if the story was actually .. you know …. good!

I missed 6 weeks of LS 1 last year, at least 2 or 3 LS ‘episodes’.
Given the overall quality of LS 1, I would never play the crap I missed, let alone pay 200 gems to do so. Furthermore, I see nothing from Anet that convinces me LS2 story will be any better quality than LS1.

Also, I see this new LS format introducing even more bugs every 2 weeks than each LS1 update did during season 1.

So no, I am not impressed with this change

I still would like to know whether this change means that LS 2 will have no massive group events like the Marionette fight, or Escape from LA. I don’t see how that kind of event would ever be re-playable at will.

Is it possible that there might be different versions of episodes (e.g. ‘live’ vs ‘re-playable’ ?)

Naevius.3185:

I still would like to know whether this change means that LS 2 will have no massive group events like the Marionette fight, or Escape from LA. I don’t see how that kind of event would ever be re-playable at will.

Is it possible that there might be different versions of episodes (e.g. ‘live’ vs ‘re-playable’ ?)

There seems to be difference between story (the replayable, buyable things) and open world.

Those big events can still take place in the open world part of the releases.

lordkrall.7241:

Naevius.3185:

I still would like to know whether this change means that LS 2 will have no massive group events like the Marionette fight, or Escape from LA. I don’t see how that kind of event would ever be re-playable at will.

Is it possible that there might be different versions of episodes (e.g. ‘live’ vs ‘re-playable’ ?)

There seems to be difference between story (the replayable, buyable things) and open world.

Those big events can still take place in the open world part of the releases.

Where did you get that information? The blog says you can unlock instance content but also open world content to repeat later.

Naevius.3185:

I still would like to know whether this change means that LS 2 will have no massive group events like the Marionette fight, or Escape from LA. I don’t see how that kind of event would ever be re-playable at will.

Is it possible that there might be different versions of episodes (e.g. ‘live’ vs ‘re-playable’ ?)

I could see multiple ways they could pull this off.

The one I would like to see is simply have people who trigger that story step moved to an instance of the map where that event is active – and allow people to “join friend in” the zone. That would allow people to form groups naturally – or use the group finder or their guild/friends list to build groups.

The second – which would only really work for world boss events like the marionette, would be to make them triggerable, similar to how guilds can trigger Tequatl/Triple Threat/Karka Queen now. There would have to be some kind of parameters set
though, to keep people from triggering all the time.

A third, which would also only really work with world bosses, would be to just activate them and add them to the world boss rotation (with Shatterer, Fire Elemental, etc). This is not an ideal solution either, as it would be impossible to include events like escape from LA.

The last, and least desirable (imo), would be to simply scale the events down to where they could be done with 5 or less people.

So, I think they could do it. Like many, I look forward to the new system, but really hope they have a system in place that includes making the large-scale events replayable at will for mid-sized to large (organized or unorganized) groups of players.

This system looks like a huge improvement, to me. Past instances revisitable at will, and permanent expansion of the game world. I only hope that they can deliver the same volume of world-expansion that an expansion could.

I have my doubts on that, but let’s see how season 2 starts, maybe I’m wrong.

Also, a note to the hyperbolic in here: Stop being hyperbolic. It doesn’t get your point across any better.