Guild Wars 2

Greetings and salutations.

I come to you today with a comment about the Living Story’s direction, though I know those are in abundance these days. What I’d like to do is hopefully a bit different. I would like to describe what the game would need to do in order to smoothly transition back to the war against the dragons. At present, that is impossible due to an incompatibility between players starting the Personal Story and those who have finished it, and conundrum which can be solved in a single sentence.

To make the Living Story flourish, the Pact must be destroyed.

…Bit of an attention getter, I hope. Allow me to spell on the argument; why the personal story has impersonal problems, what the living story is currently doing wrong, how to fix the two to the benefit of both, and what the results could be for an entire year’s worth of content. I can be a bit overly verbose, so I’ve condensed them into four JPG files for easier reading. Feel free to skip through it if it drags on, but please scroll through the NextYear file to consider what the Living Story could become.

Here we go. The Time Capsule method.

Edit: I’ve been adding to this post slowly throughout the thread, including several new campaign possibilities. For the sake of organization, I’ve added them on to this post. If this is your first time reading this, please beware, the last three images will get extremely verbose. Bring a glass of tea.

Slow clap

Great read. Seriously, really like how you’ve formatted this post.

I agree with pretty much everything you’ve said. The story needs to find purpose. As it stands, the living world feels like we’re just going through the motions with each update. Don’t get me wrong, I’m interested in finding out what exactly the deal is with Scarlet and all… HOWEVER. The story doesn’t really feel like it’s progressing. Everything is contained in a way that all of it could be inter sped with the personal story pre-Zhaitan, and everything would still flow fine.

If they followed your suggested timeline… Hnng. It’d be stellar.
I’m all for destroying the pact now.

This is probably the single best, most well-thought out suggestion for getting the story back on track and making sense that I have ever read. I love the way you formatted it and tied in a lot of the old lore. Your idea of having 5 months of ‘dragonslayer campaign’ followed by 7 months of lore-centric, one-off content is brilliant, and the time capsule is absolutely crucial to allow future players to experience all of the dragon-related content. Sure, they might miss out on some of the one-off content, but at least the meat-and-potatoes, dragon-related content will be permanently accessible.

However, I suggest you dial back just how much of the old lore is expanded on in the first year. Your suggestion covers a lot of things, certainly things I (and I’m sure others) would dearly love to see, but I fear it covers too much, too quickly. Leaving some things till later would give longevity to the game.

Also, your suggested structure of dragon-slaying content, if strictly adhered to, would only permit 5 more years of guaranteed game longevity. Kralkatorrik in 2014, then in no particular order Primordus, Jormag, Bubbles & Mordremoth, 2015 thru 2018. After that there are no more dragons to kill. What then? Perhaps Anet would finally decide to open up Cantha and let us see what has happened there, but I digress. The other big MMO has been around for almost 9 years now and shows no signs of stopping, so getting 6 years total out of GW2 isn’t impossible, but I’d like to see some thought given to what would be done after we run out of dragons to bash.

Overall I love what you’ve done, and I think ArenaNet would be wise to take a long, hard look at it, discuss it with the various leads and directors, and then reply here with their opinions. This is too good a concept to ignore.

Very interesting ideas, but I have to disagree with the idea of destroying the Pact. Its true that the Living story conflicts with the Personal story, but that is mostly because it would be confusing for players who see the Pact in the Living story, while in their personal story they haven’t gotten that far. However this seems often to be mainly because players who have been level 80 for a long time have NOT ADVANCED IT ANYMORE. I see often player screenshots of people in PvE maps (such as lions arch), they are level 80, and guess how far they are in their personal story? Often I see not even up to the level 40 story missions (seriously, the personal story missions offer good exp for leveling up to 80).

If players just plain refuse to advance in their personal story, that’s there problem because they are just lazy. Just have the Living story work assuming that the personal story is completed and Zhaitan is defeated. I remember that Anet had a some stuff like this during Flame and Frost. During many of the living story missions, the NPC’s dialog was different if I had become commander of the Pact, such as when talking with Rytlock. [url]http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Braham:_Help_from_the_Legions[\url] Also while not listed there, I remember Rytlock also had special dialog if I was Pact commander AND a Charr, he said along the lines of “Ah Centurion, good to see you. Oh wait, its Commander now. You keep on getting so many new titles its hard to keep up.” (heh heh, so true)
Similar changes in dialogs for [url]http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rox:_Critical_Mission[\url]. Including as Pact commander being able to go into the central meeting room and talk with the Charr legion leaders. Imperator Smodur said something along the lines of “Ah Commander welcome. Shouldn’t you guys be out fighting dragons right now though?”

I think that Anet needs to just realize that there are people who will never do their personal story missions (yet still know the lore that happens). Anet can’t put in a requirement that you have to have completed all personal story to be able to do the living story missions that involve the Pact, so go with alternatives that still include the Pact. Have a similar system that they had for the Flame and Frost dialogs, or just treat all living story stuff as if the personal story is done and Zhaitan is defeated. Seeing in Flame and Frost acknowledgements that I was Pact commander helped me very much feel that it was a living, evolving, and changing world.

Initially, during or after Lost Shores the developers did state that Living Story was set after Personal Story. Later, they rolled that back to the current, vague, “it can be any time during or after the PS” arrangement. The lines you saw referencing you as the Commander of the Pact only happened because you had made it that far in your PS. Those characters that had not reached that point in the PS did not receive that dialogue. This was intentional, to keep with Anet’s vague timeline.

I agree that ArenaNet needs to establish, clearly and plainly, that the Living Story is set after the fall of Zhaitan. However, what the OP is talking about is not just the Pact: he’s saying that the current LS has no relation to the dragons, which are supposed to be the core, primary antagonist of this game. His suggestion is in how to bring the LS back around and make the dragons the bad guys again, instead of having completely unrelated and, frankly, silly cartoon villains like Scarlet.

The suggestions are very, very ambitious and may be totally opposed to the direction ArenaNet wants to take the the game. This is why I said they need to see it and respond here with their opinions. These ideas are great, so they need to tell us what their ideas are and why theirs are better. That, the apparent lack of direction (from the players’ perspective) is what part of what has driving so much of the animosity and vitriol on the boards of late. Players have wanted to know where the game is headed ever since the first players killed Zhaitan. Players have been looking at the recent LS content from the past few months and see no direction. So they come on the boards to complain and voice their frustrations over the apparent lack of direction, and, like the OP here, offered their suggestions. Only recently have the devs actually stepped up to the mic and said “We hear you, here’s our response, please tell us more.”

Fallout.1798:

I think that Anet needs to just realize that there are people who will never do their personal story missions (yet still know the lore that happens). Anet can’t put in a requirement that you have to have completed all personal story to be able to do the living story missions that involve the Pact, so go with alternatives that still include the Pact.

Part of the problem with a persistent world is that you’ll never be able to do all the content. As the world changes and old content gets overridden, you cant go back and experience it the old way. New players to the game will never be able to see the Great Collapse in DR, because it’s been built over. New players will never get to do Twilight Arbor Forward/Up, because it’s gone. Persistent games are not made for new and future players: they are made for the players playing right now. That said, the Living Story should be made on the premise that everything that has already been released has already happened. New players playing through the ‘time capsule’ stories will just have to live with the notion that the instances they play in the ‘time capsule’ are considered the ‘past’ of the persistent world. It’s the only way to allow new players to experience old content AND acknowledge that veteran players already have.

Anet should not force people to play the PS as a requirement to play the LS, this is true, and so far they haven’t. However, if they implement the Time Capsule as stated by the OP they would never have to. It would allow players to go back and replay all the “dragonslayer” content, including (ideally) the original Personal Story involving Zhaitan. The side stuff would be temporary (couldn’t go replay Zephyr Sanctum, or Lost Shores, or Twilight Assault, or SAB) but they could play any dragon-related content, whenever they want. This would allow all future players access to all the dragon-related content so that they could get caught up to where the current LS would be.

Say a new player starts in late 2015. Under the OP’s idea, that new player would be able to start a personal story and work his way through killing Zhaitan, Kralkatorrik, and Primordus at his leisure, while still taking part in the then-current, non-dragon-related content. Eventually he should be caught up to the veteran players and be ready to take on the next Dragon in early 2016.

Again, this is a brilliant concept for maintaining a persistent world while still allowing new players the ability to experience all of the content. It’s a little immersion-breaking, bouncing between the ‘past’ and the ‘present’, but better that and having a coherent story than the disjointed mess we have now.

Tobias Valin.5893:

Initially, during or after Lost Shores the developers did state that Living Story was set after Personal Story. Later, they rolled that back to the current, vague, “it can be any time during or after the PS” arrangement. The lines you saw referencing you as the Commander of the Pact only happened because you had made it that far in your PS. Those characters that had not reached that point in the PS did not receive that dialogue. This was intentional, to keep with Anet’s vague timeline.

I do remember when the Lost Shores update came out that there was some dialog from NPC’s saying that the karka’s migration to Southsun cove was after the defeat of Zhaitan. (Important to note at that time I was Pact commander, but had not defeated Zhaitan) As for the flame and frost dialog about me being Pact commander, I had experimented and brought all my characters into those 2 flame and frost introduction missions to see the varying dialog. Like you said, characters that were not yet far enough in the PS to be Pact commander did not get any of that special dialog (or the ability to go to the meeting area of the Imperator’s Core, they didn’t got kicked backwards, which was kind of funny).

I like the idea of a time capsule for the living story. For Flame and Frost you could talk to NPC’s at the various quest locations to “replay” them. (which is how I was able to get all my characters into those intro missions to see the varying dialogs) Implementing something similar for this time capsule idea would be a perfect way to work the time capsule.

Incredible infographics!

the personal story and living story directly conflict. The personal story forces several entire zones and many parts of zones to be frozen in time, while the living story demands that zones change.

If (a very big “if”) Anet can start doing compelling living stories with non-saturday morning cartoon villains, I’d say kill the personsal story.

This is very good stuff, very interesting and thought out.
I agree the Personal Story needs to glorify the heroes more instead of making it “modernly realistic”, which is the reason people turn to games in the first place. I think they will expand on the PS over a large period of time to extend the time limit they set with the dragons. This means that instead of dragons all the time, we will have more “inside” Tyria stories. I do, however, believe they should find a way to clarify the timeline and set the story straight instead of making the players feel confused. I also think being cleverly mysterious “all” the time is not good for the game populace as they may believe there is no direction and lose interest when ANet keeps saying “wait for it”. Sometimes, clear cut stories and not a lot of twists can help the players feel more joy than interest in the game.
At any rate, I believe ANet has probably discussed this among themselves and is figuring out the “smoothest” path without completely dicing up their current direction, which would lead to a major gap in the story and leaving many players with a bit of a gap in their heart towards the game.

There’s a problem with your suggestion, OP. The personal story and living world directly conflict, not just storywise but mechanics wise as well. The personal story requires the world to not change. The Living World makes it change. You’re right, they’re dancing around the elder dragons because of this issue, but I think I need to add another detail to your solution.

I was thinking back to World of Warcraft, specifically its phasing technology. Some might say, “But then you have to create two separate zones!” But that’s not what I mean. In Mists of Pandaria (and yes, this is a true story), I was next to a group of people at an Alliance camp in one of the zones in Pandaria. Thing is, we could see each other, but we saw totally different things due to the fact I had not completed the corresponding quest chain. To me, the camp was in flames. To him, it had been fixed.

This would allow the personal story to make changes. But then how will people still doing the personal story see Living World content in Orr that takes place post-Personal Story? Simple. Bring on the time travel NPC! The time travel NPC storywise could be some powerful wizard, and is simply a way to transition in and out of the two phases. Or maybe a time travel orb sitting on a pedestal? Use the orb, and switch between post-Personal Story Ending and pre-Personal Story ending.

Combine this with your changed personal story ending and the other suggestions you made, BINGO. Perfect solution, though very ambitious. One problem though, you’d have to change more than just the last two personal story steps. There are entire steps related to pushing towards Arah. So unless you change your ending to taking place in Arah you’d have to retcon a large chunk of the Orr campaign, which isn’t very feasible.

A side note: There are areas below the Zhaitan fight in Arah which appear to be there for what was supposed to be a ground fight. ArenaNet could use those areas and put in what you described, without retconning the Pact. What do I mean? Have Trahearne step down! It’s so simple! Why jump through hoops when you can have Trahearne step down from his position in the final chapter? (The Celebration), and have you become the highest rank in the Pact? His wyld hunt was to cleanse Orr, not kill dragons, y’know.

To clarify, i’m not saying keep the entire final chapter as a ‘celebration’. Let it end up having Trahearne feel ashamed for not being there, and allowing the Pact to be cut through like scissors by Zhaitan. In shame and humility, he relinquishes his title as the highest rank to the player character, and a deep sorrow is felt for those that are lost. In the final cutscene, you, the player character, who with the help of only a few party members slayed an elder dragon, give a speech to the remaining soldiers of the Pact promising to rebuild the Pact and take the fight to the other Elder Dragons. From that point on, you are once again the center of the story.

Also, as for how Zhaitan cuts down the Pact? When the megalaser takes Zhaitan down, have Zhaitan crash into the ship the player character is on. In the midst of this chaos, the ships in the background can be seen crashing to the ground in an explosive cutscene, destroyed by the dragon champions attacking them. (Yes, the dragons flying in the background during the Arah mission that you don’t fight.)

Finally, when you crash to the ground, all of the members of Destiny’s Edge and each party member will have been scattered across the ground. All of the Destiny’s Edge members will be unconscious, but the players manage to rise up off the ground. You, the player characters, are forced not only to defend the unconscious Destiny’s Edge members but to slay the elder dragon by yourselves.

Or the Destiny’s Edge members could fight alongside you in melee combat. Whatever works best, I guess.

Before the discussion continues I’d like to clarify a few things with everyone.

First, there is no such thing as running out of lore. Everyone who has written q story can tell you that anything, absolutely everything can be expanded upon indefinitely if you continue to work on the details. This is especially true as Anet has demonstrated they are not above retroactive amendments with the Halloween story arc.

Second, running out of dragons to slay is not a concern, for two reasons. One, each dragon has its own aspect that they represent. These aspects can be elements, like primordius or jormag, but also abstractions, like kralkatorik. This allows for potentially an infinite number of dragons to exist. People will get bored of killing dragons before they run out. Second, if they decide to end the dragon menace, it will be perfectly acceptable for new story drivers to replace that void, in fact that would allow for more creative freedom. The Winds of Change story arc in gw1 happened at a time where the world is not on the verge of collapse and it was one of Anet’s more solid attempt at storytelling.

So please don’t cite “lore pacing” as justification for stagnant story lines any more. It is a myth and it dies right here.

I am in awe of the post and would love to play in any pen and paper campaign you ever run. Please, ArenaNet, pay heed to this person and hire him or her as a writer and then let his or her stuff actually happen!

The forum doesn’t like 5000+ character posts, so I’ll need to split responses. ’Tis irksome.

Fallout.1798:

Very interesting ideas, but I have to disagree with the idea of destroying the Pact. Its true that the Living story conflicts with the Personal story, but that is mostly because it would be confusing for players who see the Pact in the Living story, while in their personal story they haven’t gotten that far. However this seems often to be mainly because players who have been level 80 for a long time have NOT ADVANCED IT ANYMORE. I see often player screenshots of people in PvE maps (such as lions arch), they are level 80, and guess how far they are in their personal story? Often I see not even up to the level 40 story missions (seriously, the personal story missions offer good exp for leveling up to 80).

While I can respect that you like the Pact, may I attempt to change your mind? Consider the following…

1) Removing the Pact caters to both the people who do and don’t play the Personal Story. You are quite correct, some people will never bother with it, and that should be perfectly acceptable. By removing the Pact from play, there’s nothing preventing the game from telling a good story about the war with a full sense of immersion. If you haven’t become the Marshal, you can still answer the call for heroes to join your race’s force in the grand alliance against Ye Olde Elder Menace. Likewise, if you are the Dragonslayer fresh from the Battle for Orr, this can be acknowledged in the text based dialogue you describe. Everyone wins.

2) The absence of the Pact means more politicking and interspecies tension. The Races of Tyria are not supposed to see eye to eye; the Asura experimented on the Sylvari, the Charr and Humans have barely managed to stop warring against one another, and the Norn do not care, for they are Norn. This doesn’t translate well to the in-game story right now, since the Pact has everyone working together hand in hand. No one questions a massive apolitical army amassing without any diplomacy or leadership right outside one of the major cities, simply because “they say they’re the good guys”. Alas, verisimilitude, I knew it, Horatio…

If the burden of slaying dragons is left up to the species themselves, it will bring the squabbling, in-fighting, and discontent that accompany making monumental decisions. It will mean arguments over whether to sacrifice more Norn lives to go fight Primordius, despite Jormag being right on their doorstep, or letting more Asuran outposts be overrun with destroyers to bolster the alliance attack on Kralkatorric. This is grade A, freshly cut, unfiltered storytelling goodness.

3) New wars mean new ways to wage war. The Pact Attack was based around the three orders, and therefore it fought like an amalgamation of their talents. There was a lot of magitech military hardware, a few ancient artifacts, and a whole lot of sheer manpower. This is a perfectly acceptable way to wage a war, but it’s not the only one. Different races will confront the dragons in different ways, with plenty of awesome potential for each force in Tyria to show their stuff.

Imagine, if you will, how the Charr, Norn, Asura, Sylvari, Humans, Tengu, Largos, and Kodan each wage war. Rather than doing the Pact thing over and over again with the same airships and same harpoons, each race could get its chance to shine in one of the wars. Picture the Charr military machine rolling out every tank, every artillery, every metallic behemoth in their kitten nal, backed by human troops bolstering their army with divine artifacts and ancient rites. Think of the battle with the Icebrood, skirmishing through the shiverpeaks alongside shapeshifting ambush squads, or brawling in a massive fight where a shaman-summoned, forty-foot Spirit of All That Is Bear grapples with a Claw of Jormag and tears out its icy throat. Envision holding the line alongside tengu summoning Star Celestials, buying time for the asura to plug in a certain famous golem into an ancient abode, transforming an entire cubic city into the almighty Sparklemus Prime!

The Pact had its turn. Let’s let the other forces of Tyria flex their muscles and show us what makes them amazing.

Sorann Peace.9056:

There’s a problem with your suggestion, OP. The personal story and living world directly conflict, not just storywise but mechanics wise as well. The personal story requires the world to not change. The Living World makes it change.

A fair point, and you present a nifty idea. One second, though.

Tobias Valin.5893:

Also, your suggested structure of dragon-slaying content, if strictly adhered to, would only permit 5 more years of guaranteed game longevity. Kralkatorrik in 2014, then in no particular order Primordus, Jormag, Bubbles & Mordremoth, 2015 thru 2018. After that there are no more dragons to kill. What then?

Since these two things are somewhat related, best to respond to both at once.

The Living World does make things change, but it has to be approached in a reasonable manner. It would be rather difficult for Arenanet to create several new explorable zones, then remake them immediately following the campaign in order to account for the dragon’s death. On the other hand, as Sorann points out, they do need to change sometime, and Tobias is correct, we will run out of dragons eventually.

Ideally, I’d see it going something like this.

2014: Kralkatorric gets killed.
2015: Jormag is put on ice.
2016: Primordius is extinguished.
2017: The Deep Sea Dragon is killed with an aquatic related turn of phrase.

Up until this point, all the dragon related lands would be kept as-is. It will break some immersion for Orr to stay full of Risen in all that time, but it allows them to remain open as high-end content and avoid excessive developer workload.

After the last dragon falls, the lands could be restored via a Reclamation. The last of the Risen are purged from Orr, the crystal desert is cleansed and the brand removed, the Depths of Tyria are freed from Destroyers, and the Norn homelands break free of all Icebrood. From that point on, anyone doing the personal story can use Sorann’s idea and replay a single server running the warzone instance.

Meanwhile, the world turns and new threats emerge. The Mursaat have been lurking outside our dimension ever since they abandoned their allies to draconic doom. When the threat of dragons is eliminated, the Unseen shall return. Palawa Joko may have helped us once, but he’s played the long game many times before. As a master of logistical strategy, he’s bound to strike when we’re at our weakest to continue his conquest of the world. The mysteries of the Mists will likely reveal new threats, including the fate of the human gods and the forces of Dhuum or Menzies that stalk the cosmic plane. And finally, the xenophobic and zealous Canthans may decide to purify the world through flame, especially considering one of their favorite advisor’s origins. After all, if Glint as a dragon minion…where do you think Kuunavang came from?

The human-centric threats alone could last us well into the game’s first decade. That doesn’t even include the baggage brought by other races, nor the territory to the distant north and west of the continent. As the stories continue, the smaller tales outside the campaigns can present recurring villains and plot hooks to build the lore endlessly outwards. The Living Story could keep progressing for as long as they want the game to continue, all the way until they announce Guild Wars 3: Quaggan In Space.

Brilliance, sheer brilliance. I got goosebumps thinking about the epic adventures and a game with the lore resurfacing. Its a shallow, stale world right now but my god that would shake it back to epic.

Stunning. Anet should read it

Whoever is the mastermind of the current living story concept needs to make this guy his right hand man. Congratulations, Shriketalon. You have officially made me so excited that there is absolutely nothing ArenaNet can do to one-up you. I want to go play your game now.

Seriously, I’ve read this multiple times now and man, I want to play this so bad.

This is just fantastic in scope and detail.

Sure, the game doesn’t have to go this way, but as a general premise? It’s completely solid. The Pact are a large, awkward elephant in the room that the current LS sort of ignores, hands clasped behind its back, innocent whistle at the ready.

It was fine for the PS (maybe. Opinions vary, but I feel it served a good symbolic purpose even if the execution was a little lacklustre), but it’s just cumbersome now. Over half the battle of the PS was just making it happen. Would it really stick around, waiting happily in the wings until needed? I mean, heck, even if it wasn’t physically wiped out, surely petty infighting and racial tensions wouldn’t take long to eat away at all the goodwill built up from victory.

You might put aside suspicion in a time of need, but it comes bouncing back after not all that long. And heck, if you want to tie off Scarlet & co., isn’t it odd how the Aetherblades are handily mixed race? I mean, gosh, I wonder where they found all those soldiers willing to put aside racial prejudices, not to mention the Aetherships to retrofit. They all look suspiciously familiar to me…

And of course, the benefit there is that there’s no immediate reason for the races to work together again. Zhaitan kills the pact, and everyone sits up and says “These dragons are the enemy!” The Pact turn to piracy, and suddenly everyone’s at each other’s throats again. It also levels powerful Pact Commanders down a peg to be taken with the same seriousness as newer players.

This made me more hyped than any of the living story seen so far.

Lord Kuru.3685:

the personal story and living story directly conflict. The personal story forces several entire zones and many parts of zones to be frozen in time, while the living story demands that zones change.

If (a very big “if”) Anet can start doing compelling living stories with non-saturday morning cartoon villains, I’d say kill the personsal story.

I don’t think that killing it is needed or a good idea (it’s one of the main reasons I bought the game), but I’d like to see them adding the Living Story to the personal story, so that instances like the one in Kessex Hills can be played by new characters in years to come. This would require a more instanced storytelling (which can be played either grouped or solo) and something like phasing in WoW where different players in the same zones can see different things based on their progress through the Living Story but it would have the added benefit of returning players being able to play through the content they missed and people being able to play content again on new characters.

It’s what I though they were going to do back before F&F landed.

I love it, ANET should definitely use some of these ideas, if they did, they would have me as a loyal player for at least the next 5 years.

The other thing is – I’ve read it, seen what the plan is and it makes me want to play it even more. It’s far more interesting knowing whats coming in the story rather than keeping it all super hush hush.

They really do need to increase the post size: this is just silly having to split posts.

Talissa Chan.7208:

The other thing is – I’ve read it, seen what the plan is and it makes me want to play it even more. It’s far more interesting knowing whats coming in the story rather than keeping it all super hush hush.

This is a very, very good point. Knowing what is coming, if not how, makes it a lot easier to get excited for new content. We knew in beta that we would be taking on a huge undead dragon. We didn’t know how, or in what context, but we knew it was going to happen and everyone was excited for it. Compared to now, with the constant mysteries and vagaries, and no one is interested anymore. We don’t feel, at least I don’t, that we are ever going to get resolution so why bother getting excited only to be strung along yet again? That was one of the comments made in the Collaborative Development ideas-suggestion thread: we asked the devs to tell us where the game is going, and what we can expect, because the constant unknown is just making everyone upset.

Back to the OP and discussion of his idea, I think part of the problem with the story, at least with its known end, is the fact that we have a known end. We know that once we kill all 6 dragons its game-over. Nothing left to fight so no more game to play; bring on Guild Wars 3. I’ve been thinking about this the last few days and there may be a way to extend the longevity of the game’s dragon-related content. Instead of killing a dragon every 5 months, as the OP’s plan shows, why not progress through the taking of territories every 5 months, culminating in taking down a dragon?

Example: when it comes time to take on Kralk, the first 5 months is phase 1 where we make a push into the desert regions south of Ebonhawk and establish a foothold there. Then we have 7 months of off-season, filler content about other lore-stuff, like the Wizards’s tower or the Blood Legion homelands, or Malyck's tree. Then the next 5 months, Phase 2, we push toward the Bone Palace and make a deal with Palawa Joko. 7 more months of filler. Phase 3, 5 months pushing to Tombs, and killing Kralk, 7 months putting Joko to rest for good and freeing Elona.

Didn’t Blizzard do something similar with WoW’s story? Introduced Arthas in the first game but didn’t actually fight him until 2 expansions later? I’ve never played WoW so I only know from talking with friends that have, but that was the impression I had.

Anyway, that’s 3 years worth of story and only 1 dragon dead. Do that with every dragon and you could triple the lifespan of the game. Now, personally I’d rather kill 1 dragon a year and then have new stories based on other lore as Shriketalon suggests, but if ArenaNet is determined to keep this game about the Dragons then this would allow them to have a great amount of longevity doing so.

Shriketalon.1937:

Imagine, if you will, how the Charr, Norn, Asura, Sylvari, Humans, Tengu, Largos, and Kodan each wage war. Rather than doing the Pact thing over and over again with the same airships and same harpoons, each race could get its chance to shine in one of the wars. Picture the Charr military machine rolling out every tank, every artillery, every metallic behemoth in their kitten nal, backed by human troops bolstering their army with divine artifacts and ancient rites. Think of the battle with the Icebrood, skirmishing through the shiverpeaks alongside shapeshifting ambush squads, or brawling in a massive fight where a shaman-summoned, forty-foot Spirit of All That Is Bear grapples with a Claw of Jormag and tears out its icy throat. Envision holding the line alongside tengu summoning Star Celestials, buying time for the asura to plug in a certain famous golem into an ancient abode, transforming an entire cubic city into the almighty Sparklemus Prime!

The Pact had its turn. Let’s let the other forces of Tyria flex their muscles and show us what makes them amazing.

I giggled at Sparklemus Prime. :P

I like this concept of allowing each of the races to take a kind of leadership role in dealing with respective dragons. The Norn have the most experience with Jormag so it only makes sense to follow their lead. Same with the Asura and Primordus, Charr and Kralkatorrik (via the Branded) and maybe the Sylvari and Mordremoth depending on how the devs tie him into the story. No one has experience with Bubbles so it could be another Pact-like thing to deal with him, which could possibly lead to the opening up of the southern and western landmasses. Each race being able to take a leadership role might also bolster the number of players in the less-populous races (I’m looking at you, Charr.)

One thing that is important, that bears repeating again and again until the devs acknowledge it, is that the content must be replayable, without having to reroll. One of the most annoying things right now, to me, is that if I want to go back and play through the Human Noble storyline again, I have to roll a new character. Or if I want to run “A Vision of Darkness” again as a Sylvari, I have to re-roll and then level until I can do it. I don’t want to do that: I just want to re-run the mission I have already beaten. A new player 2-3 years from now should be able to go back and beat Zhaitan, Kralkatorrik, etc. That was one of the great things about Guild Wars 1; you could go back to old missions and re-live the content, without having to level an alt.

Someone in Anet needs to hire this man.

This should be something Anet’s Developers are showing off to rekindle hope for what’s to come in Guild Wars 2. This is the direction the game should be taking, not the direction it currently is taking.

But alas, we’re most likely going to be stuck with Scarlet until next July, when we might, just maybe, get to see a new Dragon…maybe.

Anet, paying attention to this guy, if not straight up hiring him as a consultant, is about the best decision you could EVER make regarding GW2 story and development. I would advise you look very carefully at several of the points this guy is making, and use them to improve what plans you already have set to go.

Absolutely brilliant. Perfectly put. Simply genius. At the least, this deserves a bump so more people can see it.

Arena Net, you absolutely need to read what this guy has to say…if not hire him. In all seriousness though, if you work for Arena Net please get this circulating.

Us as the playerbase, we need to get this circulating throughout the community. If we get enough people to make a clear statement, Arena Net will have no choice. If we are to save this game’s lore and overall greatness, it’s our duty to make a change. I believe that could start with this.

This is a very nice post OP.
Mayby you should link it to the Living story suggestion topic on the main forum, its made by the devs to discuss with the players, so you might have a higher chance they see it there.

I linked it in one of my posts and asked the Devs to take a look. Unlikely that they will, but worth the electrons to try.

So, is there a kickstarter I can pledge for bribing you a way to the top of ANet’s planning staff?

Seriously, can I buy the game the OP described? I already paid for scarlet wars 2, but this one sounds like way more epic fun!

I have nothing more constructive to say, so I’ll just write here to bump this up!

That, just that – the serious way to treat story and consumers would make me reconsider my “I’m going to leave after WS or tESO launch” attitude.

The Pact -like the personal story- is pretty generic. We basically have a united Tyrian army ready to face any threat head on, with a pretty good chance of winning.
So, yeah, it needs to go.
However, the way you proposed, simply destroying the Pacts forces does not actually do much in keeping the Pact dead. As you said, the spirit if the Pact would linger on, which is why upon destruction the Pact would reform as soon as possible.

The Pact must not be destroyed, but it must collapse. Something must stir up the orders against one another again. Causing hatred stronger than ever before. Maybe the (un)fortunate death of Traherne leaves a power vacuum, or perhaps he goes insane.

And whatever it is, it has to happen after Zhaitans death.
Breaking up the Pact before showing how powerful it was and making everything the player strived towards void, would only show that what the player does has no impact

Overall this is a wonderful thread. Great ideas OP!

Although like some other folks, I’m not entirely too sure of the pacing… that is a lot of work to be done for consistently creating new areas while they also modify old ones. Think of all the artwork, voice acting, zone planning (who? why? where? topology? theme? modeling? POI? tasks? events? level? lore? impact?), and more that would need to go into polishing a new zone so that it blends into the rest of the world while also standing out on its own. It’d be even more tricky for places like the crystal desert where they’d have to create a lot of never before seen models and assets.

Still, it would be amazing if they followed the ideas found in your timeline even if not exactly at your pacing.

Tobias Valin.5893:

One thing that is important, that bears repeating again and again until the devs acknowledge it, is that the content must be replayable, without having to reroll. One of the most annoying things right now, to me, is that if I want to go back and play through the Human Noble storyline again, I have to roll a new character. Or if I want to run “A Vision of Darkness” again as a Sylvari, I have to re-roll and then level until I can do it. I don’t want to do that: I just want to re-run the mission I have already beaten. A new player 2-3 years from now should be able to go back and beat Zhaitan, Kralkatorrik, etc. That was one of the great things about Guild Wars 1; you could go back to old missions and re-live the content, without having to level an alt.

Yes, that would be nice. Perhaps place some sort of ‘reflection chamber’ in a player’s home instance which would give you a list of ‘memories’ and let you replay missions as your character reflects back on them.

The only complication would be that your character shouldn’t be able to replay a mission, choose a different option than they did originally, and play it through since they’d be seeing things they never did. Although, I suppose they could explain around it by having your character ‘fall asleep’ during the reflection and dreaming up the alternative choice and results.
I don’t think I’d mind if they limited us to the missions based off our original choices however.

Encarton.3985:

The only complication would be that your character shouldn’t be able to replay a mission, choose a different option than they did originally, and play it through since they’d be seeing things they never did. Although, I suppose they could explain around it by having your character ‘fall asleep’ during the reflection and dreaming up the alternative choice and results.
I don’t think I’d mind if they limited us to the missions based off our original choices however.

Why not? We were able to do that in Nightfall. Choose path A, then after you beat the game you can go back and play Path B. Same in GWEN with the Scrying Pool in HoM. It was just understood that you were “watching history” as it were, rather than having to be explicitly told such.

I actually find part of the greater discussion about Living Story rather hilarious. Usually it’s players demanding updates to content and not considering how new people would experience the old, while the devs have to say “Yeah, but what about 2 years from now?” In this discussion WE, the Players, are the ones considering the future while the devs seem to only be thinking about the present playerbase.

Reading your suggestion of LS releases I had continuous smile on my face. So much so, that I’d almost say it should be implemented in that exact way.
Still, there’s some parts I’d like to comment on.

1. Regarding one of your responses. I know this may sound childish, dismissive, narrow-minded, and everything else internet comments are infamous for, but anet will never create instanced zones (as in, splitting a zone into pre- and post-Living Story/Personal Story instances). Not (only) because it’s better for the players, but because it makes more sense for the company. Spreading the playerbase too thin is a problem nearly all MMO’s face, especially once expansions are released and low level zones basically become ghost towns.
That’s why GW2 (ingeniously) has down-scaling, and also why almost no new permanent content has released with the Living Story. Anet wants to revitalise existing zones rather than releasing new ones.
In the MMO space it’s also sometimes more important to make the game look alive and breathing/played.
Tangents are great.

2. Looking at Your 2014 for GW2 I’m concerned about its second half. The Off-Season is basically just like the Living Story now, but it still contains important to me lore elements, like The Wizards Tower, The Tengu, The Origin of the Asura, and the Vaettir.
I’m not concerned with running out of lore, but by giving each of those elements only a month or so to develop, you don’t have enough time for build up and for them to have any impact, which makes interesting lore basically into filler content.
Since the Off Season is full of Holiday events that would interrupt good pacing, it’d be better to stick with new, short stories that don’t have to have a lot of impact.

Lastly, I want to tell you that your post is great, and anet should definitely have a look at this. I want to thank you for all the effort and thought you put into this.

NinjaChris.9340:

2. Looking at Your 2014 for GW2 I’m concerned about its second half. The Off-Season is basically just like the Living Story now, but it still contains important to me lore elements, like The Wizards Tower, The Tengu, The Origin of the Asura, and the Vaettir.
I’m not concerned with running out of lore, but by giving each of those elements only a month or so to develop, you don’t have enough time for build up and for them to have any impact, which makes interesting lore basically into filler content.
Since the Off Season is full of Holiday events that would interrupt good pacing, it’d be better to stick with new, short stories that don’t have to have a lot of impact.

Lastly, I want to tell you that your post is great, and anet should definitely have a look at this. I want to thank you for all the effort and thought you put into this.

I just wanted to point out that it was a hypothetical year. I mean, it’s not like that’s a real proposal. You’re right that large lore elements would really benefit from more than a month of attention, but this was a placeholder. As much effort as the OP has put into it, it’s still easier to talk about things players recognise than the sort of one-shot plots the devs could actually put into an “off season”.

I do think that five months is a bit short to be taking on a dragon start to finish, so I think if anything, the proposed “off season” would be an excellent time to have the rumblings of progress towards the upcoming plot. I mean, if we are going to go after Jormag, say, in the off-season before it would make sense for the Icebrood to pick up the pace, even if it’s just in November. That way, it sets up the foreshadowing rather than it being this neat and tidy start and finish. Maybe you could even have September’s plot be unrelated, but the heralds note that the Icebrood are on the rise, and then it picks up in the background of Halloween, and then November’s is “Drive back X incursion”, with time off for Wintersday due to that specific victory, and then the pickup in January of “Well, this is getting worse now, time to take on Jormag and be done with it.”

Sorry about the long time in between responses. Been busy. Also, thank you to everyone for the kind words. It’s an honor and a pleasure to see an idea well received.

Back to the OP and discussion of his idea, I think part of the problem with the story, at least with its known end, is the fact that we have a known end. We know that once we kill all 6 dragons its game-over. Nothing left to fight so no more game to play; bring on Guild Wars 3.
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Anyway, that’s 3 years worth of story and only 1 dragon dead. Do that with every dragon and you could triple the lifespan of the game.

While the pacing is understandable, I would put forth a different perspective: there are way too many good stories to tell to spend three years per dragon. Guild Wars 1 was released in 2005. If it takes us around a decade to kill off the dragons, we’re looking at more time between the finale of the dragon wars and now than the entire lifespan of Arenanet’s first game. In that game, we saved the world four times over, and only three of those incidents were our fault. If we spend the next ten years fighting dragons, it’s going to get dull, fast.

Meanwhile, there is so much other cool stuff to do. You mentioned Palawa Joko, but consider the following. Palawa won’t fight us with the dragons still around. He’s a master of the Long Game and has used the “get mortal heroes to kill the bigger fish” strategy before. We’re not going to be able to fight a war with him going around the Dragonbrand, and he’s quite content to sit back and let us handle the dragon crisis while he picks his dessicated toenails. That’s how he rolls.

There are plenty of other similiar beasties waiting in the wings. The Mursaat vanished from this plane of existence because of the dragons, and when all the wyrms die, they’ll want their stuff back. Cantha is likely to be a xenophobic tyranny bent on eradication of all impure life, which means plenty of fun times. That’s not even considering a Riftwar in the Mists between the gods and Dhuum, or any other supernatural phenomena.

Once the dragons die, the real game begins. It’s not game over. It’s the beginning of Chapter 2.

Tobias Valin.5893:

One thing that is important, that bears repeating again and again until the devs acknowledge it, is that the content must be replayable, without having to reroll.

This is an excellent point. While I am not entirely sure about the method (NinjaChris has a good point about the problems with splitting servers between two different zones), it would be ideal to have a way to replay every aspect of the story. A Historian NPC, some sort of Chronicle in the home instance, or another generic menu device might work decently. The good news is that this problem would loom its head in the years to come, thus leaving plenty of time to solve it.

NinjaChris.9340:

2. Looking at Your 2014 for GW2 I’m concerned about its second half. The Off-Season is basically just like the Living Story now, but it still contains important to me lore elements, like The Wizards Tower, The Tengu, The Origin of the Asura, and the Vaettir.
I’m not concerned with running out of lore, but by giving each of those elements only a month or so to develop, you don’t have enough time for build up and for them to have any impact, which makes interesting lore basically into filler content.

Two quick answers to that, followed by a longer one.

For scheduling, the nice thing about the holiday season is that it does have room for shifting things around. The schedule can fit in everything from a quick two week block to two entire months (the Gauntlet starts in early August, Halloween is late October, so the four updates in between can be one story or many) to accommodate a tale without interruption.

The Off-Season stories aren’t meant to act as the be-all, end-all compilation of lore. For example, the Ruins of Rata Pten is meant to act as a teaser to the Asuran origin rather than the entire story. Some sidestories would be self contained, while others would point towards the upcoming campaign and help form a broad foundation.
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It seems to work much better when it’s all laid out. Tell you what. Originally I cut the plan down a bit to fit a single year (which is why it’s a little bit disoriented, I wanted to hit a bit of everything for the different races rather than exclusively singling out a region), but the further years in my plan were a bit better organized (I have too much time on my hands). It’ll take a short amount of time to throw them up into a presentable format, but they’re already written out.

Be right back.

wow…

I honestly can’t think of anything else to say or contribute other than….wow! 3/4th’s of it is exactly what I want to see in a Guild Wars 2 game (which is twice as much as the current living story is giving me) Please hurry up and tell us what you propose for the other years too. Not that it’ll ever happen, but it would be very interesting to see!

Alrighty, ready to go.

The idea here is that one year leads to another in a general sense, but it uses self contained stories to form the foundation. That way, they can form the framework for something bigger, while still standing strong on their own. In theory, of course. For a touch of variety, creature features (one month monster focused stories), holidays, and the oddball joke episode are thrown in the mix.

The one big potential problem is the predictability of the campaigns. If it becomes rather dull to gather together and slay the beast in about the same time frame each year, it could turn monotonous by the time we take on Bubbles. At the moment, the hypotheticals attempt to solve that with some hooks to throw in the middle of the stories, but one could also delay the battle with the Deep Sea Dragon and interject something else if it grows too predictable. That’s a conundrum for another day.

After the dragons are dead, the next few months are spent on a Reclamation, transforming the areas currently occupied by dragonspawn to mark the dawn of a new day. Meanwhile, it introduces several story threads to act as major plot points for the future. All things sailing smoothly, this should mean that the fifth anniversary of the game is poised to reinvigorate itself and introduce several new campaign themes across every corner of Tyria.

Here’s the big old block. I hope you enjoy it, and thanks for reading through the long haul.

Shriketalon, I have read and re-read all you’ve put forth, and I’ve nearly come to tears due to the excitement felt from the fantastic ideas, and also from disappointment in the realization that I, and everyone else, will probably never get to play this game you’ve outlined. You perfectly describe the game I would play daily for well over a decade and love every exciting minute of it.

Thank you for compiling your incredible thoughts in this manner for us to share in.

I didn’t read the whole bit (I find those screenshots thingies hard to read), but from what I read, you put to words the feeling I’ve been having with the personal stories vs the living stories.

I love the living stories. I love the fact that the land is changing. But, they cannot change certain bits, simply because of the personal stories. And I’m not talking about the pact arc only.

Take the Queen’s Jubilee. We knew Queen Jennah would not die, simply because she’s required in the personal stories. Had ANet never introduced the personal stories, but started off with the living stories from the start, we might have seen a completely different Tyria by this time. Queen Jennah might have died and a struggle for a new ruler would be going on. Lion’s Arch would be in ruins (due to the Karka attack) and would slowly be rebuilding, while the pirates would be a lot more numerous.

After a few years, we might actually see the Brand be removed (after we kill the dragon that caused it, I can never spell his name :P)

The first part of the personal stories (the bits that are decided on with character creation) could stay, but in a different manner. No “world NPC” would be involved, just the normal citizens of a town/tree.

Shriketalon.1937:

If we spend the next ten years fighting dragons, it’s going to get dull, fast.

fair point.

Shriketalon.1937:

Once the dragons die, the real game begins. It’s not game over. It’s the beginning of Chapter 2.

Here’s where I think we disagree, if only in technicality. I think that Guild Wars 2 is, or should be, strictly about the dragons. Once they are defeated it seems more prudent to begin Guild Wars 3 and go into other lore content. If we take 1 year for each dragon that means we’ll finish them in 2018, assuming Mordremoth is a real dragon. That’s 6 years-4 months of life, compared to GW1’s lifespan being 6 years-10 months. That’s pretty consistent. Starting over with Guild Wars 3 would let the developers take what they have learned from this game and improve the way they deliver content. We all know the problems they’re having right now trying to mesh the conflicting presentation methods of Living Story and Personal Story; better to start over with a new system than to try and keep the old system limping. It also allow the developers to leverage new technologies and make the game even more impressive. GW2 is such a step above GW1, at least graphically and mechanically, that I think GW3 would be a step above yet again.

Nevertheless, I do like how you’ve arranged the content and how you steadily move from one dragon to another. I also can appreciate how you left out the larger bits, like liberating Elona from PJ or revisiting Cantha. It’s things like that which I could see being anchors of the story in GW3.

References for above timetables:
April 2005 – Guild Wars launches
Feb 2012 – final Guild Wars Beyond: Winds of Change chapter released

Aug. 2012-2013 – Guild Wars 2 Launches, Zhaitan
2014 – Kralkatorrik
2015 – Primordus
2016 – Jormag
2017 – Bubbles
2018 – Mordremoth (if confirmed to be real)

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

… Had ANet never introduced the personal stories, but started off with the living stories from the start, we might have seen a completely different Tyria by this time. Queen Jennah might have died and a struggle for a new ruler would be going on. Lion’s Arch would be in ruins (due to the Karka attack) and would slowly be rebuilding, while the pirates would be a lot more numerous.

After a few years, we might actually see the Brand be removed (after we kill the dragon that caused it, I can never spell his name :P)

I wholeheartedly agree. If the Living Story was their plan from the start, and it certainly seems that way, then they should not have made the personal story instanced like it was. The PS demands the world remain static so as not to confuse the player with differences between the PS and the open world. Shriketalon certainly seems more the capable in his/her story delivery to make things interesting for all players without resorting to instanced content.

I tried to get some of the bigger critics of the Living Story to take a look at this thread, even posting about it in the Collaborative Development thread, but it would seem few people are taking notice. Anymore the only thing that seems to get attention is a red-post.

Edited to add: Regardless of the tweaks I’d prefer to see made to Shriketalon’s suggestion, if it was implemented as-is I would play it in a heartbeat without hesitation. It’s just that good.

Shriketalon.1937:

Here’s the big old block. I hope you enjoy it, and thanks for reading through the long haul.

Daaaay-yaaam.

You win the internet for the day.

That was a ton of work. Lots of interesting ideas. I’m not sure I can digest it – it’s that rich of a banquet.

Not done reading everything yet, but I HAD to log in just to say how much I LOL’d at the first jpeg’s lower meme, “Get in line, impudent weed!”

Also, “Strap me to some stilts and call me a Bookah!” Great line. Shriketalon.1937, you have written the game I honestly thought Anet was making before beta, and one I had hoped I was buying.

Oh man, so much to read.. And it’s all so good.

I’d have no problem whatsoever if this was the path Anet were to take from here on out. It’s the perfect way to build upon established lore and tell an amazing story.

I really hope Arenanet is reading this thread and is taking notes, because this is exactly what GW2 could use.

Not bad, still don’t understand why the pact has to go. Can’t the majority of the pact leader vs non-pact leader be solved in two different sets of dialogue?

Even without the personal story your character wanders the world slaying monsters and spirits and beasts, delving ancient dungeons, and single-handedly fighting entire wars. Why is such a strong explanation needed for why the character wishes to fight the dragons in light of all that?

Sorry for the superfluous post. The thread bugged out when I posted, I’ve seen it happen before, it’s some bug with previously deleted posts when a new page is created, and the only way to fix it is by adding posts.

So anyway, sorry again. Here’s my post that bugged out the thread, carry on.

Not bad, still don’t understand why the pact has to go. Can’t the majority of the pact leader vs non-pact leader be solved in two different sets of dialogue?

Even without the personal story your character wanders the world slaying monsters and spirits and beasts, delving ancient dungeons, and single-handedly fighting entire wars. Why is such a strong explanation needed for why the character wishes to fight the dragons in light of all that?