Guild Wars 2

Instances in GW2 are created by taking a portion of the current/existing map and temporarily creating an exact copy to be used as a personalized zone available only to you and a team of up to four additional players. Initially, this was not a bad system, as the file sharing allowed them to recycle the available maps rather than create new zones all together. However, now that Living Story is revisiting past locations of Personal Story instances, and drastically altering the terrain (which in itself is not a bad thing), it has become a big problem. Every instanced place that is being reused for living story, is destroying the infrastructure, the base foundations of the game, and thereby massively crippling the immersion.

The gathering of mentors in Lions Arch, at which time should have been a lively, vibrant trade city, untouched by Scarlet’s wrath, is now a desolate wasteland. Your first meeting with Trahearn at Fort Concorida, which should have taken place just after establishing the pact, and long before anyone had heard tale of Scarlet, not to mention Mordroth’s awakening, is now crumbling at the onslaught of his vines. Its like building in Venice; each new residence, atop the previous, just causing the city to sink deeper and deeper, until nothing of the original city is left, until the sheer mass atop the unstable base, causes the entire structure to collapse.

I urge you to stop before you destroy yourself; find another means of creating instances, and don’t drag your own story into a dark abyss simply by extending it on rocky foundations. Create stand-alone instances that are permanently programmed in the game, and do not require the system to draw a copy from the current existing map. Do it before its too late, because if you continue upon this road, the continuity and stability of each instance will shatter, and the story will suffer for it.

ANet’s idea is that the game was able to evolve with time, and have significant changes in its environment. what you’re asking is for them to go back on one of the founding pillars of GW2, and instead stick to a static world, where the only visible changes are instanced. i really don’t see it happening.

for better or for worse, it’s kind of implied in the story journal that the game takes place in the “present” (which is as of writing 1327 AE), and the personal story takes place in the past (1325 AE). if anything, it gives players an idea of what has been, and how much has changed since.

BrunoBRS.5178:

ANet’s idea is that the game was able to evolve with time, and have significant changes in its environment. what you’re asking is for them to go back on one of the founding pillars of GW2, and instead stick to a static world, where the only visible changes are instanced. i really don’t see it happening.

for better or for worse, it’s kind of implied in the story journal that the game takes place in the “present” (which is as of writing 1327 AE), and the personal story takes place in the past (1325 AE). if anything, it gives players an idea of what has been, and how much has changed since.

I think he means keep the personal story the same despite the open world changes.

xoz.2481:

BrunoBRS.5178:

ANet’s idea is that the game was able to evolve with time, and have significant changes in its environment. what you’re asking is for them to go back on one of the founding pillars of GW2, and instead stick to a static world, where the only visible changes are instanced. i really don’t see it happening.

for better or for worse, it’s kind of implied in the story journal that the game takes place in the “present” (which is as of writing 1327 AE), and the personal story takes place in the past (1325 AE). if anything, it gives players an idea of what has been, and how much has changed since.

I think he means keep the personal story the same despite the open world changes.

…it is?

the personal story instances, to the best of my knowledge, take place in the “old” versions of those maps. the pathfinding rework alone that would be required to retrofit personal story every time lion’s arch is changed (counting festivals, there have been 6 different versions of it so far, excluding minor changes) is enough to keep personal story “static” and stuck in the past.

BrunoBRS.5178:

xoz.2481:

BrunoBRS.5178:

ANet’s idea is that the game was able to evolve with time, and have significant changes in its environment. what you’re asking is for them to go back on one of the founding pillars of GW2, and instead stick to a static world, where the only visible changes are instanced. i really don’t see it happening.

for better or for worse, it’s kind of implied in the story journal that the game takes place in the “present” (which is as of writing 1327 AE), and the personal story takes place in the past (1325 AE). if anything, it gives players an idea of what has been, and how much has changed since.

I think he means keep the personal story the same despite the open world changes.

…it is?

the personal story instances, to the best of my knowledge, take place in the “old” versions of those maps. the pathfinding rework alone that would be required to retrofit personal story every time lion’s arch is changed (counting festivals, there have been 6 different versions of it so far, excluding minor changes) is enough to keep personal story “static” and stuck in the past.

It would make sense for the personal story instances to take place in the old versions of the maps, but they don’t. If you did the initial Destiny’s Edge meeting mission in Lion’s Arch during the invasion, you would have DE meeting an a destroyed city with children playing in the miasma. It’s completely immersion breaking and should be fixed like the OP has stated.

BrunoBRS.5178:

…it is?

the personal story instances, to the best of my knowledge, take place in the “old” versions of those maps. the pathfinding rework alone that would be required to retrofit personal story every time lion’s arch is changed (counting festivals, there have been 6 different versions of it so far, excluding minor changes) is enough to keep personal story “static” and stuck in the past.

You obviously did not read my post correctly, instances are created on the spot using the current existing terrain. This means, if an instance from personal story took place in a fort next to a volcano, and in living story that volcano had an eruption, thus destroying the fort, anyone playing personal story, would be performing a mission in a fort that does not exist. Still don’t see any problems with that?

No, I’m not saying that they shouldn’t constantly change and evolve their world, but if they are going to do so, they need a new system for instances.

I ralley you all, lets keep this thread alive, even if all you say is ‘signed’

well in that case, yes it’s kinda silly. i haven’t touched personal story since before living story was a thing, so i wouldn’t know. stuff like using the current lion’s arch is ok, but i imagine going to concordia and having those freaking vines everywhere would be a bit jarring.

HOWEVER.

i’m still heavily, heavily against phasing. i’d rather new users be like “what’s up with the vines” than not have vines at all, and i’d rather have vines messing specific personal story instances than have the userbase split into a bunch of smaller shards like elder scrolls online did (and everyone hated that). keeping the community together is the most important thing. making sure the world evolves with time is the second.

BrunoBRS.5178:

well in that case, yes it’s kinda silly. i haven’t touched personal story since before living story was a thing, so i wouldn’t know. stuff like using the current lion’s arch is ok, but i imagine going to concordia and having those freaking vines everywhere would be a bit jarring.

HOWEVER.

i’m still heavily, heavily against phasing. i’d rather new users be like “what’s up with the vines” than not have vines at all, and i’d rather have vines messing specific personal story instances than have the userbase split into a bunch of smaller shards like elder scrolls online did (and everyone hated that). keeping the community together is the most important thing. making sure the world evolves with time is the second.

Whether the vines should stay or not, isnt the point of this thread. I agree, they should be present in the world map (until such a time that an event renders them obsolete), and they should be present in the current living story instance; but they should not exist in the personal story instance; yet they do. This is due to the way instances are mechanically built, creating a coppy of the current active map, and giving no thought to how the area looked during the time the instance took place, and thus should look while you are within. And that, is what needs to change.

I was playing a new alt the other day and was suprised to meet DE in destroyed lion’s arch. I think they can instance the old maps without screwing up open world play if they’re a little more clear with the disconnect:

On opening each non-current story step (either personal story or out of date living story) tag the screen with the date and time difference from current day (e.g. "1325 AE – two years ago) so that it is clear to the player they are re-living the past in these instances.

Doing this makes it pretty clear to the player that they are living in the past in these instances, which would make using the old version of the maps feel much more natural.

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

BrunoBRS.5178:

well in that case, yes it’s kinda silly. i haven’t touched personal story since before living story was a thing, so i wouldn’t know. stuff like using the current lion’s arch is ok, but i imagine going to concordia and having those freaking vines everywhere would be a bit jarring.

HOWEVER.

i’m still heavily, heavily against phasing. i’d rather new users be like “what’s up with the vines” than not have vines at all, and i’d rather have vines messing specific personal story instances than have the userbase split into a bunch of smaller shards like elder scrolls online did (and everyone hated that). keeping the community together is the most important thing. making sure the world evolves with time is the second.

Whether the vines should stay or not, isnt the point of this thread. I agree, they should be present in the world map (until such a time that an event renders them obsolete), and they should be present in the current living story instance; but they should not exist in the personal story instance; yet they do. This is due to the way instances are mechanically built, creating a coppy of the current active map, and giving no thought to how the area looked during the time the instance took place, and thus should look while you are within. And that, is what needs to change.

yeah, i agree. the instances should take place in the old versions of the map (or whatever version of the map is relevant to the story you’re playing, in the case of living story), but the world should be changed as it has been, without phasing.

[quote=4210176;BrunoBRS.5178:
yeah, i agree. the instances should take place in the old versions of the map (or whatever version of the map is relevant to the story you’re playing, in the case of living story), but the world should be changed as it has been, without phasing.[/quote]

But as no ones replied to this post, I guess players don’t mind imersion breaking content.

Here’s the Dev response: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/Continuity-issues-with-personal-story-Maps/first#post4215895