Guild Wars 2

For me, what really brings out the feeling of a “Living Story” are the interactions with NPCs. When you first enter Camp Resolve, you are greeted with the respect that you have accumulated throughout the game. For example, to hear those two Blood Legion charr whisper that you are the “tough as nails” guy who helped to take down Zhaitan before they proudly salute you is an absolutely wonderful experience. Contrast this with games such as Skyrim in which NPCs still mostly treat you as the player you started out as even after you have achieved great feats. The race-specific interactions you have further flesh out the sense of a unique experience, like when you talk to the mysterious charr whom Rox was initially preoccupied with, you can, if you yourself are a charr, intimidate him and send him cowering.

Even better is discovering the interactions NPCs have amongst themselves. I absolutely love Chef Gristlemane’s mumblings and dialogue with the food inspector. The botched demonstration the asura gives those three Iron Legion charr is also wonderful, and I only wish their interaction lasted longer.

In short, I feel that a genuine Living Story comes not from new maps or new gear, but from meaningful character interactions, from seeing NPCs actually living in the world rather than standing still and repeating the same line like automatons. I hope that future episodes will have even more moments such as these.

hi, i’m looking for a guild that consistently completes teq and evolved wurm every day. i’ve already failed countless times with random people because we collectively lack organization and coordination. also, please don’t be a guild that requires 100% rep because i like to join different guilds that focus on different aspects of the game.

Tachenon.5270:

The Flashback system in City of Heroes let you go back and replay old missions, and you could set various parameters (time limits, no inspirations, etc.) and earn badges for replaying them.

Surely some aspiring asura could come up with something similar here in Tyria.

Ooh yeah that’d be pretty sweet, to make extra difficult versions of the quests for you to replay and gain some sort of reward/achievement.

Alkonium.9164:

Except that Personal Story is full of choices that affect how it plays out. They’d have to disable these choices in order to preserve the progression. And what about rewards? Should players be rewarded every time? Should the reward be reduced on repeats?

I think it’d be pretty cool if they let you go back and choose different options to unlock the other missions. For example, I chose to escort Demmi out of Lion’s Arch, but I would like to go back and choose the other option (to use a distraction or something) without having to create a brand new character.

Quests that have already been played should not offer any rewards when replayed because the feature is simply for people who want to relive those experiences. For missions that the player has not completed, however, it would be nice if you’re still given something upon completion, but honestly I wouldn’t really mind even if there are no rewards to be gained whatsoever because for me the real reward is to experience the story (and see Tybalt again!).

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

Snoopy.1932:

Jexx.6471:

I think that they may do this when they add in Season 1 of the Living Story.

Ah yeah, I really hope they add in Season 1 for us newer players. I haven’t touched Season 2 at all yet because I feel like I would be missing some much needed context.

On a related note, I remember talking to a bunch of Lionguard and NPCs who kept heaping praise on the unparalleled beauty and majesty of Lion’s Arch, but when I finally visited I was greeted with miserable ruins and was just staring at the place like “wat”

I’ll give you all the context you need.

About a year after the fall of Zhaitan, we get word of this crazy Sylvari chick doing some weird stuff and making a nuissance of herself. We team up with what is essentially “Destiny’s Edge: The Next Generation” (Zojja’s protege, Eir’s son, a gladium Charr that Rytlock knew since she was a kitten, and a couple of humans).

We track down Scarlet, find out she’s doing some insane research with leylines and dragons, went over the deep end, tried to blow the hell out of Lion’s Arch, then we killed her.

That’s pretty much season one in a nutshell, and I never even played it myself. :p Do yourself a favor. If you’re waiting to do Season 2 until you can go back and replay Season 1, don’t. Just go and enjoy it now. There’s lots of nifty rewards and some of the missions are pretty fun.

From what I understand, I can play Season 2 anytime I want since I logged on when they made the episodes available, so there doesn’t seem to be any rush. I wish they had a way of implementing that for Season 1.

Jexx.6471:

I think that they may do this when they add in Season 1 of the Living Story.

Ah yeah, I really hope they add in Season 1 for us newer players. I haven’t touched Season 2 at all yet because I feel like I would be missing some much needed context.

On a related note, I remember talking to a bunch of Lionguard and NPCs who kept heaping praise on the unparalleled beauty and majesty of Lion’s Arch, but when I finally visited I was greeted with miserable ruins and was just staring at the place like “wat”

As a relatively new player, I just played through a bunch of quests from meeting my mentor to fighting that plague dragon on Claw Island, and it was one of the most memorable moments of any game I’ve played. Hearing that awesome music in the background, seeing all the different orders working together, and listening to different members complimenting each other after the fight; everything was just really awesome, and I’d like to relive that experience.

It doesn’t seem like a function that would be too difficult to implement since all the content is already there, but I’m no programmer so I’m just talking out of my kitten . It’d be nice to access your My Story tab and then simply click on whatever mission you’re interested in to replay it (without any rewards of course).

There are probably far better or more important things players should have, but I hope at least that Arenanet considers adding this as a feature for the people who do enjoy the Personal Story (and really want to see and play with Tybalt again god I love him so much).

not that i discriminate against any of the other races (ok well maybe except asurans because they are such insufferable and pretentious fartsniffers), but i thought it’d be fun to join a guild comprised entirely of charr.