Guild Wars 2

Though I don’t mind this new release, I really didn’t care much for this specific addition.
If we have to include this then only FINISH HIM! on the Veterans or Champs, but not the line troopers.

Thobek.1730:

I know they work together but when marjory says “I’ve been thinking about scarlet” and Kasmeer butts in and says “She can’t have you.”

errr… seems like a odd thing to say.

(shrugs) Meh I’ve seen male Sylvari lovers, one drunk human comment that he thought some Asura gal was flirting with him, and so the idea of those two being an item isn’t odd to me.

Heck I know that my Human character would buy Eir or Agent Batanga a drink.
…Okay I’ve stated too much now.

BobbyStein.2315:

Story Pacing & Continuity
(snip)
Perhaps a better approach would have been to start and resolve each arc before introducing another.

Yes that would be the best route.

We’re planning on resolving as much as we can by the time the Scarlet arc concludes. (Yes, there will be a conclusion.)

THANK YOU! Bonus points if the player can kill her off for good.
I’m talking “WvW flag through her heart and scream out a battle cry” type of conclusion to ensure she doesn’t come back.

Scarlet
If memory serves me, we foreshadowed Scarlet’s existence through a comment Mai Trin made during one of the summer releases. This got some folks speculating on who she was, her part in all the attacks, etc. Scarlet debuted in August during the Queen’s Jubilee and has continued to make appearances here and there that slowly reveal her role in the overall plot.

Memory serves you well, in fact she was sort of mentioned even during Flame and Frost.

The operative word here is “slowly” and judging from all the responses, many feel that the plot is moving ahead at a glacial pace. That Scarlet is nothing more than a cardboard cutout villain.

Carboard cut out, deus ex insanity, and various other descriptions that would put the Trahearne-hate to shame. Now please remember I like the concept of her, but having all these alliances associated with her is getting tiresome. Especially now with the Toxic Alliance, because the Krait should have thrown the Nightmare Courtiers into a Slap Chop and offered them to their swimming Krait Gods if you look at the Lore of GW2.

I hoped that because of the insanity that Scarlet spreads it allowed the Krait time to make this tower themselves and not because of interaction by Scarlet.

I will readily acknowledge that her presentation has elicited some strong reactions in the community. Some people love her. Others hate her. While that kind of polarizing view can sometimes be an asset, it brings some polarizing baggage to the conversation every time her name is brought up. Here’s where I think we could have done a better job with her.

• Tone:
• Pacing:…We’re aware of the perception and feel that future releases will have content that develops her character.

Hopefully this new content you speak of will give her more development. Once again even though I am a supporter of big bad guys like her, I also believe that she doesn’t need to be the center of every bad thing.
Lex Luthor wasn’t behind everything in Superman, Joker wasn’t behind everything in Batman.

I understand this is her arc, but she seems to be all alliance happy like some anti-Trahearne. I know you (ANet) have said that she has a motive, she has a goal, but honestly as a player I’m just not seeing it. At least not yet and I would really like to understand.

OtakuDFifty.2965:

And the amount of Scarlet hate continues to boggle my mind.

This is all some elaborate joke and people don’t really hate Scarlet, is that it? That has to be it, right?

To be honest I didn’t mind the potential of her, the idea of a villain who wrecks stuff in Tyria. I have a problem with her for this release because Krait are xenophobic.
Yes I understand that in the game they said an off shoot of the Court and the Krait teamed up because the Krait are desperate, but I really just wanted them to rise up on their own without needing to ally with anyone.

Next up I expect the Hylek and the Centaurs to make the Hoof Hop Alliance because…..reasons.

Scarlet with a Krait experiment/boyfriend.
There that should shatter a few mind eyes with that mental image.

ColinJohanson.2394:

So a fun question to ask to help direct the conversation a bit: What aspects of your favorite television shows would you think would be cool to see reflected in a game medium?

To a large degree, the things we want to accomplish with living world overlap in a lot of ways with what a television series does. Or another example of our goals: if you bought your favorite RPG and the story was constantly expanded or continued, for free on a regular basis.

Recaps, side stories with other heroes.
Let’s take my personal favorites Babylon 5 and Avatar The Last Airbender.
Both have multi-episode arcs with characters that unite or fight because of differing goals. Both sometimes had to recap, explain a back story, briefly for certain events.
Both also had multiple story threads for different characters and sometimes they united, but other times they just ended within that one character’s arc and didn’t affect the “main” storyline directly.

Now I will apply such thoughts to GW2’s Living Story.
Braham is heartbroken over the breakup of his girlfriend.
Rox is trying out for the Stone Warband.
Countess Anise trolled Logan with a Mesmer projection of Rytlock fighting him.
Logan is clearly shaken up over such a memory coming back.

Each of these are separate stories we could play with during different releases. Maybe even help these characters further along their resolution. Such as our assistance with Braham helps him get over his former gal and then he’s ready to help us take on the next Elder Dragon to prove himself a legend.
Rox may add us as her auxiliary to the Stone Warband out of gratitude for our help, which then allows us, the players, to talk with Rytlock about Logan some more.

With Rytlock and Logan patching things up more, Logan could give Anise a firm talking to when it comes to Jennah’s protection. Maybe she’s so cold to him because he’s needed to fight the Dragons and his affections for the Queen are a diversion?

Then ANet could write up whether Logan helps us take on a Dragon at the cost of his duties to protect the Queen one more time, like what happened in the personal story or something else could occur. He could actually step back and let us along with Rox and Braham build a new Destiny’s Edge or something akin to it.

As my addendum I would also like to say that the consequences to losing against Teq is a good thing and other bosses should have something similar.

The Aether raids would have more meaning to some players if local mobs were buffed up a bit if they won because the Aetherblades are helping them out.

The Claw of Jormagg’s victory could result in that zone causing chill to players at random times or ice turrets like rotmouths show up in Teq’s region.

Let’s have some consequences that are worthwhile if we, the players and heroes, fail to save a place.

Zaxares.5419:

Oh, is that what those people are doing? I never pay attention to other players unless they’re in my guild or in my party. I couldn’t care less what title/weapon/armor they’re using.

Agreed, for the longest time I thought folks were just sitting around and whispering to each other.
(shrugs) to each their own, I’m going to kill Krait.

I’ve opened items as my Human and my Sylvari character used the nodes on a Asura Home Instance.

So I think its all account bound.
As for what happens when you delete a character, no idea, then again I’m always wary of deleting my characters. I like them too much.

Atlas.9704:

Next post I make will be ideas on how to catch someone up to speed.

So let’s say I’m a newbie to the game. I don’t know what a Scarlet is, never heard of Rox, and just heard about these Aether Molten Bladeliances.

How do I catch up in game? Notice now I said in game because sure there’s always the wiki or trying to navigate the news in GW2’s site. Those latter choices work best if you already know what to look for.

Fact is this game does need some sort of retelling machine without falling into the trap of pseudo-time travel that GW1 had. Have the main story plots retold by someone, but don’t make them necessary to play.

A skaald in Cragstead tell the gallant deeds of Braham and run the player through the instanced adventure of when he found his home attacked. Maybe an intelligence operative within Black Citadel provide a mission report on Rox’s actions against the Molten.

For the Six’s sake we could even have a Priory agent talk in detail over what Southsun cove is or have a Whispers agent warn the player about Scarlet. Maybe have a Seraph soldier recount the event of the Clockwork Chaos and allow the player to at least play out that mission!

I’m excited over the potential here, we could add more to the world by giving new and returning players a chance to relive some of these challenges. Yes I know that there lies the question of rewards, should they even get rewarded? Well that brings up an interesting thought. If they are rewarded it should be minimal, maybe some silver or karma. We can’t go about letting folks do a mission that had an exclusive reward because that would cheapen the reward for those that beat it when it was initially released.

At this point I have no solid ideas to pitch, but we do need something to retell these moments if ANet wants this Living Story to be engaging and memorable.

Atlas.9704:

Next post I make will be about the good things LS has going for it.

The good about Living Story is you are building heroes and villains.
Rox and Braham were seen as nobodies for a while until you brought them into more of these releases, even Keil was just a Lionguard nobody until we voted her into the political spotlight. Even Scarlet, who had a rough time being introduced and still needs to be fleshed (or vined) out, has potential to be something worthwhile.

Another good thing is you (ANet) can change up Dynamic Events previously made or eliminate them and the same goes with dungeons. We’ve seen this with Twilight Assault and we might just see something with the new Tower update.

These are good things, good steps in the direction of a decent Living Story. We just need to work on release dates. Stretch them out, give the teams more time to test and add stuff. If a couple of releases need to be clumped together for a big one month chapter, so be it! Anet is making the rules, making the story, and I think the players won’t mind that occasionally.

The LS rewards might need some tweaks here and there: less backpacks/minis a few months and more home instanced stuff or vice versa another string of months.

For small time releases I can totally understand a two week turnaround, but for the bigger storyline based releases two weeks can’t cut it. So for example: Teq’s revamp patch was worth the two weeks because really Teq will stay long after those two weeks. However Clockworks Chaos or SouthSun could have been longer because we really needed more storyline in those releases to justify Anet’s enthusiasm that those were going to be big moments in the game’s overall story.

Next post I make will be ideas on how to catch someone up to speed.

Let’s discuss the idea versus the execution of Living Story. First off I LOVE the idea of it. This reminds me of other content releases some other titles I play do.
However the execution of it is too brief. Two weeks for each new chapter? When I first heard of that all I could do was get the metaphorical popcorn and watch this show begin.

Initially I was cautiously optimistic, let’s see how it goes and then judge. Well we are nearly one year into it and I’m throwing my support with those who think the two week release is too quick and too brief.

That doesn’t mean I hate the LS, once again the idea of an ever changing world is exciting and one reason why I love this game over Guild Wars 1. My problem is with how little we get each two weeks. Take Clockwork Chaos for example, I felt like this was ANet’s attempt at bringing in a new player to the scene.

It just didn’t really feel that way to me because after the two weeks most of it was gone. Yes we have the occasional “invasion” that really doesn’t do much when the enemy wins.

At that time ANet could have released some more information on what Scarlet’s goal is instead of simply showing her, giving us a story on her origins outside the game, and then we don’t see much of her until Twilight Assault. Even then we get a little teased about her knowing something dark about Caithe. Okay that’s cool and a good direction, but why didn’t we get something like that at the Jubilee? Why couldn’t she have taunted Rytlock and Logan about some secret she knew about a member within their former guild?

Yes if you look back from the year we’ve done quite a bit and it looks like some things will be permanent in the next series of releases. Good job there from a hindsight, but as we experience each little release that’s all they feel like: little.

Next post I make will be about the good things LS has going for it.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

We whupped him so hard he couldn’t have children. Clearly.

If that’s the case I humbly ask Jeremy Soule to make a Guild Wars 2 remix of “Guile’s Theme”.

Aside from the belief I have that some of these releases shouldn’t be just 2 weeks, I don’t mind the Living Story idea and actually welcome it at times.

Ackos.7942:

Its great, but still too bad if you cant play when you can get the achievements…

Mark my words, after a year from now they’ll probably offer up those nodes as gem store purchases so folks can get caught up.

Shard for my home instance, new skill, new Krait, and a change to the map?
I like this beginning, I wonder what else it will have.

Melfice.5091:

Is it just me, or do the patch previeuws get smaller and smaller? All we have now is a new healing skill and a skillpoint for your home instance… yay?

They will probably add more to it later like they have done with releases in the past.

Have you ever eaten Candy Corn?
It is nasty and I could see the Elder Dragons say “Yuck! no thanks!”

1. The Forgotten, where are they now and what has happened to them?
2. Dominion of the Winds, what is going on behind those walls?
3. Magni the Bison my GW2’s ancestor whupped you 250 years ago and I wonder if you have family today.

I wouldn’t make a redeemable character, but rather a villain who knows that he or she will not be liked.

For example, I’d make a Caudecus-style human extremist. He thought that the Minister could get things done, but clearly has failed. He even failed to reign in his own daughter. So my villain would undermine the Minister’s hold on the Bandits and use them to attack the other races.

Stealing every bit of tech and magic possible from them, his forces would have made blitz raids on people and leave evidence behind of the other races. A Charr home gets sacked and a Sylvari sword is left behind. Asuran labs destroyed with a Iron legion banner riding high nearby.

Sow some confusion with the other races, cause strain on the treaty between the Humans and Charr. Have the Sylvari question if the Inquest is experimenting on their kind as the Asurans did to one of their Firstborn years ago.

As the heroes track him down they find out he has found some ancient magical McGuffin which he claims will bring back the Mursaat. As it activates, turns out it only lures a new Dragon closer to Tyria. The villain will die, either by the heroes or by his own hand (hey the game is up, might as well not give the goodie two shoes the satisfaction), but his last words will echo into the darkness:

“You have FAILED dear Queen Jennah. You all have failed. Evil, true evil, is now on our soil and Humans need to stand firm. Not this Pact, not this collection, but our backbone alone. If we do not then we become nothing more than servants for these other races.”

There’s no redemption, this guy will not see any goodness. He is pure hate pointed at the other races and the weakness of his own. He is also willing to bring a Dragon to Tyria’s soil just to prove a point.

That’s my villain. Is it cardboardish? Is he a one trick pony? I don’t care, because as a hero I’ll feel good taking him down.

DarksunG.9537:

For the love of frick don’t ruin the Krait too by associating them with Scarlet as well..

Agreed, though I don’t mind Scarlet I too wouldn’t mind seeing other evil doers doing….evil without her hand in it.
It would show that there’s more than one group making power plays to further their own goals.

Discussion over a Living Story Lore vehicle

Idea for a newspaper

They are looking into some way to bring more of the story into the game, but with all things it needs to be planned out and developed, tested, and eventually released for consumption.

Don’t get me wrong I’m frustrated too. Heck I think the most frustrated would be the developers because they want to show off stuff.

To keep you logging in every couple of weeks.
Also there wouldn’t be a sense of urgency or progression to some if you could just simply go back and replay things.

I saw a candy corn node in the war camp near Fort Salma.
So they are in open world.

I’m still leveling my Engineer to 80, he’s only in the mid 40’s now.
Based on what I’ve gained playing it the Engineer can be fun.
Its like you are given a swiss army knife of skills, but no instruction manual sometimes.

Grenades are helpful, the flame thrower is fun to play with as well.
The one problem I had with turrets are you pretty much camp a spot on the map.
If you are playing with a mobile force, like a zerg, or champ farming you won’t use them to their full potential.
Though if you do pick them up, I think it reduces the recharge time somewhat.

If you are on IoJ, sure.

1. Game modes
2. Incorporate more seasonal PvP into rotation during off season
3. Split PvP Skills from PvE

1. Population of servers
2. Rewarding more for defense
3. Why is this required for Map Completion?

PVE:
1. Living Story
2. Personal Story
3. Home Instanced items

Scott McGough.6897:

Xanthia.7209:

I wonder how hobo-tron is doing……

Stay tuned…

He’s going to power the Krait Obelisk.
Blink once to signal if I’m right, just one blink is needed!

I thought Marcello was the guy who traveled with Hobo-tron, not Maklain ?

Loot drops near you which saves on the corpse hunting.
Grab supplies from supply camps, help build sieges, repair walls and purchase upgrades to keeps and towers.

Then prepare to die and die a lot.
Also remember that your finances will take a sharp decline if you die a lot because you still pay for repairs. That part I wish was altered, but it is what it is.

Invictus.1503:

You don’t have to do PvP or WvW. This achievement is doable by going to the Heart of the Mists and killing then stomping the NPC in the Fallen Halls of Glory section (Northern section). This has been confirmed as working as intended by the devs as they wanted to give an option for those who, like you, don’t want to PvP or WvW.

Hmmm I didn’t know that either. I’ve just been doing LS dailies and Labyrinth related stuff. I’m already up to 8 (I think).
Good to know!

knbBlackTemplar.3059:

In previous year halloween we had:
1. Story with just mini candy npc and useless node (i’d prefer moar backpacks)

Meanwhile I can’t stand anymore backpacks.
I have enough back items but I do want that candy corn node.
Though I will agree that the older achievements should have been allowed.

Ah the wonders of editing, playing in lower leveled zones, and possibly dev powers as well.

There have been posts in this forum where folks have flat out insulted the developers and company.
Some tried to wrap it up under the cloak of criticism, but that doesn’t fly when you use a specific tone.

For example saying something like “I don’t like the Living Story because it bores me” is fine and a very understandable stance.
What they won’t condone is “Living story sux, the writers should be fired, ANet can’t make a good story to save their life. ANet can’t do anything right….” or various other incarnations of such.

Now some posters will understand this and I completely agree with the idea that a company should be able to acknowledge criticism and feedback (good or bad). However it is also the player’s responsibility to write it up in a respectable manner, use grown up words that aren’t curses, and convey their dissatisfaction or approval in such a manner.

To those who think ANet doesn’t deserve your respect because they are going against what you perceive as progress, then chances are you’ll get dinged. This is their forums after all.

kitten nic Touch.7960:

They’re preparing us for the pokemon craze that will soon sweep over tyria.

Even better irony, we finally get Polymock but you need minis to play it. lol

I like him because I like the idea of an evil person hating another.
Bonus points if they know each other well, since these guys are related he will get the bonus points.

It would have sucked if he was simply going after his father and we were helping. That type of story gets tired to me. Here we have two evil characters and we are stuck just surviving their little hissy fits.

Also calling him “Eddie” was wonderful. There was just enough emotion in that to show how much of a taunt it was.

BobbyStein.2315:

Move along. There’s nothing to see here.

Nevah! I shall not move along! I’m liking what I see.

Ayrilana.1396:

How about you petition for Anet to give players something like the pointy hands of infantile mode in SAB for people who cannot figure out what to do. It’s not difficult to read the dialogue, read the mail, talk to NPC’s, etc ect.

Most of the time I wonder if people just want everything highlighted so they don’t have to actually look at things.

Monkey Fritz.9052:

Atlas.9704:

Monkey Fritz.9052:

There is also a reason why people go to dulfy and not the “official” guide.

Ah yes, so they can quickly crank out stuff in five minutes then complain for the next couple of weeks how there isn’t a thing to do.

Listen this event wasn’t too hard to figure out, just kill things and get candy corn.

As opposed to the “official” guide which tells you everything short of how to dress yourself in the morning?
Many 3rd party sites offer non-spoiler guides that just give people an order to do things in.

I’ve seen more hand holding in the Dulfy guides than the GW2.
Dulfy showed me where each dragon tooth was for Teq’s revamp. I didn’t see locations for each one listed in the official guide.

If anything when I get stuck on where exactly I need to find something I go to dulfy (half the time I don’t care about spoilers anyway at that stage), but if I just want the general gist that there’s stuff to do I read GW2’s notes.

Still to the OP, there are plenty of guides online that can help and also it never hurts to ask in game. The achievement descriptions didn’t confuse me, but then again your mileage may vary.

Monkey Fritz.9052:

There is also a reason why people go to dulfy and not the “official” guide.

Ah yes, so they can quickly crank out stuff in five minutes then complain for the next couple of weeks how there isn’t a thing to do.

Listen this event wasn’t too hard to figure out, just kill things and get candy corn.

Every time we get a release there is a guide provided on the GW2 site.

Exosferatu.2961:

I have seen norn (father) & asura (mother) parents and their child is a sylvari in Tarnished Coast-Divinity’s Reach. It is okay for a charr to adopt a human.

I gotta find those guys on the map!
That’s interesting.

As for Coby yes the life/death situation makes for an interesting catalyst, but my point was the fact that a human related to Charr so closely at the time.
In theory it is possible for a human raised by a Charr to identify with his guardian.

We’ve seen it with Tarzan and apes, Mandalorians and whatever war orphans they’ve picked up in fiction.

Now a baby or small child? Not really that effective considering the Charr way of raising their children.

At this point in the timeline I could see the Charr drop by Ebonhawke and tell some human “Here, your problem now”. Leaving the kid with humans, but for the sake of argument let’s assume he or she took the kid in.

It would make more sense for the Charr to live in Lion’s Arch instead of Black Citadel.
Kids get sent to fahrars at a young age and so the human kid would be at a severe disadvantage in that scenario.

The idea of a Charr adopting humans who prove themselves isn’t too strange, but I think it takes the strange ones to consider it.

When Cobiah Marriner was rescued by the Iron Legion on the Havoc he was a young man, probably just barely in his twenties. As he worked with them and showed he was capable, most of the Charr left him alone. In fact at one point in the book Cobiah cheered on his crew by saying “We are Charr!”

A Human identifying as a Charr and these guys saw him as part of the warband.
So if it was a mewling child or baby I could see the Charr leaving it with some other humans. If it was a plucky child who didn’t show fear and the Charr was quirky, I could see them either living off the land or in Lion’s Arch.

Watch your back, shoot straight, conserve ammo, and never, ever, cut a deal with a dragon.

Words to live by thanks to another game I play, it works here too.

Somewhere in that Court base there were two of them commenting on the Nor—er I mean new Sylvari’s apples.
lol

Vergil Huragok.3967:

How does one shame the Thorn family?

The hint was in the trailer
His mouth was stuffed with candy corn.
He probably hates it, but was forced to eat it.
The Thorn family has a strange “tough love” approach. If you don’t like something on the plate, they force it in your mouth and lock you in a box for years.

I caught something like that on a episode of Dr Phil’s Tyrian special.

Art, music, maps, all that good stuff.
Yesterday I was out in the Harathi Hinterlands with my thief just clearing the map at my own pace when suddenly I noticed an Elementalist needing some help.

As I go to help her, I just followed, next thing I know I’m with a collection of folks taking down the Group Events.
After it was done, we all went our ways and I enjoyed the grouping/separating we all did in that instance.

None of it was forced, it just flowed pretty well.

Kimyrielle.3826:

Atlas.9704:

Having a tag stopped the constant spam attempts to get me into other people’s guilds. I can finally play in peace.

Haha, don’t laugh, but I have met pretty awesome people that wanted to recruit me to their guild. And despite I declined (obviously), we ended up being on each other’s friends list.

I’ve got friends on my list that are part of some nice guilds. Its just I’m not very sociable in game at times. I have the same problem with MechWarrior Online where I am in a guild (Corp). I just play and don’t provide much chat.

The ones that just send spam invites without talking at all I just put on my ignore list, for that’s something utterly disrespectful to do. Problem solved.

That’s been my solution as well. My block list grew larger than my friends list lol, though my followers list is larger than both so I think that’s a good sign.

I have a banking guild too, but I don’t represent it unless I am banking. I am not ashamed of being guildless nor do I feel that I should need to conceal that fact. 99% of the time I (correctly) display no guild tag at all.

And I shouldn’t be ashamed either, I’m not, but everything I do in game gives me influence. More influence means that much closer to the big storage bank in my guild