This issue has been reported for weeks now and still no official response on a timeline to repair.
As others have pointed out, we did acknowledge the issue in a different thread and have been working to resolve it for several weeks now. I’ve also been posting in other threads on Reddit, but I can’t be everywhere all the time, try as I might.
The issue was fixed in this morning’s patch. Let us know if you encounter any issues. The turrets and anvil should all be interactive now, and the story step should no longer be blocked from completion.
So I just completed the Greatest Fear chapter with Tonn and I noticed that for whatever reason the dialogue is muted in some places during cutscenes. This has also happened in some LS instances as well (in Dragon’s Reach part1 for me). Not sure how far this has spread and I’m hoping you can take a look at it.
Thank you.
This is a bit off topic, but I’ll address it.
I noticed that VO issue the other day in the Black Citadel and sent word over to the Audio team. If you find this happening again, can you create a new thread in the appropriate forum and attach a screenshot? We need to see the chat log output (or the text bubble for the missing VO) to get a repro. Thanks!
An update for those near the end of their Personal Story: The Victory or Death fix is undergoing testing currently. I don’t have a release date to share at this time, but I do want to let you know that things are in progress. Thanks for your patience.
Regarding the Victory or Death turret bug: we investigated the issue and have a couple of folks working on fixes for it. I’ll post an update when I have more info.
Thanks for reporting the blocking bug. We’ve seen reports from elsewhere, too. We’re currently discussing it but have no ETA on a fix as of yet. Thanks for your patience.
I logged in last night but did not get an email from Arena Net about the new History Lesson of Living World Season 1. Not sure why, but it doesnt show up in my story tab either. I hope its a bug
The mail only gets delivered once Season 1 History Lesson is activated (located under Scarlet’s War in the Story Journal). This happens automatically after you complete Victory or Death, the final Personal Story step. You can also manually select and activate it, but you need to be level 80 in order to do this.
If you’re still having issues, I suggest posting a screenshot or contacting Customer Service. Thanks.
Another thing I found a little annoying was that if you ask about the NPCs, Makkay gives you the spiel by voice… in an open-world instance, and in great detail and length. That sort of information is possibly better given by text, so that one player isn’t interfering with another to have their questions answered. (Unless the voiceover only applies to the player who asked the question, of course.)
Makkay’s VO is played client side, so every player will hear the right lines regardless of how many people are interacting with her. Also, all her lines are logged to chat so you can read it afterward. It’s new tech that we plan on using more often in the future.
Concerning the recap, that is great, but it would be better if other languages than English could get theirs too…
That’s coming in a future update. We have all the localized VO and subtitles ready to go but ran into a tech issue that was preventing them from triggering and displaying properly.
So, I just watched the cutscene, in german with german audio and subtitles. What’s up with that note?
A bit off topic, but I just watched the Season 1 recap on Youtube, and I noticed their wasn’t anything on what happened in Southsun. I know the two events that happened there have nothing to do with Scarlet, but perhaps you could add a recap of those two stories in the future? Maybe from Canach’s perspective since he’ll be playing a larger role in HoT?
Yeah, the current recap focuses exclusively on Scarlet’s main objective so a lot of the finer details of each release were left out. This was to keep the cinematic at a manageable (and watchable) length and also present the most relevant details that bridge the Personal Story to Season 2.
That stated, I agree that it’d be cool for people to be able to learn more about the other releases from Season 1, since there were bits of plot and character development in each one. We’ll keep this in mind for down the road. Thanks for sharing.
Concerning the recap, that is great, but it would be better if other languages than English could get theirs too…
That’s coming in a future update. We have all the localized VO and subtitles ready to go but ran into a tech issue that was preventing them from triggering and displaying properly.
Patch notes:
Magister Ela Makkay of the Durmand Priory has been busy chronicling Scarlet’s War (known outside of Tyria as Living World Season 1). She’d like to share her research with you when you’re ready. Simply activate “Season 1 History Lesson,” located under Scarlet’s War in your Story Journal, to learn more. (Note: You must use a level 80 character to access this recap.)
I know it’s not replayable (yet) but at least there is now something in-game that we can use to get a recap of season 1. I know this is something that many people have been wanting for a long time. Can’t wait to check it out!!
We adjusted the Story Journal behavior and also implemented a season 1 recap with today’s build. Basic details are in the update notes. Check it out and let us know what you think. This changes what happens once you finish the restored Personal Story.
LIVING WORLD
Magister Ela Makkay of the Durmand Priory has been busy chronicling Scarlet’s War (known outside of Tyria as Living World Season 1). She’d like to share her research with you when you’re ready. Simply activate “Season 1 History Lesson,” located under Scarlet’s War in your Story Journal, to learn more. (Note: You must use a level 80 character to access this recap.)
Personal Story
•Fixed a bug in the Story Journal that activated the most recently unlocked Living World episode upon Personal Story completion. The system will now check for the next available episode in release order. If that episode is already unlocked but not completed, it will be activated. If it is not unlocked, the user must manually select the desired Living World episode.
•The Living World Season 1 recap video has English voice-over only. VO and subtitles for additional supported languages will be implemented in a future release.
We adjusted the Story Journal behavior and also implemented a season 1 recap with today’s build. Basic details are in the update notes. Check it out and let us know what you think.
LIVING WORLD
Magister Ela Makkay of the Durmand Priory has been busy chronicling Scarlet’s War (known outside of Tyria as Living World Season 1). She’d like to share her research with you when you’re ready. Simply activate “Season 1 History Lesson,” located under Scarlet’s War in your Story Journal, to learn more. (Note: You must use a level 80 character to access this recap.)
Personal Story
•Fixed a bug in the Story Journal that activated the most recently unlocked Living World episode upon Personal Story completion. The system will now check for the next available episode in release order. If that episode is already unlocked but not completed, it will be activated. If it is not unlocked, the user must manually select the desired Living World episode.
•The Living World Season 1 recap video has English voice-over only. VO and subtitles for additional supported languages will be implemented in a future release.
I just started a new toon and darned if when she got to L40 PS and headed to LA that it was the old LA that Destiny’s Edge is currently arguing in. I’m not a designer/programmer. But how hard would that have been to add into your big LA roll out.
All Personal Story steps that take place in LA should reflect the old version of the city once you enter the story instance. Is that not happening?
The following steps were restored to their original position in chapter 8.
Against the Corruption
Cathedral of Silence
Romke’s Final Voyage
Source of Orr
Did you experience the issue in one of the story steps listed above?
Against the Corruption and Cathedral of Silence were definitely level 70 for me, I took screenshots and stuff. Don’t remember what level Source of Orr was.
Thanks for the screenshot. I reproduced this on my machine and sent a bug over to Design to investigate a fix. No ETA at the moment but it is being looked at.
I dont understand . I was doing lvl 80 quest of main story , and now i was redirected to lvl 70 quests? should i repeat again the quests??
They put the story back in order but the story steps they moved didn’t get fixed to be the right level. So yeah the story is in the right order but the end bits don’t reflect what chapter they’re supposed to be in. I just finished the story again yesterday and it does go to lvl 80 story then some steps are still level 70 (with level 70 rewards) and then back to level 80 again. It’s weird.
The following steps were restored to their original position in chapter 8.
Against the Corruption
Cathedral of Silence
Romke’s Final Voyage
Source of Orr
Did you experience the issue in one of the story steps listed above?
An update for those watching this thread: I reproduced this bug and sent the report over to Programming. I don’t have an ETA on a fix but it’s being actively investigated.
And to note: I’m not saying it’ll be easy to bring back Season 1 just because there were so many instances. The instances of Season 1 were done in multiple formats (4 different formats I believe), none of which are like Season 2/Personal Story, so it’s hard to say – especially as players – how much work would need to be done to change it from instance format A/B/C to instance format D.
It’s quite a bit of work, actually, to convert the Season 1 content into something that resembles the Season 2 format. So while we’re fortunate to have some pre-built content to start from we’d have to make a lot of changes for it to fit the revised LW model.
But all the assets are there. Dialogue, plot, voice acting, even the intended scripting. Arguably, it might just be a case of rescripting into a new format with some programming for said format. But as a player it’s hard to gauge how much work that ‘case of rescripting’ might be.
My hope is that, should we take the opportunity to bring back Season 1 in some form or fashion, that we’d get the opportunity to make improvements like we did with the Personal Story restoration (revised VO, maybe some new or updated camera flythroughs or cinematics, etc.). I want to be clear, though, that we have nothing to announce at this time. Just being totally honest and managing expectations here.
Living World episodes can be played in any order and also replayed, unlike the Personal Story which you can only play in chapter order and may only do so once per character.
Living World Season 2 is like show season available on Netflix. There is a linear order to the story episodes but the user may choose to play any episode they like (or in the case of this bug, the system is pointing you to the last one you unlocked instead of the next one in story order).
I don’t believe this is messaged clearly in the game, so we’ll be looking at ways to better communicate this. Your feedback helps, so thanks for taking the time to report your issues and share your ideas with us.
We made art changes to Personal Story instances, not season 2 open world content.
Art changes… you mean like this snazzy new detailed floor texture in old Lion’s Arch instance for example? Since it didn’t fix itself for the duration of the entire instance I assume it was not caused by some kind of rendering hitch or slowdown.
Edit: looking at the screenshot after the fact, it could probably be a lighting issue, this happened few days ago so hard to say. That said I am absolutely positive the cave didn’t look like this when I completed this instance for myself prior to the story journal coming in the game.
I don’t believe any art changes were made to that story instance, so you’re most likely experiencing a bug. Best bet would be to file a ticket with repro steps so someone could investigate. It would also be helpful to include information about your hardware and what graphics settings you had selected.
Did others in your party experience the same visual anomaly or just you?
Personal story is not working properly for me on two characters. The first issue is part of my Story Journal has been deleted on one character that had completed the entire story and final dungeon. The second involves missing huge chunks of the personal story that should have been available despite the changes. According to the dev’s post, I should not have any issues with continuing the story from “Forging the Pact”, yet I have run into a massive problem that involves skipping more than 80% of Chapter 7 and Chapter 8.
I seriously hope this malfunction can be reversed, because I don’t take much pleasure in the thought that my two main characters are permanently bugged because of this.
Thanks for filing a bug. CS will take it from here.
As a possible bug note. I did buy this story line early this week and the same thing happened to me. I finished Zman and then the first episode that it gave me for LS2 was the last episode. I completed it wondering why I was attacking these enemies with no context and then went into my achievements to find that it was in fact the last story, but it put me on it first. I now have my last episode completed first and with all mastery done for it as well.
I’d like to have QA repro this, but I need to know exactly what happened. Let me know if my understanding of your situation is accurate here.
You hadn’t yet completed Personal Story (e.g. did every story step except Zhaitan)
You bought LW Season 2 in the gem store
You then finished your Personal Story by defeating Zhaitan
The content guide then pointed you at LW S2 Episode 8 instead of Episode 1
So I’m still working on my personal story but this has me wondering….what will happen once I finish it? Will I basically be stuck picking up at a point that makes no sense like the OP here? If that’s the case i’ll just skip the story entirely once I hit the cap.
P.S. My account is only two months old, max, so I wouldn’t have this exact problem.
The Personal Story shouldn’t show up anymore in the upper right once you complete it, and since you don’t have any Living World episodes unlocked I believe the content guide will point you to other things like events, etc. You can change these settings by hitting F11 and looking at the Content Guide settings under User Interface.
The thing that I don’t get, is why would they bother to give me the final chapter of Season 2? I didn’t even get the parts before it, just the ending. This makes literally zero sense to a player who doesn’t supplement the game with forums/wiki/youtube. It feels really bad.
Here’s what I think happened in your case:
You logged into GW2 sometime between January 13 and January 27 (the date when episode 8 released and the end of the two week “free unlock” period)
You completed your Personal Story six months later
The content guide looked for the next available story in your Story Journal. Since you probably don’t have any other episodes from Season 2 unlocked it put you on Episode 8.
I’d need to see a screenshot to be absolutely sure, but that’s likely what happened.
The good: You got a free episode
The bad: You played that episode out of linear order and it confused you
We certainly can message this better in the game, so I’ll be having some conversations about how to change this behavior.
Okay, glad to hear this is an isolated case! I don’t recall if I had GW2 installed during that time period (I purchased GW2 at release, but only just got around to playing it a month or two ago… I know, I know), but it would make sense for that to be the cause.
Here’s a screenshot of my story tab, if that helps you at all.
Thanks for the screenshot. Yeah, you had episode 8 unlocked (either you got it for free in January or you bought it). Episodes 1-7 show as locked in your journal so the content guide put you on the only one available.
The thing that I don’t get, is why would they bother to give me the final chapter of Season 2? I didn’t even get the parts before it, just the ending. This makes literally zero sense to a player who doesn’t supplement the game with forums/wiki/youtube. It feels really bad.
Here’s what I think happened in your case:
You logged into GW2 sometime between January 13 and January 27 (the date when episode 8 released and the end of the two week “free unlock” period)
You completed your Personal Story six months later
The content guide looked for the next available story in your Story Journal. Since you probably don’t have any other episodes from Season 2 unlocked it put you on Episode 8.
I’d need to see a screenshot to be absolutely sure, but that’s likely what happened.
The good: You got a free episode
The bad: You played that episode out of linear order and it confused you
We certainly can message this better in the game, so I’ll be having some conversations about how to change this behavior.
Is there anything wrong with the personal story?
i just got the game yesterday and just started playing earlier with a human engineer but after finishing “Defending Shaemoor” theres no more quest for me.
From what I can see in your screenshot, it looks like you need to hit level 10 before you can access the next story “block.”
From the wiki:
“Each character’s personal story is divided into eight chapters, with each chapter unlocking every 10 levels.”
A couple of things I forgot: the airdrop entry mechanism for a few story steps was removed and replaced with the original instance entry. Also, old L.A. and old Fort Concordia architecture (from 1325 AE) should be seen in Personal Story instances.
They seem to be letting aspects of the update – mostly dialogue has been caught – slip into the smaller updates.
We’ve made some minor text and VO changes to the Personal Story since last fall (e.g. rewriting and rerecording select Trahearne lines) as a live test, but none of the PS restoration changes have been released yet.
I was in the recording studio with Matthew Brenher (the actor who plays Trahearne) recently. We had a good discussion about his character and talked about why we were redoing a bunch of his lines. We gave him better context this time around, and I think it shows in his new performances. I’m looking forward to hearing the feedback once people have had a chance to play it.
They seem to be letting aspects of the update – mostly dialogue has been caught – slip into the smaller updates.
We’ve made some minor text and VO changes to the Personal Story since last fall (e.g. rewriting and rerecording select Trahearne lines) as a live test, but none of the PS restoration changes have been released yet.
I was in the recording studio with Matthew Brenher (the actor who plays Trahearne) recently. We had a good discussion about his character and talked about why we were redoing a bunch of his lines. We gave him better context this time around, and I think it shows in his new performances. I’m looking forward to hearing the feedback once people have had a chance to play it.
Is this live yet? I finished up the personal story on one of the characters that were halfway through chapter 8 and got tracked into the restored order of quests, i e getting Victory or Death after completing the Source of Orr. Entering Arah I do indeed get to choose between a solo instance or to find a group for the group instance. However, the actuall dungeon doesn’t seem to be altered in a way to allow for solo play. Of course it was ages since I did play the story mode and I might remember wrong, but the whole pressure plate thingy seems quite impossible to do when being only you and Destiny’s Edge.
The PS restoration is not live at the moment. We’ll be announcing more information on it soon. The dungeon is not soloable at this time.
Knudow wasn’t asking about open world maps, but the instances for Season 2.
…
Would the final instance of Episode 1 use a pre-destroyed Prosperity instance, as it is weird to trust Taimi to be alone there when it’s destroyed and periodically attacked by Mordrem, then be suddenly ‘oh my, Taimi are you okay?’ in the next instance. (which Knudow mentioned)
Ah, I see what you mean. I forgot that this particular instance begins outside of the apartment. I thought he meant the open world version of the town since it had a “whole state” and then a “destroyed state” about two weeks later. (It’s been close to a year-and-a-half since I worked on that content and that little detail slipped my mind.)
This is a little off-topic since it’s not tied to the PS restoration, but I’ll address it anyway. We didn’t look at or touch any season 2 content in this regard because it fell outside of the project’s scope. That stated, I see how this particular instance can be confusing in its current implementation so I’ll create a backlog task. I make no guarantees that we’ll ever make this change, but I do want it documented “just in case.”
There’s currently only one situation, but should you ever decide “it’s time to fix this”, it’ll affect the instances in the long run. With the entire ‘we affect the open world every season/release’, it seems like a good pre-emptive idea to have all story instances – not just personal story instances that currently use a now-changed map – to have their own copy of a map (thus one map per major/story based change).
This is a good point, and something we’re keeping in mind as we consider future content. Truth be known, it’s been a discussion topic internally since before season 1 was rolled out, but it’s still relevant today.
to be contrasted with a writing department that won’t make fixes to cover the minutiae when they forget some random fact. So, you know, this goes both ways.
We’re totally open to fixing certain narrative issues if they’re brought to our attention. Just please document them in a factual, neutral manner and we’ll take a look. Please remember items are all subject to review, approval, scoping, scheduling, etc.
I just stumbled on this independently (was checking wiki updates) and came here to apologize :#) So, I’m sorry for doubting you guys. I remember the hullabaloo that happened around the time of dating Scarlet’s birth and rolling my eyes at both sides.
Oh, no worries! I just wanted to let you (and others) know that there’s not some conspiracy going on at the studio. We’re human beings who try hard to do the best we can. If a mistake happens (and believe me, there are a lot of ways mistakes can happen—a breakdown in communication or process, a simple oversight, technical issues, etc.) then we’ll see if it can be fixed. Sometimes it’s an easy solution like modifying some text. Other times it involves a lot more work, time, and money and it ends up being out of scope. But we try to learn from our mistakes and we appreciate the community’s help.
to be contrasted with a writing department that won’t make fixes to cover the minutiae when they forget some random fact. So, you know, this goes both ways.
We’re totally open to fixing certain narrative issues if they’re brought to our attention. Just please document them in a factual, neutral manner and we’ll take a look. Please remember items are all subject to review, approval, scoping, scheduling, etc.
This is directed to all the human beings that helped create GW2 and make it a reality.
Thank you.
For a great game. Beautiful atmosphere. Wonderful details. Fabulous music. The world is just amazing in so many aspects.
Sometimes we players can get a little carried away with our opinions on how to make games better, sometimes we should just step back and marvel at how kitten awesome it really is.
Cheers team and keep up the good work!
Signed
Grub of Bandihaunt Caverns
Thanks for the kind words. The constructive criticism helps us make the game better, but the compliments are nice to hear, too.
