Guild Wars 2

Thanks for the suggestions and feedback i will make sure to do a summary and list actions on Monday.

I don’t want to derail the thread but i would also like to know how everyone would like the next topics to be chosen. Simply would you like to vote again or would you like us to pick the second topics on the respective lists?

Finally i have said this many times so for those that have seen it repeatedly please forgive me for the repetition, but once again i want to make it clear that the only ‘feedback’ i have asked the team not to spend their time on are those comments which are not productive. Specifically comments with no actionable substance. Whilst it is nice to see positive commentary we spend a lot more time discussing and negative criticism so we can learn more and improve the game.

Again for the feedback on how to improve the CDI,

Chris

Please do not assume that because a particular comment or post was not replied to that it was ignored. This is simply not true.

There is no bias toward any type of criticism/discussion as long as it is productive.

As i mentioned we need to have more focused topics and more time to be able to fully enter into the discussion. This is something we are actively working on.

Please do not try to derail a thread about how we can improve by building arguments around assumptions.

Finally this initiative is extremely important and should be treated with respect with the focus on evolving a great game. And the first round of CDI around Living World was extremely useful in this regard. Let’s make it better as we move forward.

Chris

bravoart.5308:

I’d love to see focus on talking about what the players of that region are concerned about. After having been told by a community manager that the first community discussions was about Living Story because other regions found that more important than EN GW2’s issues, it felt a bit disingenuous.

If EN gw2’s primary focus is rewards and drop rates and DR, don’t tell them that FR’s concern with living story is more important, even if it is more convenient.

Pushing hard work and difficult issues to the back just means it never gets done.

Hi Bravoart,

The topics were chosen from the global feedback we got from all of our forums. Therefore the first topics were inclusive of all suggestions for discussion from the global community.

Chris

Thank you all for making the first CDI topic discussions such a good start. The next phase as mentioned at the start of the initiative is for us to discuss how we could better evolve the process around CDI. The key areas for me personally are as follows and based on my interactions on the PVE thread:

1: More focused Topics.
2: Summaries of discussion/direction every three pages.
3: More time to post.

Please know the expectation isn’t for you to list your top three, this is just how I did it. This is a discussion primarily and next Monday I will post the actions so we can evolve the CDI best working practices immediately.

Thanks again for your involvement,

Chris

Thank you all for making the first CDI topic discussions such a good start. The next phase as mentioned at the start of the initiative is for us to discuss how we could better evolve the process around CDI. The key areas for me personally are as follows and based on my interactions on the PVE thread:

1: More focused Topics.
2: Summaries of discussion/direction every three pages.
3: More time to post.

Please know the expectation isn’t for you to list your top three, this is just how I did it. This is a discussion primarily and next Monday I will post the actions so we can evolve the CDI best working practices immediately.

Thanks again for your involvement,

Chris

Thank you all for making the first CDI topic discussions such a good start. The next phase as mentioned at the start of the initiative is for us to discuss how we could better evolve the process around CDI. The key areas for me personally are as follows and based on my interactions on the PVE thread:

1: More focused Topics.
2: Summaries of discussion/direction every three pages.
3: More time to post.

Please know the expectation isn’t for you to list your top three, this is just how I did it. This is a discussion primarily and next Monday I will post the actions so we can evolve the CDI best working practices immediately.

Thanks again for your involvement,

Chris

Nike.2631:

So, beyond highs and lows of specific Living Story episodes, and some brainstorming on future Living Story/Living World content (I use the two terms very differently) is there anything else you’d like to hear from us? You certainly have our attention .

Hi Nike,

The current conversation is perfect really. Things will spin up up again soon when we publish the thread for discussion about how to evolve best working practices and process around the CDI on Monday. Until then have a good weekend and thanks everyone for the contribution and continued discussion.

Chris

No need to apologize it is a discussion and therefore people will have differing opinions.

Note i only bumped the summary so that folks new to the thread could get a concise version.

Chris

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Timmy F, Cesmode and many others discussed the highs and lows of zerging in the open world. I mentioned that this is something we are actively working on and whilst not perfect we can see progress in this area in the Clock Work Chaos and TQ. More evolution to come!

Content direction through achievements was raised as something that can be improved greatly. Again this is something can’t comment on currently but what i can say is that we agree that content direction is better served outside of the achievement system.

Einlanzer, Pifil, others and Colin had a long discussion about phasing where Colin laid out his thoughts and reasoning around our thoughts on phasing. Colin pointed out that phasing can’t really live within the environment of our pillars but that the conversation has been useful and that phasing certainly has its place in other types of games.

Seraph and Asuka had some awesome ideas relating to global token rewards from events that allowed users to receive items from across all of our current global reward paradigm unifying our currency in this area.

I have no doubt missed a few key areas so please forgive me and feel free to add any summaries that i have missed.

I would like to thank you all once again for all your hard work in this discussion. It has been a lot of fun and a great start. I look forward to seeing what the CDI looks like a year from now and how it has affected the game. I hope now everyone can see how this initiative will impact the game and how this is truly development.

I can’t wait for the next topic discussion and here’s to Collaborative Development, Tyria and ArenaNet’s community!

Chris

Summary Bump

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Part 5

You also put forward which Events you liked and didn’t like and this is something we will be having a meeting on internally to discuss and drill deeper into.

Colin discussed the TV show paradigm with you. You correctly raised the importance of the real world paradigm have a system that allows the user to watch old episodes etc. This is very important and something we have and are currently discussing. I hope we can do a topic just on this paradigm at some point.

You raised how you felt that the current arc writing can be a little immature and i agree. Watch this space!

We loved Nike’s and your pioneer brainstorm. And i pointed out that i can’t talk about it which by its very nature should point toward some very exciting theory crafting (-:

We discussed rewards for Living World events and we all agreed that they are somewhat lacking and we have already set into motion changes in this area that you should see early next year!

Continued…

Summary Bump

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Part 4

You guys raised an assumption that we care more about quantity than quality. I clarified perhaps some poor communication on my part that was if we get to the stage where we feel that we aren’t able to meet our quality bar through our current cadence then we will revisit the timing of our releases but that i believe there is still a lot we can improve in best working practices and development inefficiencies before we get to that point.

Many of you commented on some great ideas around event failure, Nike, myself and many others gave examples of this around TQ, Darkness and Dominance. We have internally already been thinking about how we would do with our own Jon P leading the charge in this area. Your support and collaboration has boosted our progress and we will update as move forward.

The Scarlet arc exposition has been to slow and we agree with this. We also know how much you all want to see more of our old lore built upon and we agree. I am looking forward to hearing your feedback around Scarlet once the arc ends.

Continued…

Summary Bump

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Part 3

Many of you raised the idea of tying the Living World more deeply into the world of Tyria and also as a deployment tool for enhancing the core of the game. Over the past year we have made many improvements to the core of the game, as part of the releases but not folded into them per se. This is a really interesting idea what we should continue to discuss in this thread and that will be a topic of discussion in the studio. Regarding drilling more into the existing content with Living World is something we have done, are doing now and will continue to evolve moving forward. Related to this many of you talked about making the changes more meaningful to the player’s life within Tyria, all I can say to this is Heck Yeah! This is at the core of what we intend to deliver with the Living World and whilst we have done some work in this area, we are not at a stage yet where we would say that this paradigm is fully functional yet. To create meaningful changes they must impact the day to day of the player and this is at the center of our design philosophy for execution in this area.

As mentioned earlier, we are still building the Living World platform and this is why the Collaborative Development plan exists because discussion of this type is key to course correction and evolution in how the platform is built.

A number of you mentioned consequences for failure. This is something we discuss a lot and is quite complex. I would ask that we continue to discuss this topic in the thread.

With this in mind I also want us to be delivering epic adventures, where we forge the future of Tyria and fight mighty foes. And whilst Bobby has and will continue to discuss the intricacies of this, I want you all to understand that this is very much part of the plan.

Another big topic that was raised was Quality of releases. The work we are doing is new to all of us and therefore we are constantly finding opportunities to improve and course correct in a live environment. This relates not only to bugs, but the understanding of the types of content our community enjoys and how much time you all have to play the content. I believe the quality of our releases are improving and will continue to do so as we hone in our own internal development practices and have a better understanding of how the Living World is performing in the live environment.
Regarding accessibility of releases some great points were brought up ranging from ideas such as a scrying pool or Hall of Memories to get caught up on previous releases. We are very aware of the problems presented by having an ongoing arc and this particular area is an ongoing topic of discussion. Regarding achievements as a method of directing player’s to content, we also agree that there are better ways to do this and you will see with the latest release some innovations in this area.

The Zerg! This is an interesting problem that we had actually fixed to an extent in an earlier release where we created a meta goal that forced players to split up into groups. I really enjoyed this and the feedback was excellent. Personally I quite enjoy the zerg sometimes in PVE ( I tend to be less of a ‘zerger’ in WvW) but I also really enjoy group play in the open world as many of you have mentioned. I would love to see more of this in the open world.

Some of you posted about your favorite releases and least favorite. It would be really cool if you have the time to post your single favorite and least favorite and the reasons why for each. This would help a lot and I will share my learning with you etc. from the posts.

I am running out of time sadly but I did want to make sure that I entered the discussion. I hope the comments have made shed some new light on our approach and thoughts and I am looking forward to enter into proper discussion now. I probably haven’t covered all the areas but no doubt you will raise any I missed (-:
I wanted to say thanks again for being part of this initiative. Personally I think its going to be awesome, it is already impacting our day to day discussion so let’s keep it up!

Summary Bump

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Part 2

Regarding rewards relating to the Living World content I agree that we should make greater effort to ensure that time investment is matched by the reward. We have to be careful in this regard due to constraints surrounding our economy but we have already discussed many ways of meeting this goal and maintaining the integrity of the economy. Regarding Living World Meta Achievement rewards, personally I would like to see more rewards that commemorate the accomplishments of my character and my friends, specifically pertaining to the challenges I overcame (Essentially a rite of passage I can show of). Different types of reward take different amounts of time to make and we have been working to organize our reward distribution better so player’s will see more variety moving forward. I also really like the idea of Arc based Meta Achievements.

Many of the community raised the story arc becoming fragmented due to non-related content being released in between events. Again this is something we are aware of and are in agreement with the community on. On top of this we would like to see more incremental attachment to the players in terms of story and how it relates to them through gameplay. This point was raised early on in the thread and is core to making the Living World initiative a success. Personally I feel we have improved Story and Gameplay synergy but certainly we are not where we want to be yet. As we build on the Living World platform in terms of refinement of systems and potentially new technologies it is not hard to see just how much potential the platform has and what can be done with it.

I also agree with the notion of less temporary content where it makes sense to do so. I think that an evolving world by its very nature requires ‘A time in space’ of contextual exposition but this shouldn’t be the bulk of the content. The notion of the Living World and Story Arcs centering around meaningful evolution to the geography of Tyria, the player’s role within the events and their tangible impact on the future of Tyria as an evolving world are key to our direction moving forward. The platform we have built is still in its infancy but I would hope the evolution toward this goal is becoming more and more apparent. We have been working toward more permanent content and will continue to do so.

Summary Bump

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Summary:

Note this is copied and pasted from earlier in the discussion (-:

Part 1

Hi All,

First of thanks for attacking the initiative in the spirit it was laid out. The contribution thus far has been passionate, insightful and very valuable. Much of your commentary and discussions have already been raised in meetings and impacted our thought process around development moving forward already.

As laid out by the rules I will not go into specifics about future development, this said however it is very encouraging to see that much of what has been discussed matches our plans. This fact for many will not come as a revelation as it is clear to see the impact our community has already had on the game since we launched.
So I wanted to share my thoughts with you around the key discussion points (note: Story is something that I will touch upon and that Bobby will continue to discuss in greater detail)

Regarding Cadence of release: This is not something we plan to change in terms of timing and I wanted to make that clear from the outset. However the points raised around achievements being too time consuming is something that I do acknowledge and something we have already taken steps to address both in terms of overall time to complete and the nature of the repetitive achievements. We will continue to make strides in this area and are aware that the current time requirement also cuts in to the player’s ability to achieve goals in other aspects of the game.

Summary Bump

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I wanted to say a HUGE thank you to both the community and the press for the great support surrounding the CDI. I am so pleased to see how effective it has been in what is only the first phase of the project.

Tonight the threads will be stickied and sometime later in the week i will put up our phase 2 thread which will center on how to improve the process (such as the devs having more time to join in the discussion and topics that are a little more focused). Once we have agreed on ways to improve we will move to phase three which will be our second call for topics.

In my next post i will do a brief summary of our discussion.

Chris

Summary Bump

Jamais vu.5284:

All I can really say is that you, ANet, shouldn’t be afraid to introduce new areas because of a potential pop spreading.
The fact is that most areas are already fairly deserted. If you add a new one, you should not fear to delete or physically merge an old region.
And let’s be real, the current areas are rather boring from both a gameplay standpoint (event chains that are just defeat X waves and don’t matter, and yes, lack of actual quests) and from a graphical point of view (lack of biomes other than jungle, mountains and temperate woods; enemies extremely samey. You fight Skelk or Flame Legion or Earth Elementals from Level 2 to 78, for example).

You might also rethink the philosophy that maps should be homogenous difficulty wise (and the general philosophy that overworld = casual, dungeons = hardcore, the latter of which didn’t materialize). Why not a corner of a map, or a whole zone even, that is exceedingly difficult, with mobs 5 or more levels above you? Things like that enhance the thrill of exploration. It keeps you on your toes.
Everyone is always talking about UW or FoW when they mean that, but no need to look at those dedicated raids for an example. I got the same feeling from fighting through the insanely strong overworld-mobs in the Realm of Torment in Nightfall. Or the War of Kryta, remember? It was awesome.
Actually, what is probably the most talked about piece of overworld content (outside Orr)? The Fort full of level 80 mobs in Brisban Wildlands. Do something with that.

Last but not least, I do hope you will add Cantha and eventually Elona. You should push to open up one big new region per year. 2014 perhaps we’d get the Isle of Janthir and Northern Shiverpeaks, 2015 maybe Cantha, 2016 Elona and the Crystal Desert, etc.
If you do that, one map at a time would be horrible horrible horrible. Please listen to that.
Take your time. Do batches of subregions at a time. They have to “flow” into each other, to harmonize. People don’t want a hundred bread sticks, they want one big roast beef. That doesn’t stop you from continuing your bi-weekly Living Story events within those sub-regions.

Despite my late reply, I hope it still is given some thought to.

Hi Jamais Vu,

Your points are definitely being thought about thanks for posting.

Chris

Guhracie.3419:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Shinzan.2908:

I think it’s great you guys are doing this, hope you’ll be engaging with the community in the future as well.

I also think GW2 is a great game with a lot of potential, and you folks are getting better with each new release. Hearing that we are on the same page about a lot of the issues makes me positive that this trend will continue.

So kudos, keep up the good work.

Thanks Shinzan i agree. The CDI is ongoing and i would expect the next call for topics to be in 1 to 2 weeks.

Chris

You’re not going to use the original call for topics each time? Why not just rank everything and go down that list instead of wasting a week to gather and calculate?

We can discuss this in the CDI evolution topic which will go up soon. Our feeling was that the communities top topics will change from one week to another, hence doing another call for topics. We can decide in the next phase that will likely be posted at the end of this week.

Good point!

Chris

Shinzan.2908:

I think it’s great you guys are doing this, hope you’ll be engaging with the community in the future as well.

I also think GW2 is a great game with a lot of potential, and you folks are getting better with each new release. Hearing that we are on the same page about a lot of the issues makes me positive that this trend will continue.

So kudos, keep up the good work.

Thanks Shinzan i agree. The CDI is ongoing and i would expect the next call for topics to be in 1 to 2 weeks.

Chris

P.S: I can’t wait for tomorrows event! There is going to be much pain, suffering and glory!

Chris

Sligh.2789:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So we done everyone nearly every part of this discussion has been represented in meetings in the office! In my next post i will do a brief summary of our discussion.

Chris

I have posted about the communications that your company puts forth to the community needing to be proofed by an expert in communications. Please hire a communications director to help you.

Hi Sligh,

Sorry, i am doing my proof read now. Thanks for raising this and helping me with it.

Chris

Timmy F, Cesmode and many others discussed the highs and lows of zerging in the open world. I mentioned that this is something we are actively working on and whilst not perfect we can see progress in this area in the Clock Work Chaos and TQ. More evolution to come!

Content direction through achievements was raised as something that can be improved greatly. Again this is something can’t comment on currently but what i can say is that we agree that content direction is better served outside of the achievement system.

Einlanzer, Pifil, others and Colin had a long discussion about phasing where Colin laid out his thoughts and reasoning around our thoughts on phasing. Colin pointed out that phasing can’t really live within the environment of our pillars but that the conversation has been useful and that phasing certainly has its place in other types of games.

Seraph and Asuka had some awesome ideas relating to global token rewards from events that allowed users to receive items from across all of our current global reward paradigm unifying our currency in this area.

I have no doubt missed a few key areas so please forgive me and feel free to add any summaries that i have missed.

I would like to thank you all once again for all your hard work in this discussion. It has been a lot of fun and a great start. I look forward to seeing what the CDI looks like a year from now and how it has affected the game. I hope now everyone can see how this initiative will impact the game and how this is truly development.

I can’t wait for the next topic discussion and here’s to Collaborative Development, Tyria and ArenaNet’s community!

Chris

Part 5

You also put forward which Events you liked and didn’t like and this is something we will be having a meeting on internally to discuss and drill deeper into.

Colin discussed the TV show paradigm with you. You correctly raised the importance of the real world paradigm have a system that allows the user to watch old episodes etc. This is very important and something we have and are currently discussing. I hope we can do a topic just on this paradigm at some point.

You raised how you felt that the current arc writing can be a little immature and i agree. Watch this space!

We loved Nike’s and your pioneer brainstorm. And i pointed out that i can’t talk about it which by its very nature should point toward some very exciting theory crafting (-:

We discussed rewards for Living World events and we all agreed that they are somewhat lacking and we have already set into motion changes in this area that you should see early next year!

Continued…

Part 4 (This is not copied and pasted)

You guys raised an assumption that we care more about quantity than quality. I clarified perhaps some poor communication on my part that was if we get to the stage where we feel that we aren’t able to meet our quality bar through our current cadence then we will revisit the timing of our releases but that i believe there is still a lot we can improve in best working practices and development inefficiencies before we get to that point.

Many of you commented on some great ideas around event failure, Nike, myself and many others gave examples of this around TQ, Darkness and Dominance. We have internally already been thinking about how we would do with our own Jon P leading the charge in this area. Your support and collaboration has boosted our progress and we will update as move forward.

The Scarlet arc exposition has been to slow and we agree with this. We also know how much you all want to see more of our old lore built upon and we agree. I am looking forward to hearing your feedback around Scarlet once the arc ends.

Continued…

Part 3

Many of you raised the idea of tying the Living World more deeply into the world of Tyria and also as a deployment tool for enhancing the core of the game. Over the past year we have made many improvements to the core of the game, as part of the releases but not folded into them per se. This is a really interesting idea what we should continue to discuss in this thread and that will be a topic of discussion in the studio. Regarding drilling more into the existing content with Living World is something we have done, are doing now and will continue to evolve moving forward. Related to this many of you talked about making the changes more meaningful to the player’s life within Tyria, all I can say to this is Heck Yeah! This is at the core of what we intend to deliver with the Living World and whilst we have done some work in this area, we are not at a stage yet where we would say that this paradigm is fully functional yet. To create meaningful changes they must impact the day to day of the player and this is at the center of our design philosophy for execution in this area.

As mentioned earlier, we are still building the Living World platform and this is why the Collaborative Development plan exists because discussion of this type is key to course correction and evolution in how the platform is built.

A number of you mentioned consequences for failure. This is something we discuss a lot and is quite complex. I would ask that we continue to discuss this topic in the thread.

With this in mind I also want us to be delivering epic adventures, where we forge the future of Tyria and fight mighty foes. And whilst Bobby has and will continue to discuss the intricacies of this, I want you all to understand that this is very much part of the plan.

Another big topic that was raised was Quality of releases. The work we are doing is new to all of us and therefore we are constantly finding opportunities to improve and course correct in a live environment. This relates not only to bugs, but the understanding of the types of content our community enjoys and how much time you all have to play the content. I believe the quality of our releases are improving and will continue to do so as we hone in our own internal development practices and have a better understanding of how the Living World is performing in the live environment.
Regarding accessibility of releases some great points were brought up ranging from ideas such as a scrying pool or Hall of Memories to get caught up on previous releases. We are very aware of the problems presented by having an ongoing arc and this particular area is an ongoing topic of discussion. Regarding achievements as a method of directing player’s to content, we also agree that there are better ways to do this and you will see with the latest release some innovations in this area.

The Zerg! This is an interesting problem that we had actually fixed to an extent in an earlier release where we created a meta goal that forced players to split up into groups. I really enjoyed this and the feedback was excellent. Personally I quite enjoy the zerg sometimes in PVE ( I tend to be less of a ‘zerger’ in WvW) but I also really enjoy group play in the open world as many of you have mentioned. I would love to see more of this in the open world.

Some of you posted about your favorite releases and least favorite. It would be really cool if you have the time to post your single favorite and least favorite and the reasons why for each. This would help a lot and I will share my learning with you etc. from the posts.

I am running out of time sadly but I did want to make sure that I entered the discussion. I hope the comments have made shed some new light on our approach and thoughts and I am looking forward to enter into proper discussion now. I probably haven’t covered all the areas but no doubt you will raise any I missed (-:
I wanted to say thanks again for being part of this initiative. Personally I think its going to be awesome, it is already impacting our day to day discussion so let’s keep it up!

Part 2

Regarding rewards relating to the Living World content I agree that we should make greater effort to ensure that time investment is matched by the reward. We have to be careful in this regard due to constraints surrounding our economy but we have already discussed many ways of meeting this goal and maintaining the integrity of the economy. Regarding Living World Meta Achievement rewards, personally I would like to see more rewards that commemorate the accomplishments of my character and my friends, specifically pertaining to the challenges I overcame (Essentially a rite of passage I can show of). Different types of reward take different amounts of time to make and we have been working to organize our reward distribution better so player’s will see more variety moving forward. I also really like the idea of Arc based Meta Achievements.

Many of the community raised the story arc becoming fragmented due to non-related content being released in between events. Again this is something we are aware of and are in agreement with the community on. On top of this we would like to see more incremental attachment to the players in terms of story and how it relates to them through gameplay. This point was raised early on in the thread and is core to making the Living World initiative a success. Personally I feel we have improved Story and Gameplay synergy but certainly we are not where we want to be yet. As we build on the Living World platform in terms of refinement of systems and potentially new technologies it is not hard to see just how much potential the platform has and what can be done with it.

I also agree with the notion of less temporary content where it makes sense to do so. I think that an evolving world by its very nature requires ‘A time in space’ of contextual exposition but this shouldn’t be the bulk of the content. The notion of the Living World and Story Arcs centering around meaningful evolution to the geography of Tyria, the player’s role within the events and their tangible impact on the future of Tyria as an evolving world are key to our direction moving forward. The platform we have built is still in its infancy but I would hope the evolution toward this goal is becoming more and more apparent. We have been working toward more permanent content and will continue to do so.

Summary:

Note this is copied and pasted from earlier in the discussion (-:

Part 1

Hi All,

First of thanks for attacking the initiative in the spirit it was laid out. The contribution thus far has been passionate, insightful and very valuable. Much of your commentary and discussions have already been raised in meetings and impacted our thought process around development moving forward already.

As laid out by the rules I will not go into specifics about future development, this said however it is very encouraging to see that much of what has been discussed matches our plans. This fact for many will not come as a revelation as it is clear to see the impact our community has already had on the game since we launched.
So I wanted to share my thoughts with you around the key discussion points (note: Story is something that I will touch upon and that Bobby will continue to discuss in greater detail)

Regarding Cadence of release: This is not something we plan to change in terms of timing and I wanted to make that clear from the outset. However the points raised around achievements being too time consuming is something that I do acknowledge and something we have already taken steps to address both in terms of overall time to complete and the nature of the repetitive achievements. We will continue to make strides in this area and are aware that the current time requirement also cuts in to the player’s ability to achieve goals in other aspects of the game.

I wanted to say a HUGE thank you to both the community and the press for the great support surrounding the CDI. I am so pleased to see how effective it has been in what is only the first phase of the project.

Tonight the threads will be stickied and sometime later in the week i will put up our phase 2 thread which will center on how to improve the process (such as the devs having more time to join in the discussion and topics that are a little more focused). Once we have agreed on ways to improve we will move to phase three which will be our second call for topics.

In my next post i will do a brief summary of our discussion.

Chris

We will be stickying this thread on Monday 11th Nov.

I feel it has been a great start to the CDI and will be adding some more comments and thoughts between now and then. We will then be opening up a new thread which will be discussing what we think has gone well and not so well (such as available time on my part) with the process and practices of the first phase of the initiative.

Following this i will post our actions in terms of evolving the CDI and we will move onto the next topics to discuss.

Thanks all,

Chris

Conncept.7638:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Conncept.7638:

BobbyStein.2315:

It’s more a matter of finishing what we started, implementing what we’ve already designed, and setting the game up for the next arc…

Why couldn’t the design team have this attitude when they attempted and failed to expand on the event system? I swear it seems like they barely even tried…

Hi Conncept,

Can you provide some more details please in order to add more value to the discussion. Can you explain what you mean by attempted and failed to expand on the event system? Where do you think we failed and what do you see as success?

Chris

Sure. A short time in to the games release, before the LS, the developers stated that they wished to spend development time and resources expanding on the existing ‘core’ event system over the whole game world, everybody loved the idea and I haven’t seen players so excited since. Note that when it was announced existing events was the wording used.

Cue the Modus Secleris events. While they did have some interesting combat mechanics they didn’t scale properly, and had no story; but more importantly they (and whatever events were implemented with them, players still don’t know what those 60 events were) couldn’t be found by any method except scouring the entire bleeding world, and none were in any way related to the existing event, stories, characters, and areas we loved and were hoping to see expanded. They were just… there… they could have been placed anywhere in the world without actually feeling like they were part of the world.

In short, the design team completely botched it. What was implemented was not what players wanted or had in mind when they asked for expansion on the DE system.

And then seemingly without any feedback whatsoever, from which they may have concluded that these events failed for reasons that could be easily addressed in even a single subsequent attempt, the expanding of the event system just seemed to piddle off as southsun came and went, hard-stopped for the holidays, and a few months later the LS started with its temporary content and side-story rather than the expansion of the core content and existing stories I believe most players hoped for.

What I believe players wanted can be summed up as: Expansions on the existing stories and event mechanics already within the world, to the end that these stories feel more alive, expanding outward based on more advanced event mechanics, more story steps, leading to more varied story steps, player choice, and player success or failure. That expansion can come by way of the LS updates, or just retcons of new content into existing areas.

I don’t want to see a giant tower out of nowhere on the front lines of the war with the centaurs nearly as much as I would like to actually see the story of the war with the centaurs. I don’t want to see the dredge and flame legions ‘powers combined’ as much as I would like to see the stories which the flame legion and the dredge are already a part of continued. Tyria already felt like a living world on release, those feelings just needed to be continued, but were instead diverged away from, and in some cases wholly ignored.

(Sorry I’m saying ‘them’ as if you aren’t part of the conversation but I have no idea if you were a part of the team of developers at the time or not)

Thanks for the info. I will have a think.

Chris

Julischka Bean.7491:

Hello all.
I am sick with a bad head cold and can’t seem to be be able to put words together because of it, but, after reading this thread, I feel I don’t have to as everyone has done a beautiful job.

Speaking for myself, I am enjoying the frequent content. On my wishlist is more missions that can be done solo. Waypointing into Kessex and finding myself in a mission was a very wonderful experience. I am a reader. I love lore. I like taking my time and seeing all there is to see.

One thing I do not want to see more of in future Living Stories, or any mission in GuildWars2 for that matter is locking important things (Like Voting) behind Jumping puzzles. I am a clutz. I have real problems getting to some Vistas. Locking shinies behind Jumping Puzzles is ok, but important things, like voting, is not.

Anyways, I look forward to seeing what this talented bunch of Devs have in store for us

Lisa-Stumbling back to bed clutching a hot water bottle.

Aww get well soon and thanks for the feedback. Really we need to make sure we don’t gate progress of Living World behind content like Jumping Puzzles unless the jumping puzzle is the core focus of the event.

Chris

Conncept.7638:

BobbyStein.2315:

It’s more a matter of finishing what we started, implementing what we’ve already designed, and setting the game up for the next arc…

Why couldn’t the design team have this attitude when they attempted and failed to expand on the event system? I swear it seems like they barely even tried…

Hi Conncept,

Can you provide some more details please in order to add more value to the discussion. Can you explain what you mean by attempted and failed to expand on the event system? Where do you think we failed and what do you see as success?

Chris

Sorry for not having to much time to post today. I have some free time over the next few days and will catch up. This said i haven’t really seen any pressing questions for me and am currently enjoying reading the discussion you are having among yourselves and with Colin and Bobby.

Chris

khani.4786:

Nike.2631:

Colin / Chris / Powers that Be,

At the beginning of this thread, some thirty pages ago (my how time flies), there was a list of rules laid out to provide a framework for our discussion and to guide our expectations.

I would like to see an additional rule added~

7: So long as it serves to advance mature discussion or illustrate a creative point, the usual forum restrictions on the use of complex formatting will be suspended. This is a privilege. Do not squander it.

At its heart, this thread and the other Collaborative Discussions are about the philosophies and processes that underlie making art. For us as posters to contribute, one of our most powerful tools is to make art and use it as a demonstration of the philosophies and process we try to highlight and share.

I am a writer. I paint with words. But I also paint with rhythm, with inflection, with the visual appearance of those words on the page. This forum is equipped with POWERFUL TOOLS that help me keep one of my 1,000+ word proposals from dissolving into a monolithic unreadable wall of blah, blah, blah.

I have had one of my posts redacted (since reinstated) and my account infracted (still true) for wanting to give the best, most engaging, and most enlivening presentation of my thoughts that I could. My offense: knowing how to make a title line look better when leading into a massive proposal. My crime was using paint when talking about painting.

Please extend us a little latitude as we go forward together. You won’t be sorry you did.

Thank you

I would like to add my voice to this as I also had a post deleted and was infracted for trying to format my post to make it easier to read. I have a very hard time reading a wall of text and find that when I have a large amount to say it is easier for me to create headings and use the formatting tools available to create a clear message.

As for what I had to say, I guess that my voice won’t be heard anymore in this thread. I’ll continue to read what others say, I just feel very trodden upon about this whole thing.

Please keep to the options provided on the website for formatting. Note i have taken your suggestions on board regarding formatting and will discuss with the appropriate folks.

Chris

timmyf.1490:

Randulf.7614:

I still not sure why every content has to be 2 weeks though. It should last as long as it needs to progress the story.

Said another way…

We LOVE that you ADD content every two weeks.

We HATE that you often REMOVE roughly the same amount of content every two weeks.

Hi Timmyf,

We are working on more persistent content and meta goals that bridge said content.

Of to a meeting.

Chris

Just to give you all a heads up i am still thinking about Dominance and Darkness and reading through the best/worst event comments.

Some exciting problems/opportunities came up today that i have been working with the team and i lost my hour to respond unfortunately. On the plus side it has been an awesome day for the LW teams i think.

Chris

This is something for sure i would love you guys to discuss but not something i can comment on i am afraid in terms of straight answer.

Chris

videoboy.4162:

Chris,

What do you and the other Devs think about the idea of having a static server that people are transported to for their personal story? People could play on their main server with all of their friends and participate in the LS, while still being able to complete the personal story as intended. It would also give you guys the freedom to change the world as you see fit, without being anchored down by the Personal Story.

The switch could be something simple like the NPC is the Mad King’s Labyrinth, where talking to him transports you to the Inquisition or Clocktower.

I think this is an interesting idea. Let’s flesh it out some more. Can you give me some more details around your idea?

Chris

It made my day.

Chris

Now before folks get excited in terms of this being a statement of attention, hold your horses! I am simply calling out that Nike has clearly displayed one of the directions we could go with the platform but more importantly he has proven out how Collaborative Development can work without having to be told exactly what we are working on now or in the future.

I can say however, that this is a direction we have discussed and that i have discussed in public before.

Chris

Nike.2631:

“It’s a new frontier out there, your Majesty, and people are going to get hurt.”
- Logan Thakery

Join us as GuildWars 2 opens a new zone in a special one-time multi-week Living World event… That Everyone can participate in. Travel beyond the northern reaches of the Harathi Hinterlands to a new and untamed land waiting for the footsteps of heroes. The Lion Guard plans to seize the initiative, preparing new fortresses and new farmlands from which to base an army to one day strike against Jormag, the Elder Dragon of Ice.

OPENING THE WAY
The new zone begins as empty wilderness, with only a single cleared glade under player control. This is the first settlement in its infancy, and you must protect it. Each minute the builders are left in peace adds to the progress. Heroes will have to fend off all threats from simple animals attracted by the smell of food to angry Grawl defending their territory. Progress will be suspended until these threats are driven off as builders take shelter. When construction time adds up to one full week, the settlement will be firmly established – Permanently – and pioneers can press deeper into the region to the next promising site.

But beware, the sounds of hammers and the smells of family diners have not gone unnoticed. Local inhabitants and a forgotten colony of things best left undisturbed have begun to stir. As each town is completed, the resistance to the encroachment of civilization stiffens. Once tranquil woods become filled with flickering shadows, shadows that hunger for easy kills and a return to quieter times. The need for strong arms and steady hearts will not diminish as you press deeper into the wild. New dynamic events will be added throughout the campaign as the land responds to your presence.

In all, six towns, training camps, and fortresses are planned in this campaign against the Ice. Fill in the map, adding hubs of permanent commerce and trade with a variety of vendor and services. With each great milestone taking no less than a week, opening the new frontier to it’s permanent state will take over a month of dedication, giving each server a chance to compete against the others and display their round-the-clock commitment to opening the way and taking the fight north. Heroes can contribute to the Lion Guard’s initiative with more than just the strength of their sword arm. Scouts are needed to sweep ahead, while crafters and wealthy patrons are welcome – once per hour characters can turn over contributions of processed Lumber and Metal in Lion’s Arch and other major cities to advance the construction effort ‘clock’ by precious minutes, making up for time lost to threatening events. Rare, random daily major events will be announced world-wide, allowing defenders from all around Tyria to gather against dangers so great that if they are not beaten back the current progress clock can actually lose hours with buildings flattened and settlers slain.

As towns are added, veterans move forward behind the front lines and new hearts and skill point challenges become available. As scout reports are gathered new places of power and vistas are identified ahead of the advancing wave, calling explorers to the fore. Check with roving scouts to keep up on the current pace of the march to the north. Watch the map evolve before your eyes as your efforts to prepare for the next great assault on the Elder Dragons unfold! And when the final fortress is built, you can be certain that JORMAG HAS NOTICED. Help your server to be the first to unlock a new permanent Dragon Lieutenant Boss-Encounter as the Sprit of Black Ice answers this great challenge to his power.

MAKE YOUR MARK – FOREVER
As each hub is completed, the builders will erect a permanent Pioneer Marker recording and immortalizing the character names of the top 10 adventurers and the top 10 crafter/supporters who contributed to that town on that server. Every Marker is unique! Further, the permanent NPC population of the town at the end of the event will reflect the ratio of races among those 20 characters. Want to see the Charr tear off a piece of the new meat? Bring your Charr and place your clawmark on the land! Certain that only Asuran brilliance can ensure the safety of the new lands? Bring your Asura and show the bookahs how its done!

((Coming Soon to a game that makes new zones truly an epic experience))

This is exactly the kind of thing the Living World platform was designed to do and every evolution of it gets us one step closer. Kudos to your sir for taking the time to think about our direction and what the constraints of the platform are in its infancy and what it will be able to do moving forward.

I was going to snip your section so i could reply properly but i don’t want the context to remain, therefore….cont

Septemptus.7164:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I wanted to say thanks again for being part of this initiative. Personally I think its going to be awesome, it is already impacting our day to day discussion so let’s keep it up!

Chris

I have a personal request. If you could even a little at the end of the thread could you write a bit more specific about what will change after reading this topic?

I think that its great what you wrote. You basically addressed all the main problems and let us know that you are aware of that, but I would really love to get some more informations.

For example: as for expanding the world, many me including wrote that we need new maps, so if you plan to address that let us know that new map will be planned to be released in 4 months or 6 month or something like that.

This would really keep me going and make me look forward to something cause now I very sadly have less and less reasons to log in and play in game after making 9 characters end exploring world so many times.

LW is a great idea but due of many disapointments it’s only kinda nice for me now.
I still give it a chance but its harder and harder when I feel like the wold is dying. I really look forward zone permanent changes and new maps for example.

Hi,

I will continue to summarize my thoughts as we move on and how we are evolving direction and design philosophy but i wont be able to give specifics, like this map is going to be built in x time frame as we can’t commit to this due to quality control and production times.

I will however try be more direct in terms of our actions. Also bear in mind that i don’t make an decisions in isolation. None of us do. Therefore evolutions in design philosophy will be communicated over time.

I hope this helps?

Chris

Jaken.6801:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

cesmode.4257:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Randulf.7614:

Chris – is it possible to get a separate thread for the DE discussion? Largely because it doesn’t directly pertain to the Living Story and there is a small fear some of the LW feedback has got lost amongst the DE discussion (I understnad they can connect, but they are 2 big topics and if you guys are as busy as you appear, it would be easier to sift through as well I’d imagine)

There’s a weight of great discussion going on here, but the title isn’t advertising it is about DE’s. You could feasibly get more people involved in a separate thread (and it doesn’t need a cut off date either since people can opt in/out at will)

Hi Randulf,

I agree that we should and will have a separate discussion thread for DE’s foundational design, evolution and quality. What i am interested in here however is how DE’s can relate to story telling and game play synergy and the overall evolution of Living World. Therefore within these bounds i think it is a great topic for this thread.

Hope this makes sense?

Chris

Chris, please see one of my earlier posts on this. I think it directly relates to what you are looking for here…Global Dominance system.

Will do Cesmode. I intend to read Tides of Darkness again and your suggestions, have a bit of a think and reply when i get some time (-:

Whilst i may not be responding as much as i wish i could i do want to say that this initiative has already impacted many of our discussions internally and will do so moving forward. So far (outside of lack of time on my part and other developers) CD is proving to be extremely valuable. But as they say the proof is in the pudding, and whilst we have already been heavily influenced by the community in the past regarding course correction in development, i am really looking forward to us all seeing the fruits of these discussions in the future.

Chris

Sweet, i love these statements.
I have a silly question, though.

Can we have some blogposts from some teammembers, telling us how they work and how things have changed. Some retrospective basicly?
Sorry for beeing offtopic. but i really like the more personal stories of the people involved in the projects i like.

How long will these CDs go btw.? when is the cut off date and will we get some “mid term results” which might shift the discusion to some specific topics.
We got some lead from you Chris allready, which is awesome, but with the high amount of ideas collected here (and i bet this takes a lot of time to digest and rate), some kind of filtering might be nescessary. Maybe closing this one here and opening anew with a new direction.
Like the new “events” that are beeing sugested, this here beeing the start event and is now snowballing into new ones.

Well, basicly i like just more juicy info on where we are right now. Like an update from your side, since we can`t see it.

hm.. that is keeping me up now, it is past 1am… i am hitting the matress now and might come up with some new ideas tommorow. hopefully i am able to articulate them a bit better, then my previous entires

Hi Jaken,

Good points. To answer some of your questions i would like us to continue the CD initiative indefinitely assuming we are ALL finding it to be a valuable exercise. In regard to this particular thread there is no close date yet due mainly to lack of time on our side. This allows us to give the thread the respect it is due. I am therefore unsure about when we will sticky the thread. I will know more when i have caught up a little bit, for sure though there has been a huge amount of value so far but i do want to continue discussing DEs pertaining to LW and peoples favorite and least favorite events and why.

Finally once these threads close we will have an open thread on the process of CD and what we can do better as a group and discussion around best working practices moving forward.

Chris

Randulf.7614:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Randulf.7614:

Chris – is it possible to get a separate thread for the DE discussion? Largely because it doesn’t directly pertain to the Living Story and there is a small fear some of the LW feedback has got lost amongst the DE discussion (I understnad they can connect, but they are 2 big topics and if you guys are as busy as you appear, it would be easier to sift through as well I’d imagine)

There’s a weight of great discussion going on here, but the title isn’t advertising it is about DE’s. You could feasibly get more people involved in a separate thread (and it doesn’t need a cut off date either since people can opt in/out at will)

Hi Randulf,

I agree that we should and will have a separate discussion thread for DE’s foundational design, evolution and quality. What i am interested in here however is how DE’s can relate to story telling and game play synergy and the overall evolution of Living World. Therefore within these bounds i think it is a great topic for this thread.

Hope this makes sense?

Chris

Oh I don’t disagree at all and understand totally how they synergise with the story element. I’m just worried other LW topics may get buried since the emphasis seems now exclusively on DE development. If all topics are being covered evenly, then I’ll go back to reading what is so far one of the few interesting threads on these forums!

:)

Absolutely (-:

Chris

cesmode.4257:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Randulf.7614:

Chris – is it possible to get a separate thread for the DE discussion? Largely because it doesn’t directly pertain to the Living Story and there is a small fear some of the LW feedback has got lost amongst the DE discussion (I understnad they can connect, but they are 2 big topics and if you guys are as busy as you appear, it would be easier to sift through as well I’d imagine)

There’s a weight of great discussion going on here, but the title isn’t advertising it is about DE’s. You could feasibly get more people involved in a separate thread (and it doesn’t need a cut off date either since people can opt in/out at will)

Hi Randulf,

I agree that we should and will have a separate discussion thread for DE’s foundational design, evolution and quality. What i am interested in here however is how DE’s can relate to story telling and game play synergy and the overall evolution of Living World. Therefore within these bounds i think it is a great topic for this thread.

Hope this makes sense?

Chris

Chris, please see one of my earlier posts on this. I think it directly relates to what you are looking for here…Global Dominance system.

Will do Cesmode. I intend to read Tides of Darkness again and your suggestions, have a bit of a think and reply when i get some time (-:

Whilst i may not be responding as much as i wish i could i do want to say that this initiative has already impacted many of our discussions internally and will do so moving forward. So far (outside of lack of time on my part and other developers) CD is proving to be extremely valuable. But as they say the proof is in the pudding, and whilst we have already been heavily influenced by the community in the past regarding course correction in development, i am really looking forward to us all seeing the fruits of these discussions in the future.

Chris

Randulf.7614:

Chris – is it possible to get a separate thread for the DE discussion? Largely because it doesn’t directly pertain to the Living Story and there is a small fear some of the LW feedback has got lost amongst the DE discussion (I understnad they can connect, but they are 2 big topics and if you guys are as busy as you appear, it would be easier to sift through as well I’d imagine)

There’s a weight of great discussion going on here, but the title isn’t advertising it is about DE’s. You could feasibly get more people involved in a separate thread (and it doesn’t need a cut off date either since people can opt in/out at will)

Hi Randulf,

I agree that we should and will have a separate discussion thread for DE’s foundational design, evolution and quality. What i am interested in here however is how DE’s can relate to story telling and game play synergy and the overall evolution of Living World. Therefore within these bounds i think it is a great topic for this thread.

Hope this makes sense?

Chris

Nike.2631:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Nike,

I really don’t understand why you think i am defending or justifying anything. I am discussing and listening to the feedback and folding that into actions as necessary.

I’m sorry. Truthfully, I don’t want to dwell on Scarlet. I have much, much more fun when we’re talking about Dynamic Events. (Something you may want to consider calving off into a new Collaborative discussion thread to ease the reading burden of everyone – I don’t think we’ve established a rule yet that there can’t be two open and running at once . Among other things it would allow you to bring the two topics to closure separately.))

Because scarlet is largely dead to me, I’m on to the post mortem in my thinking. When I say things to the effect of ‘a great ending cannot be used to defend/justify a weak start’ I’m already looking forward to the next volume. NEXT TIME, I hope we see the lessons learned here applied from the outset. Then we can find all-new plot potholes to trip over .

My point is very simple, which is that i agree with much of the foundational feedback regarding the dynamic of story within the living world, but that there is a lot of info, plans, and goals that the discussion group is currently unaware of. Thus my point is it is better not to turn assumptions into hard facts and this will lead to less valuable discussion. My point isn’t about the performance of what happens as this arc plays out, it is about what we are learning based on the facts in hand. And of course we are listening.

I imaging that last section seems to you like a near-echo of things you’ve said before, but for me, just now, I get it. Finally. I think I missed the intent to shape discussion as we move forward. While I’ll try to rein in my urge to froth at the mouth when a certain ginger-topped anti-heroine comes up, we are a bit of a handicap talking about the future of the Living Story in any concrete fashion: we don’t know the future, and you can’t talk about it.

Analyzing highs and lows to date I get. I’m just not sure how to offer anything forward-facing other than “I hope to get back to wrecking face on the Elder Dragons.” Or “I hope that the scale of the Living Stories is ratcheted back, while the intimacy and the commitment I feel towards it improves.”

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I hope you can appreciate this as i appreciate your dialogue and understand that when it looks like a point has hit home, it probably has.

Chris

((puts down sledgehammer))

Oh good. Because it’s exhausting belaboring the point sometimes .

I’m sure you know from my fondness for ‘Second Chances’ as a narrative tool, I’m a big fan of the heroism embodied by persistence…

Your efforts here have been heroic. Thank you.

I think i can do better to explain. Honestly your response is excellent, but i need to remember that i have a lot more info than others and that i should provide more context when i make a high level point. I will do better to stay cognoscente of this.

Your input to the discussion has been great Nike,

Chris

Nike.2631:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

That the story line around Scarlet has been flat, specifically no clear angle toward goal or resolution.

Ah! Thank you. I get it now.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

And in regard to your second question as it relates to my above point. It is safe to say that goals and trajectory toward resolution are not clear yet outside of Arena. There are clues however.

I miss clues sometimes, so maybe there will be a point when we’re looking back over the first… ‘volume’ lets call it, of the Living Story and all these little tidbits will fall into place. I’ve seen it done well in Doctor Who, but I’ve gotta warn ya, in my experience its a hard structure to pull off entertainingly.

One thing for sleuths better than me to ponder: In the Scarlet invasions, the portals shared graphics with the Steam-monsters portals. There is a Portal in Kessex Hills right now delivering Toxic Forces into an area SE of the Tower of Nightmares. It has a very different graphic, showing somewhere… new. You might want to hang around there and take a look. I’ll try to grab a screenie latter.

[sidebar]
If the Devs are still podering ‘rewards for participation in Collaborative Discussion’, I admit I’d take a laurel and about 2,000 luck credited to my account – I’ve spent a LOT of time typing when I could have been logged in with the spore-zergs .
[/end sidebar]

No worries Nike regarding your first comment, i could do a better job of explanation sometimes.

For example, when i referred to clues being there my point is that i believe that whilst clues are cool because they can instill a great sense of player engagement and theory crafting, we need to do a better job of exposition and context in relation to Living World storytelling. An area that we have been improving in and intend to continue doing so.

Chris

Jaken.6801:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi,

I do have opinions (-: however i have lost some time today that i thought i had. Basically i want to feedback on the DE discussion and get more time to read what people liked and didn’t like about the events they have played. With this is mind it would be awesome for these discussions to continue if folks still have anymore insights or discussion points?

And as soon as i get some more time i will get into the discussion again.

Chris

Which events are you talking about? Just to clarify, so we can answer more properly:
LS events or DEs?

There is quite a difference here, since the DEs are the ones we have always access to, while the LS ones are only temporary (for the most part) and have a different influence on how we relate to them.

As many are “grindy”, they need many people, however if the masses aren`t there, you might realize that they aren`t fun.

That said. I prefer events that have a meaning, a story, a reason for me helping in the area. Better is if i not only get my little “bling, here is your money and karma” but actually see something happening afterwards.
It doesn`t have to be a new quest, but the person i helped actually doing something at the place i left him. Doing a little jiggle, starting to talk with someone to give some more information.
Maybe talk about the “adventure” he had, as i protected him from something.

there are events like this in game. Some don`t even give you credit, however you are able to experience them. Best example is the ghost Dolyak. I love this little bit.

Events are nice, loot is nice, however i also enjoy the little nuances sourounding the perpetual slaughter our heroes are commiting to get their shiny.

LS events feel cheap now, because they are mostly old events with “new mechanics” tossed in.
They started great though. One of my favourite is still the scavenger hunt for Mad King Thorns Book, or the (sadly buggy) one for the perpetrator with the first soutsun event….

However i just noticed… These “events” and our archievments right now are something very familiar…
These are traditional quests. We have a start, we get our “mission” in the archievment panel or from our flavor-story-character of the patch and then we do and like it.

And i don`t mind. So yeah, what do you mean by events?

Good point!

Continuation of discussions in regard to the Dynamic Event evolution discussions.

And secondarily continuation of discussion around the communities favorite and least favorite LW Events.

Good call,

Chris

Nike.2631:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Also please also be aware that there is a lot of judgment around Scarlet when the arc has not completed yet. I agree with many of the points being made at a foundational level but please don’t assume that the direction of the arc is understood by all just yet.

You have to give up on that as a justification/defense.

It doesn’t matter if the ending is amazing if half your audience has tossed the book in the trash by the second chapter. Half being generous if the posted reaction to Scarlet is in any way representative. It’s like watching an M. Night Shayamalan flick – there is so much focus on ‘the twist’ that the fundamentals of storytelling get abandoned. You get a terrible movie in the first two reels and the third reel cannot reverse that no matter how clever.

We can already see the text portions of the dialogue in ToN – things you can change on a short lead time – trying to adapt to feedback. Believe me, I noticed. And I’m sure you’ll continue to struggle to salvage the credibility and improve impact of the Living Story as you work through those parts that are too far along to change course entirely. It is a learning experience. But sometimes the solidarity you are showing to past efforts makes it hard for us to be certain you’re getting the message. I will try to withhold judgment on the remainder of the arc – to come at it with fresh eyes. But please understand damage was done by what has gone before.

On the Epicness of the Living Story:

I think I was less than clear on how the ‘pursuit of Epic’ is derailing things in the Living Story:

Scarlet is never allowed to JUST BE COOL. Every time an NPC in setting opens their mouth about her, its to tell us she’s THE COOLEST EV-AR. Horribly horrible things have been done to try and build her credibility by brute force instead of organic progression.

I hate to say it, but for me it all comes down to one in-game piece of dialogue. “She graduated from all Three of the Asuran Colleges…” ((screeetch- car crash noise!)) Say WHAT??!? In that one moment the entire arc DIED for me. The ego-projection was strong in this one. Because if you’ve played the game – doubly so if you played an Asura – this is preposterous. And no amount of backpedaling or hand-waving in web-site fiction changes that. As offended as I am by it, I’m even more offended that apparently nobody in the writing bullpen raised their hand and asked the question “Isn’t that… isn’t that a little dumb?” Somebody’s enthusiasm for the new super-hero, this Dark Trahearne you got to building rode right over all common sense in the pursuit of EPIC-EPIc-EPic-Epic-epic ((echo effects)).

And what’s so sad, is if it had just been “She graduated from two of the Asuran colleges!” I think my eyebrow would have gone up, but I’d also be saying to myself, “…Ok, I guess she is supposed to be an incredible Engineer. Lets see where they go with this…”

Sometimes the line between awesome and absurd is just that narrow.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I think we have learnt a great deal from where we are now with the Scarlet Arc. I won’t talk about future plans for her i am afraid as this goes against the rules i set for this initiative. I appreciate all the feedback in regard to our current story telling foundations and look forward to seeing the game evolve from them.

I hadn’t gotten to this post when I wrote the above, so I’m folding it in here now.

As understated as this reply is, I choose to believe it is acknowledgement the message was received. While I can’t wait for Scarlet to exit stage left forever, I’ll try to look forward to what comes after with renewed enthusiasm.

Hi Nike,

I really don’t understand why you think i am defending or justifying anything. I am discussing and listening to the feedback and folding that into actions as necessary. My point is very simple, which is that i agree with much of the foundational feedback regarding the dynamic of story within the living world, but that there is a lot of info, plans, and goals that the discussion group is currently unaware of. Thus my point is it is better not to turn assumptions into hard facts and this will lead to less valuable discussion. My point isn’t about the performance of what happens as this arc plays out, it is about what we are learning based on the facts in hand. And of course we are listening.

I hope you can appreciate this as i appreciate your dialogue and understand that when it looks like a point has hit home, it probably has.

Chris

Nike.2631:

rizzo.1079:

I think the point is that her story so far is less an arc and more of a line.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Yep i think this point is valid.

Normally I’m all for opaque geometry analogies (no, really!) but, um…?

What are you two trying to say?

Also…

Chris Whiteside.6102:

…but please don’t assume that the direction of the arc is understood by all just yet.

‘Understood by all’? Is it understood by anyone not inside the ANet offices? Outside of the foreshadowing imposed by the graphic for the next release (I lean towards that being one of her minions standing behind her, not a ‘mysterious master’ reveal), and the assumption that after handing over all those spores to Marjory I’m be able to go into the tower in a few weeks, I have Zero Clue what Scarlet Briar’s endgame looks like. Or how many more mix-and-match alliances she’s entitled to before moving to some sort of resolution. I mean, if we finally get the centaurs/oozes team-up I’ve been dreaming of, great . Otherwise, lets get to the final act, shall we?

Was there some big long-term hints in the Aether Path? Because I had real life those weeks and missed that block…

That the story line around Scarlet has been flat, specifically no clear angle toward goal or resolution.

And in regard to your second question as it relates to my above point. It is safe to say that goals and trajectory toward resolution are not clear yet outside of Arena. There are clues however.

Chris