Guild Wars 2

A lot of good advice there in terms of the story.

Another important aspect to remember is story telling in a video game, which introduces its own unique challenges. ANet has improved a lot since the beginning of LW, but they haven’t really cracked it yet. There a few interesting videos on video game narrative over at http://extra-credits.net/ (should probably link the videos themselves and not the site, but they’ve overall got a lot of good content). Some of your points might in part be as a result of ANet not fully knowing how this new LW concept can be used to convey a story.

It’s my hope that Scarlet was only a test run, that they’re taking everything they’ve learned from her arch and reapplying it to season 2.

Fiontar.4695:

A senior developer said a few months ago, to paraphrase, “the game will probably have to continue to lose players for another year or so before we’d have to give up on Living Story and try something different”.

Would ask for a reference, but yeah… don’t feel like going down that road… I’ll just assume you have your sources, and revealing who said that would possibly get that person in trouble.

Astral Projections.7320:

So, since there was no buzz of excitement over them when released with no announcement during, I think, a new major holiday, apparently that made them decide adding new quests was pointless. (No comment over the logic of this, just reporting what I read about it at the time).

Well that sucks. I think the logical response would be to make a rather large noise about this? Maybe if we generate the buzz…
Although I doubt there would be much success in marshalling the anti-LW crowd for this, most of them at this point seem very much again LW in any format other than shipped in a retail box called expansion.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

CureForLiving.5360:

ANet needs a break, players could use a break (to prevent burn out) etc. etc.

Sure, players want a break from the thing they enjoy while having a break. How does that make sense?
Here is what players want:

What players want is a break from the terrible LS, which they now get.

BUT

Also they want real content, lasting content, new content on new playfields.

They want a break from the bad stuff and more of the good stuff.

Rocket science.

It’s get’s boring to do the same thing over and over and over. Come home from work, get a bit of GW2 in rinse and repeat.
Maybe I’m just old, you kids probably have a far higher tolerance for repetition. A break is nice, since that way I don’t get burned-out. A simple analogy then: ice cream is nice, ice cream everyday less so.

I think for ratings related issues they didn’t show a mountain of dead bodies, but it’s made pretty clear that a lot of people died and that the miasma was rather lethal. Unless we get evidence to the contrary we can assume he’s dead.

Druss.6917:

Prophet.6257:

I feel that way whenever I’m in Ascalon.

Yeah me too, I mean I’ve found several spots for prime real estate to build my fancy new Charrhome, but those pesky spooks just won’t stay dissipated…. <sigh> One day those silly shades will be gone and I can finally be a proud owner of my rightful homeland.

Yeah, wasn’t enough that the humans stole it, but they had to trash it as well. That’s just spiteful if you ask me.

Donutdude.9582:

I’ve got to say that I disagree with this post.

I just spent 30 minutes doing Legendary Knight even in the Cursed Shore. Managed to pick up 13 Globs of Ectoplasm from about 5 rares. Considering that Ecto sells @ 30s e/a, there’s an easy 4g.

You’re doing something wrong

I like to think in terms of dungeon runs myself, a single path path can bring you in 1-1.5G, you do a handful everyday after a while you have your money (although I’m too lazy… :P). Although takes longer than 30 minutes to run a dungeon… Still dungeons give a guaranteed reward, farming tends to be a bit more random and with diminishing returns can be a bit annoying as well.

Yargesh.4965:

On a serious note it is a possibility but with so much going on would be back burner at best.

True true. So much which could be done, but at the end of the day ANet has a finite number of people to produce content. Content like this would require a lot of work, simply joining the organisation would probably be boring so they’d had to create a whole meta around it, some mission and what not. The more depth and complexity they add to it the longer it’ll take etc.
Still since this is a MMO there’s no reason why they couldn’t implement this in small chunks, add a few Seraph quests now, add a few more later etc.

Gnat.9405:

I think Tuesday’s post is going to reveal the wardrobe :)

Oh I’m so hoping for that. My bank is full of skins ready to be wardrobed!

Healix.5819:

It will probably be about PvE and PvP gear no longer being separated.

They did already announce that they were doing that. So possible. https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/player-vs-player-rewards-roadmap/

Kumu Honua.2751:

My guesses:

Removal of the loss of guild vaults when moving/guesting servers (a la China.)
Removal of soulbound/accountbound nonsense.
Removing character bound dye.
Removing the inability to sell/salvage/do anything with items such as fractal rings.

I’m sure I will think of more right after I post this, but good enough.

All likely except for dyes. Since ANet has been selling dye packs for a while now, and since players have been buying multiple dye packs for multiple characters this would A) probably not be the financially-speaking best move B) make a lot of players very unhappy.

Cormac.3871:

Just to add some spice to the mix, make the vote specific for each world. Every world would then have its own unique version of Lion’s Arch. For instance, who gets a statue of them built next to that of Cobiah Mariner? After it’s built you go to Blackgate LA and see a statue of Kasmeer, but in Ehmry Bay it’s Rox. Everywhere else it’s Heal-o-tron.

This will either be very simple and superficial, or will take a very long to implement well. Think of it this way they’ll have to literally build multiple LAs. That said, it a fun idea.

Devils Crusader.6508:

If the player has the achievement unlocked, then he or she is placed in a separate overflow/server from other players. This would help to keep people who have already done the event from telling others about it, while making them feel they have done something that caused immediate and permanent change to the world.

ANet has previously stated that they don’t want phasing-style mechanics since it results in people not being able to play together i.e. your friend is on phase 1 your on phase 2 and now you two can’t play together.

It does appear as if engineers have been added: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Profession

Sylvari definitely have been added, as a race they’re only a few decades old.

Rutan.3854:

I really want some feedback, and opinions here. I want to know if people feel the same way I do about how unappealing the Gem Store is.

Wait what? But… you know the second sentence contradicts the first?

Rutan.3854:

$10 armor, and weapon skins that are one time use? Who needs em? Almost everything in the store is one time use or expires. I want permanent account upgrades, and items.

That would be nice, but it doesn’t bother me too much (although yeah being able to reuse skins even if only on a single character would be a big improvement… here’s hoping ANet get’s around to creating that wardrobe some of us have been waiting for).

If anything I’d rather call for an end to the temporary items in the gemstore, a lot of good items come and go, and when they go the Gem Store feels a bit empty.

Fuzzion.2504:

From gw2wvw.net

• Should Players be allowed to sell and trade Ascended Items on the trading post ? (Closes 22nd of March)

Yes 70% (326 votes)
Yes but only to Armour and/or Weapons and/or Trinkets 9% (41 votes)
Undecided 5% (23 votes)
No 16% (73 votes)

Total votes: 463

I don’t think the results are all that reliable… I think that random convenience sampling doesn’t produce a sample group that is all that representative of the playerbase.

There will always be more people not buying gems then actually buying gems. There’s a number of reason, but these players aren’t useless. As long as they play, they help fill PvP, WvW and PvE, thus making it a more fuller gaming experience for those that do support ANet with money.

Fiontar.4695:

The original ANet plan was to release new World Dynamic Event content every month, (along with occasional dungeon and other content), with the goal of doubling the Dynamic Events in the game during the first year of free updates. Some would advance the stories told by the original DEs for the zone. Others would become part of a rotation of DEs in and out of the game, in a fashion that would ensure that you’d find new content and a different combination of content when ever you returned to a zone after a month or two.

Actually this does sound pretty cool.

ANet needs a break, players could use a break (to prevent burn out) etc. etc.

Junkpile.7439:

Kill mobs, get 4 rare weapons, put those in forge, get precursor, profit. I got 12g and after this operation i got almost 650g.

I’m glad you’re lucky, I eventually gave up throwing rares into the mystic toilet :P

All I want is more variety, some unrealistic armour would be nice, some more realistic. I just want to be able to express my character visually a bit better.

Can’t really find too many sources of Utopia concept art but here’s some http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_Utopia

People are making a lot of in-game money, so ANet is putting in more and more gold sinks. I guess it makes sense, with the gold → gem trade, having a population with a lot of gold also means less money making. Does suck for us without a lot of gold though…

Shizlam.4310:

Let’s be honest if you were dumb enough to be scammed in this game you had it coming mate.

Oh that’s a bit premature, we don’t even know how he was scammed. Kinda seems the majority opinion is trading outside of the TP (which is a bit… well there is a reason we can’t trade with other players), but it might be something else.

BarronTV.4632:

Wasn’t letting me post in suggestion or dynamic events so I had to post it here.

PROBLEM:
The Giant champion at the town of Nageling in Diessa Plateau needs to be erased. This was only ever pushed at launch and now seen as though it is never pushed the town is always unusable. This is a huge hindrance on enjoying the game when your exploring the plateau. I feel for the people that are exploring the plateau or revisiting the area and get to Nageling and find deserted town that nobody wants to take back.

SOLUTION:
Get rid of the Giant champion event, the days of pushing it are over. Create a new event (which can be done by 1 or 2 people) were separatists or flame legion attack the town and once the town is destroyed it can be rebuilt in another event and if it is defended then they attack later.
OR
Make the Giant champion into an elite or veteran so that 1 or 2 people can retake the town.

Or just do some better scaling on the giant champion.

I heard (so take it with a fistful of salt) that Utopia grew so big, that they turned it into GW2.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Sometimes I find myself writing long posts instead of writing school papers and find myself asking “will this ever be seen by someone that actually has any say?”

Yeah don’t do that.

Anyway on point: The problem with that is is that we might end up with people doing the attention kitten thing. Purposefully posting negative or flaming comments and feeling good about themselves because a “dev have read this”-icon has appeared.
Moral boosting yes, but not sure if the negative outweighs the positive.

Mortifer.2946:

I don’t think they will show Trehearne again, or record another audio with him. People just hate him, because…. i don’t know why… i did like him in the story

The monotone voice was creepy. Which wouldn’t be bad, if he wasn’t so plain and goody-goody. The mis-match.

panda the chop chop.4712:

if you youtube guildwars2 lore wizards tower theres a recent (no older than 2 years) video about “he who shall not be named” might be living there (no not lord voldemort) lol

The wooden potato video seems interesting enough, although it’s all still speculation.

ChurchOfRuin.3891:

Also, the Nightmare Court could go the way of the Svanir and support Mordremoth without truly being corrupted by it, I’m not quite familiar with them enough to judge whether that would conflict with their philosophy though.

Nightmare Court believe that the Ventari’s Tablet is corrupting the Pale Tree and the Sylvari. With the underlying philosophy of the Sylvari being of centaur origin, they see it as being untrue, non-sylvari. They believe that through the nightmare they can free all Sylvari.
So it’s possibly that they might think of Mordy as being a means to further they’re own goals, if Mordy is responsible for the nightmare then they’ll be all over that.

Wiki is mostly well kept (some of the Living Story content is a bit thin), GW1 wiki seems well maintained (obviously players have had far more time to do so), so it’s a good source of lore, although some things have been a bit retconned between GW1 and GW2.

Erukk.1408:

Without the permission of the Captain’s Council, there was nothing for the Pact to do on the matter, short of hostilely taking the city over for it’s own protection to set up defenses. But then that have set off a conflict between the Pact forces and the Lionguard, and that would give Scarlet a clear shot of killing two birds with one stone.

This is what we need more off, conflict were both sides are doing what they believe is best, and where neither side is stupid evil.

Although what would be be theme? Karka on the left, Risen on the right… Could be a war between the two? My focus on the theme is simple, if it’s just going to be an extension of Sparkfly (same design, same enemies etc) then I’d rather have ANet apply that time and effort on creating something new.

MagnusLL.8473:

Every time we “win”, some major section of landscape gets (or stays) wrecked. A few more of these “victories” and there won’t be any world left on which to fight.

It’s called a pyrrhic victory. Funny story behind that term.

Aedelric.1287:

Orr has to stay covered with undead, it is important that is remains the same for any newcomers working through their personal story.

Well we’ve only explored like half of Orr, so ANet could create at least 2-3 more maps (attached image of Orr at present) to cover the rest of Orr, in which we have a slow progression in terms of un-tainting Orr, with Treahern at the end sitting in a lush green meadow.

Well as nice as that would be, the problem is that GW2 isn’t really setup for world pvp. The way dynamic events work it’d be kinda difficult to have two warring factions, unless they create another entire set of dynamic events, hearts etc. for the ‘new’ faction.
I guess it make sense, this way ANet doesn’t have to worry about faction player balance.

Of course since inquest and sons of svanir are sort of friendly (there are Sons in Hoelbrak and some neutral-ish inquest in asura starting area) with their good-guy-factions we could play as them (although it would be a bit odd to defend a caravan against your own faction), although the same can’t be said for the nightmare court, flame legion or separatists (all of whom have a kill on sight policy).

Bazaar of the Four Winds, I loved the new area, the design and aesthetics. The gathering quests were nice (exploration yay), but the dynamic events were so so.
Frost and Fire the final dungeon was pretty good, nice build up if somewhat anaemic content wise.
First Holloween was the best holiday event (back when we had holiday events… seems holiday events and Living World have been combined into one).

Living World isn’t that bad, not sure if it’s sufficient at present to serve as the backbone of content delivery in GW2, but that’s another discussion.
Some more persistence would be nice, but Living Word was designed to be temporary and have an impact, which conceptually is a pretty nice idea, however practically the amount of impact it’s had been limited.
But I do feel like it’s been getting better and better. Short content chunks allowed for experimentation, seeing what works what doesn’t etc.

Braham’s GF was kinda shallow, so no big loss there. E has yet to be revealed.

My main is a barbaric-charr-necromancer, why would anyone think of him as a friend? Maybe my charming-sylvari-mesmer, everyone loves mesmers… but still he’s a charr, he likes hurting things and defiles the dead.

TheLegate.9086:

I want to know if there is any way to catch up on this story in order to get to know the characters and this Living World thing in general. Thanks in advance!

Not in game. There’s been a couple of suggestions from players on how ANet could enable this, but it doesn’t seem to be priority at the moment. For the most part wiki and perhaps http://atlas.guildwars2.com/en/, but without context the atlas is a bit confusing.

Pyroathiest.4168:

What OP has described is basically GW2 Combat Mode. This works in games built around it (Dragon Nest, ESO) but really doesn’t work in one that isn’t, such as GW2.

True, but judging by some of the videos I’ve seen (like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tjK5OI2oAQ) it doesn’t look / work too badly.

EDIT: V2 vid here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBA2Yb4tvmU
Although in general these mods seem to be iffy in terms of ban-ability.

Almoryk Kane.6085:

So then what will Mordy’s minions be if not the Nightmare Court or Sylvari in general? Some kind of plant corruption? Since Mordy has an earth theme I think he has a high probability to be able to corrupt Sylvari into his minons.

Maybe Mordy can’t corrupt Sylvari, but maybe he can corrupt a Pale Tree and use it to create an assortment of plant monsters.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

This implies that whatever was happening to Scarlet was not dragon corruption, as in almost every case, once corrupted you don’t fight against it.

I seem to remember that Kellach was slowly corrupted and actively attempted to cure himself (of course he was kinda crazy at the time, http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kellach%27s_Attack)

Lasica.5068:

Thinking about this I wonder why people think the Pact should be involved?

With great power comes great responsibility?

Horst Hortensie.5420:

The norn personal story tells that Jotuns once were a powerful and civilized race which destroyed itself in a civil war.

Yeah but in the flashback they’re still loincloth wearing and covered in body paint. Probably ANet didn’t feel like making unique armoured Jotun models just for a single personal story instance.

Alice.8694:

We were promised 6 unfathomable dragons with their own plans and complicated designs. And what did we get? An undead dragon hell bent on… Eating magic.
Not exactly ground breaking is it…

If the dragons are to be antagonists, they need to step up and be less 2 dimensional than scarlet.

Dragons have always been described as being akin to natural disasters. Sure there’s some disagreement as to how intelligent they are (I still think most of the thinking goes on at the middle management level) but for the most part ‘big dragon eat magic’ is kinda there things, so it’s difficult to really go anywhere with that.

Maybe Zhaitan was the underachieving-ED (flunked out of ED-High and didn’t get into ED-U) and we’re going to get a bunch of complex, highly intelligent dragons.
Although since ANet is going for the whole lovecraftian-beyond-mortal-comprehension thing that becomes a bit difficult do, since a talking ED with complex plans filled with twists and turns still seems well within mortal-comprehension.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

DarcShriek.5829:

The problem you have is that many leaders have successfully led through fear and intimidation, despite your claim of the opposite.

Yup, worked really well for Caligula . . .

If all of Tyria had but a single neck…
Also instead of a talking-cat let’s put a horse in charge of the Black Citadel!

I guess ‘great-great-great-…great ^ n grandmother’ was a bit inconvenient to put on a headstone.

I’m expecting a scarlet-zombie-dragon-general deal at some point. Well as long as she’s a mindless husk I guess it wouldn’t be too bad.

Belzebu.3912:

Trahearne is the Pact’s general … what else you guys expected? A good military strategy?

I can’t wait until we fight mordy.

Us: What are we going to do?
Trahearne: I don’t know…
Us: What?
Trahearne: Well you see… I’m a zombie dragon specialist… In fact I was specifically chosen to lead the Pack for no other reason then my knowledge of Orr and that I was neutral order-wise. Plant dragons however… um… let’s shoot a lazer at it?
Us: Ok guess I’m pulling the weight… again!

AsgarZigel.4530:

It really would have been a lot smoother if the Pact disbanded after the Personal Story or at least the PC would have left it for the time being.

Well it’s not too late to salvage it though. All we need is a living world content in which we see the pack heavily engaged in fighting one of the dragons (preferably not mordy since he just woke up), suffering heavy casualties and what not to justify why they couldn’t spare any troops. I guess lore wise it could be explained: the other dragons sensed Mordy was about to be awakened and because more active requiring more Pact force to keep them at bay.
You know basically some filler living world content. Doesn’t really explain why they didn’t call the second in command to help… maybe the fighting was so bad that the post office stopped working? Of course then why didn’t we go check on them?
Ok maybe this will require a bit more effort to salvage.

Shiren.9532:

A good number of events in the game are escorts from one location to another.

Most likely waypoints don’t work in lore the same way they work in game, i.e. you probably can’t waypoint from any location to a waypoint. Most likely it’s from waypoint to waypoint, meaning that an escort from A to B might be quicker then going to waypoint C first (ignoring the cost implications… Asura are greedy…).

Shiren.9532:

Why wouldn’t these NPCs just waypoint their reinforcements? Why not waypoint the supplies?

To discuss this we’d probably need specific instances, although I must say, the lack of waypoint usage in dynamic events is a bit odd.

Shiren.9532:

Why didn’t the citizens in Lion’s Arch just waypoint out of the city?

Scarlet Alliance attacked out of the blue, and one of the first things they hit was the asura gates to the other capitals. Also smaller asura gates tend to be temperamental, they keep not working whenever an event is going on near them :P

Shiren.9532:

Why would anyone pay the Lionguard to protect trade routes when they can just waypoint around the place? A few silver for a waypoint is hardly comparable to what it must cost to pay someone to risk their lives to escort you or protect your caravan.

From in lore examples waypoints are a lot more expensive then for players. It does then raise the question, is there a lore reason for this? Are Charr characters’ travel costs being covered in majority by the Black Citadel?

Shiren.9532:

When I consider that waypoints can be contested this has several problems including double standards for players and NPCs as well as the belief that a good number of situations it wouldn’t make sense to argue that a waypoint is contested.

I’m guessing like many asuran creations waypoints stop working when you look at them funny. At least they don’t explode and create waypoint-elementals.

Shiren.9532:

The idea that waypoints are a lore thing seems to have so many crappy lore complications for such a small pay off.

Not really, there are some issues not covered by lore, cost and ease of use primarily, which we can brush off as being game mechanics. I guess ANet could flesh things out a bit but that seems like a lot of effort.

OmaiGodman.2098:

- Two of the possible translations from Latin of “Rata Sum” are “I have calculated” and “I am certain.”

Given the Asura this is a more likely answer.

Dean Calaway.9718:

The biggest problem about magic find is Anet never officially mentioned how it genuinely works.
By the way if I’m wrong and they have in the meanwhile please post a link.

So basically what you have is some people that did a little math, made some assumptions and BAAM, that’s how MF “works”, and the community has been rolling with it as fact because some say, or the wiki says.

This. So many different explanations. I’d love it if we could get a nice little red post detailing how exactly MF works. At the very least I’d be able to tell if it’s actually worth going for full MF or should I just sell all my greens and blues.