Guild Wars 2

I usually update the background of my guild site with the upcoming patch wallpaper.. and there’s none this week!

SirMoogie.9263:

Edgar Doiron.2804:

This didn’t really need to happen, since the instance was loaded when first entering the zone, so even if Marjory and Kasmeer aren’t at thunder ridge camp once you got out of the story instanced, you would meet them in the tower.

Agreed. They really need to allow late comers time to catch up. I told some friends that this release was particularly good content wise, but they can’t view the intro to it and have little context now.

The only reason I can see is, the maps isn’t an “instanced” version of A map, but more an instance version of the CURRENT map.

And it changed a bit with this update, no?

This didn’t really need to happen, since the instance was loaded when first entering the zone, so even if Marjory and Kasmeer aren’t at thunder ridge camp once you got out of the story instanced, you would meet them in the tower.

did anyone tried guesting on different servers, to see if the progress changed?

So is this just a hidden timer, or is it really a progress bar?
Also, is it per-server or global?

I kind of wish it is per-server, which makes it like a server “achievement”. Something to be proud of as a server, also it would mean the tower could be still standing on some servers while others destroyed it quicker.

JonathanSharp.7094:

@

@ Moba: This plays into another idea you guys seem to be hitting on, which is a moba style game. We think the layout/flow of a moba style map could be really fun, especially when combined with something like killing enemy captains or guild lords. We’re also looking at testing something like that!

We had a MOBA-like game map during Halloween 2012 (which sadly didn’t make it back in this year). CAn’t you use that and evolve on it, for a game type?

Reaper’s Rumble

http://i.imgur.com/VL1OayC.png

ColinJohanson.2394:

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

Alright, time to get back to Colin’s Question.

My example will be LOST, i’m sure most of you heard of it.

LOST to me was two things.

First, it was an awesome TV show, with an intriguing plot, and each episode we learned a bit more about the island, but each episode also brought more questions.

LOST wasn’t just a TV show. Between episodes, I would talk with friends about the current episode, speculate on different theories and listen to podcast which brought even more questions and theories.

So for me, there was LOST the TV show, and LOST the Meta(discussing about it from week to week).

The living story does touch the Meta part a lot(not always, more later), but as a “Show” it’s still lacking a lot on the answer questions and bring some new ones(although i liked what was done in the Blood & Madness patch witht he veiled tower)

So on the Meta part of the Living story (outside the game), the way you’re currently set up right now with your updates twice a week.

Week 1

• Get update +patch notes
• See upcoming feature
  

        _This is really nice, especially when you put the Letters of the next update in the file name_

So during the first week, I’m enjoying the new content, and speculating on reddit, the forums, and with friends about the next patch. I’m also listening to podcast and other video blogs online about such speculation.

Week 2

• Get to see what the upcoming feature is
• Get a short trailer

By this time, I’m done the last update, and I’m doing my regular GW2 stuff, WVW, dungeons and such. I don’t mind that I completed it in a week, because that means I actually have time to do other stuff. So now, we can see if all our speculations were right, talk more about what we saw in the short trailer, and at the features that are coming.

Week 3
Now that upcoming content is moved to the Now Playing part, and we repeat.

I’m loving this cycle for this, it’s that exact same feeling I had when watching Lost.

Now as for the story, I think we need to work more on Answering questions before giving us even more Questions.

Why are the aetherblades so scared of scarlet? What did she do to create the molten alliance?

Blood and Madness did a nice thing with showing a glimpse of the next content update in game, Tower of Nightmares did answer how she got the kraits under her command (telling them she had/could get an obelisk), and I think that’s the direction we need to take.

Like I said in an earlier post, instead of using Achievements as filler, why not use part of it to expand the story? The 24 krait obelisk shard that we need to find, why isn’t there some Krait lore snippits associated with each one we transcribed?

I do think you’re heading on the right path though… and no more dates in the preview image, give us back our two letters hint!

cesmode.4257:

Edgar Doiron.2804:

mercury ranique.2170:

So I do think that the living story should be rewarding/interesting for people regardless off playtime, but it should not only serve the people with less time but also those with enough time.

*My suggestion would be to add more rewards. *

Why not reward us with more lore, instead of more fluff.

And more interesting dynamic events, which leads to traditional content updates vs 2-week living story updates…it is all connected. In my opinion, Arenanet cannot look at Living Story without considering permanant content that we are all asking for(in the form of zones, new DEs, etc), because all require certain dev time and cost. All connected.

But I agree, more lore, more story, more interesting content. Less grind, less achievement grind, less zerg, less rewards.

Playing a fun game that I enjoy spending my free time is reward enough and should be reward enough for anyone.

Yep, I do think more could be done with Dynamic events, unless this is the maximum extent of their potential?

Here’s a couple of ideas.

Exploring a new map (Crystal Desert), no man has been in there for ages. It’s about time we go in there, but before doing so, we know we’ll need to build camps and such on the other side.. and it’s a desert, so there’s not really any wood or ore around.

Put a dynamic event (gatherer) at the Desert Gate, there you’ll see pack dolyacks, builders crafters, all waiting for The Pact (or another group) to get ready and head to the crystal desert. They need 2 million wood, and 2 million Ore (any type will do). Each server has this progress bar, some can complete them quicker than others. Once they’re filled, the gates open, triggering the next event, until they reach the first camp. (Make a pause, so every server can catch up) at the camp you get some new stuff to do, and explore, until we’re ready to push forward some more (new update).

So just an example, make it so that once the Ressources are ready, the first group there are actually beating the trail, but pack dolyaks, crafters, builders will keep periodically spawning at the gate, and needs to be escorted to the first base camp, because they still need those ressources… So even if you miss that first run, you’re still doing it over and over until the next patch comes out.

So an event like this would last a couple of days/week depending on how good/willing the server is at dumping ressources in it.

This is just an idea, I’m not sure if the event system is acutally able to handle stuff like this.

mercury ranique.2170:

So I do think that the living story should be rewarding/interesting for people regardless off playtime, but it should not only serve the people with less time but also those with enough time.

*My suggestion would be to add more rewards. *

That right there, is my major gripe with the Living story. It’s called living story not living rewards.

Why is everyone so focused on rewards, when the game isn’t gear based. I’d like a bigger focus on Story more than rewards. If you’re just doing the achievements for the rewards, and not really enjoying the story. What’s the point?

Let’s go back to dragon bash, following the living story granted us a book, which we could replay the cinematic of our first meeting with Majory Delaqua. Now that’s a nice reward for a Living Story. It’s actually tied to the story. A Useless mini that gets stored in my collection? A Back item, I have so many back item skins that I don’t even know what to do with them anymore.

Why not reward us with more lore, instead of more fluff.

Xar.6185:

cesmode.4257:

I actually had a question about this insatiable need for a dragon-centric story from everyone.

Mainly it is because other villians are out to conquer or subjugate while the very existence of the elder dragons threatens to eraddicate Tyria.

Who cares if alliance number one takes over zone ‘A’ if an elder dragon is going to awaken and destroy the planet?

As a hero, who do you stop? The guy invading fort <whatever> or the primal force of nature that is going to bring about the apocalypse?

I thought the dragons were only there to suck back the excess magic in the world… so hmm if we’re fighting them, aren’t we the one that will destroy the planet?

After playing the content last night, and seeing comments like this:

2. Don’t tell story via achievements.
4. It’s weird having the rest of the events going on as per usual in the rest of kessex hills. I realize that’s an issue of resources, but perhaps events in the immediate vicinity could be turned off during the crisis.

I think it’s a recurring problem. We get story at the start of an update, then we have the achievements, which brings no story really, and once we’re done the meta, we get another piece of story.

That’s how it was during Blood and Madness. And also how it is in Tower of Nightmares.

I mean, I do understand that filler part with the achievements, we’re fighting these foes for this event and such. But take the Obelisk Shards we’re sent to transcribe.

When I first saw that, I was like Yeah! Krait Lore on each shard! But nope, it was just interact and find the next one. It’s stuff like this, that I think are missed opportunity to expand the lore.

Also, when something this big arrives to a map, I really do think that most event surrounding the area should be canned and new one should take their place.

Like this one that triggered when I was playing last night. It really felt out of place in the middle of this Krait infestation.

That is all. Keep up the good work, really like that opening story, and all the NPC idle talk and what they had to say.

Kasmeer event references the short story about Majory Delaqua, nice touch!

timmyf.1490:

TooBz.3065:

Put another way, there should really be a logic behind these alliances. A reason the Krait, who attack everyone on sight, would agree to this. A reason the nightmare court would agree to this. Other than a cackling evil supervillian, I’m evil because I’m evil motivation.

Yeah, I mean, why couldn’t they give the Krait some sort of reason, in-game, to work with the Nightmare Court? And tie it to Scarlet? You know, something like… Scarlet somehow can get the Krait some of their important religious artifacts. The Krait are xenophobic, but they are also religious, so maybe their religion can overcome their xenophobia?

Just spit-balling here…

Hmm correct me If I’m wrong, but i’m pretty sure, either in idle talk or one of the NPCs at the camp said that there was rumours Scarlet got an Obelisk piece for the Krait.

DreamOfACure.4382:

Having to “Finish” these new mobs is great, in my opinion. While the Downed-state itself has always been a point of contention, I think we all have to admit that it adds an extra level of depth to PvE in combat.
No longer just unloading your cooldowns and moving on; I want more of that.

They made a huge deal about it pre-release, yet their PvE wasn’t build around it. Probably a production-cost they couldn’t handle before launch, but this always bothered me.

I personally hope that this is a hint of future revamps of certain areas to grant the sentient mobs downed-state.
It would mean less crop-fields type areas where you can’t move more than a few 1000 distance without leashing something, and more variety in tactical placement and grouping of mobs.

Don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying we should overhaul every area. Just what makes sense.
Like… the Orrians shouldn’t have downed-states cause they’re just zombies, but the immoral highly-intelligent Inquest? Definitely. Mobs that, lore-wise, would definitely fight for their life instead of just lurching over and dying.

I’m not exactly sure I want it in PVE, but I do want this mechanic added to dungeons. Even more, I want them to be able to stomp us.

[continuation from above]

Cutthroat Politics Back to the election, Tying achievements to representing each side was really a bad idea. It should’ve been, the first you decide to support was the achievement “path” you would have. and that would cast a single vote for that NPC, not just dropping tokens to cast multiple votes. But all in all, I did like that has a player, I had a choice to make that would impact the game (yet to see the fruits of this though)

After this we’ve been introduce to the new villain, Scarlet, which people seems to hate. She’s suppose to be the mastermind behind all this. Flame and Frost, the Aetherblades, but we haven’t seen much tying all those together. I mean, we know she commands them, but why? why are they at her command? Who are the Aetherblades?

I do like Scarlet, especially after reading her short story. But before we move forward more, I think loose ends need to be taken care of. Which brings me to my main problem with the living story.

Each month we get 2 content update, closely related to the same storyline within the month. But each month’s story doesn’t seem to be linked much to what came before and what comes after. Which feels like reading a book and skipping a couple of chapters. We’re missing information in between. The living story doesn’t flow well. Although, you might have learned from this with this recent update.

During the Blood and Madness update, you stealthily changed Kessex Hills, in preparation of what was to come, that alone is a HUGE step in the right direction, to make these story flow together. So this way, we kind of know where the story will be moving, in the world, in the upcoming updates. I do think it could still be improved though. Why give us the map changed when Blood and Madness came out? Why not add an event in there, of defending against Krait invasions that are coming to attack the shores of the lake. Chopping trees, pillaging villages. You wouldn’t be able to stop it from happening, make it so that after a while the places gets overrun and then you can make it so the trees are chopped and villages are destroyed… but yeah a step in the right direction.

tl;dr
Add more flow to the story, like you did in Blood and Madness. Release the main content, and hide stuff that’s coming up next, just to know where we’re heading. And not just adding it in, tie in events around some stuff. But don’t advertise it, people there will experience it, and the end result would still be the same.

Add more story to the living story, more npc interaction, make use of the personality trait that basically does nothing.

Add Longer events/permanent events. Instead of containing a LS update within a month, make it last more than one month, so we can experience more stuff, and it gives you more options to push the story forward in game.

Thanks to Arenanet for taking the time to do something like this.

I’ve been a huge fan of the GW series since the original. I even made people come back to GW2 7-8 months after they initially left. Praising the living story and the content every 2 weeks.

But Thinking about all of it again, there’s some stuff that I thought could’ve been handled better.

When Flame and Frost started, it was kind of slow. But I expected that, you guys were adapting to this new living story concept, and needed time to work on the content. It was slow, but the story lasted multiple months, slowly building up on the intrigue and ending with a “finale”, taking down the molten weapon facility.

Throughout that story, we got introduced to two new NPCs, and we also helped them out in their current crisis, giving us a bit of backstory on both. Both of those characters got more lore added to their baggage with their respective short story on the blog.

The multiple months story arc gave the story time to evolve, and it also gave us time to discuss/speculate what was going on. So I do think that Flame and Frost was neat as a multiple month event, but was lacking meat to fill a full month of content during the first two months.

Let’s move to Dragon Bash, Sky Pirates, Bazaar and Cutthroat politics, because I find this is another Story Arc that kinds of tie in together.

Dragon Bash was a nice little festival, but with way too many fetch quest(of high requirements) This was the first time I didn’t complete my Living Story achievement. I got bored doing it, especially since we had to go make runs to burn the effigies, and then do the exact same run for Sky Pirates with a ridiculous amount of time to get the achievement. I think this has mostly been fixed now, didn’t really find any annoyingly high “fetch” achievements since. What I did like though was the finale event, with Theo Ashford getting killed. I felt that instanced pretty neat, and it really gave the sense of urgency that Lion’s Arch was under attack, and you had to escort the survivors.

What I would’ve liked to have a bit more depth was what came next. We had to investigate the event, find people on the map over multiple days, content/story evolving over 3 days if I remember right. That concept I did love, the evolution of the story within the game, without having to update each day and knowing yeah something is new. What could’ve made it better though is, less guidance for finding the different NPCs, more like cryptic hints/scavenger hunt to find them. Leave clues behind, talk to NPCs, to see if they’ve seen a certain someone pass by. It would’ve been a bit more involving than just GO here behind this rock.

That lead to the sky pirates update where we went inside the aetherblade lair, which was nicely done and a great piece of content (happy to see it coming back as a fractals). Now we had an extra council spot to fill, which tied in really nicely to put the NPC we’ve been following around these past few months in the council seat. But she wasn’t alone wanting a spot on the council seat, because we had to have an election. So out of the blue, we get Gnashblade come in, basically no one knew who he was, that places him kind of at disadvantage to Ellen Kiel who we’ve been following for months now. But I have to admit, having a player driven election was a marvelous idea, although poorly executed, like some have mentioned previously.

Bazaar of the four winds I have nothing to say here, the content for this update was just amazing and really well executed. Lore bits were hidden everywhere on that map, if you took the time to listen.

lordkrall.7241:

Caliban.3176:

Please provide accurate numbers about actual WvW population and not just server population and base transfers on that. I believe that would already go a long way.

But how would they actually do that?
What would be considered WvW-population?
Someone that logged in for 5 minutes one day?
Someone that is logging in daily but only does it for crafting?

I often hear people wanting stuff based on WvW-population, but I have never actually seen anyone come up with a good way to actually get an accurate number for WvW.

You could base it off the tally of concurrent WvW connection at any given time and average it off of that.

Server population, if the server is mostly PVE doesn’t really matter in WvW. You can join a Very high populated server that only has mediocre participation in WvW, and those are the servers you want people to migrate too, especially for a lot of people that consider WvW end-game.

Hi,
Thanks for taking the time to go through these questions.

I really like what you did with Mad King’s backstory and his son, in Family Business.

What I’d like to know is, How many seals are holding Mad King Thorn in the Underworld. We know one broke when Salma took the throne, but why did that break a seal? What causes a seal to break?

Also, why did the Mad King go silent for 250 years? Last year’s story said it was the first time he was back in 250 years?

Also, What’s next? Are you guys planning to move this story forward once a year, or will we see more about the Thorn family? Another seal breaking perhaps? Before next Halloween.

Never thought about it that way. but that’s hilarious!

Makes you hate her when you get in the game for the first time!

What? I’m fighting Zaithan? what about scarlet, she sent me a booby trapped gift when I first came into the game

1. Rewards. — Being mostly a PVE player, who does like to PVP, I’d like better rewards like gold, karma, stuff that I can use in PVE. All the rewards for PVP are PVP only, and makes it seem a waste of time on my character progression.
2. Ways to get PVE armor/weapons, without doing the PVE content.

1. Better ways to help in defending towers/keep. (tougher NPCs, more of them for hire)
2. A reason to defend said towers/keep (better gold rewards, getting rewards from killiing players while inside/around the keep/tower)
3.Commander features!

1. Story/lore
2. delivery system
3. limits of the Event system (how big/complex can they be? Could an event take weeks to do?)

If you’re still looking for a guild on SF, contact me. IGN – Edgar Doiron

I’m usually on from 9pm till midnight EST

+1 for Reaper’s rumble

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/new/

I don’t see it in the patch previews popping up.

It was the MOBA-ish game we had last year, and it was a blast to play

more like Prince Ewan Thorn

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Prince_Ewan_Thorn

Doggie.3184:

The Mad King is actually the Joker and Scarlets his Harley Quin. .-.

Twilight Arbor will be turned into their dark, evil funhouse.

Make this happen!

or the night :P

So ANet removed the Two letters defining the next update from the image name.

I had the LOST vibe with GW2 releases, where every week you speculate on what’s happening and what’s to come.

So week 1 we’d get our content, with an image for the upcoming content. That image usually had two letters in it, so we could speculate on what’s to come.

Week 2, we would know what that upcoming content was. more speculating on stuff that will happen

Week 3, we would experience it, and get an image for the next content.

Week 4, we would know what the content is

Repeat Week 1.

But now, by only placing a date on the image name, you remove the fun part of speculating the next content update (although this one is SAB for sure)

hun assassian.6145:

The only problem is that arenanet said no new regions or dragons this year so we can only get living story on already existing maps

moving from DR to Ebonhawke, one map per month, takes us into next year

Roy.7405:

Fallback models are also used for people who have hard drives that take a while to load model data, or lots of models very quickly. Below are images of them in WvW (with team colors on) before I got a solid state drive.

Thanks for those, never seen them before (having an SSD my self)

yes they will still be there. like every month, the first patch is there a full month, and the second 2 weeks

Queensdale’s Sky

Queen’s Speech
Queen’s soiree
Queen’s spy

Here’s one missed opportunity for the balloons and the escort events around them.

They could have given a little bit of backgrounds to the characters you were escorting.
Like while we wait between attacks, they could tell you why they were going to DR.

But i’m just nitpicking here.

Bathos.6341:

Must say there’s something not right about Queen Jenna. She can afford to build this HUGE pavillion but not to hire more guards to protect her subjects from centaur raids outside the city walls, and she takes advantage of a massive disaster wiping out a section of the city to free up the space for it. Kind of makes you think About Emperor Nero building his huge palace in the ruins of the fire that destroyed part of Rome. And yet despite her blatant disregard for the commoners, Logan loves her. And despite her constantly shooting down every suggestion he makes to her, and the fact she has no problem with the Countess’s having programed his history with Rytlock into the watchnight to unsettle him so he’d be more likely to loose.
I can’t help but wonder in light of her being a mesmer, if Queen Jenna’s controlling Logan’s mind somehow.

Isn’t that a fact?

This was where Logan first met Queen Jennah and made a pledge to serve as her champion, being enthralled by her beauty. If ever Jennah was to find herself in danger, their magical bond would allow Jennah to call Logan to her aid.

lordkrall.7241:

Gizmo.8623:

If you mean that if we can see ppl escorting same npc over and over or killing few pirates in 2 locations per map is indication that open world is alive again, imo you are mistaken.

People are doing Champion runs all around the maps at the moment, so I would say it is quite alive.

I do find that every living story did a nice job of reviving the areas they took place in.
During flame and frost, diessa and wayfarer were full of players.
Return to Southsun, well southsun was filled!
Dragon bash, you had players in pretty much every map, doing effigies and holograms.
same for the Bazaar and the Jubilee, with the kites and balloons.

Yep I noticed the EXTRA long load time in foefire last night, and longer than usual loading on the other maps…. I decided to return to pvp doing my dailies, daily. But this kinds of turn me off…

The Living story, as I see it, is use to make the “time” of the game move forward.

Because when the game launched, everything was stuck at Time “X”, when the living story hits a zone, that time moves forward… but not for everyone. So new NPCs are living on the new timeline “Y”, but older NPCs are still on timeline “X”.

So tyria as a world, has multiple timelines co-existing together in the same world.

Mind Blown

Why is 30 to long? Don’t do them all at once?
[location]Veteran slayer, [location] Kills and [location] event completer are almost always in the dailies.

So pick some maps when those are up, and do the balloons then.

Yes it’s a grind if you try to do it in a single day, but I guess that’s why the event is there for a full month.

I’d just like to thank the Team of this Month’s update.

Placing the story instance at the start of the event was a great idea.
It’s a nice way to explain what happened to the great collapse and putting everything in context.

Even more, you guys did a great job on the story of that instance. The characters really felt like they had personality, and the events happening during the opening ceremony were pretty interesting. It ended with some questions left unanswered, that we will hopefully know more about in two weeks.

Who’s the mysterious figure, is this Scarlet? Does Countess Anise have an hidden agenda?

So thanks again for this focus on the story, and I hope this is the quality of things to come lore wise. The pacing was great, and there’s just enough content to “tune in next time” to know what happens next.

Champion fight should add waves of monsters to scale up.

Like in Orr, where Vets and champs get added, the regular champs could get regular and vets added to scale up the event

nexxe.7081:

Rewards

The current rewards are underwhelming.

Titles, karma jugs, silver/gold, blue & green quality items, etc., just doesn’t cut it. Almost all these can be obtained in game already via normal gameplay without Living Story.

The only worthwhile items are minis and back-slot items, but seriously, is that all there is to look forward to in GW2 from now on?

Why do we only get one item per Living Story dungeon? A pair of gloves? Really?
Gear obtained via Trading Post? Really? Let me earn these via in game dungeons or world events instead.
Aetherized Weapons? Okay, finally something good, but where are the new armor sets?

I really want to come back to GW2, but everytime i do, i don’t feel rewarded for doing so, and then i stop playing again.

It’s not called Living Rewards. Play and enjoy the story and entertainment

Cliff

That’s number 2

I’ll take a mix of both.

Living story to move the “time” forward in the world, with newer personal story when it’s time to battle a new dragon

http://i.imgur.com/HptYUJW.png
The Charr on the right, is ROX… probably drawn by a different artist
http://i.imgur.com/TxnF8wo.jpg

Wow thanks for doing these polls. Although there’s not many voters, it still shows a small glimpse of what people liked and what not.

asperbianca.3196:

So, it won’t track those guild members that don’t use it; correct?

correct

Also what’s up with the quality of the video play back from the sanctum? It’s horrible