Guild Wars 2

The Living Story concept isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, like it or not.

And really, it cant go anywhere but up after Season 1. And the Tower updates have improved by leaps and bounds over the previous ones.

The Pale Tree now has dialog options that reference Scarlet. Some Asura in Rata Sum talks about her as well. A lot of relevant Krait backstory was given by NPC’s outside the Tower of Nightmares.

This LS was indeed delivered poorly. But Anet’s getting better at it.

Factotum.2093:

EverythingXen.1835:

I like it when the Anet engineers really earn that paycheck.

I suspect you should be “praising” the marketing department, not the engineers.

Nah. Those guys overpriced it.

I like it when the Anet engineers really earn that paycheck.

Great item.

Eh.

Best I can muster.

I’m vaguely curious as to how they plan to end this LS season… but not for the reasons I should be. I lost investment with this arc a while ago. I’m more interested in seeing how much the… logistics?… have improved since LS’s implementation. I’m essentially going to use the quality of the last bits of LS season 1 to determine if I’m going to bother with the next LS… And since that’s the way the game seems to be heading, also whether I’m going to continue to play.

I admit, my bar is pretty low at this point… but the recent Tower updates are much closer to where I want the LS to be.

We shall see.

Phy.2913:

angelpaladin.7921:

Go back to the dragons
and focus on us being the hero…. no one wants to be the side kick.

You can’t be the hero, because then everyone is the hero and that’s just as pointless.

I do not have that problem. Instances remove all the other people from my game. And if it is open world, other people are easy to completely ignore or pass off as nameless, faceless NPCs inconsequential to my heroic story.

Mechanically GW2 does a very good job of focusing on the actions of your own character above all others… but both the personal and living stories do their best to undermine it.

To heck with two weeks.

If I dont finish the meta achievement by the weekend the patch is released, I write it off as a lost cause. The real crowds of players are finished and gone by that point.

Im glad the last few LS chapters have had their content last much longer than two weeks to at least give folks more of a chance… but Anet cant fix the problem that the new chapter two weeks later pulls the critical mass of players away from the “old” content regardless.

Delvoire.8930:

FYI. Christmas Eve isn’t a holiday even though some celebrate it as such. The real holiday is Christmas Day. There are plenty of people who have to work on Christmas Eve.

Retail ftl…

Is the addition of the Grenth Hood in the store a sign of possible lore updates to the Wintersday content? Or is it just a throwback to GW1 Wintersday?

How has Wintersday changed in Tyria from GW1 to GW2 lore wise?

And, I’m really curious… is/was Scarlet involved in this Wintersday in some fashion at some point? I’d be surprised if “Scarlet = Grinch” wasnt at least brought up by somebody, even to just get shot down.

I may be reading too much into it, but it seems like the LS updates are beginning to linger quite a bit longer than the two weeks we started with. You can still go out and do the toxic offshoot events and they’ve been going on for six weeks… and they’re still persisting all through the Wintersday update as well. So those events, the tower instances, and the Fractal content are all going on at least through Wintersday.

They may still be temporary, but giving everyone over a month or two to experience them is at worst a step in the right direction.

I agree with most of the posters here. The LS updates so far have lacked a lot of the things I consider “expansion worthy”. But, I’m going to go a bit nebulous here… because for me, the biggest thing the LS lacks for me compared to an expansion is anticipation and excitement.

LS updates have worn thin on me. I’m not so much looking forward to them anymore as I am thinking “Oh… its been two weeks. Time for an update.” It’s not special to me… it’s become just a thing GW2 does. The content delivered in them almost becomes inconsequential… if its not outright removed in two weeks, it’s immediately buried in the announcement of the next update. And because of the two week window, the content often cant be anything really game changing anyway. Or if it can be, it hasnt been done yet in the (admittedly short) lifespan of the LS.

As for the excitement I’m talking about, take the announced expansion of Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls. ( I know, not an MMO, but bear with me)

This expansion includes a lot of the same things given in GW2’s LS updates. Improved/expanded rewards, crafting updates, additions to the story, skill updates, quality of life improvements, alternate gameplay modes… about the only thing unique is D3’s new Crusader class. But I am more stoked for this expansion (and D3 was pretty disappointing for me) than any GW2’s content I’ve gotten or have knowledge of coming in the future, despite it being technically the same kind of content. It’s bigger, it’s glossy, its impacts on the game are much more substantial, and biggest of all there’s a buzz around it that I just havent had for the LS in almost a year.

Now I’m rambling. Hope I’ve sort of gotten my point across.

narrock.6890:

Hjorje.9453:

These topics are getting old. There is nothing to discuss. If you wanted a discussion it should have happened months ago not now on the verge of releasing.

this topic started that many months ago and we are still mad that says something. so no we wont accept blindly what could possibly the worst grind/money sink in mmo history

It says something. It says it doesnt matter enough for you to vote the only way that matters to companies. Leaving. And the best part… if you wont leave over Ascended, you wont leave for the next bit of vertical progression either.

They dont have the art resources to make armor skins to sell for PROFIT in the gem store that arent ripoffs of existing armor in game.

You think they can spare the time to make free wallpaper?

One. My guardian.

The only profession besides Warrior that’s “good” in all aspects of the game, and almost always welcome in groups.

My alts are classes that are all too deficient in some way to be worth spending the time and engery on to get Ascended for.

It’s entirely possible there’s people who havent completed the meta… er… ground out all the AP…. um…. “experienced the new content” yet. It was a common complaint in the Living World CDI.

I say its a good thing the content they’ve worked on for months gets more than two weeks exposure for a change.

Well, that explains why almost every single green I’ve salvaged has given me the rune as well.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Gene Archer.8560:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Banquetto.9521:

Agreed. I’m so bummed out that we’re never going to get to play through the origins of Abaddon’s secret alliance with Scarlet.

Noooooo! It can’t be! That’s impossible!

Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

We know for a fact that Scarlet wouldn’t be involved with the Abaddon Fractal. The Reactor’s meltdown was recent, thus it makes perfect sense for her to be involved with the Inquest’s research. Abaddon’s battle was at the dawn of magic, before there were Dragons.

Basically, people who voted for Kiel, voted for Scarlet. People who voted for Evon, voted for the best Fractal idea that Anet could have provided. It’s a shame that it’ll never happen now.

We know for a fact Scarlet was written to be involved with this update regardless of player vote. Her presence was written in months in advance, the writers have said as much on the forums.

The fallout (Ha!) if Evon had one would have been soooooooo much worse. Be grateful it wont happen now.

Thalador.4218:

EverythingXen.1835:

Traveller.7496:

You know, I actually said to a friend a while back that they’re probably gonna build Thaumanova reactor fractal around Scarlet, as a joke. I didn’t believe they actually would. Maybe it’s the reason why Kiel won, since they couldn’t work up a believable reason to tie the Fall of Abaddon to Scarlet.

She could have just as easily learned about Tyria’s magical leylines from the god of magic himself.

She was planned months ago to learn what she needed from whatever fractal was implemented.

You’re right… she would’ve travelled back in time, interrogated and tortured Abaddon – scarring his psyche – in her quest to learn about the magical fonts and source of Tyria and how they are connected. Then she would’ve fled during the distraction of Abaddon going crazy and attacking his bros and sis’.

It all makes sense now.

The way she’s going… I can honestly actually see that happening. There is literally nothing she cant do/influence lorewise anymore.

Youre a stronger man than I to not allow Scarlet’s YUCK to drag down the rest of the content to similar levels.

/tip hat

Traveller.7496:

You know, I actually said to a friend a while back that they’re probably gonna build Thaumanova reactor fractal around Scarlet, as a joke. I didn’t believe they actually would. Maybe it’s the reason why Kiel won, since they couldn’t work up a believable reason to tie the Fall of Abaddon to Scarlet.

She could have just as easily learned about Tyria’s magical leylines from the god of magic himself.

She was planned months ago to learn what she needed from whatever fractal was implemented.

Razor.9872:

EverythingXen.1835:

Razor.9872:

Carighan.6758:

You tried to warn us that Thaumanova would be so much better? Well good thing you did!

Better? lol

No no no, you silly goose. We wanted to meet Scarlet. You know: the god that made GW into GW.

Fixed that for you.

Ha. No, I doubt there are many who wanted to meet scarlet.

Without a doubt she’d have been there. She was planned to exist in either fractal back months before this patch went live.

You wanted to meet her and didnt even know it.

Razor.9872:

Carighan.6758:

You tried to warn us that Thaumanova would be so much better? Well good thing you did!

Better? lol

No no no, you silly goose. We wanted to meet Scarlet. You know: the god that made GW into GW.

Fixed that for you.

Novum.2395:

EverythingXen.1835:

Novum.2395:

This pretty much confirms it, they rigged the cutthroat politics to lead their scarlet story up to this point, How would we know WHO really won that election? We never saw any legit numbers. Im getting sick of this story and scarlet. I respect these devs and the amount going into the game, But I once loved the stories and lore of this universe and this one character is just KILLING it for me.

Didnt rig it. Her lines in the Reactor fractal could easily fit in Abbadon’s with a little editting. She’d find out what she needed to know from either one and proceed putting her “DO NOT TOUCH” pylons around regardless.

But WHY add scarlet to this in the first place???
I thought this would be something original. Did the idea of scarlet exist during launch when this place existed?

I wish I knew man. Personally I just want this Scarlet ride to be over. Any story Anet hopes to tell with her is hopelessly lost on me.

Novum.2395:

This pretty much confirms it, they rigged the cutthroat politics to lead their scarlet story up to this point, How would we know WHO really won that election? We never saw any legit numbers. Im getting sick of this story and scarlet. I respect these devs and the amount going into the game, But I once loved the stories and lore of this universe and this one character is just KILLING it for me.

Didnt rig it. Her lines in the Reactor fractal could easily fit in Abbadon’s with a little editting. She’d find out what she needed to know from either one and proceed putting her “DO NOT TOUCH” pylons around regardless.

Content every two weeks, in my opinion, is a very silly thing Anet does.

lordkrall.7241:

No one is defending it.
But claiming that they don’t have a working QA department and that they should fire them is just silly.
The bugs we see are still quite minor, not really anything game-breaking. Sure they are annoying, but in most cases not worth pushing a release back for.

People also seems to believe that every single bug will be found during testing, and that the testing environment is identical to the live environment, and thus works exactly the same. Which is completely incorrect.

I have a hard time believing QA testers that dont test what happens upon PC defeat in new content have much of a leg to stand on regarding doing their jobs. More skeptical folks could start questioning their existance as well.

It’ll never be easier than now to get into Fractals. If you dont have to wait, dont.

unleashed.8679:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

whyme.3281:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

FYI if we go with the next topics from the initial call for topics threads (Global) then they are as follows:

PVE: Ascended Gear
PvP: Rewards and Progression
WvW: Skill Lag

These are all pretty focused topics which means we will be able to enter into the discussions more readily in terms of time. The bigger the topic the more divergent the discussions and this makes it harder for us to give them our full attention.

Chris

Can we see a complete list of the next 3+ topics?

Hi Whyme,

Here is the data you requested:

PvE Request for Topics Results

1 Living World
2 Ascended Gear/Ascended Items
3 Class Balance

Right now PvE is a pain when playing condition specs.

• Much lower damage then direct damage classes
• one player is capable to scratch the condition cap, bringing two into a dungeon , you lose ~80% of your damage.
• Controlling bosses is nearly impossible because of unshakable and defiant

Sounds like that files under Class Balance to me.

PopeUrban.2578:

Morrigan.2809:

Please no player reps or middle management or whatever you want to call it.
If I player wants to contribute to CDI- great, if not great, it just means that you are not contributing.
The last thing I want is some faceless class prefect speaking for me.
I am quite capable of that myself thanks

That’s just it though. The problem is that you, me, and hundreds of other people spouting individual opinions all at once quickly devolves in to everyone shouting in a crowded room.

You want to have your voice heard, as does everyone else, but that ends up meaning far less voices are heard in the short span of time the people at Arenanet have to actually listen.

Is it more important that your individual opinion is heard, or that the collective opinion of specific sections of the community is heard?

Anet pays professionals to do that. They’re community managers. And they dont disappear when they decide to enjoy their hobby through another game.

As long as they add an Ascended leaderboard afterward, I’d be cool with it.

Yep. The adrenaline rush is temporary, gets you back on your feet to keep fighting.

If no one around to fight, you take the time to heal your wounds (out of combat regen)

I’d be more concerned why you’re getting killed by a bird.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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

I vote just go with the second on the list. I don’t see a reason to delay another round of CDI with another vote this early in the process… I don’t think the other issues brought up suddenly resolved themselves.

To those saying they never answered the tough feedback/questions… what exactly do you mean?

The only one I recall from that monster thread was why they insisted on sticking with the bi-week cadence.

What did you want them to say?

No.

But I’d really, really like to be.

Compete?

You dont have enough hours of playtime to compete. Seems simple to me.

1. Agree wholeheartedly. “Living World” as a subject was, IMO, simply too broad. By the time I’d form my thoughts on the mechanical subjects (cadence, rewards, etc.) the thread had already spiraled off into lore based discussion (Scarlet, Scarlet, Scarlet). I’d prefer having multiple threads with narrower topics. Colin and yourself can focus on the gameplay type concerns and the lead writers can focus on the story/lore concerns in seperate threads.

(This goes double for when/if Class Balance becomes the subject of the CDI. Sorting out PvE from WvW from PvP concerns in one thread just seems like an excersize in migraine induction.)

2. Good luck trying to summarize every 3 pages… talk about aiming high! I think summaries are good ways for you guys to steer the conversation without having to reply directly to posts. Like “this is the current discussion… we like this idea and are leaning this way… this other idea, while great, faces a multitude of technical hurdles and isnt feasible right now…” etc.

3. More is always good. But I understand you are all crazy busy. I’m not going to get huffy if a few days goes by before you have time to post.

KOPPER.1458:

Q: Do a lot of players really expect to only play an MMO for a month or 2? I go in hoping and or thinking that I am going to play for several years. This isn’t always the case but never do I think to myself “going to play this for a month and then move on”

If I dont see myself still excited to log in at least 3 months down the line, I dont bother in the first place.

That’s one of MMO’s biggest advantages. Sixty bucks for a game that could feasibly last me years.

I remember when pixels were so big you could see the red/green/blue boxes if you looked close enough.

Where’s my geritol?

Let it all out brother.

Wishmaster.7693:

Screw you guys I could see Rox again

Hey! I like Rox. And Braham. And Faren. “Jory and Kas” are ok too.

Mesket.5728:

EverythingXen.1835:

Neb.4170:

Mesket.5728:

Neb.4170:

Mesket.5728:

Even if at the end an Elder Dragon was behind Scarlet

Scarlet is behind the Elder Dragons.

Ha.

That would be the end of GW2 for me (and many others) at least lorewise. I will just play the arcade then.

Funny enough, Scarlet makes the Elder Dragons look like ‘good’ bad guys and they are also pretty bland and uninteresting.

Really, what point is there to the Dragons? Do they have any goals? All they seem to do is destroy. They have the personality of a Tornado/Earthquake.

Without a doubt in my mind she’ll end up jabbing another one into more aggressive action. If for no other reason the forumbase continues to clamor for more dragon-based content.

As to the Dragon’s purpose… they exist to consume the magic that builds up in Tyria naturally over hundreds of years. They awake, consume almost all of it (with often catastrophic results) and go back to sleep until the build up wakes them up/they get hungry again. It’s very much a natural part of the planet’s cycle. (this stuff is also provided in game through your personal story… most of it anyway)

Which when you think about it, raises some interesting ramifications about our actions when we basically kill one… think like magical global warming or something…

Which, in turn, shows how even a brainless force of nature style enemy can provide more interesting and compelling story content than Scarlet has provided with a year behind her.

hmmm then why arent we seeing them having epic fights against each other to be the top predator of the world’s magic?

If they need to sleep for eons waiting for the magic to build up,… wouldn’t they be annoyed as hell if another dragon waked up first and consumed it already?

At the risk of sounding even more cynical than I have already… because Scarlet.

I dislike Scarlet less because of her actual character and story, and more because of all the other possible storylines we could have instead.

Neb.4170:

Mesket.5728:

Neb.4170:

Mesket.5728:

Even if at the end an Elder Dragon was behind Scarlet

Scarlet is behind the Elder Dragons.

Ha.

That would be the end of GW2 for me (and many others) at least lorewise. I will just play the arcade then.

Funny enough, Scarlet makes the Elder Dragons look like ‘good’ bad guys and they are also pretty bland and uninteresting.

Really, what point is there to the Dragons? Do they have any goals? All they seem to do is destroy. They have the personality of a Tornado/Earthquake.

Without a doubt in my mind she’ll end up jabbing another one into more aggressive action. If for no other reason the forumbase continues to clamor for more dragon-based content.

As to the Dragon’s purpose… they exist to consume the magic that builds up in Tyria naturally over hundreds of years. They awake, consume almost all of it (with often catastrophic results) and go back to sleep until the build up wakes them up/they get hungry again. It’s very much a natural part of the planet’s cycle. (this stuff is also provided in game through your personal story… most of it anyway)

Which when you think about it, raises some interesting ramifications about our actions when we basically kill one… think like magical global warming or something…

Which, in turn, shows how even a brainless force of nature style enemy can provide more interesting and compelling story content than Scarlet has provided with a year behind her.

JackDaniels.1697:

I liked the cutscene. There was nothing really tying Scarlet to all these alliances until the invasions happened, but even then, nothing was really said about it.

So this in-game cutscene confirms that Scarlet was behind all of it. We still don’t know all the details of her big plot, but that’s ok, because who wants the ending of a movie spoiled.

It wouldnt be spoiling the ending… we’re no where close to that from a story arc perspective. Showing some semblance of her big plot would be providing the rising action this Living Story desperately needs.

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

She is not a bad villain at all. GW 2 is a very deep story that you must play ever piece of content to under stand it all. Just look up wooden potatoes and another guy in the lore section’s thread on their videos… Watch the videos! You will have it all explained to you with glaring evidence. Also where the Atherblades come from… how Jubilee. Infinity ball personal story, and scarlet relate to Thaumanova reactor meltdown/fallout and why Tequatal is much stronger. We are soon getting a Thaumanova Reactor Fractal as well (cause we all voted for Ellen Kiel btw).

WP’s lore vids (at least in regards to GW2) are nothing but theories… trying to find some kind of connection between the LS updates and GW2 at large, or at least an overarching storyline between the LS releases because none have been provided despite a year of storytelling.

There’s a reason he’s stopped talking about the lore of GW2… and honestly he seems happier playing an old Xbox game.

MAD CAT.9321:

Hey look another “this game is dying” thread… ugh

Game’s not dying, but it has stagnated pretty fast.

The, frankly, botched delivery thus far of the Living Story has squandered most of the excitement and momentum the game had at release. At least from a PvE content perspective.

I honestly want an expansion just so I have something to get excited about in GW2 again.

@wookiee

Less jumping to conclusions, more wishful thinking I believe. I wish I shared your high expectations for LS next year… but frankly if you’d bundled all the updates since F&F and told me to pay $30, $40 for it, I dont think I’d bite. It’s not been expansion worthy to me and shows no signs of becoming that way (not yet anyway)

I always at least give it a try. Mostly because of the urgency to get it done before it goes away/the playerbase at large abandons it. Rarely because of genuine interest in the content/story. Though the Zephyr Sanctum and Tower of Nightmares have pleasantly surprised me.

Honestly though, if the helmet skin I wanted wasnt locked behind 9k achievement points, I likely wouldnt participate nearly as much.

There are simply too many free to play/buy to play options out there for me to ever consider paying a sub for an MMO again.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Here’s an idea:

You should have allowed the players to lift the illusion around the tower.

Here’s how it would work:

The illusion around the tower responds to certain spells or attacks, but only with a cooperative effort of dozens of players, can the illusion be lifted. You don’t tell the players how to do it, you just let them figure it out for themselves.

It is far more engaging to get the players involved, and have them be the heroes, then to have an npc lift the illusion for them in a cut scene (This once again enforces this idea that the npc’s in the game have powers that the players do not have).

Lifting the curtain would be server-specific. In other words, each server has to organize and do it individually. Don’t tell us how to do it on the website, and don’t tell us what’s inside. Allow us to discover it for ourselves, but get us involved! Allow the players to do these epic things together.

Sorry… I dont want to be beholden to the coordination of dozens of strangers to get access to content that’s only around for two weeks. Full stop. It’s all I can do to finish the Nightmare Within achievements while groups of people are still actively climbing it.

That said, you bring up a good point. Hearing about the wall coming down after the fact feels like a bit of a wasted opportunity.

Maybe the beginning instance of Tower of Nightmares should have had us defending Kasmeer as she prepares to take the wall down… something like that.