Guild Wars 2

I think we are in a conflict with the LS and Tyria Prime.

They want to use the LS to expand the universe and tell a story between the old PS and the upcoming next PS line, without creating a conflicted experience for new player…

well, i am sorry, but you wrote yourself into a corner here and while phasing might help, it would split the community.

Right now the world is frozen in time and evolving at the same time, which is a little weird.

The zones towards Orr cannot change, since they are an eternal conflict for all player, since they are experience the PS there, however every other zone will change and evolve past Zaithan, if the LS continues.

The only way to see an revived Orr through something like the LS or a new PS would be with a new Zone behind/sourounding Orr, which is only accessable after you finish the first PS. Here you will see the efforts the pact and Trahearn have put into, to revive the lands.
however, the old three zones will still stay in eternal conflict.

Is there a solution? Not one that isn`t screwing the “new” players. However to have a LW, you have to change things, even drasticaly. Since the LS is driving the world forward and is set behind the PS, there will be a point where we can`t be hold back by new players anymore.

for that, the PS has to be rewritten to acomidate. If Orr is cleansed, put in new PS storysteps, so they can still experience a fallen Orr.

We need to be able to move PS-Storymarkers as well as Heartquests around on the map, to accomidate changes in the LW.

For example my favourite “missed opportunity”:

Scarlet takes over Divinity`s Reach, tuning it into a warzone, with the astological center beeing her new funhouse. (sorry i just love this idea more, then what we got.. anyway)

This would be cool, but block out every new player out of the city, or hinder their access to certain storymarkers…. Not.
Just move them around to safe spots, close to their destination. Their stories are instanced anyway.

This would allow for some more diverse and “critical” events in the long run.
i have the feeling we are playing it rather safe right now, even though the ToN update is a delightfull bold move. I hope the payoff will be fitting.

cesmode.4257:

Lore Book (or Story Book)

As a temporary measure, if other plans are in place to help people who have missed part of the story, could arenanet post some story pages detailing what exactly has gone on during the living story, in a story format?

This way, if I have been out of the game a few months, I could come to http://www.guildwars2.com , and click on a link that brings me to another page that tells the story from start to finish, or until where we currently are in the story. This way, I have an idea of what has gone on.

Perfect example of this would be on World of Warcrafts site, however they give the complete history of Azeroth going all the way back to the Titans which is really interesting! This Lore Book could contain history going as far back as you want, but also include the living story as well.

Last night I decided to log in and see whats going on for the first time in a few months, and I think Im going to stick around a while longer. However, I have no clue whats going on with the story and since the past story arcs are done, I am lost…Who is Marjory Delequa(sp)? Who is her blonde friend? What has happened to Kessex?!? These are the things that should be easily accessible on the http://www.guildwars2.com website. Don’t point me to a third party site like Dulfy or a GW2 wiki. I should be able to find all that I need here.

I saw this mentioned (and i think i even did so myself), but when i see this sugestion i always have to think of Warhammer Online (now beeing shut down).

It had a book which not only served as your diary (story progression, including new events as well as old), armor collection (things you had in your possion at one point. that game had no wardrobe, but would be something for GW2), Title collection, enemy data (with some artworks sprinkled in) and POI and character lore (you find something intersting, you can instantnly read about it there).

I don`t see why GW2 would not be able to adapt a similiar system.
Righ now we have to go to the wiki, however this is “only” a community effort, so informtation or lore can be false.

An ingame enceclopedia, managed by the game and you developers themselves would actually answer a lot of problems (but would also mean a lot of work i can imagine)

However it would help people stay conected to it in-game, instead of beeing pulled out from it, to research something on the wiki or the forums.

you can also use it do advertise new content, or put together steps on “what to do” after we got our mission from from the flavor-NPC of the patch.
For example:
- After you talked to Majory after the “unveiling” cinematic you can find a synopsis in the book, beneath are the tasks you can do to help the situation and maybe some hints on how to do them.
- if you talk to other NPCs, more information gets added.

This brings in not only a way to stay conected and have everything handy in a quick way, it would also help “lore fanatics” with a new goal, as the have to scavange the land for new “lore” pieces to be added to the book.

- Investigate a searing crystal —> entry into the book about them
- read a book —> entry added
- take part in a certain DE —> information added

- defeat a drake —> simple entry
- defeat 50 drakes —> expanded entry
- defeat 100 drakes —> full entry
- fight every possible drake type —> bonus entry

Just for some examples. There could be even titles associated to it (which are definetly needed for some of the slayers), which might even give a little buff (like 5% more damage to drakes, after you completed all entries and you have the title equiped) like in GW1.

but i digress and i am maybe aiming a bit to high. It is just, that i have seen “intelligent” diaries and enceclopedia in other RPGs allready, which were able to provide a lot better information then what is curently in game.

Xae Isareth.1364:

This is might be a bit of a far-fetched idea, but what if we included PvP within a DE.

For example, a powerful artifact was unearthed in the middle of Gendarren Fields, and all three orders of Tyria want their hands on it. As a result, GF turns into a warzone between players belonging to each order, with objectives for each order and towns/villages turning into capture points for each order WvW style.

Depending on who ultimately fulfills their objectives and ends up getting their hands on the relic, different DEs can stem from it.

Bad idea, since it could also divide parties who might stumble over it and guilds who are trying to work together.
This is something for GvG or a later expansion, where this feature is more fleshed out.
Like in Factions, where they where fighting over territory.

Aside from that.
Update the Orders. Right now they are nothing more then a plot device in the PS then a part of the world.

Have us do jobs for them. Here again we can look back to GW1 and their Zeishen Quests:
- Daily or weekly objectives for each order member to complete.
This grants them access to something special. For example an “elite” version of the orders Armor and Weapons, maybe.
- Or Order specific skills. Like summoning an order Assassin Elite, Summoning two mini-golems which zapp enemies around you (Gradius style)

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

Tiborb.1453:

One of the things that I’d love with living story is to know what others LS characters do while not involved in the main story of the release: the Ottilia/Braham conversation during Bazaar of the Four Winds and Dragon Bash was a little example of what i mean.

What was Marjory doing between Dragon Bash and Blood and Madness?
Is Lord Faren fine after the struggle with Scarlet?
What’s about Evon, Ellen and Magnus?
Any new from the Zephirithes? Is the trade agreement fine?

Should be nice to meet them ingame between releases and see some little evolutions just like we did with Braham and Ottilia.

Oh, I REALLY LOVE the random appearence of surpriseBraham, Rox and Frostbite during some random Toxic Offshoots related events in Kessex Hills as NPC. This one was a REALLY nice addition.

Yep, that was something i was thinking about, however i didn`t like Braham and Rox`s involvement right now and at Tequatle as nothing more as a nice but unexplained cameo.
It is missing some context if it isn`t explained in some way. (flavour text. here to say, Rox`s at Tequatle was merly fanservice in my opinion)

I liked the Bard making a appearence in Lions Arch right now. That was quite amusing.

However what is needed is synergy. We need to find these characters somwhere in the game doing stuff and not have them pop up when they are needed.

As this is a living world and one event is happening right after the other, cascading on each other, these characters are not allowed to vanish, but have all to go with the flow.

They are allowed to get “off time” when the story follows other charcters, but you have to be able to find them and see how they develope in between.

Have them appear at festivals and have them have some fun. Have them go back to their homes.

hey, here is an idea:
- As we narrow down the “main characters” of the LS, we can do a search for them in the world, basicly like yakington in GW1 (without the loot for now, but with charcter or story developement)
- For example: Majory says she wants to conduct some research after one LS episode and next Patch we can find her back in DR, near her home pondering about something.

This can even go into some new DE. We might find these “prominent” charcters in the field, off to a hunt or a mission. Maybe finding Rox`s and Braham close to the Shatterer, allowing for a special encounter.
or have them spawn some special enemies in the field, while delivering some of their silly banter.

We could find Kiel beeing swamped with more and more bureucratic stuff and might have to find her in the LA, as she has run away from the work and down a little pirate hole, where we can get her for a round of belchers buff…

Every LS leaves a hole. However i think this would be a way to cover and use it for extension.

It might be because i am playing the new batman right now, however…
What if Kashmeer dies at the hand of Scarlet (Bobby mentioned the possibility of failure) and Majory vows to pledge her life to become a force to hunt her down and bring her to justice…
She allready is an detective as far as i am concerned.

Nah, just some random thoughts haha

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?

What would be a Living World event.

It would be an event that changes the world, however to be actually living it has to be “alive” which means it reacts to certain impulses in a different way and it has to be able to adapt to different behavior.

Right now we have the “static” DEs in the world. These events are only at one place and repeat at a certain amount of time.
Failing them only rarely has any negative effect on the area or even the world.

Then we have the LS which is a one-time event which changes the world for little bit (at the moment) for a specified amount of time.
The influence here at the moment is rather small. The biggest change up to date is a new dungeon path, a new jumpingpuzzle (which might not even count, since we got them before without a story, so they are just expansions of the wolrd patched in) and… well yeah.. that it is. maybe new tequatle, but he stays in his little space, doing nothing.

So what do we need?
Events that spread, events that start at one point and influence the area around it.

This doesnt have to be hostile. We have some suggestions allready in that direction. The tequatle plan, a dynamic world idea, etc… heck even i chimed in there.

How about events where you help merchants bring their goods throught the lands?
- As you help them get from settlement to settlement, have them open shops at certain locations, you unlock new items to buy and establish “traderoutes” between cities and production-zones.
- We allready see merchants in the world, but we don`t benefit from them.
- However in a war, traderoutes are a neccity. You need to keep the money and items moving for a good economy and to get the tools and knowledge around.

For example: bring a Chaar engineer from the black citadel to the ebonhawk (you know, the city southeast on the map), to have him deliver special goods (he won`t use the Asura gate, because he doesn`t trust them).
- on the way you have to fend off bandits and rebels who are against the peace-talks
- You help him develope a new weapon, as he gets an inspiration along the way. (gathering material for example).
- You get some backstory on the Charr as you reach certain landmarks, like the searing crystals.

In the end, as you help him through all these endevours, you get access to his new weapons (skins and stats/rarity), armorpieces (same as weapons), a special buff item or mini of him with his invention (i imagine a steampunk robotball with spiderlegs, which he invented to show the asura that even he can create something like golems).

As he arrives at his destination, the city will change. Soldiers get equiped with his weapons and beginn fortyfying the city more. Rebells get pushed back (and Quests in the area get adjusted to comepensate. mostly heart quests) a bit more and you might even be able to hunt them out of the area, into unknown teritory.

Problems for this kind of event:
- Overflow. if the next area is in overflow, you might not be able to follow the one you protect.
- Static quests have to be able to be shutdown. This includes DEs as well as Heart-Quests. Which means they have to be suplemented or adjusted to compensate.

Pros:
- A “simple” but overarching eventchain, which makes you care about the one you are traveling with.
- it changes the world in a simple but effective manner, since the little journey you undergo, starts new events along the way, to the point where even a faction might be pushed out of a region for some time.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

rizzo.1079:

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.

Chris

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

Yep i think this point is valid.

Chris

I wanted to answer Bobby here (and thank him for his detailed answer before. i didn`t expect that. Thumbs up here)

However i have to chime in here.
I don`t get the “line” reference here, so i would like a bit of feedback here on how you see where you stand with Scarlet.

We as players get only fragmented information about everything, which we have to puzzle together from different sources, to get a more or less full picture about what is going on. This brings a lot of problems with it, since this (maybe unintentionel or deliberate) withold information has different effects on how we percive it. Things that might be planned out and meaningfull might sound like a retcon if it is delivered in the wrong way.

To paint a picture:

If we follow the in-game information:
- Someone brought the molten Alliance together
- Scarlet ordered the Aetherblades
- Mysterious person attacked the Queens jubilee
- Scarelet attacks the Queen, talks crazy and is a terrorst and appearently beeing teached by more or less every race (as stated in game) and is now attacking “globaly” with her combined forces
- Scarlet is taking us as a joke, is protected by a forcefield and likes to play…

From the game perspective,… she is an uber-character, combining too many traits in her to be “relateble”

Out of game we have:

Patch announcements:
- here only the clockwork chaos where she painted the patch site

The “comunity message”
- Declaring an attack on Krytas lands as well as the queen (this gave us a specified area)

Blogposts
- she saw the eternal alchemy, has been a labrat equivalent and went coo coo

Interviews:
- she only believes to have seen the eternal alchemy, she only halway graduated, etc…

(i might have missed something)

The thing is, the order in which we get these information.
It is usually: Patch announcement/Community Preview —> Ingame —>Blogpost —> Interview.

Patch/Community is presented to the ones who follow the game on community sites. Ingame is presented to all players. Blogpost on the mainsite here (and if featured in the community) and Interviews have to be searched for, since they are usually are not announced.

If we now look at her developement we can see a problem. Scarlet rose from a strategist, to a “perfect at everything”, only to be cutdown by information, which can be described as “untrustworthy” even if it is from the creator itself.
The reason is simple: “You said so at first, you put it in game and now it is suddenly not the case? Then why did you write it like that?” (btw. this applies to text, that didn`t involve VAs, just “simple” writing.)
It brings up everyones tinhats, looking for a plot, getting freaked out and beeing disapointed.

(i don`t like bringing up Scarlet, but yeah, i have to admit. She was a letdown for me. This will be the last one on that topic, next is back to events and stuff)

As for the events of the “Centaur Crusade” (title work in progress)

After we “failed” to frive back the Centaur Boss in Harathi, things start to change.

- More and more centaurs roam the harathi hinterlands and we get some “siege” events on lokal villages and stronholds:
- Fight back their forces and beasts they bring with them
- Help defend the Skritts and organize a counter offensive thanks to their tunnels and explosives.
- try to stop their movements by building roadblocks and defend makeshift strongholds on the mainstreets.
- Scout the area and find “hidden” pathways to invade their strongholds.
- use “new” means to change the tide of the battle (remember the chaars with their catapult? how a bout dropping into the centaur lines with their help)

If Harathi is overrun however, things go in every direction.
- higher density of Centaur and Beasts in the sourounding areas.
- The areas become even more fortified.
- Centaurs will fight the envirorment as well as the players, as Trolls and Risen will stand in their way.
- Some events could work in a way, where we lure Centaur forces into other enemies and we pick off the winner. Here we could dictate which sides wins, allowing to spawn an extra enemy/boss for example.

There is a lot of material on these kind of “war-stories” that can be utulized to give the events some flavour and context.

What would be the benfit of such a system:
- Different factions (Dredge, Son of Svanir, Risen, etc. ) who push forward from different sides guarantee a different experience not only for a certain time, but also per server.
- there will be szenarios “hey, Blacktide is overrun by Dredge and they want to take Hoelbark, let`s fight them back.” which might promote guesting.
- Factions might clash, having you to fight both as they fight each other.
- The world changes as players participate all around tyria, since all areas do influence certain factions.

Well, that is basicly how i imagined GW2 to be as it launched. Either we push back to a mega event over several maps, or we will be overrun, maybe even by developers influence, as they provide special events to give certain factions a boost.
For example the centaur never get out of harathi, since their area is so close to LA and Queensdale. Two highly populated zones.
After a few month suddenly a special eventchain pops up, in which their forces just break through the lines, which kickstarts the Kessex and Queensdale events up to Caudecus.

With an additional Developer-Driven event chain, each server could be live a different Tyria and still get access to these events once in a while.
High populated server who hold all faction back, will still be able to experience these “siege” events once in a while (it wouldn`t even be lorebreaking, since it would basicly like a LS event.)

I really like the Tequattle idea. It is a lot more fleshed out then my basic idea posted beforehead.

In my opinion GW2 needs two kind of events:

- Large scale zone transcending events, where one zone influences the other
and
- time dependend events. Events which have to be done to a certain point, or something happens.

Both offer a failure and a winning state.

Right now we have a lot of underplayed zones. Harathi Hinterlands (my favourite example) has some great events and lore oportunities, as well as the mainforces of the centaures.
However we never really fight against them in the PS, only a bit throughout the DE is in the area, but they never feel really threatening. Even though they are supposed to be invading human lands, their forces are only stationary.

To change that we would have to have the snowballing effect of events. if we fail/finish one, others (one or more) start in reaction to it.
This is a system we have in place allready, however the consequences so far are usually staying in the area.

Failing the centaure boss and his elemental just pushes some forces back a little bit and that`s it.
Better would be if they would run out and open up new events. Sieging the villages and strongholds in the area, till the whole area is overrun and dominated by their forces.

After the zone is completed to a certain percentage, their forces will spill over into the sourounding areas towards the human settlements. Harsher attacks on the ascalon settlement and all the human settlements to Kessex and Queensdale, even leashing out to Lions Arch.

In Queensdale we allready have little strongholds which can be taken over, however that is only a gimmicky endevour right now. If the forces reach that area, they could even block access to Caudecus Manor, till the sourounding area is taken back.

As for rewards:
- We allready got centaur weapons we can get in game from karma and drops.
- We allready have minis, but they could be expanded, to include the giant earth elemental for example, as well as a transformation potion into it (small version)
- Champions would spawn at “push back” events, with the highest amount at “out of the zone”-events, where we push them actually back where they belong, intensifying the need to change the tide, since these events are the lucrative ones.
- Legendary Bosses are at the end, offering some “rare” items (maybe even Ascended to a rare chance) giving more insentive to actually push them back to the end.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Yep the story needs to more ‘Epic’, meaningful and better at evoking emotion.

Chris

I am not sure if “more epic” is actually what you should be going for.
In fact, i think going to these “extremes” so that everything is more “epic” is the wrong way to go, since it usually wants to top each other in the end.
As far as i am concerned the living story is an interlude, between the actual events that happen in the world.
It should be a way to show players the world and not neccerily bring them one “epic” fight after the other.

However, it should connect to the player. It should get players to care about what is happening. Have meaningfull characters that you meet, that evolve and maybe die…
Have us see them develope alongside us.
Rox and Braham are great characters. They are great.
However other characters just feel thrown in (even Kashmeer and Majory, but they got some momentum with the last installment) and meaningless. Best example here the countless “technobabble” Asura. I like Asura, but they are sadly mostly reduced to this one role, so i hardly care.

So yeah. don`t go for “epic” but engaging story (which can bring us a different kind of epic of course). Give us something to care.
If you want epic, get us a dragon, because everything else is lackluster in compairson.

(and yes, i am aware that the plan with Scarlet is to create a threat to the world, that is “epic” enough to be a stand in for dragons till they are ready…)

Anyway, for events and on the matter of failure and rewarding.
Let`s start with something i would call: “missed opportunity”.

- Queens Speech/Clockwork Chaos: The invasions were a dealbreaker for me and bringing them over the world just didn`t fit. It devalued all characters you build up, making them not a thread, but piniatas and failure was meaningless.

Instead Scarlet could have taken over Divinity`s Reach (Personal Stoy spots could have been put at the city walls and be seperated from the events) with her taking the astrology garden as her “funhouse”. Players would have to fight off her troops in the street while breaking through her walls and forcefields till they could finaly access her domain.

- Bloody Prince: We saw him and the Mad King fight in the labyrinth, however it was just with words. In the end the whole “fight” was nothing more then their banter and we as player weren`t even involved or felt something changing.

It would have been much more interesting if players have been able to choose one side and by participating in events while representing one of them would have them gain more power over helloween, to the point where the looser could be defeated in an extra dungeon (think cuthroat politics), while the winner gets “next helloween”, allowing for the other to plot his “big” revenge till next time (that would be epic btw. and fitting for such an event).

Now, for DEs with failure and reward:

- Take of the soft gloves and go swinging. If players can`t hold a zone, there has to be punishment. Even if it involves “smaller” and “casual” players.
- That should go for all zones. If players can`t hold the centaur`s back in Queensdale, for example, they take over more and more of the map, the density of their forces rises and they might even take over villages (till the entrance to caudecus might even be blocked).
Each outpost that isn`t defended by the player, gives the centaures more territory, till they might even stay in front of the city in the end (a rare event i hope).

The forces will get stronger, however champions will only spawn in the last event, which pushes the forces back (to prevent farmer) and the amount of them is rising with each step closer to them beeing driven back to their place.

- Using the “patchday” as a “changeday.”
- We know you collect data all over the place in game. How about combining the data about the participation in certain areas with negative/positive consequences:

This would allow every “evil” force to be threat if not attended.
Example:
- After Patch X there was only a low participation in events against the Sons of Svanir in Frostgorge and below.
- Anouncement with Patch Y for the server where it occoured: “The Sons of Svanir rise in power. With only a handfull of warriors holding them back the last few days, their forces are now closing in on Hoelbark. We need everyone to help holding them back, or the city will fall.”
- If they fail to push them back till next patch: “The Sons of Svanir are sieging the City. We need all the help we can get to push them back.”

Of course it should not close off players of content entirely. Every Vista, POI, PS and Skillpoint would still be accessable, however you might have to fight your way through to it a bit more, or you have to sneak around a lot more enymies on the map. (the density is higher, but still avoidable. Think old Orr, where it was annoying, but managable)

cesmode.4257:

I think we need to be appreciative that they are popping in and out interacting with us in this thread and pushing the thread into new directions, such as Colins question about TV vs Video game episodes…Chris’s question of our most and least favorite LS patch. Chris said they will be extending this time to gather all feedback and comment appropriately and they are still developing the game,. Therefor, you cannot expect them to have several posts per page. Their primary responsibility at the moment is development of the game.

With that said, I do agree with you on a few points. A lot of what they say to us, and on fansites and interviews, is PR lingo in my opinion. I’ll recall the Mike O’Brien interview with some fansite(I cannot remember which one) where he was inferring that Living Story is alive and well, people love it, and its ground breaking. Well, people don’t really love it, per say. As evident in this thread. We do it because its there, thats about it. So along with what you said, yes it would be nice to hear a developer acknowledge the mistakes they have made. I honestly would have more respect, a lot more, for a developer if they would acknowledge a mistake, even if it were minor, rather than spin more PR lingo and tout that everything is peachy.

It would be a nice addition to the discussion to hear what LS patches the devs liked and disliked. Arenanet: What is YOUR favorite and least favorite patches, and why? It would be very interesting to hear that!

And lastly, at least we are able to post our thoughts in some form, whether it be forum posts or survey, where the developers WILL be reading it. Heck this thread is created by them, I am sure they are reading it.

I am sure someone is reading it. I don`t deny it. This was their idea here, so they need to stick behind it. I am really excited about it and i like the notion, however right now it feels onesided.
Like they don`t know what to do and give us some directions to figure out what we want from them.
However we don`t know what they are able or willing to offer us.
It is not a balanced conversation or discussion, but more a directed filtering of everyones thoughts on the matter (as well as outlet of frustration).

This topic here is a great idea and we got some nice little pieces of information here and there, however it is all behind restricted PR-talk.
This doesn`t help us calming down. It is mostly the nice smile and wave people hate anyway, when they are greeted by “authorities”.

I know about secrecy. I know that they won`t “spoil’” anything for the future. However at this point we need some answers. Beeing vague isn`t the right way.
It can backfire, naturally, however it would be honest, it would be the truth.

There are real people behind the living world. However we only get “filtered” answers and opinions up till now.
We are voicing our unfiltered opinon here, we are trying to be collaborative. However something like this works best if both sides open up and tell each other what is wrong.

Best example is the pacing. While Bobby allready mentioned the different kind of pacing behind the living story, the overall tone right now is “we stay by our decision and won`t budge.”

Well, that is nice… but why? just because? Going back would not be cost efficent? Software, Hardware problems? Orders from above? Weird statistics that say otherwise?

We want to help. We want you to create an amazing game. However, we need more information. Leaving us in the dark about so many things is not helping.
We need to know a direction, the feeling that you listening, some of your thoughts (and from more then the “leaders”).

Is it possible to have everyone take a break from what they are doing and come together with the community in such a thread and just talk? throw ideas back and forth? I know it sounds crazy and goes a bit away from my original statement, but right now the whole thing feels like every other response we got ove the last year.

If this thing should work, we need more lifesigns from your side.

At Bobby,
thanks for your feedback, but here is the question i have to the Scarlet problem:

How will you try to rectify the messed up turn the delivery of Scarlet has gotten since the Queens Speech?
She was okay up to this point, however as soon as you “revealed” her, you went appearently overboard. The way you released information about her at the beginning sparked a big controvery about her character. The kind of that she is too perfect etc.
Her involvement in the story so far doesn`t change that at all.
While we know not all the extend of her character and your plans with her, the amount you have released are allready canon in the minds of many players and it really split the comunity.
It went that far that a lot of players say that everything regarding this character now, is a no-go for the living story.
You put too much “power” into one character. In my opinion it would have been easier to split her “abilities” into other characters alongside her. Maybe some Generals of each army.
However, that is just a thought.

I personaly have no real idea how you want to with it.
You allready started making some “changes” to her story in interviews. Trying to calm down the angry mob by explaining your intentions (before, or the ones who are now needed. Since you decide the story you can say whatever you like, because we don`t know anything), or what we misunderstood.
Nevertheless, you really f***ed up here, because now everything you will do, feels like nothing more then trying to save your hides.

Everything you do will not be enough sadly.
- Revealing her “real” backstory in any way (like beeing a puppet herself to someone, beeing delusional (the current story at least)), won`t work, because you would just retcon for the sake of pleasing everyone.
- killing her off would bring joy to a lot of people, but will feel like: “kitten we made a mistake, quick lets bury her and hope she will be quickly forgotten.”
- making her a decent character? unlikely. The mistakes are in the past (her as a character and yours, because the failed delivery), so pulling her out of that hole right now really requires a miracle, since right now many people won`t listen or care about anything related to her.

So yeah. I don`t really care about the restirctions of: “we can`t say our future plans”, because this is just PR. Saying things like: “we have plans, or we allready discussed it.” doesn`t satisfy anyone, because we heared it again and again.
This goes for all developers here. We like to hear statements about where YOU thought you went wrong. Where you were suprised to here: “hey, the audience doesn`t like what we did.”
You need to show somehow that you think about anything that was said in these threads.
Just gathering feedback and replying with “yes, we can`t disclose any information, but we were thinking about everything you are saying, so everything is good.” is nice and dandy, but aside from “hey we are alive and (might) reading this stuff here.” it is nothing we haven`t heared before.
Righ now it is no real conversation between player and developer, it is an elaborate survey.
Can some developers chime in maybe? Say why they liked certain content, or answer problems that are present?
How about having them give backstory to past events. Explain why they did certain things. What was the reasoning behind the watchknights for example.
This here could be the chance to give us information about your inner workings, about your developement, about the way you are thinking and evolving this beautifull world.

I would really like this collaboration to pick up from both sides, instead of just beeing a aforementioned survey of things you did well and things you didn`t.

Okay, i start off with my least favourite:

The Queens Pavilion/Queens Speech.
While the obvious reason would be the reveal of Scarlet, it is not. This was supposed to be the anniversity. One Year GW2 and in the end it was an experiemtn to see how far the people will go for their loot.
The only good thing was the Gauntlet up to Liandri, since it actually involved skill.
The rest of it was mindless zerging for loot and gold.
Everything introduced there was for nothing. The Pavillion itself covers up a nice mystery that was going on, the watchknights were only introduced to be converted by Scarlet and the invasions are still there, but no one cares. In fact they are the thing i totaly dispised about this update, because it just made no sense.
It was supposed to be Krytan/Human centric and then it goes “global” (stupid choice of words here, but it`s discribed like this ingame…) and doesn`t stop to this date.
The whole event brought the supposed main villain from a strategic mastermind down to the level of an annoying bad delivered (not VA but as a character) wannabe harley quinn, who is nothing more then a shadow of her beginnings. Everything build up to this point became laughable, since everything she build up so far, was thrown at us in masses…

Adding to this is the “failure” of the anniversity. It really left a sour taste in my mouth. While the birthday booster is still nice and i appreciate it, the rest of the “gifts” where (excuse me) stupid (lvl up to twenty which is useless to a lot of players, as well as a untradeable mini).
We got a month loot and zerging, but nothing i would call a celebration. It was dull and felt unimaginative…

For my favourite… thats tough:

I really like Flame and Frost up to this date.
Sure, the start was slow, but the things we had to do were “intelligent”. Finding things and helping people, everything with a little story behind it. Thumbs up.
Finding the order of whisper messages, discovering a little piece of information up to the developement of a computer (a fact seemingly forgotten up till now) by the alliance. Thumbs up again.
Sure, the first part was dull, but everything else was fitting.

Then as honorable mentions we have the first helloween.
This actually delivered a story which i enjoyed to follow. The one this year was much too short and annoying, thanks to the fact that it was archievment gated.
Which is sad because it had potential. It would have been cool if we were able to pick a side between the mad king and the bloody prince and whoever would have won, would be our enemy in a fight, or the next “master of helloween” next year.
Last year however was delivered much more entertaining and with much more supsense, something this year wasn`t able to recreate in any way.

Then another good one were the Zepirites. Hints of GW1 Lore and an expansion to the world, instead of “new developements”.
I liked the design, the games, the idea. I actually enjoyed beeing there, because it was cool, even without fighting.
The content right now is just… Zerg Zerg Zerg…
It`s just rushing everywhere, to get the shinies…

It appears to me that i prefer your first ideas much more then how it developed.
However that is not entirely true. I am mostly indifferent.
I liked the Aetherblades, but disliked the Dragon bash… because lets face it… RNG, grind etc…

Overall i am not against the LS, it just needs something permanent. This is even more true for something like the skins.
I know you can now get them with the BLCs, but again.. RNG and really low chance to even open the thing without paying…
While you want to make them special, they devalue the actuall “legendary” items you created.

So yeah, these are my picks. Thanks for the long answer Chris, however i wished other developers would come up as well. While i know we won`t get any “honest” statements, or someone saying: “we f*** up here” because it would be damaging etc. i really enjoy steps you all try by looking for this collaboration.

I got a little question here, since i am here mostly for the story.

The LS somehow died for me, after we got Scarlet (as i mentioned before) revealed, because let`s face it.. it wasn`t done well and everything after it felt like trying to save your hides, instead of saying outright that you made (maybe) a mistake.

My question is: how much does certain mechanics or implementations of the developement team impact the direction of the story?

I remember an interview where it was stated that the only reason we got these long (in my opinion stupid) invasions only to see how far people would go for their loot.

it was a case study, however it totally destoryed the impact of the story and made scarlet and her “army” into nothing more then piniatas, to a point that she cant be taken seriously anymore (also possible “roles” of alliances inside an army are lost).
Furthermore we got “useless?” implementation of elements, just for the heck of it? Best example were the watchknights which appeared out of nothing and were only there so Scarlet can courupt them.
I would relly like an answer here…

To further the discusion here:
- Archievements don`t deserve the name, since they are inded nothing more then a “kill ten rats” quest mostly. A big no go is gating the story behind it. I rather prefer a steady flow like at the beginning, where every week a new step was released, but with the chance to do them all to a certain cut off date.

Furthermore, these scavanger hunts we get recently are kinda pointless, since they are not integrated in the story in a meaningfull way.
n a TV series if the heroes go after several mcguffins they have always an adventure or get more exposition.
Right now it is just some brainless running around. The first scavanger hunt was great (last helloween), every step revealed something new about what was happening. it was`t just a check list.

In a TV show we have a consitent cast we follow through an adventure. We discover the plot alongside them.
Right now the cast is unsteady. Thanks to the releaseshedule and the amount of storycontent we have no real idea.
We know about Rox and Breham. Kiel is “gone” thanks to our vote and now we got Majory and Kashmeer.
Other then that we just have reocouring character, who most people quickly forget.

In the game we should actually be the “maincharacter” who discovers everything, however we are not. This has several reasonsons, mostly narative consitency.

The “Maincharacter” actually influences the Story. This means he is allowed some choice. He can make mistakes, or right decisions. Or he can decide who he can go to, to advance the story.

In the LS we are only on a rail. There are no different direction we can choose inside each segment.
Which is understandable, since it should be consitent, but then we got the problem with the lenght.
The story for a “month” split in two releases is just too short and over far to quickly.
We are not able to build a conection to characters, situation or anything, because not only the content is short, but there are no repurcations…

Okay, the living world…

right now it`s a big hit and miss, but the overall question is what is the living world? if i am not wrong it is episodic story developement sprinkled with any extension and update to the gameworld/-system that is ready for the time or created for that point.

So if basicly a simple patchday + gameupgrade with a story.

Let us take a look at the story then. Bobby, this one is for you:
You had a great start here. Building up a mystery, dropping clues, till the anniversity. Then it all broke down. As soon as you revealed Scarlet it all tumbled down. You build up a “strategic” mastermind. Someone with an agenda. Someone who put`s pieces into place and then didn`t follow up.
As far as i understand Scarlet get`s every “evil” force together, creating new technology etc. blah blah. (i keep it short here) and has her fingers everwhere.
Great, nice idea, poor execution till the Queens Speech.
We got finaly Scarlet doing her crazy Harley Quinn routine and failing… and taht`s it.
We know nothing about what she wants. Even if she wants terror, it is not clear.
Furthermore, she ended up acting stupid by using her forces which she put in place for what? stupid invasions that are still going on today.
Having her take over divinties reach and have the player fight to get it back would be more meaningfull for the krytan people as some random invasions…

Now i know this is gameplay vs. story. However it wastes a lot of potential..
it devalues scarlet and her alliances.
The invasions make every alliance feel like goons. killing them by the thousand defeats their purpose.

Scarlet had an army, the molten alliance. She had air supperiority, the aetherblades and she even tried to get into the politcs of the world.
She was able to attack from every angle, with unknown technology and magic…

This had potential, however as soon as we knew more about her, it just fell flat. You decided to pour everything into one character, making her unbeliveable.
If she would have something like leutnants, people who take over her weeknesses it would have made much more sense. however now she is a “i can do everything, because science” character.
Unfortunatly you wrote too much already and it now feels like backpaddeling…

So yeah, overall scarlet involvment is kinda a failure.

for the rest? ups and downs i have to admit. some are good, some are bad. Overall it seems like you just pile on top and push everything old under the rug. Which is sad. the foundation is great, but instead of expaning you just “invent” new things.
Even the alliances are like this. creating a new status quo, while the old was bearly touched uppon.
Even if it happened in the PS, the overall factions should have done something on their own first and then join in a later “season”. As far as TV developement goes, you went on it from the wrong side.

For gameplay…

it really feels weird and i can`t put my finger on it.
Archievments are a pain for me. I rather have Story expanded over time, instead of it beeing gated behind archievments for example. Because let`s face it. The Archievment`s associated with the actual meaningof the word are not really that. they are mostly grind. i was so angry as i had to do 8 different invasions or so, just to progress the story…

I have to rethink a bit here, as i have mostly talked about my big gripe here, that beeing the story, as it the mainfocus here.
i cant count anything else here, as it is connected to the story and if not, just pushed in as a bonus, because it is ready.

my advice, focus on one thing. Either story or mechanics.
Also, my advice… and i know you heard it a lot already and i showed my sentiments here quite colorfull.. get rid of scarlet quickly and let us experience more of the world. you know there are so many questions out there. you just put a big WTF on top of it, which is not nearly as interesting as the groundwork you had already…

Still makes no sense. insane or not. She is also supposed to be a genius.
It is still just: “BAM Invasion”
I was more asking about a mention, a reason, something why we got invasions.
The scale, the feel. it doesn`t feel like something that fits. (and no. she beeing crazy doesn`t count. this would just be a lazy excuse for a lazy event)

My main problem is that in this update, that i am forced to do this (in my opinion stupid) invasion to get the story.

I don`t mind mechanics and event beeing put in to please the farmin crowd or get “long lasting” content, however don`t force us to do six hours of mindless buttonmashing on mobs just to get the story.
I have less time now, only able to log in an hour or two a day. A “event” like this isn`t that interesting (and yes, i could ignore it or have someone else take me down to scarlet, but i enjoy playing by the was it is inteded. So this time it was just a unsatisfying and mostly graving chore)

Now this might be more of a lore thing, however it is a major reason why i my interest into the character of Scarlet turned from intruiged to “i don`t” care.

Why do we suddenly have invasion all over the world? (or on “global” scale, how it is mentioned in game. A rather stupid phrasing in my opinion since i don`t think Scarlet jumps over the borders of the known world.)

These don`t make sense, even if she is depicted as a crazy character. Even more if we think about how she was shown (or hinted) at before.

The obvious reason for these large scale invasions is of course on the gameplay side. They wanted to create a big thing that brings players together to get data (which they admited in an interview recently) on risk vs reward. I understand.

However, what is the ingame explanation? The story isn`t that complicated. Queen`s Speech, Scarlet causes some havok, takes over the Jubilee and takes some hostages.
The suddenly: “big army out of nowhere all over the world, she right in the middle.”
Did i miss something? What is the reason for it beside: “Hey, here is a new farmevent”

She is supposed to be a crazy unrealistic powerfull enemy. However she still made sense.
She brought the Dredge and Flame Legion together, creating new weapons and access to an army which rivals the two battleproven races: Norn and Charr.
She tried to establish a postion inside by political means with the aetherblades. Her “strike force” which uses pact technology paired with the inquest.
So she basicly brought a lot of formaly antagonist groups under one leader with powerfull technology, which is able to fight on earth and in the sky (+ teleports).

All of these were concentrated on their respective connection to the story (part of the metaevents.) they didn*t strayed outside.

So why does Scarlet go outside of Divinity`s Reach or even Kryta? She announced her attack there. Her goal was appearently the queen and the shock of her missing (or whatever). She could have taken over the whole city, making it a warzone for the time of the event, which would make her more believeable. Maybe even taking over the throneroom and twist it…

Instead we have some invasions, where we kill enemies in masses, basicly reducing her “ressources” to nothing.

Short Version:
Is the invasion just gameplay imposed event or does it have real reason for beeing there?

Well, my bigger problem with her is, that she makes no sense (which might be intentional or just for stupid gameplay reasons):
we know what of her?
- She is a super genius
- she was behind everything
- she scares others
- she wants to teach us something
- she is kinda crazy
- she can do portals
- she is a silvary

overall… nothing. We have no idea of her motivation, which appearently isnt even revealed in the funhouse (if i am not mistaken).
However what makes no sense to me is this: Why is she all over the world?

This was supposed to be a singular attack and now she attacks all over the place? why? if she wanted to make an example out of the humans/kryta, why does she jump around everywhere with her mix and match army of former enemies?

Why is the molten alliance there, even though they had a big setback thanks to her, loosing a lot of her work (sure, she could talk them in again, with her "poer, but then they are still diggin in)

The whole invasion just feels like: oh we need to give the whole playerbase something to do. Which feels forced, deludes from the character itself, who appearently only shows up to get on your nerves and then vanishes (what is she doing there) (oh the invasion looks underhwelming, too. just some random spawns. no dark sky, some cool portal effects.. nothing. the portals there are barely visible)

She should have just conenctrated on kryta or DR and wreck chaos there. Right now she feels annoyingly unfocused and just villian-101 like with: take over the world for chaos sake)

(oh and the watchknights? That was their only reason to be created? How forced can it be… just to be twisted into her marionette monsters… really?)

Now i have to say. I just finished the speach and some invasions. i know there is still the funhouse and some savings to do…
But thats it?
Thats where Guild Wars 2 is going? I am not really sure it is that special so far. (i am not saying its not fun, but underwhelming)
Actually a lot of missed opportunities, which is quite sad.

Scarlet:

The Joker/Harley/Poison Ivy`s lovechild is not very interesting. Oh she is a super-genius, but thats only something we get in a little sentence on the side. Other then that.. We still dont know anything. She says she wants to show us something, teach us, educate us. whatever… However all she does: here some perverted versions of your watchknights, i invade kryta and you cant stop me nah nah nah.
Also its not Kryta thats burning, but the whole “globe”… (btw who wrote that? i dont think she causes havok in cantha or so…)

The invasion:

We allready have a thread about the “problems” there. However, what is with the presentation? Some portal effects, the new “twisted minions” (btw. someone playing W40k? these totally feel like Necrons. Green, Glowing, Repeairing itself if you dont destroy them in time) and the old two “armies”.
Again, no explantation. Appearently the molten alliance still trusts her, after their failure.
However the whole presentation is just… meh… just some random spawning monsters.
How about some athmosphere? Get the sky dark and omnious. Have the portals stick out. The whole set up is so underwhelming.. (artisticly)
Oh and Scarlet jumping in. Why even bother?

The whole thing is made too “big” and subsequently just annoying so far. I am sorry, but i can only ask “is that all?”

I hope the funhouse will be better, but so far the patch doesnt really show a world changing direction. It is “just” your typical crazy villain, with a hidden agenda who thrusts the world into chaos…
For now. This is not really the update that was “promised”

(what would have maybe been better? have her take over DR with her minions. Put the city under lock down for two weeks, with players fighting to hold the enemies back. destroy the city, change the landscape)

Short Version: It is fun, but the presentation is underwehlming, motivations “very familiar so far” and not really living up to the hype of showing “where GW2 is going”

I am actually not very impressed by her. She reminds me somehow of the lovechild of the joker, harley and poison ivy.
Your typical maniac villain who comes “out of nowhere”.
For now she is just hell bend on destruction without giving any reason. sure she might have one, but at now it is too late.
If nothing really suprising happens it is just your typical wanna-be-chaos-villain-78682.

Also, making her a super-genius, “above” asura level…

I really had to laugh as i saw her first. she looked so stupid with her antennas. she should have kept her hood. it actually pains me though. her artwork i great (see my second sentence), but ingame…

overall.. it is kinda underwhelming

So we are hearing about something big at the former great collapse, now Pavillion. A speach and a possible attack. However lets take a step back for a minute. What do we know about the great collapse and what does its existance actually mean for the region?

One thing we all heard about was, that it was supposed to be the Canthan part of the city, but it was scrapped. Ingame it was known as the art and theatre district, but since the start of the game there was a big hole and no one knows where it came from. We only know that seraph guards were patrolling the area and some people heard some weird noises (i wont go into everything here. just that there is an unexplained hole).

Natural causes could be the case. The area around Divints Reach actually seems to be unstable, maybe because it has some cavern system underneath and this part of the city just sunk in. However then we have to ask where these came from, though history taught us that there are a lot of things crawling in tyrias underground. We even have Destroyers crawling up a bit south of the city. So, basicly this collapse was always a neat place to infiltrate the city.
Going back to natural causes and unstable teritory there is still the question what else could have caused it? Was there some shaking aside from the collapse itself? Is Divinitys Reach on the edge of the tectonic plates or an another seismic activity? Destroyers bringing some magma with them could mean vulcanic possibilities for this region.

Whatever the case, something is there shaking up the earth. This doesn`t only concern the city, though. Queensdale could change quite a lot thanks to something like this. The city has two dams build west- and eastside. we even have to constantly fix one of them during a heart quest. Now imaging a rumble in the earth hitting these and all the watermasses crushing down the valley, turning our “beloved” famingzones into a nice little lake.

I guess we should be lucky that the Aetherpirates are using some kind of teleport technique… though if the molten alliance goes digging. DR suddenly doesnt look so safe anymore.

While i bet there a lot of other things waiting for us in the event, i think the actual “birthday present” we get is weak.
It is just another mini, a bit of experience and a unknown 24 hour buff…

I am sorry, but like the “extras” in the deluxe and collectors editon, we just get something “cheap” and temporary (3 out of 5 things of the digital content you got was temporary and subsequently “worthless”).
exept the mini.

While i was expecting the mini, i thought it would actually be like in gw1, where we had the possibility of getting a random mini out of a certain loot table. However now it is a guaranted mini of queen jennah…

Now in compairson: a mini which might even be rare and subsequently have some worth for people who do or don`t collect, or a mini everyone gets with next to no worth…

now i am not greedy, but it is rather boring if you ask me.
more so, because it isnt specified if every character who reaches a year since creation, or if it just counts once per acount.

I like them, but sadly most of them are (like the mytsic forge skins) just retooling of old assets.
They mostly plastered some effects on them and bam. “New” Skins.
I like them, dont get me wrong.
However i would like to see some new unique skins here and there.
But hey, its finaly something to hunt for, like the green skins in GW1 (and yeah i know you heard the compairson again and again)

But please A-Net, tone down the particle effects on weapons and go more for design. Shiny gets annoying if its too much…

I usually never saw this before, but yesterday after the trials and opening some loot sack i was also denied from leaving the dungeon. It was quite annoying.
I dont remember having that problem before.

Like many others i was hoping for the rapier…
Well, i still have the pistol, but after seeing the chuu chuu train design on the sword… i mean seriously, wtf?
If it would just unfold then it wouldnt be so bad, but it has this constant motion, that makes it just silly.
Note to designers. A moving blade like this only makes sense, if it is inside an enemys body. It is a cutting motion, thus it is used to cut through an enemy.
However, while swinging this is just wasted energy and looks silly…#

btw. for some reason some of my guildmates saw an adult toy in the greatsword…

I don`t think it means we see the end of Abbadon in Guild Wars Nightfall.
While it might be a fun fight (with the easter eggs included), it wasnt that big of a “stage” to beginn with. They could expand on it of course, however that means we would finally see new (old) monsters.

I am more inclined with the events that lead to his fall and exile in the first place. Since we are still concerned about Orr and Abbadon was a major god in that area.

However i think it is great that they didnt make us choose between the two “old” Dungeons of the living story. These should go in naturally and not by vote. If so, i see Evon having a unfair advantage… though Kiel has it naturally thanks to her involvment in the story so far.

So far my vote is for Kiel.
Cheaper Waypoints and some Asura fun.

Evon has some Gemshop cutbacks… well yeah…
and the Abbadon mystery. however so far that is his only good point.

I wish that they would withold information. by that i mean a lot.
They try it, however the recent events showed a lot beforehand.

then we got the leaked infos ingame. like the archievements etc.

i like suprises. cant they at least wait till the patch releases?

cant they show off content, without holding back suprises?

okay, we dont know what the story for the new event will be in two weeks from now. what will be the next “desaster” (loose term, i know) we have to fight through, but right now we know “everything” that we “have to do” for the next two weeks.

It blocks the exploration and naivity for these areas unfortunatly.

Combine that with the “presure” the temporary content is creating it all leaves a negative taste.

Hello.

This is just a little suggestion to make “the anomaly” a bit less “annoying”.

The Skin is based on ingame asset, which is basicly a continuisly glowing pink sphere.

it is a nice effect, however it has no “sheated” form. Which results in a strong glow effect even if the weapon is stored.

I see a lot of skins, that have a different form, or muted effects when they are stored, so i ask for a similiar effect on “the anomaly”.

Always running around with a glowing ball sticking out is not appealing, since it mostly clashes with everything else. A dimmed down effect would make this skin much more appealing to look at.

It was possible at the beginning as far as i know, however thankts to the obvious possibility to exploit things, it was taken out.

however you are right with the matter of jump skills. They still work “everywhere” while a mesmer for example cant even blink down a rock, just because there is a height difference.

Well, “she” might instigating that for the greater good.
Bringing together groups who are compatible, but because they hate each other would never do that on their own.
With these new “alliances”, new developements occour, like technlogy.

Molten Alliance: “New advanced technology” (combining Flamelegion and Dredge)
Aetherblades: “A voice in Lions Arch” and “Aetherblade Airship and Aetherweapon technology” (Combining Inquest (ruthless Asura Technology) and Skypirate appliances)

Basicly we get knowledge and access to knowledge we wouldnt get access to, if we played by the “rules” aka, beeing the good guys.

By forcing these groups to work togehter they synergize and the public gets aware of these technologies, which end up beeing looked at and even beeing used in further fights. maybe against the dragons.

Since we knew it was a “she” in the F&F Storyline and we got now the name of “Scarlet” i can only think of one character, even though she has vanished for 250 years…

I know i may be thinking “too simple”, however what is with Livia.
If we talk about an illusive character who got some power and bears that “color”, she is the perfect fit.

Beeing an Necormancer she might have cheated death with her research, or it is some offspring of her, playing the “order of whispers” for real. Walking in the shadows. pulling strings to get things in motion so we are able to fight the coming enemies…
You know, for the greater good.

I think they just forgot to patch her out.
Though it is interesting that she has a special name.

Though there are Steam Monsters in Lonars Pass if i am not mistaken. You know, the Steam Creatures (wherever they come from anyway…)

I dont really like the consortium. I hope they quickly end this “storyline”.
I mean, why such a focus there, we got enough other problems to deal with…

Anyway. I got my pickaxe. thats enough haha

In the Jumpingpuzzle east of the Shatterer landing zone is an Armadillo which constantly floats in the air.
Everytime i am there, it just floats there harmless… then i kill it…

My theory on ascended weapons so far is based around the new “guildweapons”

Even though it would be bad for people without a guild, but did you notice how “broken” their design is?
What if they work like the “fractal prototype backpiece”, beeing upgraded to a ascended form and thus becoming “complete”.

RIght now we have a 50/50 design with the legendarys.

50% are basicly fun weapons (Pony Bow, Disco Ball, Confetti Gun…) and the other half is the kitten weapons (Bolt, Twilight, etc…)

I can understand that notion, because always awesome can get boring, however we have nothing to balance things out at the moment.
Thus we end up with some dissatisfaction if we are comparing weapontypes.
If they are all legendarys, why are some a joke and some are epic?

I hope things get balanced out with the new ones.

I just had a similiar thought.

The current system is just wastefull and not encouraging.

I didnt really care for the southsun cove weapons, even though they are awesome, i have no character which would work with them

The jade weapons are very nice, however i still have no ticket, even though it is “easier” to get it. stupid RNG…

anyway. a system similiar to the mainstory, where we get a pact weapon at the end would be awesome.

Though you went one step further there and i applaude you for this. i really like your approach.

So i like how the new awesome weapon skins are “easier” to get. However RNG is still hates me, to the point that i have no ticket after more or less then 500 chests open.

I know it is RNG and i actually dont mind it. However it is only there for a limited time which adds to the “rare” part of it.

Which is stupid. It makes content more “valuable” however it goes so far as diminishing the worth of your own “rare” items, aka legendarys.

Some Anet guy recently said that they wont really implement these “rare” items again, since they would be devalued then. like the jet pack, which was in my opinion “ultra rare” so to speak. You know, only dropping at the end of the instance and then sharing the dropchance with 3 other rare items…

thats said. i think it is a real waste of assets. These items are awesome. So, how about giving out a ticket for everyone who completed the Archievements at least? Like in the mainstory, where we get our pact weapon?

So everyone who cares would be able to enjoy one of these weapons, however if he wants more, for example a matching set, he would need to farm them like he has to now.

btw. : no, i know its optional, no one is entitled to these weapons. however it is just a shame. they are awesome and making these “this rare” is just plain frustrating. More so at the rate these things are beeing put out.

I mostly think it is a waste.
These are usully some awesome skins and the chance to get them is really low, to the point that they might be rarer then Legendaries.
You see, you can get Legendarys at one point. But these things are gone then, maybe never coming back.

I hope they put them in at other points in the game. Maybe as part of new fractals for example

If you read carefull you see that there are several ways to get these items

Jade Weapons:
- Rich Dragon Chest guarantee it?
- normal have a rare chance to get them

Minis
- in Dragonchests is the holo dragon
- In the new minigame Moa Racing you can get the helmet Moa

Dragon Wings:
- From the Chest

Shatterer Dragon Wings
- From Dragon Ball Minigame

Hornet Helm (Armor, not Town Clothing)
- Take part in one of the Fireworks that happen every 2 Hours (GW1 Style)

So yeah, a lot of ways to get something.

>Overall, i lik what i see… and i want this Song

I would like it, if most of it wasnt under the radar.
Playing the game normaly you dont get enough info to know whats going on and if you dig in game you have to be there 6 month ago at the first Karka Event to know the characters and now how it “ends”. Furthermore you have to read the forums and the blogs to have any kind of idea whats going on.

Interesting Story, but thanks to the fragmented storytelling i cant really care about it. It is just sad…

Yeah, it is great they are following up on that, but i still dont know.
These characters still feel weak.
I totally forgot about them, thinking they were just some goons and someone who wanted to get the consortium to fail.

However, thats a problem of the temporary content. We cant really go back and look at them again. Aside from the wiki.

For the info there: It explains his “plants” and why suddenly can go Poison Ivy on the island.

Again, i totally forgot about these characters, because they were never a focus before and now suddenly are. Sure it is Chekovs gun at work here, but come on. Before that they were just a tool to get the story going and now they are the main focus.
I dont mind that developement, but since it is so much under the radar it is just sad.

I am sorry, i cant give a kitten about these characters.

NULL actually means ZERO in german, which is quite funny.

However like allready mentioned. it is mentioned in a blogpost… like too much other information this time around.
I dont like it. They should have just put in the game.

On the other hand. i liked the encounter. We wiped, but after we figured it out, it was entertaining

i have to agree. While the handholding on “what to do” was great, it really lacked in the story developement part.

Which is a shame, because the start was great.
We came out to Southsun Cove, to help the people there after the things in F&F.

We realized that there is something going on, so we helped finding samples of weird vegetation, which seemed to be the reason for the unusual activities.

That was awesome. However after that we got no transition, just: “go get Canach, go fight Subdirector NULL”

It felt like there was a step missing. Like
- Who is Canach
- Who is Subdirector NULL
- What is going on?

And it is easy to fix. Just let us go back to the Asura in charge before showing us the instance on the map.

He would tell us what he discovered and that he traced it back to that cavern where Canach is.

Simple and effective. At that point we would learn about him and why we would have to stop him.

However this simple step is missing and we are just thrown at him, which leaves us to find clues about him outside the game in blogposts. these are nice, but i prefer my info in game.

Simple rule in interactive Storytelling: Show, dont tell.

While i liked the beginning, this step definetly failed.
I cant really get invested. I know the consortiums are “evil”, capitalism, etc, and Canach just wants to help the settlers. But this point gets never really pointed out.

Fact is. Just from the Info i get in game, i dont care about him. I dont know who he is or what he really wants?
From his appearance i thougt him beeing the instigator beind the F&F, since he has the gloves.
However then an official Storywriter from Anet told us his backstory and why has them.
So its another piece of information thats missing.

Short version: “While i enjoy hunting for lore in the game, i dont like it if it is needed to understand the main narrative. I like it for addition information. Put the stuff in the game.” -_-

They are supposed to be hard. it is a guild effort.
If it were easy it would be boring.

It is natural that you fail the first time. You are learning how things work -_-

I dont know hwat your problem is. They give a lot of hints everywhere

- Bounty Hunt: They tell you were the enemy is. You just have to look around. Spread out.

- Picture Search: They give you Picture of the location. You just have to find where it is. It is a group effort. However, if you dont care for the world you play in, it is your loss. Open your eyes, the places are beautiful (also, names give a lot away)

- Race to the finish: Very easy. They tell you the location and you have 5 hours to find it… then 20 minutes to finikitten. Enough time to scout the area, kill enemies and give orders on who does what.

- Defence or offence mission: Depends, this is actually hard, but you dont really need a guide.

- Guild Puzzle.. i dont know. We do it this sunday for the first time. However, we know the location. ut i guess, sticking together and help each other will work again here.

Btw. we are a small guild. If we tackle these missions we are about 12 people at most, which we split in three groups and up till now we were highly successfull. (aside from the defending mission. we need to work on that)

In the F&F storyline we had the chance to get tokens out of the BL chest (something i hate, but thats not the point).
With these you can o to an NPC and trade them for weaponskin of your choice.

Now we have the same with the Southsun Cove revamp. Tokens that you can exchange for weapon at an NPC.

I see a problem with it, since i bet not everyone storms out and gets his weapon right away. sometime you need time to decide what you want.

I can easily see that at one point someone has his token in the bank, however, the NPC is gone, since he wanst needed anymore, or the story progressed.

I dont think they will stay forever, because if we get more of these, we end up with tons of NPC, selling stuff, that no one can buy anymore (if we dont get a festive npc like GW1, where you can get past items)

So i suggest changing them in a token that works like the one we got by completing the F&F Storyline, in where you could summon an NPC, which allowed you to choose the item.
It would make thing much more comfortable for players to use as well as allowing them to take their time deciding, without having to think about them missing their chance.

As far as i know they arent anymore since the last patch.