Guild Wars 2

It is unknown what the status of Eagle, Ox, and Wolverine are. They simply have not been heard of since, and unlike Owl there’s been no confirmation of living or death by a havroun – I’m guessing there was no havroun for those spirits at the time of Jormag’s rise.

I would say the Spirits of the Wild are far superior to either Thorn. They are guardian spirits of entire races and supposedly every race has such a Spirit of the Wild. Kill a member of their species, and the spirits feel it.

We don’t know if they did damage to Jormag, though Asgeir did take out his tooth. He hasn’t moved south because what’s the rush? He can outlive any race on Tyria with ease and has only been awake for 150 years. What’s 150 years for someone who’s been living for at least 20,000 years if Varra Skylark is to be believed? Though per Edge of Destiny and Frostgorge Sound he is now pushing south – it’s my belief that all the Elder Dragons spend some time eating and building up a sizable force – little different than eating breakfast and getting dressed in the morning for us – before going on their world-devouring rampages. Gotta rebuild the strength you lost when you were sleeping and woke up, after all. Especially when you waking up shatters the largest known mountain range.

Eagle we were told battled with Jormag during an interview. Why it doesn’t have a statue at Lost Spriits’ Hallow is unknown, same for why Gamal doesn’t mention it. Probably an oversight either in the interview or design or a change between the interview and design that didn’t make it into the game (but we cannot be certain either way).

Side note: Why’d you leave the lore guild?

Iason Evan.3806:

Dr Ritter.1327:

where did you see that its a dungeon?

The content is repeating themes now. We had Aetherblade Retreat, Flame and Frost dungeon, etc. We are going inside the tower. It will be an instance. It will have achievements and we get the Gas Mask skin for completing it.

We went inside the Crown Pavilion.

It was an open “instance” of sorts. Within the giant hole, and made larger than what it appears in the open world. I bet the tower will be the same – a separate zone that all players can join or leave.

Just because we “enter the tower” doesn’t mean it’s going to be an instanced dungeon.

Technically speaking, we have gotten #2 already. It’s just one skill though.

I don’t recall them saying we’ll be getting Ascended armor this year. I wouldn’t care much either way, TBH. I’d rather they hold off on it a bit longer. I certainly don’t recall a promise Legendary weapons in PvP. The PvE skin solution was hinted at, but not for 2013 per se.

7 is likely to be coming in November 26th or December 10th. 10 is likely to be December 10th or December 24th.

And do keep in mind that what was announced months ago is what’s hoped to be released. Sometimes development doesn’t work out as initially thought – sometimes issues come up, sometimes ideas and opinions change.

It is likely just simply not up yet. Give them a bit of time, lol. Usually they’ve put all LS songs on the day of the content’s release but given this is a music video contest it’ll likely be up later today if not tomorrow.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Yeah, that music was so thematically inappropriate for the video it’s ridiculous.

Agreed. That music…

I feel like I left Guild Wars 2 and entered Guitar Wars 2.

Just like the intro cinematic for Marjory, it isn’t bad but it just does not fit Guild Wars 2’s aesthetics.

The only good side is the possible return of the Molten Berserker. I loved fighting that guy in the dungeon (even more when he got the jetpack which most people hated).

Advent.6193:

Meh. I don’t even hate Scarlet (in fact, she rather cracks me up), but the desire to connect her to all of Tyria’s dirty deeds is starting to offend the crap out of me.

Molten Alliance, Aetherblades, Queen’s Jubilee, and Toxic Alliance is far from “all of Tyria’s dirty deeds.” In just the Living Story alone there’s Ozzy and Eddie Thorn, Tixx/Toxx, the Zephyrites, Motto, and Tequatl which thus far hold no relevance to Scarlet.

While Scarlet is meant to be the main focus, she’s far from connected everything to her.

Sylvari aren’t genderless. They’re just all sterile. But they most definitely have genders – the biological kind, that is. They lack the social kind/understanding of genders (supposedly it’s rather not unusual to see male sylvari in dresses… yup. Now I bet I got the image of Trahearne wearing a frilly dress in your mind, and if I didn’t before I do now!).

Having areas where just the entrances are footholds is basically what Orr is, cept you got an area in the center that’s often a permanent camp too, in order to aid with waypointing. Most people don’t like it.

Kinda funny how people ask for “new designs” in the game, expecting them to be great, but… they’re already in the game in some form, just not the form they’re thinking of, and they’re disliked to varying degrees.

The preview outright confirms Scarlet’s involvement (yay for spoiling it Anet, not that I mind this time).

Interesting to showcase the Molten Berserker. We see Twisted Clockworks in the dungeon via the screenshots, I wonder if we’ll be seeing Molten Alliance – including the end-bosses – in the tower too.

Side note: that music DOES NOT fit GW2 at all.

If you’re talking about the CGI trailer looking different from the in-game trailers, then yeah he’d look different since the former was outsourced to another company. If you mean in-game then you’d be mistaken since there was only one Canthan emperor model – so Angsiyan had not only one model, but the same model as Kisu.

As for Khilbron “busting out of the Underworld unnoticed” – immensely impossible given that we most likely destroyed his spirit in Gate of Madness. Granted we don’t really know what happens to a spirit “killed” in the Mists, but only Foefire spirits are known to return other than those with very strong ties to Tyria (though that’s really only an excuse for reoccurring dynamic events with named ghosts as all other cases tell us that the ghosts move onto the Mists when “killed” in Tyria).

zaced.7948:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Them having more money means they can afford to do more things, which results in better gameplay.

that is one of the most naive things i have heard/read lately. made my day, thank you.

It’s far from naive. Let me give you one example:

Voice Acting. It is an external resource that ArenaNet must pay for. If they have more money to put to this, they can not only get new voice actors, but can afford to have those they already hired to do more lines and give more time to voice acting. The reverse occurs too – the less money they have, the few actors and time (therefore few voiced lines and variation of voices) they can afford.

The same goes for all other external resources they have, though I believe GW2 is more internal than not in comparison to most games. That’s how the business world works after all. There’s only so much you can do without paying money. More so for companies.

Step 1: All playable race enemy NPCs get a downed state. All Veteran+ non-wildlife NPCs allied to said enemies can revive.
Step 2: All non-playable-race and non-wildlife enemy NPCs get a 50% chance of a downed state.
Step 3: All Veterans and Elites playable race enemy NPCs can finish players who are in downed states. (Side note: Champions and Legendaries do enough high damage as is that they don’t need finisher abilities; IMO, it would just make them weaker since they’d pause to run up and do a finisher for a single player)
Step 4: Shorten players and Elite NPCs finishers.
Step 5: Playable race allied NPCs that can be revived upon death presently get a 50% chance of being put into downed state.

I love the change to the Toxic sylvari, and would love it spread a bit more.

But I didn’t suggest that by your wording (or rather, I how I read your wording which is “different servers get different results based on per-server interaction”), just changes dependent on the players’ actions using a per-server as a means of showing to the players the progress of said actions (since I doubt there’s an easy way of cross-server player-visible bars).

I think the general assumption is the opposite. Evon clearly has some interest in Abaddon. Though Abaddon likely has no relation to Evon – directly at least. But we’ll likely never explore that avenue of storytelling because Evon lost.

Though with his richness, I doubt it matters much.

Even if you get a thousand folks to say yes, don’t expect Cantha and Elona for a long long time.

If ArenaNet keeps with the Living Story instead of an Expansion, then we’d be getting 1 zone every few months (maybe 1 zone a month), and they’d likely be as good as Southsun Cove or Labyrinthine Cliffs in terms of content available.

I’d say no to Cantha and Elona until ArenaNet gets their act together and is willing and capable of giving a full-fledge continent’s worth of content in a single update with proper testing to it.

You can only mine them (for now – Bazaar of the Four Winds will return supposedly) if you got the “Gift of Quartz” from the meta achievements. Otherwise you’d have to buy them off of the trading post.

Side note: Charged Quartz Crystals are account bound, so you cannot just buy those.

Second side note: Four weeks, not two. Also, it serves as a skill point for each character individually.

Inc.4753:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

-snip my failure example-

One minor addition here: instead of counting completed bars, count efforts (like events) directly. There are two reasons for this:

• Overflows. -snipped rest-
• With the concept of counting full bars per server, server that actually do a lot of participating will have filled the bar relatively early, making all further efforts useless. And in the end, the total event might up failing, having that server crushing the opponents while in the end we still have sad faces because failure. The other way around: a server that ignores the event will see cheering folks claiming they have crushed the enemy while not having done anything at all. No individual (and visual) progress bar to be filled will mean anyone can continue to help the event forward, while not creating any expectations by showing a filled or empty bar.

As for not telling us that there will be dire consequences, I don’t think this will work. We’re not used to content being able to fail, but we are used to doing the content till the meta achievement is complete and then leaving it at that. Not telling us there are consequences will have people leaving too soon, because they will still think it doesn’t matter if they’re there or not.

I’ll be honest, I forgot about overflows. But the reason why I said per server is because I don’t think ArenaNet has the ability to have cross-server worldstate-checking (for lack of a better word); I may be entirely wrong about this though, however given that they’ve said they don’t have cross-zone of the same, I’d figure no cross-server either.

Inc.4753:

One thing I like to be discussed here is the actual implementation of consequences. Epic battles ask for epic consequences, and those take time to be developed. While 4 months is probably very fast from a developers point of view, for a player waiting 4 months to see results is way to long. Now, I can live with having to wait 2-4 weeks to see actual results (‘We are still catching our breath after that battle, but the next campaign will commence shortly!’). So, I wanted to know if you folks here have any ideas how to implement consequences to player choice/action that can actually be implemented within 4 weeks (so not even close to an entire development cycle). I’ll see if I can come up with something myself, but so far no luck.

The consequences would probably be made either at the same time – winning consequences and losing ones – to avoid the 4 month process. This would likely result in less effects but it gets the effects out there sooner.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So with all of this in mind it would be cool to carry on discussing around this area in much the same form as Nike has. Specifically brainstorming on top of the foundation of known systems and functionality. I do also want to point out that someone mentioned (sorry i forget who) the ability to potentially build forts etc and then gain new events, goals and rewards from them by protecting and nurturing your land. Wouldn’t that be awesome!?

Chris

I would suggest starting a thread somewhere specifically for players to brainstorm about various things, to give a centralized area to output their ideas. A thread for “event failure progression,” a thread for new events in old zones untied to LS main plots, and a thread for loose lore plots the LS can delve into. Just as thoughts.

I think the amount of people who have been responding to the concepts and giving brainstorming examples in this thread alone shows those threads would be popular, if only for a time.

At least one home instance NPC does have dialogue, interestingly enough. Green Knight storyline for sylvari, the female sylvari (forgot her name) will be in your home instance and have a dialogue box when you talk to her. She doesn’t say anything special or the like, but still something.

But having some exchanging dialogue as more PS NPCs are added? I like that. Imagine Lord Faren from those with noble humans going for a stroll and seeing the quaggan (which I think sits herself in a well in DR)? Or chatting it up with the female Exemplar from the “unknown parents” storyline.

As Malchior said, you can do the Blood and Madness themed dailies (they have a unique icon) to get the meta. However, you cannot get A Royal Tradition anymore.

I’d prefer monthly. I think that Anet would have more time to polish things and overall give better quality content without potentially overworking themselves if they slowed their speed by half. And 4 weeks is still short enough to keep most people’s interests, allowing folks to go at LS achievements at their own pace, and also do some non-LS stuff without risking sacrificing LS-stuff.

Only exception to the rule should be holiday stuff, which unless there’s a plot going on like Halloween (which seems to be the only one with its own plot) can be mostly the same as previous years.

They had stated that the Crown Pavilion and Queen’s Gambit will be returning in the future. When, how, and what story accompanies it (if any) is unknown.

The skins may return at that point, but it isn’t clear. IIRC, there weren’t aquatic weapons in that set (like many weapon sets nowadays), so I wouldn’t be surprised if it did return temporarily with a full set.

DarcShriek.5829:

What ever happened to the calls for more permanent content? Be careful what you ask for, you may get it.

If as much of this content remains as permanent as I suspect, then I am happy.

I doubt that much will remain permanent though, but I’m sure more permanence than previously will be abound.

RyuuAkari.6589:

I mean when I watched the Live stream about this tower, it took them 4 months to develop this LS. I Figure that if it takes 4 months to develop this content and its going to last 3 months? It must has pretty heavy content.

All of their LS chapters are given 4 months of development – at least from Queen’s Jubilee. They have 4 Living Story teams, 1 team per month (this started with Flame and Frost I believe, so those prior to Queen’s Jubilee may have gotten less than 4 months, resulting in the obviously lower quality content). If it’s “3 months” then you have mid October to December. So the first month was next to nothing (but still well done; it was properly “next to nothing” so don’t take this as a complaint lol).

Chances are it’ll be up until the 26th of November. However, I would get the achievements (or at least whichever you want) done prior to the 11th given Twilight Assault. Tower of Nightmare’s content is more than likely to continue to at least the 26th, but it’s too hard to tell if the achievements will still remain available.

Incidentally, I asked the same question and got no response either.

I like having to finish them in PvE, for two reasons:

1. It gives players who don’t PvP/WvW to buy the finisher gemstores, thus giving Anet more money. Them having more money means they can afford to do more things, which results in better gameplay.
2. It gives players more chances to tag enemies in zergs, as they basically get an extra half of a health bar.

My only wish was that all sapient (playable races, skritt, krait, centaurs, etc. – not the animals/wildlife like moas, skelk, etc.) foes have a chance of going into downed state – with playable races having a higher chance to go into a downed state rather than straight to dead (say 40% chance for non-playable; 60% chance for playable). In zergs, this helps players tag foes. In smaller groups, it’s just a couple extra seconds and if you’re fighting a group solo then you can avoid them – or the downed foes distract their allies as the NPC AI will set themselves up to revive their fallen foes, making them unable to attack.

I wouldn’t mind if it were possible for elites/champions/legendaries/epics to finish players off either. Maybe just elites, since champions and legendaries are already strong enough to quickly wipe downed players. Veterans are a bit too common IMO but could be given such as well with a lesser “priority” to finish players off with the charge up.

The benefits is far superior to the downside of having to spend a few more seconds to finish an enemy off.

Ema.4953:

Does the pop up banner thing saying “Press K to finish them” with an arrow thing ever go away? Every time I played it last night and the humnesque character was down, that banner would pop up. Every single time. No matter how many times I clicked the x, the pop up returned. Is there a way to make it go away?

You mean the hint box? It should disappear once you fulfill what it’s telling you to do – if not pop up only one time. If you haven’t finished off an enemy via that button I suggest doing so. If it still pops up after then it’s a bug.

Avariz.8241:

My own take on it is E signs his or her letters with just E with out the Mr.. This I presumed E can be either a man or a woman. As both Evon and Ellen names have the initial E then I would doubly presumed who ever would have won the election would have initial his or her letters with E., and as Ellen has won the election then the mysterious E could well turn out to be the new council member Ellen.

Marjory “met” E – though she didn’t see him, E did grab Marjory, and Marjory calls E a he.

Unless E is a mesmer and was using such an illusion (and a strong one to become physical) when grabbing and talking to Marjory, then E is most likely a human male.

Stooperdale.3560:

“a dev, forgot who, stated during Cutthroat Politics that Evon’s interest in the Abaddon fractal is likely religious – his words were something along the lines of “I doubt that Evon’s interest in the Fall of Abaddon isn’t exactly religious.” (Double negative, implying it is religious).”

The simpler explanation is that the devs sometimes mix up their negatives? My translation is “No, this charr is not a follower of human gods”.

The context tells otherwise, to me.

I went and dug for the post, and here it is

Exact words were “I doubt Evon’s interest in the past isn’t entirely…religious.” This came after discussion on the charr gods. Anet devs tend to be “mysterious” or “indirect” in their responses of future content to avoid spoiling, so taking that line at face value – that he “doubts” Evon’s interest isn’t religious, e.g., he suspects it is – seems reasonable.

Either way, how I read it in context to the posts above him sounds like Evon was interested in the religious side of it. Makes it interesting considering he’s Ash and not Flame.

That White Stag storyline made little sense to me, given how it was practically at the heart of the Grove and how well guarded the Grove’s entrances is. But “willing to” isn’t the same as “capable of” and in the White Stag it still weren’t many – I wouldn’t doubt that members of the Nightmare Court who disguise their personalities well enough would be capable of slipping in as they’re physically no different than standard sylvari (though that included Sariel who’s… eccentric, so I doubt that was how things were done).

Nonetheless the Grove is defended well enough to repel Risen assaults (there’s an NPC who makes mention of risen assaults failing against the Grove) so there’s not much chance of a krait assault succeeding unless there were a lot of them. And with Karka Island in the way…

I went in there with a newly made character, using a scroll to go up to lvl 20. Had white lvl 20 gear. I do well enough, despite being 2-4 levels underleveled and only had issues when I went to the southern events. Got higher level and have been having less problems.

(finally last post for now)

BobbyStein.2315:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Why are you sticking to the bi-weekly release schedule? If you know it hinders you, why keep at it? That makes no sense to me. I know you’re not the guy to set it, but I’m sure you know why it’s set there and who sets it and can explain to us this befuddlement – if not get the players’ opinion on it to the person or people who set the schedule.

That’s not my decision to make. That stated, feedback regarding the cadence is useful and constructive to others so I think it’s good for people to tell us how they feel about the release schedule.

I know it’s not your decision to make. What I was asking – and have since seen Chris avoid answering repeatedly – is why you stick to it, when you have said it hinders you and you know from this very thread that players want it longer. I no longer expect an answer to the question, but I am not asking for you (plural you – ArenaNet) to change it, but why you won’t.

BobbyStein.2315:

One huge challenge facing the Living World narrative, in my opinion, is guidance. Personal Story has the journal. Dynamic Events have the event UI. Until now, the Living World had: mails, achievements, and scattered icons. That’s all. There was nothing to guide you to the content directly. We never taught the player how to navigate the releases using these systems, which were never designed to be used in this way.

The first improvement to address this went live on 10/29. The special event UI now tells you where to go and in what order to experience the story bits. We have designs for another system that will potentially sort out the timelines and provide other mechanisms to enhance LW releases, but until it’s confirmed for a specific build I can’t divulge more specifics.

Out of curiosity… why couldn’t the Living Story use the Personal Story UI and system, without a journal tab (or even with). Mirror systems working independently? It doesn’t matter now that you have something working – though it doesn’t aid in past LS content – but I’m curious on the technical limitations there.

Now, another question I have about this timeline-separating bit. If you can succeed in this, would it be reasonable to request the old LS instances? Or would that, too, be a pipe dream?

What I am most curious about, however, is more in the realm of how you intend to reveal exposition to the players. I feel that this is what is needed most, and it is something purely – or at least vastly majorly – related to the writing team. I don’t really expect any answers since most would probably deal with divulging plot point spoilers. Though I still feel like asking.

More importantly, however, is this question: How will you make new players – or returning players who missed content – care for the story as it is now? Few people would enjoy going into a movie theater 30 minutes after the movie started, or pick up a book and read seriously from page 174 out of 432. But this is something that is being forced on players: stay tuned or miss out. How do you intent to fix this?

BobbyStein.2315:

Regarding GW1 lore in Living World and beyond, let’s just say we’re looking at all GW lore right now and picking out threads that we’d like to tie up. Ideas are welcome, as always.

I have always, prior to the Living Story, felt that the writers at ArenaNet would be best at deciding where to go for the plot. So I won’t make a suggestion on threads to tie up. I will make a request though: stop trying to tie everything together.

During the development of Beyond, John Stumme said that the team’s goal was to make the lore “wider not deeper.” However, since the release of Guild Wars 2 it feels like the direction of the lore has instead been intent with filling up that depth made – the depth of the lore related to humanity and the gods – and with the Living Story it began to feel like a new depth was made – one related to Scarlet. I really like the idea of “wider not deeper” lore but I hate the idea of redacting old lore – which it feels the new lore on the gods and Bloodstones has done, whether true or not – while making equal or more depths on other things that aren’t as believable. Why is there so much tied to a single sylvari? Why is there as much tied to this one sylvari as there was to a god? It makes little sense.

Having multiple, unrelated, plot developments is the way to go for making wider and not deeper lore. So please do not try to connect everything to the gods, Elder Dragons, or Scarlet – as that is where the lore has gone for a little too long, and sometimes (especially in the last sense) unreasonably so from the perspective of the players.

BobbyStein.2315:

nopoet.2960:

As a complete aside, I would love to see some experiments in dynamic events where failure doesn’t stall the event but progresses it in a different direction.

Interesting idea. Can you provide an example of how you would imagine it working?

I am no nopoet, but there is a limited version of this done already in the game – where you have to liberate/recapture a settlement or camp from enemy forces. It’s actually commonly seen in the centaur-related meta events, but it’s often overlooked because they repeat so often. Failure to defend the camp south of Fort Salma results in the fort being sieged, while success results in Seraph pushing the attack.

But to go in a different direction than taking/defending outposts… I’ll use Tequatl as an example.

Currently, failure results in mines around a location that wouldn’t be explored beyond the PoI except during the Tequalt event. So failure of the Tequatl event instead has him spawning Risen events all over the map, little by little, until he shows up again (this time landing from the air after being shot at by the canon instead of coming from the waters of Orr).

I could probably go endlessly on the possible add-ons to already existing events that can and cannot fail (for example, the Sinister Triad events in Brisband Wildlands – the one near Fort Vandal? Give it a timer, fail to kill them on time results in them assaulting nearby areas with combined forces).

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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

My favorite would probably be Shadow of the Mad King. Main reason is that, other than delving into the history of Ozzy Thorn, we got permanent open-world content that was unrelated to Halloween (Vexa’s Lab, Modus Seleris, Skritt Thief, Forsaken Halls). It was also a single chapter but multiple releases that wasn’t time-gated via daily-requiring metas (a nice idea but I think I prefer doing things more like Winds of Change or War in Kryta from Beyond). The only downside for me about the update was that the metas weren’t very clear in what the plot was.

My second favorite was the Flame and Frost group – all four in one. The only downside was that I wish it was two months rather than four (the first two updates in one, the second two in another) – two chapters, The Gathering Storm and Retribution by names, and two updates that gave a little more over time just as the four did. The content was great, the reveal was great, the left-over plots were just enough to get us thinking. Honestly, the Molten Alliance only began to be criticized once we learned Scarlet was behind it, and because it was Scarlet (more of her development than it being someone of her stature (female sylvari into tech)) and we didn’t know how she managed to convince them to join.

My least favorite? I got two. The Lost Shores because the entire thing was squished together over a single weekend, and the amount of bugs that formed from it being so time restricting causing people to just swarm the NPCs which bugged them out. The lack of time for truly enjoying the content really hurt the impression on it. And how laggy the finale was because it was one-time and one-time only in the persistent world… but I LOVED the ending cinematic for the Ancient Karka, and the intro one too. So that’s a plus.

The other would be Super Adventure Box: Back to School. Don’t get me wrong, I loved SAB. It’s enjoyable. But it being made as joke content for April’s Fools then becoming canon… really hurt my view and enjoyability for it. I am a man of stories. I play games for stories first and foremost, so it is the lore and storytelling that I love most in games. I loved SAB but I was just so burned out in September from the constant achievement grind that I couldn’t enjoy SAB:BtS, and turning what was joke into canon just did it in for me. I barely got to enjoy it. And Tribulation mode was pure punishment, no challenge. And from a different story perspective… the sudden break from Scarlet just after her reveal was, IMHO, not a good move. I would have probably skipped SAB – leaving it for next year’s April’s Fools (though Back to School is themed well, such a kind of break in replacement of the main story? I’d have rather avoided). One of Scarlet’s downpoints is that right when she truly needed it – thanks to the reveal of nothing known about her followed by the short story which makes her seem Villain Sue-like (I don’t like using the term but it sadly fits my view of her from that short story), she truly needed more exposure before some break. And Twilight Assault gave too little as well.

If I had to list a third release I did not like well, it’d be tied between Cutthroat Politics and Blood and Madness. They’re tied for the same reason: there was too little unique content. Cutthroat Politics got two new instances, everything else was the support token and achievements which were fully “do this old thing, but with this buff that does nothing!” On the flip side, Blood and Madness also only had 2 new instances, with the Mad Realm stuff… but even less than last year – Reaper’s Rumble, the metas, scavenger hunt, and Ascent to Madness were gone. Two instances replacing a scavenger hunt, PvP format, a dungeon, and three open world metas? It feels cheating. GW1 did their holidays right – add to, don’t replace. While it would be odd to see the Lion’s Court bust up every year, Ascent to Madness could have been added via the Boatman in the Mad King’s Realm. There was no need to remove the metas other than plots. Reaper’s Rumble I see no reason why it needed removal as well. If the old stuff had been kept in some form, then I believe Blood and Madness would have succeeded greatly. The only thing that made some amount of sense to remove was the scavenger hunt, for plot reasons.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Regarding accessibility of releases some great points were brought up ranging from ideas such as a scrying pool or Hall of Memories to get caught up on previous releases. We are very aware of the problems presented by having an ongoing arc and this particular area is an ongoing topic of discussion. Regarding achievements as a method of directing player’s to content, we also agree that there are better ways to do this and you will see with the latest release some innovations in this area.

What I would do is make a DLC.

Take the previous plots of the Living Story – The Lost Shores, Flame and Frost and thereafter – and turn the whole plots into a series of instances. You’d have to make some for The Lost Shores at least, perhaps one or two for Flame and Frost and Secret of Southsun, but after not so much – SAB, Halloween, and Wintersday (at least) can be ignored here; Tequatl Rising is questionable (I’d make an instance for that too but there was so little plot for it, it may not be worth it – or save it for when that plot furthers if it isn’t tied to Scarlet). Then bundle these instances into a single DLC release which initiates for players after the personal story (or parallel to once hitting a certain level/place in the PS/etc.).

You get money. Players get their plot. Returning players can see the story they missed. Everybody wins. There’d be people who complain, but there’d be people doing such for anything.

(sigh, Anet, please lengthen message body limit)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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

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

I think that the story itself is still a little too early for a permanent case of failure. Mainly because of the story exposition being so slow, but that’s another matter.

In developing Scarlet, in the now, I think that she needs to have fewer crushing defeats, without escaping upon the brink of supposed death. This can be done a flavor of ways – distracting “Xanatos Gambits,”: overall mind-tricks, Scarlet tricking us into doing her dirty work for her, etc. She needs to be believably capable of building her army and for us to see it – for this to happen we must be unable to counter her build-up, if not inadvertently aid it.

When it comes to failure – the failure must come either in helping the enemy unintentionally, or in that the enemy was too overwhelming. Both gets back to the previous paragraph. If Scarlet comes out of nowhere with an overwhelming threat, we’ll question “where was it hiding the whole time?” I know my guild had questioned repeatedly throughout Aetherblade Retreat why no one had noticed there was an airship dock in the cliffs just outside the most active sea port in all of Tyria, and easily visible by all we knew. Stuff like that needs to be countered before Scarlet becomes a serious threat by making us fail.

A good case of players failing would be The Battle for Claw Island personal story instance. The bad parts were how slow it was in playing through it until the final moment, how unthreatening personal story steps on a whole feel (because you just cannot fail them), and how fast we ended up retaking Claw Island afterwards.

To create an example scenario of making Scarlet a true threat… Let’s say we finally find out her connection to the steam creatures – she turns out to have been part of “The Conclave” that the future asura PC from the Infinity Ball storyline talked about. As such, the steam creatures immediately recognize her as one of their leaders. This gives a rather reasonable explanation for it – you can even bring in Shodd and find that they won’t attack him for the same reason (issue is you’d need to explain why they’re attacking the asura PC if they did that storyline). This also gives her an immediate army that can continuously grow and explains even more of her tech abilities (her portals). Use this then to overwhelm an open world location, a place we should want to take back. In the months leading up to this, there were new locations being added in, only some having to deal with the LS – most are added just as expansions to the living world with a few unrelations to the plot. One of these is a new sylvari settlement, and a large one at that – let’s say it is over Denravi and shares its name. Build it up to give people enough reasons to be interested in it. Then Scarlet attacks it as part of her plot (whatever it may be). Give the LS a bar like in Flame and Frost:Retribution, but insanely large. The bar goes down per server, as events are completed with it reaching 0 signifying Scarlet’s forces are gone for the server. Then when the LS is done, take how many servers completed the bar and how many did not – majority wins here. And if the bars weren’t complete, a new LS instance shows up where Scarlet’s just fully and utterly overwhelming and the town is destroyed. We can go back in the open world and find it in ruins, overrun by the enemy remnants and nearby NPCs talk about the failure they went through. Or if the majority of servers completed the bar, a similar instance where we manage to save the day against impossible odds. Either way, any nearby hearts and events change appropriately – new events added, old events become slower to reset or are outright removed (only if befitting), and NPCs in the area change – be it who they are, how they act, or what they say.

The open world would forever be changed by the players’ actions on a whole. We’d get an overall awesome climatic battle, and either come out as heroes or failed survivors who met our first defeat at Scarlet’s hands. It becomes a failure not because the plot demanded a failure, but because we, the players, failed. And the most important part… don’t tell us that completing the bar or not has such huge consequences.

I feel I may have been overly hostile in previous posts so I’d just like to open with an apology if so. Do know that my anger over the direction of the living story – which easily delves into my posts’ attitude – is because I have loved the franchise since I started playing in 2006, and I really hate seeing the quality of the lore drop. Whether it is dropping internally or not is not the problem – it is dropping externally. What the players see is dropping. And I hate seeing that. I do try to remain as cooperative as can be but being a person who is stressed out, there’s only so far I can go. This said, to the responses itself.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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

In regards to the achievements, I would really like to make the suggestion of removing the Historical category in the achievements.

I see no reason why I should be incapable of achieving Krait Bane after Tower of Nightmares has come and gone. I still do the related actions. The content that the achievements would have you do is still there. So why am I incapable of getting the achievement for not being around for the 2 or 4 weeks which the Living Story chapter is up?

By taking the Historical category and moving those in there back to Living World and a new “Special Events” (Halloween, Wintersday, SAB, and other re-occurring events), players would be less stressed for time on all the achievements. More so if the achievements which are related to temporary content are given timers, thus we would know they will go away while others will not (like the dailies).

This would really help people in their time management, and allow people who do not have a lot of time to play the game to do more of what they want, rather than what the Living Story chapter currently gives (if they hold any interest in the achievement rewards be it points or items for completing a specific achievement).

I think you got your dating a little messed up there… 11/12, 11/26, 12/10, and 12/24

11/12 is likely to be continuation of Tower of Nightmares. 11/26 is questionable. 12/10 is likely to be Wintersday and we probably won’t get anything on 12/24 because Christmas Eve – ArenaNet’s going to be on holiday break for that week most likely (and the following). This means 11/26 is likely to be the Fractals update.

Also, about Evon and Abaddon’s fractal having to do with each other – a dev, forgot who, stated during Cutthroat Politics that Evon’s interest in the Abaddon fractal is likely religious – his words were something along the lines of “I doubt that Evon’s interest in the Fall of Abaddon isn’t exactly religious.” (Double negative, implying it is religious). Either way, an interest is known to have been developed as a future plot direction.

To a degree they likely are writing it as they go – four months if not more in advance. Mainly because they are shaping it after the feedback they gain, and the few cases where we have some influence in it (the voting during Cutthroat Politics with promises of more). But they certainly have outlines and plans made up.

If the krait don’t know you’re the one who stole it, how will they go after you?

It makes sense to me. You find out that the obelisk shards contain powerful magic. You’d want to keep them out of krait hands, if only to weaken them and not study it some more – and they hardly have the forces to go to Divinity’s Reach, let alone Hoelbrak, Rata Sum (which floats), or Black Citadel. If any doesn’t make sense, it’s the Grove. But even that place is heavily defended, otherwise the Nightmare Court would have assaulted full force.

Hell, I’d be disappointed if shards don’t get confiscated by the Priory, as they’re known to have a vault of magical and dangerous items.

Same oddity here, during guild missions I found one in Mount Maelstrom that didn’t get transcribed though I recall doing them all there.

I would say it’s too early to kill Marjory or Kasmeer off. We haven’t developed enough interest in them yet. The PS ruined killing NPC deaths in that they barely had meaningful deaths – I can only think of three deaths that mattered in the full PS. Four if you’re human street and killed Quinn. The three being mentor, the Whispers agent who’s name I cannot recall ATM in the Whispers’ invasion plan into Orr, and Tegwen (but really, only if you did sylvari Act with Wisdom).

I actually made that joke theory before, Narcemus. He’s involved with Jory and Kasmeer, and he’s held past interest in keeping DR Ministry in check (personal story), so he fits. And as a mesmer (though not a good one), he’d be able to mask his voice with illusion and I would be surprised if he didn’t have an easy time with faking his personality.

Justdeifyme.9387:

I thought she died at Claw Island o.O

Nope. You managed to save her. She returns in The Source of Orr for unexplained reasons.

@OP: Same question can be asked for the racial sympathy members who go into your home instance – despite in Orr them saying they found a new home (I guess it’s YOUR home they found…).

With such a reason to go after Tower of Nightmares achievements, one would have thought you’d do Blood and Madness.

Permanent candy corn node for home instance upon beating Edrick the second time and all (it’s post-meta). Still got 9 more days (or is it 10?) if you hurry! :P

All halloween outfits should have been made as armors, not town clothings.

Uh…

Scarlet’s from this Tyria. Caithe and Vorpp has proven this as fact in Twilight Assault and Clockwork Chaos respectively.

Her ties to the steam creatures are unknown. For all we know, she did the same thing to them that she did to the Pact airships the Aetherblades stole: she reverse engineered them (or at least that seems to be what she did, given Twilight Arbor’s new path shows the airships being built).

Scarlet’s Portals are not the same as the Steam Portals – even if they use similar aesthetic and possibly even origins. She’s not an interdimensional traveler.

bravoart.5308:

Redenaz.8631:

I’m just not sure what the point of them is. When I harvest five closely-grouped nodes and get one or two Pristine samples, I’m left wondering why there wasn’t just one or two useful ones instead. I’m less “bothered” than I am “confused.”

To use your harvesting sickles. Unless you have the infinite one, of course…

It’s to get people to buy the jack-in-the-box harvesting sickle before it leaves the gemstore, of course.

inazuma.7021:

kitten nic Touch.7960:

Outworld is becoming one with the earth realm. It’s time to find Tyria’s greatest warriors and unite them for Mortal Kombat!

So when your Guardian uses Pull, you have to shout “GET OVER HERE!”

No, no, no.

Thief’s Scorpion Wire. Gotta be wielding Firebringer as well, offhand dagger. With Black/yellow Duelist armor.

It can and will be done.

Shiren.9532:

What potential though?

Jennah and Logan’s relationship is relevant to the story because she’s the Queen. Any suitor of hers is a potential ruler of Kryta (and for as long as she is single with no heir, Kryta’s leadership passes onto someone else). There are major political ramifications to her relationship status. They’ve also played off of Logan’s relationship and how it conflicts with his job.

Braham’s relationship was a throw away motivation to have him involved with Flame and Frost (and it wasn’t necessary either – he could have easily justified it as save his fellow villagers). Rescue the captured partner? Done. Caithe and Faolain also have the whole non-traditional couple story covered. Despite that, it rarely feels important to the world of Tyria, mostly just as a reason to explore the sylvari culture and concept of love.

For the most part, there isn’t a lot of room for relationships in the story unless they are central to the plot or a story that needs to be told. The only reason I could think of Marjory and Kasmeer’s “relationship” (so far they are pulling a Xena) being relevant to the plot without recycling what has been done before is if one of them were killed by Scarlet (or another) creating a personal vendetta for that character and a real reason for being involved in future Living Story chapters.

Jennah and Logan cannot have much progression in their relationship both due to lore reasons as well as the involvement in the personal story and dungeon stories. Same goes for Caithe and Faolain, really. Marjory and Kasmeer only exist in the Living Story thus the Living Story can produce an actual plot with them rather than “it is here, there are side-effects” – for example, what if one of them does die when the tower is breached?

LoganxJennah and CaithexFaolain cannot have that. Hell, because of the whole PS/LS disconnection, they cannot even further the bromance between Rytlock and Logan as one could have seen that both of Logan’s relations with Jennah and Rytlock are effectively deadlocked during Queen’s Jubilee. There was no progression and Anet went out of their way to make it unclear whether or not things were cleared up between Logan and Rytlock.

Side note: Anyone else think that Kasmeer and Marjory are lovers? I say so because of:

Marjory Delaqua: I’ve been thinking about Scarlet.
Kasmeer Meade: She can’t have you.
Marjory Delaqua: She’s behind all these crazy alliances. I’d rest my reputation on…wait. What did you say?
Kasmeer Meade: (laugh) I think you’re right. She has all the landmarks of a blooming psycho hag.

Marjory Delaqua: You did your bit, Kas. Go on back to Divinity’s Reach where it’s safer.
Kasmeer Meade: You’re sweet, but I couldn’t leave you here alone.
Marjory Delaqua: I’ll be fine, cupcake. Go on now.
Kasmeer Meade: Mmm, I don’t think so. I would, but to be honest I’m itching to see what’s in that tower. I think I’ll stay.
Marjory Delaqua: Hm. If you insist.

(Marjory calls her “cupcake” – though Jory does seem quick on endearing nicknames, she only calls Kasmeer such, as well as “Kas”)

(less so)

Kasmeer Meade: Marjory?
Marjory Delaqua: Yes?
Kasmeer Meade: If we don’t make it out…
Marjory Delaqua: We will. Promise.

Then there was how Kasmeer says the final line in:

Kasmeer Meade: The moment they break into the tower, we should head down there.
Marjory Delaqua: What’s your hurry? Let them clear it out a bit first.
Kasmeer Meade: This whole place has mesmer magic woven through it. I don’t want to miss a single thing.
Marjory Delaqua: I see. Curiousity killed the cat, you know?
Kasmeer Meade: Meeeow!

And just their overall conversational tone. Kind of makes me wonder if there’s more than just “business partners” and “friends” between them… Which would prove to be an interesting plot development with potential.

Vital probably responded in another thread about this twice. Or two other threads about this once each.

Either way, if you counted the number of achievements in the category you would have noticed you need 3 dailies minimum to get the meta. Highlighting the meta “Tower of Nightmares” even says “Complete 14 achievements from either this category or Tower of Nightmares dailies.”

By dailies he/I mean(s) the LS-themed ones. Today’s is “Toxic Gardener” – you can tell which ones are the LS-themed ones as they have a unique icon to them.

It was the same situation in Blood and Madness, Tequatl Rising, Clockwork Chaos, and Queen’s Jubilee. Queen’s Jubilee was the first LS chapter which introduced themed dailies, and the meta required a set number of the dailies minimally (though you can skip the main category achievements for more dailies). Twight Assault was the only LS chapter since QJ that had dailies but did not require them for the meta – which was good but sadly they revoked that.

I’d try to make a joke post. But I know before I start that it could not compare to Atlas’ post.

tips my hat

Thinking back to Queen’s Jubilee, the loading screen for the Crown Pavilion became available as a wallpaper upon the second update – which got two wallpapers.

The next update may end up being similar.

By “angels” do you mean “two winged female goddesses”? Then yes. By “angel” do you mean “etheric winged women that are the avatars of Dwayna”? Then yes. By “angel” do you mean “divine beings of heaven that are genderless and born from light”? Then no – even to just the “divine beings of heaven” (only of that we got are “gods”).

The terms “angel” and “demon” are indeed used in the game – but like norn, asura, and so many other things they do not mean the same as your standard fantasy or the origin of the words.

On the Shadow Behemoth – I think it’d lose its quality if it talked, truth be told. I don’t think there’s a single Nightmare out there that talks, come to think of it.

I have definitely seen Toxic Hypnoss using a chaos storm animation. Without a bloody doubt there.