Moving on, a true living world.

[Deleted]

Finally the living story comes to an end, did anyone else think it was really annoying that from such a diverse world the big bad guy after Zhaitan (which was a fart in the wind) was a Sylvari? There was Canach which was the villain of a "medium" story which was boring then we got Scarlet, one of the most annoying characters in recent game history. A plant, a plant was supposed to be responsible for getting interesting enemies together and threaten the world? The Charr and Dredge alliance was interesting and it would have been enough but no, there had to be Scarlet and now someone else is supposed to be behind her? That's just lame, shifting the blame on an old god so we forget about one of the worst characters ever created in a game?

Arena net should really come up with something interesting after this living story, instead of giving us another "grand tale" or "badass" dragon/deity that sits there and takes punches until it dies. They should focus on making multiple smaller stories and advancing those, for example:

- Centaurs plan a attack on some town, first 2 weeks you find crumbs leading to the plans, next 2 weeks you defend the town and launch a counter assault or the town falls and you retreat (depending on player vote, just like Kiel vs Gnash).
- Marshall law is instated in a asura town and you once again take 2 weeks to investigate then another 2 to deal with it by being given a choice.
- Kodans have some once in a X years ritual.
- Quaggans quag.
- Skritt choose a king.

Evolve the dynamic events, fortify the strength of game instead of just pouring in big villains.

[zed zebes]

The story isn't over yet.

[Zaedria]

Finally the living story comes to an end, did anyone else think it was really annoying that from such a diverse world the big bad guy after Zhaitan (which was a fart in the wind) was a Sylvari? There was Canach which was the villain of a "medium" story which was boring then we got Scarlet, one of the most annoying characters in recent game history. A plant, a plant was supposed to be responsible for getting interesting enemies together and threaten the world?

Uh, no, not a plant... a sylvari. I haven't kept up with GW2, but what's wrong with sylvari? They're a sentient and capable race like any other on Tyria. Why shouldn't one be able to stir up trouble just as well as a human, or a charr?

The Charr and Dredge alliance was interesting and it would have been enough but no, there had to be Scarlet and now someone else is supposed to be behind her? That's just lame, shifting the blame on an old god so we forget about one of the worst characters ever created in a game?

You understand how subjective that is, right? Understand that the charr and dredge thing might be just some dull crap about "cats and moles" to someone else just like Scarlet is an annoying "plant" to you. I like the charr (was interesting too see how much they changed as a race from the days of GW1), but found dredge to be an uninteresting Soviet Russia joke.

[zed zebes]

Also, the Skritt do have a king. He just doesn't have long life expectancy. Honest, Skritt King's a shite job. Higher turnover rate than ANet's playtesters.

[Fencers]

The Living Story isn't necessarily just about Scarlet. Presumably there will always be a Living Story ongoing in GW2. This recent one in GW2 is mostly about Scarlet, but there will be Living Story 2014* afterward and Living Story 2015/16/17* after that supposedly.

LS is just what Anet calls their patches and progressive plot lines. Otherwise known as, content patches.

[Maarius]

I have no idea why a Sylvari is considered a bad idea. About the living story: I haven't seen any game up to now where there have been tons of speculation threads on various sites on the net every two weeks for a few months about the upcoming story-revelations. None. The living story has become really deep and the characters (most of them) very very likeable and I really would hate to see any one of them die.

sorry, no... I can't agree with you OP.

[Fencers]

About the living story: I haven't seen any game up to now where there have been tons of speculation threads on various sites on the net every two weeks for a few months about the upcoming story-revelations. None.

To be fair, do or are you really searching out this kind of information for other games?

There may be some personal bias on your part due to GW2 being a focus of entertainment for you personally. Nothing wrong with that but the perception you describe may not be an objective reality.

Many games across all genres have fan speculation or enthusiastic discussion surrounding their ongoing, new &/or upcoming additions. Though just as many people skip over the TSW or Fallout speculation/discussion as those that partake. Unless of course one is an enthusiast of such games in which case they might argue the same;
"I have never seen a game so speculated about!"

I am not saying you are wrong. Merely that there might be some degree of personal bias to your statements here.

[Maarius]

To be fair, do or are you really searching out this kind of information for other games?

There may be some personal bias on your part due to GW2 being a focus of entertainment for you personally. Nothing wrong with that but the perception you describe may not be an objective reality.

Many games across all genres have fan speculation or enthusiastic discussion surrounding their ongoing, new &/or upcoming additions. Though just as many people skip over the TSW or Fallout speculation/discussion as those that partake. Unless of course one is an enthusiast of such games in which case they might argue the same;
"I have never seen a game so speculated about!"

I am not saying you are wrong. Merely that there might be some degree of personal bias to your statements here.

Well my perception stems from the memories I have from playing other mmos before GW2. To be fair, I have no idea how much people speculate about lore in TSW or the Star Wars MMO, or WoW today.

[Karizee]

I think advancing the story every 2 weeks generates a lot of interest and speculation. People that I know that I never would have thought would care about this kind of stuff feel pretty invested. Just think, this arc started a year ago with us repairing signs on a road in Wayfarer Foothills.....

[waddlez]

The Living Story isn't necessarily just about Scarlet. Presumably there will always be a Living Story ongoing in GW2. This recent one in GW2 is mostly about Scarlet, but there will be Living Story 2014* afterward and Living Story 2015/16/17* after that supposedly.

LS is just what Anet calls their patches and progressive plot lines. Otherwise known as, content patches.

2017? Do you really believe with the current state of the game that 2017 is going to be GW2? By then if they don't have GW3 in beta I don't think there will be much left of GW2 (or of Arenanet). Too much inc from SOE, other devs under their own publisher (ex. carbine), and hopefully Titan.

[Arlee]

@waddles - I really wouldn't hold my breath on GW3 anytime soon. Honestly I am pretty sure Arenanet is pulling for Wildstar to do well because even if it pulls people from them since they are both part of NCSoft it will still help them. Realistically they have nothing to fear from Carbine. As for the other games... eh we'll see how all of that plays out.

I think if they can keep things going strong and continue to improve on their storytelling (and obviously people keep spending money in the cash shop) they'll be fine with or without an expansion.

About Living story ending, what Fencers said is accurate. This is only the end of Living Story season one, and no doubt however this one will end will lead into the next one. I honestly have no issue with a member of any race being a villain. I think Sylvari are a focus because they are new and there are a ton of unanswered questions about them, which can be exciting for the story writers and gives them a lot of room to come up with interesting ideas.

[Fencers]

Just think, this arc started a year ago with us repairing signs on a road in Wayfarer Foothills.....

Heh. A bit of a smile played across my face as I read this. Because I had remarked a few weeks ago in guild chat we are basically still "carving pumpkins & repairing road signs" in many of the updates.

I cackled.

Well my perception stems from the memories I have from playing other mmos before GW2. To be fair, I have no idea how much people speculate about lore in TSW or the Star Wars MMO, or WoW today.

That is exactly my point. Personal bias colors everything.

I moderate a few other message boards. One in particular is based around film, where it is VERY common to see declarations of "best movie I ever saw!". Now it may be that Transformers 2 is the best movie Billy ever saw. That's fine.

However, we should keep things in perspective when taking note of the basis of Billy's statement.

2017? Do you really believe with the current state of the game that 2017 is going to be GW2?

Sure. The game is doing well financially and much less successful MMOs run for years longer. Even among strong competition and market fluctuation.

[Valeron]

@waddles - I really wouldn't hold my breath on GW3 anytime soon. Honestly I am pretty sure Arenanet is pulling for Wildstar to do well because even if it pulls people from them since they are both part of NCSoft it will still help them. Realistically they have nothing to fear from Carbine. As for the other games... eh we'll see how all of that plays out.

I think Wildstar will attract a different type of player than those that enjoy GW2. GW2 will lose players eventually to newer mmos, all mmos do. I do think the payment model helps stem that loss though. I'm not concerned about the health of the game.

[Lane]

The villain being a Sylvari was inconsequential. The villain being extremely poorly written, however, was.

Let's be honest, there's been virtually no character development for Scarlet until recently -- unless you want to count the blog post you had to read because there was no information about her actually in the game anywhere.

A lot of the "speculation" I've seen has to do with poor story development. Players have basically had to come up with their own stories in their own minds because the amount of depth the Living Story has presented is equivalent to speculating what the ingredients are in a can of peanuts. Incidentally, the majority of the player speculation I've read has consistently been vastly superior to what actually ends up happening in the game.

I understand that there seem to be quite a few people who are willing to forgive 9 months of seemingly complete, meaningless randomness because they've finally fleshed out the main villain to some sort of acceptable standard. However, just because the end of a book isn't terrible doesn't mean I'm going to look back on the previous 300 pages I've read with fondness.

Even now, I've never gotten the impression S1 of LS was planned any step of the way. I would honestly be shocked if, in fact, this has truly been outlined since 2008 as some have claimed. That would actually be really sad to me. It feels like they went around the office, asked everyone what they'd like to see in the next LS update, tossed all the ideas in the hat, and picked out a new one to do every two weeks.

Since then, it seems they've been struggling with figuring out a way to tie them all together into one coherent package. I would not be in the least bit surprised if that is how Scarlet came into existence in the first place. Unfortunately, that lent itself to creating a "Mary Sue" villain to encompass all of these previous events, which they are now trying to compensate for by finally giving her a back story that is somewhat feasible.

Anyway, that is my opinion, which is obviously subjective.

[Maarius]

The villain being a Sylvari was inconsequential. The villain being extremely poorly written, however, was.

Let's be honest, there's been virtually no character development for Scarlet until recently -- unless you want to count the blog post you had to read because there was no information about her actually in the game anywhere.

I agree with you on this. However I see it more like Anet learned a lot about the pacing and depth of the living story. There are no story-blog posts anymore, instead we got really good ingame story-telling (the investigation and Scarlet's lair) and there is still a upcoming feature which adresses storytelling (a new UI perhaps?!).

It's not like the second living story seasons will have the same flaws all over again - it's a learning process. Scarlet gained a lot of depth recently which is awesome if you ask me, and all the characters we've got are interesting and likeable. Not like another Trahearne.

[zito]

Scarlets writing has gotten better, despite what people think I still thinks she is one of the most... interesting villains made. I mean she brought several enemy factions together, created new weaponry, discovered how to track ley lines, created a new species of plant 100s of feet tall that created a new delusion poison at the same time tricking her foes into creating the anti toxin for her making her poison stronger, mutated an entire race and is leading a fleet of air ships that took the pact how long to perfect?

[Esie]

I think concept of living story is nice, but the quality of it itself has been a lackluster every since Zephyr Sanctum or somewhere around there. I think Scarlet story should have concluded way earlier and I would love to see some new zones, more dungeons that stay, new sets, maybe continue personal story, evolve some other stories.

[zed zebes]

I sense that the next season's story pace will be much faster than the first season's pace. ANet was figuring out how they were going to do their updates as they went along. Early on, some things only lasted a day or a weekend, but then that got extended to a month. Then the monthly content wasn't really that long lasting, so they began to work towards bi-weekly. After doing bi-weekly for months, they decided to switch to a schedule that does bi-weekly for periods of time and then stops for a rest period. I wouldn't be surprised if this changes again. I think they know better now what they can put out and how to put out content-wise than they did when they started. I also feel the end of this season will reveal the threat of the next season, so players won't be as in the dark as they were this time last year.