Battle for Lion's Arch: Aftermath - March 18th

[Lane]

But yeah, people seem to have some "omg it must be golden globe / emmy nomination worthy story (a la GoT) or else it sucks" kind of attitude.

Just because people think the writing was terrible doesn't mean they were expecting Oscar worthy screenplays. There is a lot of room in the writing spectrum between things like "really bad fan fiction" and Shakespeare, for example.

[Zephyr Storm]

Well from a story standpoint it was nothing that gave you chills or kept you wake at night, but in my opinion the speculating about the next things to happen was a lot of fun. It didn't reach the 'Game of Thrones'-level, but hey, not everyone can be GoT. It was more the 'Walking Dead' level in my opinion.

The Living Story's main purpose is to vitalize the game, to bring life to barren zones and to change the world. Personally I would say they did a good job here, there was always something new to do, new items to get, achievements etc.

In the end, LS gives you gameplay while story takes a backseat, but isn't that the purpose of gaming?

I'm going to stop you at the bolded part. Bringing life to barren zones you say? Yeah ok. All they did was force people into a previous zone because that was the ONLY way to experience the new, shallow updates. And once each update was over, most of the zones went back to being completely barren. So I would call that a fail in my book. Not to mention that the update events in older zones more often than not completely fucked up people while they were trying to level through them naturally.

And as far as a change to the world? Lol. Most of the world is still exactly the same as it was before. Nothing else outside of the small pockets of living story areas changed at all. And even some of those areas went back to the way they were before and/or are completely ignored now.

And Living Story didn't give us worthwhile gameplay. You are saying they sacrificed story in order to give us gameplay, and yet all they gave us was basically a new set of achievements to grind every two weeks and a new backpiece to farm for. If that's what you consider good, meaningful, and legit content....then you set your standards VERY LOW.

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I agree, the story was ok and it kept the world alive. I enjoy reading all the speculations so the story was not really in the backseat for me
Still some unanswered mysteries that I want to know about (Caithes secret!).

But yeah, people seem to have some "omg it must be golden globe / emmy nomination worthy story (a la GoT) or else it sucks" kind of attitude.

I don't expect golden globe/emmy/etc level of writing and story in my video games. What I do expect, however, is something above a 3rd grade level of cartoon. What Anet gave us this past year is very, very cringe worthy.

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That`s the problem for any original Guild Wars players, they played the game the had an amazing story & years of work behind it.
Then you come to gw2, there are non (or very few) of the original chaps that made that game what it is working for anet any more.
(Greg Street & warcraft spring to mind ;p)

Even now, with the ones that work there & bring out something good that folk rave about (flame something dungeon was one I recall) they`re mostly on twelve months contracts & are then "let go" only to (possibly) return a few months later for another 12 month contract & so on...

You won`t keep good staff/writers/coders et al by doing that, they need to start keeping people on staff properly & stop messing folk about.
You also only have to look at the staff reviews to see about too many chefs at the stove

Perhaps then they`ll start adding better game play rather then "Oh, mob there, zerg eet" month after month...

That probably is part of the problem with Anet. To high of turnover with their employees. But then, that's a sign of a shitty employer. And their product is definitely showing the signs of bad employment/management.

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Eh the living story kept me active and was a lot of fun. The story part wasn't anything amazing but it did provide a ton fodder for specialization which was also fun. Plus the rate of content updates was awesome and I enjoyed that, and even when they took a break from it in December I was happy to have a break from the constant updates. A little sad about the break now, but I don't have bad feelings about LS1.

All I can say about this is that you must be VERY easily entertained.

Keep it civil and stop bashing

[Lane]

So far the "changes" they've made to the world have been to make it uglier. I still hate what they did to Kessex Hills and there was no real point to it other than to thumb their nose at people who said the LS didn't have lasting effects. They could have at least left the tower there. Added activities to it, made it a jumping puzzle, do something other than turn it into a meaningless heap of garbage that litters the landscape now.

[Fencers]

All I can say about this is that you must be VERY easily entertained.

Is it really necessary to insult people continually, Zephyr Storm?

What is the point of responding in this manner if not to insult another user? Come on, dude.

[Kaelwryn]

Nevermind :x

[Arlee]

So far the "changes" they've made to the world have been to make it uglier. I still hate what they did to Kessex Hills and there was no real point to it other than to thumb their nose at people who said the LS didn't have lasting effects. They could have at least left the tower there. Added activities to it, made it a jumping puzzle, do something other than turn it into a meaningless heap of garbage that litters the landscape now.

Yea I am sad about what happened with Kessex... I mean on the one hand I like all of that stuff left a mark, but I'd like to have some way to work on making it better. Like new events in the zone to clean it up and stuff :/ Would also be nice to have some "rebuilding Lion's Arch" events. It's like we get to take part in destroying things but not helping people rebuild.

On thing, when I went to the listing of people who died in LA and the Lighthouse guy's daughter was there talking about how her dad die. All I could think was "aww, honey... you died soooooo many times."

[Lane]

I assume there will be some sort of rebuilding of LA, but I'm not sure players will have much of any part in it. It seems like they want to route people to Maguuma now and probably S2 will focus on Mordremoth. It might be like the lion statue where every other update you see it a little more repaired.

Considering the tower toppled over next to a quaggan settlement they could add something there where you help them dispose of debris. Even the local guard could get involved, maybe some of the stuff could be salvaged, maybe you have to fight off centaurs and/or krait who are trying to loot materials.

Meanwhile, there's the long forgotten Orr, which I guess is never going to see any love. After the end of the personal story I thought they'd focus at least some attention on the actual revitalization part of it that they'd talked about for 30 levels or so.

[Arlee]

Considering the tower toppled over next to a quaggan settlement they could add something there where you help them dispose of debris. Even the local guard could get involved, maybe some of the stuff could be salvaged, maybe you have to fight off centaurs and/or krait who are trying to loot materials.

That would be really cool And yea I do think there will be a rebuilding process in LA, I just REALLY want it to be done in a way that players can take part and feel like they helped to rebuild personally.

Meanwhile, there's the long forgotten Orr, which I guess is never going to see any love. After the end of the personal story I thought they'd focus at least some attention on the actual revitalization part of it that they'd talked about for 30 levels or so.

Yea... It would be really nice to see something happen there. I understand why they feel constrained by it but still :/

[Lane]

At this point they could probably do a recap of the personal story (like they did for the LS) for anyone who hasn't completed it yet. It's not like they're really missing much after Claw Island anyway.

Though, I guess it's pointless to discuss. They're onto a new dragon and probably destroying new zones. :P

[Svifnymr]

That would be really cool And yea I do think there will be a rebuilding process in LA, I just REALLY want it to be done in a way that players can take part and feel like they helped to rebuild personally.

They did have the rebuilding lions arch vendor thing too, and that was just for a fountain.
Maybe we'll rebuild a small section of Lions Arch as a personal house/instance!

Yea... It would be really nice to see something happen there. I understand why they feel constrained by it but still :/

True, except that after the Personal Story instances during Lions Arch, which did exactly what I thought they should do with Orr and it's story instances...

Meh, screw it, there's no reason they can't touch up Orr.

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Just because people think the writing was terrible doesn't mean they were expecting Oscar worthy screenplays. There is a lot of room in the writing spectrum between things like "really bad fan fiction" and Shakespeare, for example.

I think the Living Story was an average comic book writing level, which is to be expected I guess. Above the really juvenile stuff, but still mass market approachable.

I think they should add more depth and story, though, simply because those of us that follow the story would like it, and the rest of the guys go afk through the plot anyway, so why design a plot to be accessible to them.

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Oh, and I'm fine with them going away from their dialogue cut scenes into the "in the world" scenes, but I wish they'd add voices for the PCs, the one sided conversations get kind of wierd during the longer scenes.

[Deleted]

I wouldn't mind them adding more depth either, I just don't think that the story was as bad as some ragers on this forum make it out to be

Yea I am sad about what happened with Kessex... I mean on the one hand I like all of that stuff left a mark, but I'd like to have some way to work on making it better. Like new events in the zone to clean it up and stuff :/ Would also be nice to have some "rebuilding Lion's Arch" events. It's like we get to take part in destroying things but not helping people rebuild.

Agreed, hope they don't destroy more zones before adding nicer ones, or fix up places like Kessex. Pretty places are needed!

And would be cool if they started to clean up at least one zone in Orr, I mean all the 3 maps look almost identical with their gloomy atmosphere. I do love the big constructions / arches and the maps are cool overall but it gets kind of depressing after being there for a bit

[Achaman]

I wouldn't mind them adding more depth either, I just don't think that the story was as bad as some ragers on this forum make it out to be



Agreed, hope they don't destroy more zones before adding nicer ones, or fix up places like Kessex. Pretty places are needed!

And would be cool if they started to clean up at least one zone in Orr, I mean all the 3 maps look almost identical with their gloomy atmosphere. I do love the big constructions / arches and the maps are cool overall but it gets kind of depressing after being there for a bit

i dont mind it looking battle damaged for awile it makes a change from WoW where it took how long to update the vanilla zones?

plus atleast they didnt instance all the new stuff making the giant tower only appear after going through some secret passage that noone had found until whatever happened

[Deleted]

i dont mind it looking battle damaged for awile it makes a change from WoW where it took how long to update the vanilla zones?

Oh no not at all, just hope that they don't keep destroying maps so all off them / too many look like they have been burned down