anet, PLEASE stop the 'do an instance (or a few) before you can see the zone' bit

The prequel in the two expansions was fine but most of the ones in S3 were ridiculous. Many of them burned me out so much on the story the first day that I never came back to it. I practically ran through the pre-zone part of chapter 1, but the pre-zone part of chapter 6 (and others) was ridiculously long with multiple huge instances.

A new zone is something we obviously want to access ASAP to look around at but I am sure I am not the only one that prefers to do the story at my own pace and in my own time. I am more interested in open world events than canned instances anyway but will look in on the story from time to time. Forcing me to do multiple instances so I can explore new open world content does not make me any more inclined to want to do the rest of the story.

Interesting..... this never bothered me at all. I think it is fine really... giving a story reason to go somewhere new.

I think it’s fine as well. We had teleport scrolls to get us to the maps after the initial run through the story and there are always teleport to friend stones.

@Zeefa.3915 said:Interesting..... this never bothered me at all. I think it is fine really... giving a story reason to go somewhere new.

This was fine for temporary things gone after 2 weeks, but if the zone sticks around long after the story is boring and outpaced by the game I don't see a reason to keep it around.

The LS3 story is no longer "current". It's a bit silly that it keeps holding zones hostage.

No, dont. Im furiously against this, playing the game is part of the game. And its already soft enough you only have to do a story once to unlock teleports. And you can even get everywhere without doing the story at all with Tel.2.friends.This game is already one of the most casual/lazy friendly game I know. There are no fail conditions in missions, death is irrelevent. If anet makes the story irrelevant there might be nothing left.

I would understand if the story intros actually were hours long, but most of them were doable in 30 minutes, and were never boring. It can get tedious if you want to grind through the story on all your alts for some reason, but honestly it's just fine as it is.

@Zeefa.3915 said:Interesting..... this never bothered me at all. I think it is fine really... giving a story reason to go somewhere new.

If you do not plan on doing the story the first day but want to explore the new goodies ....

@Hevoskuuri.3891 said:I would understand if the story intros actually were hours long, but most of them were doable in 30 minutes, and were never boring. It can get tedious if you want to grind through the story on all your alts for some reason, but honestly it's just fine as it is.

Yes, they WERE kitten boring, especially if you want to do the story when you want to do the story. By the time I was done with the intro for chapter 6 I was basically done with GW2 for the day rather than spending all that time exploring.

Compare it to season 2. The 2 zones it introduced were not held hostage by the story.

I'm not a fan of the practice, either. I understand ANet's desire to have their players do the story that represents a great deal of what they offer. That said, I find it unpalatable to do the same thing on a dozen characters. While I did the GW story lines on a lot of my characters, I find I enjoy the GW2 story less.

The work-around, the portal scroll, also feels clunky to me. If I don't spend gems for a shared slot, I have to dance the bank tango. Also, while the coin to obtain them is not excessive, I never seem to have enough Unbound Magic to get them as well as getting the other things I want from those maps. However, I recognize that a thousand UM is not excessive. I just also find that I don't care enough about getting alts to these maps to want to do the extra stuff I'd need to do to get it.

After PoF, I chose to delete my only character that had done LS3.4 because reasons. Thus, I'd need to do it again to access Lake Doric. The idea of repeating the necessary story step to do so is highly unappealing. The fact that the game DC's -- costing me completion -- in the final stages of story instances more often than not is certainly part of my antipathy.

The OP is the typical rush through the content player. Then later complaints of "nothing else to do" it's boring...

@Zeefa.3915 said:Interesting..... this never bothered me at all. I think it is fine really... giving a story reason to go somewhere new.

I would > @WingLegacy.7159 said:

The OP is the typical rush through the content player. Then later complaints of "nothing else to do" it's boring...

The OP says he wants to have the choice to do the story at his leisure, without being rushed into it by having exploration gated behind the initial story step.

Someone who describes having only half an hour to play is not a content locust.

I mean, what's the rush?

I think it is fine as it is.

I agree with the opp if it's for the 2nd and next characters you want to play. Dointg the same intro over and over again for all your characters is boring. As for the intro's themselves: I really would appreciate if its less text to read. I mean: sometimes those text balloons keep going on and on. Who ever reads them all? Please give us the option to skip like in the personal storyline.

I can't say much about this because I've been to all but 2 Living World maps, and the way I got to the ones I've been to was asking guild mates if I can transport to them to get to those areas.While yes I only have one character that can go there, at least I'm exploring the places which is what I wanted to do, before doing the stories.

@Menadena.7482 said:The prequel in the two expansions was fine but most of the ones in S3 were ridiculous. Many of them burned me out so much on the story the first day that I never came back to it. I practically ran through the pre-zone part of chapter 1, but the pre-zone part of chapter 6 (and others) was ridiculously long with multiple huge instances.

A new zone is something we obviously want to access ASAP to look around at but I am sure I am not the only one that prefers to do the story at my own pace and in my own time. I am more interested in open world events than canned instances anyway but will look in on the story from time to time. Forcing me to do multiple instances so I can explore new open world content does not make me any more inclined to want to do the rest of the story.

Yeah, this is definitely annoying. There is a workaround and is available for some karma map currency (i guess?) (and maybe silver/gold, don't remember)... Just buy the portal scrolls (and a tome to put them in so it takes up less inventory space). For the Crystal Desert area, just use the scroll that takes you to "The Lily of Elon" or whatever that place is called... It came with the expansion if you pre-ordered, I believe. For HoT, just exit your guild hall if your guild has Gilded Hollow or Lost Precipice.

I dislike the principle of forcing people to repeat the story or spend currency (and more importantly, shared inventory) to work around it. That said, the actual system in place for LS3 is pretty good: one character unlocks the map and buys the portal scroll with map currency, which can be merged for a similar fee into an LS3 umbrella scroll. It's one slot, a bunch of map currency, and free teleports to the map.

The PoF situation is a little ickier. You can pay gems (Lily of Elon), complete the first instance on each toon, complete the story on one toon and use the "Griffon" unlock gizmo to get to Vabbi, or (if you have a GH with Windswept) exit the guild hall into Vabbi. None of those are particularly convenient, but none are all that bad either.

I far prefer the map unlocks for HoT (buy HoT, visit any of the maps on foot), as well as Dry Top and Silverwastes (just walk there).

Still the current system has its bonuses too. After buying the consolidated portal scroll, I can do the easy dailies in the LS3 zones in about 6 minutes (not counting loading screens), without dedicating a character to each or spending any coin to get around.

tl;dr I agree with the OP in principle. In practice, either way has been okay.

I think it's fine as-is. You're playing the game mode primarily for the role-playing-game environment in the first place. If you don't want to deal with an imaginary fantasy land and the drama and potential need for patience that goes with it, then you can play PvP or WvW (and still unlock specs)I'm putting my characters through those steps right now too. I agree, it's a bit boring and time consuming but at the same time, it's my own choice to send 9 characters to the Crystal Desert just so I can access them for certain activities if I want.

@Menadena.7482 said:

@Zeefa.3915 said:Interesting..... this never bothered me at all. I think it is fine really... giving a story reason to go somewhere new.

Even from an exploration standpoint, history/current events is relevant to exploration. On the other hand, farming the map for rewards and completing events isn't actually "exploration". It seems you want to skip the current step to get said rewards, which by the way is minimal effort and time. The only issue I had was the excessive talking at the beginning and I believe another part, would prefer if more of the extended talking had been cut scenes that could be skipped.

@Menadena.7482 said:The prequel in the two expansions was fine but most of the ones in S3 were ridiculous. Many of them burned me out so much on the story the first day that I never came back to it. I practically ran through the pre-zone part of chapter 1, but the pre-zone part of chapter 6 (and others) was ridiculously long with multiple huge instances.

A new zone is something we obviously want to access ASAP to look around at but I am sure I am not the only one that prefers to do the story at my own pace and in my own time. I am more interested in open world events than canned instances anyway but will look in on the story from time to time. Forcing me to do multiple instances so I can explore new open world content does not make me any more inclined to want to do the rest of the story.

I'm not the biggest PvE fan, and I find the "New patch, New zone" thing frankly trite. I wonder if they could have released the game with just Lion's Arch and zone#1, then just build up the game from there. I guess it would have saved a lot of effort. There you go, budding MMO Moguls, make your game with 2 zones but add a new zone every month. Eaaaaasy money from people who just want a decent outfit (never give it to them, that's the secret!).

@WingLegacy.7159 said:The OP is the typical rush through the content player. Then later complaints of "nothing else to do" it's boring...

What the kitten?

I said I wanted to do the story when I wanted to do it and at my own rate. I do not want to feel rushed that I HAVE to do it on the first day just so I can explore the new zone.

BTW, all this is not about the teleport scroll for your other characters (although I think it should be like bitterfrost, where all of your characters can walk into the zone). My complaint is gating the zone behind the story at all, I want to be able to explore the new content then do the story whenever. Some people want to rush through the story the first day, fine, that is not me.