A suggestion for after End of Dragons... to end the Living World

[Overworld.9613]

I read part way through your original post and it seems like you have a flawed idea on what makes a good story for an entire MMO audience and the ways that narrative exploration can be done well in a large world like Guild Wars 2. So if you managed to recant your position that narrative choice solely in the hands of the player is the best method of self expression in the genera, I'll adjust my position.

 

So your first position that a false sense of control over narrative direction in the personal story is better than the current method. Your second position was that you don't like all the characters (namely Taime and Braham) and want to use your character's assumed position of authority to strip them of agency. Your third point, which is where you lost me, was that other players existing breaks immersion for you.

I didn't bother reading past this cause it all smacked of armchair criticism and personal bias.
 

Firstly I'll put up my creds: I've been studying and applying System Design and Game Design for over a decade. When you list problems like this, it doesn't look like a carefully researched list of faults, it looks like a screed of grievances. So I apologize if this comes off as harsh, but the tone of the OP doesn't induce a sense of an open discussion. 

 

To your first point: Obvious narrative decisions put in the player's lap a "key" story beats has two main design problems: first; it multiplies the work needed to be done. For every choice you want to make meaningful such that future events reflect it in a way unlike Mass Effect 3's color picker ending, you have to re-write all dialog that might relate to the other choice. On average for every choice you add 1/4 of later dialog needs variants to reflect it. Guild Wars 2's designers really like giving the player 3 choices so this multiplies up to about 1 and 1/3 times more dialog needing to be written. GW2 management really like running an agile ship that can make new content, this design choice is unfeasible.

 

A bit of theory for the next point: There's a razor for categorizing players in a game called the Bartle Taxonomy (Taxonomy means naming convention) that groups players by what drives them, it has 4 main non-exclusive categories (non-exclusive means players can be in more than one category) Achievers, Explorers, Socializers, and Killers. In order the things each category is driven by in GW2 are [100% completion, achievements and collections], [finding secrets in the maps, mechanics or class builds], [experiencing the story and interacting with other players cooperatively], and finally [PvP and WvW].

 

What the GW2 devs have decided was to change their approach on story from the core game to the later Living World updates and the expansions and not force all players to engage with all of the story if they didn't want to and to make content for players to seek that suited their desires. So now the self expression enacted via the narrative is in seeking out cool interactions in the world, like the Dowsing Rod. A trophy item with no use except to trigger a dialog in an NPC on the other side of the world from where you find the item. Your character doesn't need to lead the story, but you as a player get to seek out more of the parts of the story that interest you. And by freezing each LW map in time the devs get to put way more detail in the small areas that can tell small stories without having to remove it next update when the issue a character opines about is now addressed.

 

Another note: the name of the story you're mad you don't have more agency over is no longer "Your Story" but that of the world. It doesn't revolve around you.

 

To your second point, in the story the Commander doesn't actually have any authority to make anything happen they can't do with their own power. They're at the top of the organisation structure of the Pact so no one can tell them no because they are a very effective agent when working without bureaucracy. At this point in the story the guild of Dragon's Watch is just a way for everyone skilled enough to accidentally end the world to let everyone capable of saving it know what mistake they just made. To your complaint that Braham and Taimi should stop doing their nonsense: the player character has tried, the only thing you can do is help them after the die is cast.

 

To your third point on other players breaking your immersion. Sounds like a you problem. The living world maps constantly rattle off the names of factions that have marshalled forces in the area, are the other players not part of those forces? Why does the game have to explicitly address the functional aspect of an MMO for you to be satisfied? If you want an experience like that then MMOs aren't for you, and you'd probably enjoy single player RPGs more. 

 

You may have noticed the responses got shorter with each point, that's cause each point you brought up sounded more foolish than the last, and less of a fault with the game and more an issue you had yourself that you wanted other people to resolve for you than address it yourself.

 

So the only thing I can recommend is that you go play the re-releases of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and play an MMO for the things an MMO is good for.

[Gibson.4036]

Perhaps in all their study, the OP has somehow missed the concept of willing suspension of disbelief?

[undouble.1472]

As a question:  Has ANET welded itself to the idea that ALL characters start out in Tyria, REGARDLESS of race?? While that makes sense in regards to Sylvari?? the rest have existed for HUNDREDS of years AND have managed to expand into EVERY area of the planet-----------thus it appears to me that NEW characters ORIGINATING ANYPLACE BUT the original environment (Kryta, Ascalon, etc----------SHOULD necessesarily BEGIN in their "native" environment (Including the desert). And, in the same manner, should begin at Level 0. This implies that THOSE characters are going to progress in THEIR native areas, while "outlanders" will have their OWN story line independent of the "natives". Of course, as the natives "progress"---they'll WANT to be able to travel and mesh with the overall storyline.

[Bookah pls.9352]

I agree, let's cancel living world stories.

 

That way they can never kill off Taimi like i fear they are gonna.