The "What Lies Within" Story was ...

[JTGuevara.9018]

17 hours ago, enigmatic.3576 said:

I'm confused about this part of your post.  I've played since launch and do not recall this ever; it's the first time that I have heard of this.  Most complaints tended to start with the release of HoT and many didn't like the direction of difficulty that the game was moving towards.

You've likely never played the original living world season 1. The original season 1 had live episode releases every two weeks. Each episode was released for a two-week period. If you missed an episode, you missed an episode! No ifs, ands or buts. That episode is gone forever. Of course, now we have the original season 1 in the usual story journal format, which is the way it should have been in the first place.

 

44 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

I'm sure this will come down to agree to disagree, but I can assure you, complaints about LS1 durin g that year were extremely loud, extremely vocal and extremely widespread. Yes a few people liked it, but even many of those have admitted they felt like a minority. Not being able to keep up was a massive complaint.

The CDI was an attempt to heal the rift and improve on what was generally considered a disastrous year for the game and find out what players really wanted (which I stated above - please don't cut quotes out of context and reply in isolation, I did mention the CDI) which got worse with the SAB 2 release and the change in communication policy. LS1 was so vocally poorly received, that even a couple of the devs voiced their own disaplease (if memory serves it was the dungeon team who were upset their dungeons were in for a month and then removed) . The CDI stabilisied things for sure, but the rift has never fully healed. You can trace the origins of the reduced interactions in the forum by Anet to the backlash to LS1.

LS1 was and will likely always be, the single biggest disaster in the game. One which they learned from thankfully

People can disagree all they want. All that really means is they weren't there. I was. You were. We know.

Of course, I missed the first half of the original season 1 since as a new player, I was too busy leveling characters.

[Randulf.7614]

8 minutes ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

You've likely never played the original living world season 1. The original season 1 had live episode releases every two weeks. Each episode was released for a two-week period. If you missed an episode, you missed an episode! No ifs, ands or buts. That episode is gone forever. Of course, now we have the original season 1 in the usual story journal format, which is the way it should have been in the first place.

 

People can disagree all they want. All that really means is they weren't there. I was. You were. We know.

Of course, I missed the first half of the original season 1 since as a new player, I was too busy leveling characters.

You missed the fence building!!

Also, you missed ancient Karka. Which could have been good, but frame rates were in minus figures. Lots of precursors from it though

[JTGuevara.9018]

25 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

You missed the fence building!!

Also, you missed ancient Karka. Which could have been good, but frame rates were in minus figures. Lots of precursors from it though

Yup, I know...

I've heard about the Lost Shores event and its infamous precursor drops. It's the stuff of legend...(that's not a pun!)

[Zok.4956]

30 minutes ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

Of course, now we have the original season 1 in the usual story journal format

No, it is not the original season 1. It is a remake/restoration of parts of S1 pressed in story format form. Maybe you don't care but it is a big difference. At least it is for me.

 

33 minutes ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

People can disagree all they want. All that really means is they weren't there.

This is a derogatory and false statement to those who do not share your view of the world.

 

35 minutes ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

I was. You were. We know.

"We"? Do you speak for the community? I don't think so. Or is that supposed to make your statement seem more important?

 

[Randulf.7614]

Less not get off topic and into semantics please 😉

Edited May 31, 2023 by Randulf.7614

[JTGuevara.9018]

8 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

No, it is not the original season 1. It is a remake/restoration of parts of S1 pressed in story format form. Maybe you don't care but it is a big difference. At least it is for me.

Then what is it? Season 1.5? Come on man, it's season 1. Sure it's condensed from the original live release, but it's still season 1. I will give, I probably would care about subtle differences if I did not miss in the first place. Oh well...my fault!

8 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

This is a derogatory and false statement to those who do not share your view of the world.

Evidence?

8 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

"We"? Do you speak for the community? I don't think so. Or is that supposed to make your statement seem more important?

 

I could ask the same of you...

[Zok.4956]

4 minutes ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

Then what is it? Season 1.5? Come on man, it's season 1. Sure it's condensed from the original live release, but it's still season 1.

As I wrote it is a restoration/remake version of s1 compressed for story format. It's condensed and instanced, with minor changes, and feels different (to me at least) than the original back then.

And the Canach/Southsun part is not included.

It is probably the best they could make and I am not complaining (I was really happy to visit old LA again) , but it is not the same.

 

10 minutes ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

Evidence?

I was there and I don't share your opinion.

 

10 minutes ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

I could ask the same of you...

Yes, you could. And if you would I would reply that I don't use "we" and only speak for myself.

[Farohna.6247]

On 5/30/2023 at 5:47 AM, Danikat.8537 said:

Honestly my only complaint with the whole storyline is how short it was, especially knowing this is the end of it and we'll be going on to something else later. I thought it was an interesting premise and would have liked to see more of it. Kanaxi always felt underused in GW1, being relegated to one optional side-mission a lot of players would never do and I thought this would be an opportunity to explore that aspect of the lore in more detail.

How short it was stood out especially since one point raised in this story is that the Commander has spent a decade rushing from one crisis to the next and rarely had time to deal with everything that happened properly. It was odd to have that raised by the characters as a problem only for us to do exactly the same thing again. (Although maybe that will come up at some point in the future - the Commander is acknowledging the issue but then not doing anything about it.)

On that note my favourite part was my character getting to revisit their feelings about Vlast. That's another arc I thought was cut short too soon (although in a way that's why it had an impact on me) and it was nice to finally get some resolution there. I especially liked Taimi's comment that in a way death freed him from his destiny, while also seeing it fulfilled so it was the nearest to a success for everyone he could get.

I know I'm in the minority here by not wanting all the storylines to be combat focused all the time, but I genuinely thought this one was interesting and I'd like it if future stories can include more opportunities to discuss and process what happened and tie up the loose ends even if that doesn't mean another boss fight.

I agree, my only real issue would be that it's too short.  Since it's a chapter, I don't find that a huge, catastrophic problem.  I still feel like it wrapped up so neatly and easily, that I find it foreboding.  Like a little bandage on a bigger problem that is festering while we are congratulating ourselves.  Or maybe I would just really like that to be the case. 

Also I liked the dinner date, it was fun and sweet.  Just friends helping each other out in a non battle/crisis situation.  

[enigmatic.3576]

9 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

It's widely reported LS1 did incredible damage to the game, scaring off a lot of players who couldn't keep up with the schedule before content disappeared and the remaining population getting annoyed with how little substance and story there was. Things were so bad, the dev teams had to reassure the playerbase there was an endgame and did note the direction wasnt working and changed course. It began a schism between dev and community that has never completely healed. Which I think shocked them given the wave of goodwill they rode into GW2 with from GW1

I have never seen a part of the game with more complaints than LS1 - even HoT which at least had a lot of priase to balance out those who hated it. I highly doubt HoT caused more complaints and leavers for them than LS1 did, although I can only speak anecdotally

I am suprised you have never heard complaints about LS1 being devastating to the game. It was a huge discussion point for years and helped drive the community collaboration feedback forum post LS1 which led to many ideas being added into what later became Heart of Thorns (eg masteries)

I never said that there were no complaints as I was responding to that one specific sentence where they used a gross exaggeration about LS1.  I remember the LS1 complaints but nothing on the level of the game being decimated.

[enigmatic.3576]

7 hours ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

You've likely never played the original living world season 1. The original season 1 had live episode releases every two weeks. Each episode was released for a two-week period. If you missed an episode, you missed an episode! No ifs, ands or buts. That episode is gone forever. Of course, now we have the original season 1 in the usual story journal format, which is the way it should have been in the first place.

 

People can disagree all they want. All that really means is they weren't there. I was. You were. We know.

Of course, I missed the first half of the original season 1 since as a new player, I was too busy leveling characters.

Just because I disagree with your gross exaggeration, does not mean that I did not play LS1.  I even mentioned that I have played since launch.  

[Mysty Meadows.1425]

Sooooo LW in w/e form will continue?

[vrauns.3215]

On 5/31/2023 at 1:38 PM, Randulf.7614 said:

I'm sure this will come down to agree to disagree, but I can assure you, complaints about LS1 durin g that year were extremely loud, extremely vocal and extremely widespread. Yes a few people liked it, but even many of those have admitted they felt like a minority. Not being able to keep up was a massive complaint.

The CDI was an attempt to heal the rift and improve on what was generally considered a disastrous year for the game and find out what players really wanted (which I stated above - please don't cut quotes out of context and reply in isolation, I did mention the CDI) which got worse with the SAB 2 release and the change in communication policy. LS1 was so vocally poorly received, that even a couple of the devs voiced their own disaplease (if memory serves it was the dungeon team who were upset their dungeons were in for a month and then removed) . The CDI stabilisied things for sure, but the rift has never fully healed. You can trace the origins of the reduced interactions in the forum by Anet to the backlash to LS1.

LS1 was and will likely always be, the single biggest disaster in the game. One which they learned from thankfully

This is not fair, lws1 came out a long time ago, they were just getting started in gw2 with this story after the personal story was finished, characters were not developed yet, the players who were their didn't know the characters well at all and you said they learned, of course they did, personally, lws1 isn't bad at all, but its not fair to judge them on their early days of course if you don't like the story, fine but it wasn't a disaster, it was completely different back then.

Edited June 2, 2023 by TheRunningSquire.3621

[draxynnic.3719]

Storywise, this is probably the lowest point since LS1. Seriously, all the fetch and go-to-location-to-talk quests? It was about two hours of content and I think I used the Arborstone portal scroll half a dozen times, let alone other fast travel options. Far too much of it was just running from A to B.

As for LS1:

Don't know about the player base at large, but I can say that the lore community that had been building up through GW1 basically collapsed during LS1. One of them made a fairly public statement that went along the lines of 'if ArenaNet doesn't care about their lore, I won't either'.

You won't see the people who quit back then commenting because, well... They're long gone now.

On 6/1/2023 at 5:08 AM, JTGuevara.9018 said:

Yup, I know...

I've heard about the Lost Shores event and its infamous precursor drops. It's the stuff of legend...(that's not a pun!)

Oh, yeah, Lost Shores was particularly bad. There was content that required being there at a specific time. Live in a timezone where that clashes with work/education, either directly or with the sleep time you need for it? Sucks to be you. There was also content that was only available for 24 hours but was also prone to bugging out. Didn't manage to get to it in one of the narrow windows when it was actually working? Sucks to be you again!

[Zok.4956]

51 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Don't know about the player base at large, but I can say that the lore community that had been building up through GW1 basically collapsed during LS1. One of them made a fairly public statement that went along the lines of 'if ArenaNet doesn't care about their lore, I won't either'.

I remember a lot of criticism from GW1 veterans back when GW2 was relatively new. As a non-GW1 player, the main criticism seemed to me to be based on the fact that GW2 was very different from the beloved GW1 and wasn't primarily about Season 1.

BTW: Calling the predecessor of GW2  "Guild Wars 1" was already a sacrilege for some vets. It was just "Guild Wars" back then. 😉

 

59 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

You won't see the people who quit back then commenting because, well... They're long gone now.

Agreed.

[Urud.4925]

I expected some hidden achievement for jumping naked on the tables of the Tea House. But Min told me that I was very well dressed. Be careful Rama!

[Logos.5603]

I really think they should've skipped this whole mini-story arc and instead went back and improved/modernized some of the older content (e.g., dungeons, some bosses, etc.) and promoted the hell out of that with new rewards, skins, etc.

My fear is that the game is resembling more and more a mobile game where the story becomes minimal, and the purpose of any additions is short-term profit gains with minor mechanics and improvements in gameplay.

As for the GW lore...well the lore in this game has always been pretty thin and uninteresting. Most of the world is just unexplained and open for speculation by the community. Some of the actual important lore suggests in-world contradictions that make no sense (e.g., the nature of the ley lines and the void for example).

I enjoyed LS1 when it came out (thought the way the released the episodes was just disrespectful to their consumers' time and wallet). I thought Scarlett was a good villain. It is a tragic story about searching for truth,  self-determination and freedom that perhaps should've gone much more darker than it did. I think they didn't do much with the tragedy aspect of her story (which was the CORE aspect of her story).

[Ashen.2907]

On 5/31/2023 at 12:49 PM, Zok.4956 said:

As I wrote it is a restoration/remake version of s1 compressed for story format. It's condensed and instanced, with minor changes, and feels different (to me at least) than the original back then.

And the Canach/Southsun part is not included.

It is probably the best they could make and I am not complaining (I was really happy to visit old LA again) , but it is not the same.

 

I was there and I don't share your opinion.

 

Yes, you could. And if you would I would reply that I don't use "we" and only speak for myself.

He used, "we," after listing two people that shared the same perception of events. We is the appropriate word when referencing more than one person. 

[JTGuevara.9018]

On 6/2/2023 at 12:39 PM, draxynnic.3719 said:

Storywise, this is probably the lowest point since LS1. Seriously, all the fetch and go-to-location-to-talk quests? It was about two hours of content and I think I used the Arborstone portal scroll half a dozen times, let alone other fast travel options. Far too much of it was just running from A to B.

As for LS1:

Don't know about the player base at large, but I can say that the lore community that had been building up through GW1 basically collapsed during LS1. One of them made a fairly public statement that went along the lines of 'if ArenaNet doesn't care about their lore, I won't either'.

You won't see the people who quit back then commenting because, well... They're long gone now.

I had no idea about the lore communities basically calling for rebellion that early. When I first played back at release, I barely posted that much here since I was too busy exploring this game. Not much of a surprise, Scarlet basically blew up the narrative. She was so badly introduced (along with the main character's initial companions). Nowadays, season 1 is what should've been done the first time.

On 6/2/2023 at 12:39 PM, draxynnic.3719 said:

Oh, yeah, Lost Shores was particularly bad. There was content that required being there at a specific time. Live in a timezone where that clashes with work/education, either directly or with the sleep time you need for it? Sucks to be you. There was also content that was only available for 24 hours but was also prone to bugging out. Didn't manage to get to it in one of the narrow windows when it was actually working? Sucks to be you again!

Oh well! Mistakes were made, right!? I've heard legends (not a pun..) about precursor goodies dropping like candy! I mean, the term loot piñatas for bosses doesn't come out of nowhere right?!

gw2 basically did for season 1 what Fortnite and all these online games do these days with live events. If you missed it, as you said, 'Sucks to be you!'

[voltaicbore.8012]

On 5/31/2023 at 6:08 PM, Farohna.6247 said:

Also I liked the dinner date, it was fun and sweet.  Just friends helping each other out in a non battle/crisis situation.  

I liked it as well, I firmly believe games can do well by stepping outside of the "we only express story progression through combat" box.

My only gripe with the date was that it wasn't enough to prop up such a short and thin release. The date itself was fine, I thought.

[Tom.6478]

I don't know, this may be an unpopular opinion. I don't care about the story. I would like to, but going all the way back to GW1, there were just too many characters and story lines for me to want to keep track of it all. It's almost like a soap opera.

No doubt, some have taken the time and effort to understand it all...and enjoy it. Good for them.

When a new story comes out, all I think about is new rewards and/or achievements. Basically, I just want some new things to do.

Give me that, and I'm happy.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 6/3/2023 at 3:49 AM, Zok.4956 said:

I remember a lot of criticism from GW1 veterans back when GW2 was relatively new. As a non-GW1 player, the main criticism seemed to me to be based on the fact that GW2 was very different from the beloved GW1 and wasn't primarily about Season 1.

BTW: Calling the predecessor of GW2  "Guild Wars 1" was already a sacrilege for some vets. It was just "Guild Wars" back then. 😉

 

Agreed.

There was a bit of that too, but that wasn't the cause of what I was referring to. Many people had dived deep into the early GW2 lore when it came out, but the Scarlet arc basically felt like it was overturning a lot of even that to the degree that she was feeling like a Villain Sue. One of the final straws for at least one person was the Toxic Alliance, since all the krait lore before that indicated that they were arrogant bigots who thought that land-dwellers were neither a threat to them nor something that was useful to them as anything other than sacrifices. Meanwhile, one of the defining moments of the formation of the Nightmare Court was Cadeyrne being told that he couldn't murder a nest of baby krait because all life deserves a chance to grow, however likely it was that they'd grow up to harm more sylvari in the future.

So even if the krait did feel that something was worth making an alliance over, the motivations of the Nightmare Court should have caused them to refuse. But Scarlet waved a macguffin and it happened anyway.

9 hours ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

I had no idea about the lore communities basically calling for rebellion that early. When I first played back at release, I barely posted that much here since I was too busy exploring this game. Not much of a surprise, Scarlet basically blew up the narrative. She was so badly introduced (along with the main character's initial companions). Nowadays, season 1 is what should've been done the first time.

Oh well! Mistakes were made, right!? I've heard legends (not a pun..) about precursor goodies dropping like candy! I mean, the term loot piñatas for bosses doesn't come out of nowhere right?!

gw2 basically did for season 1 what Fortnite and all these online games do these days with live events. If you missed it, as you said, 'Sucks to be you!'

I managed to make it to the Ancient Karka because I didn't have anything that morning where lack of sleep was going to be a major issue - but I didn't make it to the one-offs the two mornings before because I was busy those days.

I think the precursor legends came about because the Ancient Karka event guaranteed a level 80 exotic item as a reward. With that many level 80 exotics dropping, there were going to be a few precursors. I didn't get one, but I did get a berserker's sword of force out of it, which was pretty good at the time.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

spoilers for personal story and living world season 1

the feedback for the first living world season was very negative in general because for all intents and purposes, they had abandoned the dragon storyline while players were fresh off their first dragon kill. we then got several years of almost nothing related to the dragons since the reveal happened only at the end, with many more lore connections being rectonned into the game when the story was brought back.

 

its ironic that, a decade later, players became so upset at how long the dragons storyline had gone on for, when originally it was abandoning it that the developers were critisised for.

 

i still remember everyone's excitement when the pact airship and laranthir showed up in ruined lion's arch.

Edited June 4, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[draxynnic.3719]

There were some pretty strong hints from around when we had the marionette. Not to mention indications that Scarlet had already been acting against the Pact enough that the Pact's "not dragon-related, not our business" policy felt like yet another idiot ball in the season.

[Talan Ondar.4150]

Hello!

I had/have mixed feelings too. The endless meta with the same mechanics ever and ever. Missed the important end dialog in my 1st playthrough. Liked the end dinner. REALLY liked the "looking back" collection. Interaction with NPCs is something i enjoy. But i am an Roleplayer, i guess 🙂 What i like too was the size of the storychunks the devs gave us. So i look forward to the new expansion and hope we will go in a entirely new territory.

Have fun, all!

[draxynnic.3719]

Second playthrough (normally I'd probably be on 3-4 by now): Ack, they don't even let you shortcut the crates instance by going straight to the correct crate. It's fixed so it takes four crates regardless.

At least the warding ritual book doesn't move...