New expansion ideas

[Randulf.7614]

On 4/17/2024 at 1:03 AM, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

So I just realized that the predominant trees in the forefront of that teaser image are Elonian trees - spotted them in Sandswept Isles, at least.

Which ties in with the Istan / internal name Delta theory.

Dzalana Expanse has been mentioned for the roller beetle skin. I know gem store items aren't always a clue, but they may have seeded a little clue in this instance. And swamps/Heket could make sense.

Can't think of a reason to go there mind you given all the multitude of more important threads to be following

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/get-ready-for-brand-new-beetles-and-boots-in-the-gem-store/

Edited May 6 by Randulf.7614

[AliamRationem.5172]

On 4/8/2024 at 5:13 AM, mercury ranique.2170 said:

I personally would dislike a human god centered episode. The stories so far has been too much human centered anywats. A decission has been made to have 5 sentient playable races with each their own culture and religion. Favoring one before the other is not the right way forward in my opinion and has been done too much allready.

Having said that, I would love to see a forked story with several paths again. So having a storyline that starts with each race in their own culture and dives from there in the theory of all quest of understanding the fabrics of the world, would be awesome imo.

It would give the opportunity to replay the story from the different perspectives as we did with the original personal story

I'd prefer it if they stopped focusing on existential threats from gods/dragons/immortals, etc. and shifted to ordinary antagonists.  If our characters as just ordinary people can do extraordinary things, why is it so difficult for the writers to imagine scenarios where our enemies are capable of the same?  Political intrigue among the (insert favored race here) can make for more interesting and relateable storylines.  For example, I thought season 3 was at its best when we were focusing on the threat Caudecus presented and went off the deep end when we went chasing Gods and ancient immortal beings instead.

As for forked story paths, I don't disagree.  However, that requires far more development resources for the same distance traveled.  They already seem to be struggling both in quantity and quality of story content, as evidenced by frequent complaints in SotO of too much filler and not enough story (complaints I agree with!).  I don't think this would be a good idea.

[Zach.1826]

Maybe something about the origins of the eye of the north? Has that been explained yet?

[mandala.8507]

6 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

For example, I thought season 3 was at its best when we were focusing on the threat Caudecus presented and went off the deep end when we went chasing Gods and ancient immortal beings instead.

But...season 3 was always about the Mursaat and the larger magical ecosystem? The raid story literally teed up bloodstones and crazy magical phenomenon, and that's what the entire story was focused on from the very first moments of the season. What deep end?...like...the depth never changed. That was the story the whole time.

6 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I'd prefer it if they stopped focusing on existential threats from gods/dragons/immortals, etc. and shifted to ordinary antagonists.  If our characters as just ordinary people can do extraordinary things, why is it so difficult for the writers to imagine scenarios where our enemies are capable of the same?  Political intrigue among the (insert favored race here) can make for more interesting and relateable storylines.

Because these storylines are harder to pull off and less popular.

They did exactly this with the Charr in IBS. And in my opinion, they did it wonderfully; but it doesn't matter because most gamers read at like a middle school level and analyze the narrative at an even lower level than that because they don't pay attention half the time.

There's a non-insignificant portion of the gaming community that will never not think "people talking = boring", and unfortunately that makes a narrative rooted solely in grounded political intrigue and character-driven plot practically a non-starter.

If it succeeds, you still barely get as much traction as you would with a mediocre-to-half-decent existential crisis arc.

But if it fails, it fails spectacularly and the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the writers/narrative team.

And from what I've read concerning SotO, the GW2 playerbase clearly doesn't want lower stakes. They feel that the Kryptis are an underwhelming threat and are fed up with demon politics right now. The majority opinion seems to be: "Why are these demons talking when they should be eating my fists? Demons are supposed to be evil."

Is this opinion juvenile and narrow-minded? Absolutely — but that doesn't mean it isn't how players truly feel about the narrative.

[AliamRationem.5172]

12 minutes ago, mandala.8507 said:

But...season 3 was always about the Mursaat and the larger magical ecosystem? The raid story literally teed up bloodstones and crazy magical phenomenon, and that's what the entire story was focused on from the very first moments of the season. What deep end?...like...the depth never changed. That was the story the whole time.

Because these storylines are harder to pull off and less popular.

They did exactly this with the Charr in IBS. And in my opinion, they did it wonderfully; but it doesn't matter because most gamers read at like a middle school level and analyze the narrative at an even lower level than that because they don't pay attention half the time.

There's a non-insignificant portion of the gaming community that will never not think "people talking = boring", and unfortunately that makes a narrative rooted solely in grounded political intrigue and character-driven plot practically a non-starter.

If it succeeds, you still barely get as much traction as you would with a mediocre-to-half-decent existential crisis arc.

But if it fails, it fails spectacularly and the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the writers/narrative team.

And from what I've read concerning SotO, the GW2 playerbase clearly doesn't want lower stakes. They feel that the Kryptis are an underwhelming threat and are fed up with demon politics right now. The majority opinion seems to be: "Why are these demons talking when they should be eating my fists? Demons are supposed to be evil."

Is this opinion juvenile and narrow-minded? Absolutely — but that doesn't mean it isn't how players truly feel about the narrative.

I think most people liked IBS story initially (I thought the Charr politics angle was great).  What they didn't like was the announcement that there would be no future xpac, the lower resource split map releases, and especially Champions once they decided to drop IBS on its head and work on EoD.

LS3 was better in episodes 1-4, where much of it revolved around the white mantle and Caudecus.  I don't think I'm alone in saying that episodes 5 and 6 were comically awful because we didn't need to wrap up some centuries old lady's vengeance quest against an immortal right then (and only gw1 players had any idea what it was even about!).  And wrapping up a season with "this is not the God you are you looking for" wasn't a strong finish.

 

 

[Poormany.4507]

7 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

They did exactly this with the Charr in IBS. And in my opinion, they did it wonderfully; but it doesn't matter because most gamers read at like a middle school level and analyze the narrative at an even lower level than that because they don't pay attention half the time.

There's a non-insignificant portion of the gaming community that will never not think "people talking = boring", and unfortunately that makes a narrative rooted solely in grounded political intrigue and character-driven plot practically a non-starter.

If it succeeds, you still barely get as much traction as you would with a mediocre-to-half-decent existential crisis arc.

But if it fails, it fails spectacularly and the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the writers/narrative team.

And from what I've read concerning SotO, the GW2 playerbase clearly doesn't want lower stakes. They feel that the Kryptis are an underwhelming threat and are fed up with demon politics right now. The majority opinion seems to be: "Why are these demons talking when they should be eating my fists? Demons are supposed to be evil."

Is this opinion juvenile and narrow-minded? Absolutely — but that doesn't mean it isn't how players truly feel about the narrative.

I don't its fair to use IBS and SotO Kryptis storylines as examples of lower stakes storylines not appealing to players. In both cases, a lot of the player disappointment, including my own, is due to their execution, rather than the stories being told. IBS up to Champions (especially Grothmar) is generally praised in the community but then obviously, NCSoft pulled the plug on IBS and it went downhill quickly in terms of gameplay quality and reusing 2012 destroyer models and locations. A lot of the same issues for SotO Kryptis storyline for me - Lot of potential to tell a good storyline with the demons and their society and how it is being trampled under Eparch's out of control hunger/greed, but poorly executed (i.e., filling bars and viewing vistas as part of the main storyline and fighting 2 or 3 enemies at a time during fight quests). I'm guessing the Nayos stuff also got axed in favor of Expac 5, like how IBS got axed for EoD. That said, I do think they can (and should) pull off good non-world ending threat storylines, as they showed with the Caudecus and LWS3 ones, if they can actually get the time/resources to work on it, flesh it out, and deliver it to players in an enjoyable way.

Edited May 7 by Poormany.4507

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

9 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I think most people liked IBS story initially (I thought the Charr politics angle was great).  What they didn't like was the announcement that there would be no future xpac, the lower resource split map releases, and especially Champions once they decided to drop IBS on its head and work on EoD.

There was no announcement of "no future expansion". It was the lack of announcement for an expansion that disappointed people, combined with third party people telephone gaming what ANet said to make IBS sound like it'd be more than what it was planned to be.

And yes, Champions 100% killed a lot of love for IBS. People enjoyed it a lot - even with the split map releases - until Champions.

Same goes for SotO - people enjoy (and enjoyed) base SotO, but haven't enjoyed the quarterly updates because of its lack of quality and quantity, and this sours their whole view on SotO because it came later.

 

There is a saying from a writer that I remember and agree with greatly (paraphrasing): If you have to choose between a bad middle and great end, or a great middle and a bad end, always choose the bad middle. Because it is the beginning that captures people's attention, and the ending that people remember. You can have the best middle in the world, but if you fail to get a good start and a good ending it won't matter, and people will only remember your story for being terrible.

LWS3, IBS, and (so far - we'll see how the last update goes soon) even SotO are all failing this. They had a good start, but their end is bad, and that's what people remember. LWS4 is often praised as the best of GW2 in storyline, and why is this? Because the ending was great. It's middle? Episode 3? That was total kitten quality, especially open world - the only highlight of it is Joko's monologue and not everyone agrees with its quality. Path of Fire is rather curious, because the once you complete the Departing, it's rushed boredom and nearly fell into the same trap LWS3 and IBS hit, but they managed to make the final two instances have an epic feeling as you fight under an Elder Dragon's nose - not like the boredom of Siren's Landing and the awkwardness of the Shining Blade oath that the fight with Lazarus failed to scavenge from.

ANet has a long standing habit of sacrificing the third act for one reason or another, ever since GW2's own initial release with the Zhaitan fight. This tends to hit some sour notes for memory, but usually the last proverbial 5 minutes manage to up the game just enough to be remembered better. Champions failed to do that, so IBS is criticized often. SotO is currently failing to do that, so it's getting criticized.

Its got nothing to do with what those plots were about, but how good or poor the quality of the last experienced parts of those plots is.

 

Also to call IBS a low stakes plot is utter hilarity. The only moment it was low stakes was, arguably, the first half - the praised half that people consider on par to LWS4 as among GW2's best. But Champions - and even Drizzlewood - was by no means low stakes. But you can say the same for LWS3 and LWS4 - fighting the White Mantle and Joko was low stakes, but then the big stakes came in with magical imbalance and Balthazar and Mists-Hopping Kralkatorrik. And nobody calls LWS3 and LWS4 "low stakes". Starting with the second half of LWS3, the plot of GW2 has been "Stop X from doing Y or else the world ends". Stop Balthazar from using the machine to kill Jormag and Primordus or else the world ends. Stop Balthazar from killing Kralkatorrik or else the world ends. Stop Kralkatorrik from eating the Mists or else the world ends. Stop Jormag and Primordus from waking up or else the world ends. Stop the Void from being unleashed or else the world ends. Stop Eparch from invading Tyria or the world ends.

Sure there's additional nuances here and there, but the stakes are always the same. If we don't stop the villain, then the world as we know it will end. It might not blow up, it might just get encased in ice for a few thousand years, or be turned into a demon food storage, but it's still the end of the world. The stakes are still high. Hell, even though the negative outcome is different, the PS and HoT are also high stakes.

Only low stake plotlines we've had was LWS1 and the rather first-half-of-a-story LWS2 (which I can hardly call its own plotline since it's literally just the first half of HoT's plotline, even more so than LWS3 or PoF being first parts of LWS4 plotline).

Edited May 7 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[mandala.8507]

15 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

LS3 was better in episodes 1-4, where much of it revolved around the white mantle and Caudecus.  I don't think I'm alone in saying that episodes 5 and 6 were comically awful because we didn't need to wrap up some centuries old lady's vengeance quest against an immortal right then (and only gw1 players had any idea what it was even about!).  And wrapping up a season with "this is not the God you are you looking for" wasn't a strong finish.

Hard disagree. I think episode 4 is the worst of the living world season 3 releases. And the Commander v. "centuries-old lady" dialogue is pure gold. Episode 5 is by far the fullest and most solid of the season 3 releases too. Draconis Mons is crazy-cool, and the volume and intrigue of the open world storytelling there is unmatched by any of the other episodes in that season.

And I'm not a GW1 player and I wasn't lost in episode 6. Definitely wasn't an issue for me personally, but I understand I engage with the story better than most people.

Spoiler

Do you get the full effect of the Livia reveal if you didn't play GW1? No. But who cares? All we needed to know was that she was some old-bones sorceress with an eternal grudge against Lazarus. The story isn't suddenly bad because you don't have the context of her character from GW1. Kerida was already a fantastically written and voice-acted character in her own right.

Controversial take, but with all the build-up around the Mursaat and the revival of Lazarus from the raid wings (including wing 4) and the majority of living world season 3, it would have been incorrect NOT to actually push that story forward in some way during that season. 

[AliamRationem.5172]

13 minutes ago, mandala.8507 said:

Hard disagree. I think episode 4 is the worst of the living world season 3 releases. And the Commander v. "centuries-old lady" dialogue is pure gold. Episode 5 is by far the fullest and most solid of the season 3 releases too. Draconis Mons is crazy-cool, and the volume and intrigue of the open world storytelling there is unmatched by any of the other episodes in that season.

And I'm not a GW1 player and I wasn't lost in episode 6. Definitely wasn't an issue for me personally, but I understand I engage with the story better than most people.

  Reveal hidden contents

Do you get the full effect of the Livia reveal if you didn't play GW1? No. But who cares? All we needed to know was that she was some old-bones sorceress with an eternal grudge against Lazarus. The story isn't suddenly bad because you don't have the context of her character from GW1. Kerida was already a fantastically written and voice-acted character in her own right.

Controversial take, but with all the build-up around the Mursaat and the revival of Lazarus from the raid wings (including wing 4) and the majority of living world season 3, it would have been incorrect NOT to actually push that story forward in some way during that season. 

Fwiw I agree draconis mons is one of the coolest maps in the game, although I think the event cycle on that map is pretty weak.  

As for the story, that episode is often mentioned as a "wtf?" Moment.  I really don't see what's so great about it.  If they wanted to explore side stories, which Lazarus and crazy lady are, they could have handled that in raids.  

In my opinion, it would have made more sense to flesh out the Caudecus angle more. Instead, as they tend to do, they rushed the conclusion so they could fit in the Lazarus angle and then oddly wrapped up with the PoF story reveal (which made zero sense because Balthazar wasn't exactly hiding himself and shouldn't have been hard to find).

[mandala.8507]

9 hours ago, Poormany.4507 said:

I don't its fair to use IBS and SotO Kryptis storylines as examples of lower stakes storylines not appealing to players.

I do. It's perfectly fair. They tried to execute lower stakes storylines, and guess what? Turns out, it's harder and less popular. 🤷‍♂️You can only say "well, it's just because they didn't try hard enough" so many times.

9 hours ago, Poormany.4507 said:

I'm guessing the Nayos stuff also got axed in favor of Expac 5, like how IBS got axed for EoD.

No, there's just only so many days in a year, and the most important part of the expansion in terms of sales is that initial bulk release, which was very well-received despite all the pearl-clutching over "bad marketing" and "lack of hype" from content creators before it dropped. It's almost like (get this) we don't need to market the expansion to permanently-addicted active players. *gasp*

This format is just fundamentally flawed and there's no way to get enough content volume to fill an entire year AND pull off an impactful first release. They need a longer development cycle and to abandon the quarterly release cadence. Having consistent releases is good in theory, but not if what's most consistent about them is how rushed, low-budget, and empty they are.

They need to only summon us back when they actually have something worth showing off, and if that means longer periods between releases, so be it. That's far superior to releasing obviously padded and artificially-segmented story content to stall for the next frontloaded expansion release.

[mandala.8507]

18 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

In my opinion, it would have made more sense to flesh out the Caudecus angle more. Instead, as they tend to do, they rushed the conclusion so they could fit in the Lazarus angle and then oddly wrapped up with the PoF story reveal (which made zero sense because Balthazar wasn't exactly hiding himself and shouldn't have been hard to find).

Caudecus is boring. He's at best a caricature of a villain that would be interesting enough to truly care about. He's a wannabe tyrant who was never actually that clever or conniving, just blatantly malicious and narcissistic. I've never found him compelling as as a character, if I'm being honest. The events happening around him are compelling, but he's a lackluster vehicle for them.

[AliamRationem.5172]

2 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

Caudecus is boring. He's at best a caricature of a villain that would be interesting enough to truly care about. He's a wannabe tyrant who was never actually that clever or conniving, just blatantly malicious and narcissistic. I've never found him compelling as as a character, if I'm being honest. The events happening around him are compelling, but he's a lackluster vehicle for them.

Yeah, same with Joko.  But they and the events surrounding them were a kitten sight better than immortal mursaat and yet another stupid dragon.

[AliamRationem.5172]

3 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

I do. It's perfectly fair. They tried to execute lower stakes storylines, and guess what? Turns out, it's harder and less popular. 🤷‍♂️You can only say "well, it's just because they didn't try hard enough" so many times.

No, there's just only so many days in a year, and the most important part of the expansion in terms of sales is that initial bulk release, which was very well-received despite all the pearl-clutching over "bad marketing" and "lack of hype" from content creators before it dropped. It's almost like (get this) we don't need to market the expansion to permanently-addicted active players. *gasp*

This format is just fundamentally flawed and there's no way to get enough content volume to fill an entire year AND pull off an impactful first release. They need a longer development cycle and to abandon the quarterly release cadence. Having consistent releases is good in theory, but not if what's most consistent about them is how rushed, low-budget, and empty they are.

They need to only summon us back when they actually have something worth showing off, and if that means longer periods between releases, so be it. That's far superior to releasing obviously padded and artificially-segmented story content to stall for the next frontloaded expansion release.

It's your opinion that the reason IBS was unpopular is because it initially focused on Charr politics.  I suspect that had nothing to do with it.  In fact, I think that was where most players would agree it got off to a strong start compared to most story content in this game.  It was specifically the Champions part which dealt with the usual elder dragon nonsense that everyone hated, although I wouldn't say they hated it because of the elder dragons specifically.

I agree that these rushed, bite-size content releases aren't working.  However, the past has proven that long content droughts aren't popular either.

[mandala.8507]

1 hour ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Yeah, same with Joko. 

Nope, Joko is funny and is an entirely different kind of villain than Caudecus. He's not a wannabe tyrant, he's a real one who raised an entire society of people from the dead. Not the same at all. He's supposed to be grating and seemingly buffoonish. It's what gives his character depth and personality. I disagree that they are the same.

1 hour ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

yet another stupid dragon.

58 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

the usual elder dragon nonsense that everyone hated

I mean...yeah. That's kind of the narrative of GW2...dragons. It's like,...this game's "thing".

I don't hate the dragons. I've like all the dragons. I could use a little more dragon, honestly...in some form. The place feels a bit less colorful without them, tbh.

1 hour ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

It's your opinion that the reason IBS was unpopular is because it initially focused on Charr politics. 

And no, I don't think the focus on Charr politics is THE REASON why IBS was unpopular, but it's clear to me that they did a great job with it (Charr politics), and it's also clear to me that if it was actually popular enough to keep the playerbase interested, then they wouldn't have hard-pivoted to EoD instead of closing it up more cleanly.

There's also a chance the pivot had nothing to do with IBS tho, and that the studio was just told, "hey, we've secured the bag for Cantha, but the condition is that you start right away. Can you do that?" And leadership was like, "Uhhhh...I guess so?"

But I think it's hindsight bias to say it was only unpopular because of Champions. I think Champions was a symptom, not a cause. We would've never had to have Champions if the Saga was working.

[mandala.8507]

That spear is very Kodan-coded.

I can't lie, I'm excited.