Evaluating the Living Story

That's why ArenaNet removes old content. If we could still do Crown Pavilion, Tower of Nightmares, hourly invasions, Twisted Marionette, and every other big, open-world event that's been trotted out over the last year, the player base would be spread too thin. Like the Pavilion a mere two weeks after it came out, there wouldn't be enough people to progress and make the content enjoyable. That's less of a concern for limited-group, “closed-off” content, like dungeons and Fractals, but as long as ArenaNet wants GW2 to be about big, open-world/open-zone events – and you could argue about that approach, but it's not likely to change – this is how it has to be. There's no other way to run all that stuff and have it be properly populated, all the time.

Still, ArenaNet could do more to make “old” content available and should definitely implement more permanent, small-group content. Re-introducing some of it through Fractals is a good start, but that doesn't help people who missed out on the story and might wonder what's going on and why. The atlas seems like a step in that direction, but I'd like to see some sort of in-game element – maybe a cut scene viewer? – to keep people informed.

3) The story itself 

Why it was good

The “story” part of the Living Story picked up where the Personal Story left off. It tied diverse elements together and presented a narrative that gave players reasons to do what they did. It introduced several new characters that are now arguably more popular than the “original” key characters of Destiny's Edge, and gave us a more “accessible” villain in Scarlet Briar than the original big baddie, Zhaitan.

Why it was bad

Sorry, did I mention Scarlet Briar? It seems like half the GW2 fan base considers her a delightfully unpredictable scamp while the other half considers her the ultimate deus ex machina, able to break lore and do whatever she wants because the devs say so. Apart from her, the story has been criticized for its simplicity and randomness, with how various villain groups have been haphazardly shoehorned together.

My take

First: Scarlet Briar. I don't mind the notion of a Joker-esque “crazy villain,” but she needs a reason for her craziness and why she does what she does. Just doing stuff “because she's crazy” gets old after a while. In the past few updates, we've finally started to glimpse her true purpose, but clues could have been dropped much earlier so players wouldn't have gotten bored as quickly with her escapades.

Speaking of the length... keep in mind we've been on this story arc for 14 months, across 25 (as of Tuesday) updates. That's a long time to try and hold people's attention, and a long time to keep all your story elements in place and working toward a conclusion. Does anyone have any more than vague memories of when the Charr and Norn were driven out by the Molten Alliance a year ago? I'd shorten the length of the next Living Story, maybe letting it just run eight or nine months, to the end of the year.

Finally, a few more unpredictable twists and turns – something more than just “here's the weird stuff that's going on this month” – would have also contributed to a fuller, richer story. A little more ambiguity between heroes and villains might also help. For example, I think there's something brewing with Ellen Kiel, who seems to be letting the authority vested in her go to her head a wee bit too much. How neat would it be if the “good” person we elected to the Captain's Council turned out to actually be “bad” and we had to take her down – with the help of Evon Gnashblade, of course, the unscrupulous merchant whose heart is turned to gold by the selfless acts of Heal-o-Tron? Now that's a story I'd like to see.

Well, there's always next season!