What would be interesting

[Ayakaru.6583]

For a truly living world, sometime now, we get a current event of a small map.

On it, a small town. We get to meet all the people in there, do some hearts, etc.

Then at some point *we leave for a little while*, and then the actual season map comes, and overlaps it.

The town now ravaged by the plague.

 

I doubt something like this would happen, but i generally think it would be nicer than the plague hitting something random that we've never seen before.

 

[Linken.6345]

Kinda asking for what they did in living world season 1 here it seems.

Its cool and all but not good for people who aint playing at the time just missing even more parts of the story the more it goes on mate.

This is why they changed it in part the other part is that it aint sustainable to do content that then get removed litteraly wasting that time spent to do that content in the eyes of future players.

[Ayakaru.6583]

> @"Linken.6345" said:

> Kinda asking for what they did in living world season 1 here it seems.

> Its cool and all but not good for people who aint playing at the time just missing even more parts of the story the more it goes on mate.

> This is why they changed it in part the other part is that it aint sustainable to do content that then get removed litteraly wasting that time spent to do that content in the eyes of future players.

 

But can't they do phasing?

The pre-ravaged map appears when you have LWS4E3 or earlier active (or last active when none is active) and the post-ravaged map appears when LWS4E4 or later is active.

That way everyone can experience both versions of the map at a time they get through the story?

[joneirikb.7506]

This is basically what they tried to go for with Living World Season 1 yeah, cool idea, didn't work so well in practice. Still remember all the changes to Kessex Hills, with the Toxic Tower and what not, it was fun, but I'll never be able to get back to that tower again.

 

They technically could split maps (for example a pre-scarlet LA map and a post-scarlet LA map, boy am I going to catch flak for mentioning that). But there wouldn't be much point, and the main thing it would accomplish is splitting the userbase, something ANet has shown that they're not very fond of doing.

 

---

 

Personally I'd like to rather see them expand further on the idea of Event-Chains, like the Centaur chain in Kessex Hills for example. And make some even larger chains that takes a lot of time (perhaps an entire day) with multiple parts, that will make stronger changes on the map. Basically just like they promised before launch ;)

 

I want to be able to enter a map and see that the centaurs have indeed battled back all the humans, until a last (very crowded) fort at a map edge. And then being able to do 1-3 different events to break out, and start working at different parts of clearing off and fighting back the centaurs, until eventually they're in a last stronghold that keeps spawning so much centaurs that you can't get rid of them.

 

Basically I want event chains that are big/long enough that you can't finish them quickly (like the current Kessex centaur meta is 10-15 min tops), that actually changes the map (centaurs got all the positions, or humans take them back). That similarly last long enough that you can come in many hours later, and see centaurs still working on expanding.

 

/rant

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"Ayakaru.6583" said:

> But can't they do phasing?

 

Phasing doesn't work very well in GW2 because it splits the community and large world events require lots of players to be viable. Unless the pre-destruction map is a solo map and the after-destruction map is an open world map, this won't work. But that's why we get story instances, the story instance shows the pre-destruction map and then you move to the "real map".

[Samnang.1879]

i like this idea. it's sort of like the destruction of LA... it makes it realistic

[IndigoSundown.5419]

There is a way to make something like the OP suggests happen without phasing.

 

* Design a town as part of a LS map Episode (S4, Episode 4, for example).

* Use the instancing tech to spawn off an instance of the town as part of the prior episode (S4 Episode 3; again for example, I know it's probably too late to do this now).

* During Episode 3, the character gets to see the "normal" town, and meet some of the people there as part of the story.

* Revisit the instanced town in crisis during the beginning of the next Episode. See the changes brought by the crisis and help do something for the people.

* After the intro chapter, go to the new map where the town has been put mostly to rights, but the ongoing effects of the story are felt in the rest of the map.

 

The "normal" town intro and the crisis are both story steps, in instances. Latecomers can experience the sequence at their leisure. Some NPC's on the map could even be programmed to react to the commander.

 

Maybe too much work? I don't know, but it would allow for change to be felt while still preserving the experience for those who don't play it immediately.

[Healix.5819]

> @"Ayakaru.6583" said:

> But can't they do phasing?

 

Back when ArenaNet was first talking about creating a living world, phasing was just starting to be used and ArenaNet didn't like it. They wanted to create a truly living world that played out for everyone, just like the real world. Back then, phasing had problems, such as not being able to play with your friends, but the much bigger problem with ArenaNet's method was that it was temporary. The funny thing is, GW2 wanted a living world, but it's now stuck in time and they're relying on the old method - expansions, whereas the MMOs that went with phasing have worlds that change as you play through them. It's really the only way to do it, otherwise they're only wasting content, whereas the season 1 method should be used for repeating events, like having Scarlet attack LA every few years.

 

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> Phasing doesn't work very well in GW2 because it splits the community and large world events require lots of players to be viable.

 

If ArenaNet was going to do phasing, they'd likely do it the easiest way and have 2 different maps that you could toggle between. There's no problem with splitting the community, since it'd be no different from what they're already doing. Even if they did phased areas, it wouldn't be a problem since larger events practically require LFG anyways, which would put you in the group's phase.

[Ayakaru.6583]

> @"IndigoSundown.5419" said:

> There is a way to make something like the OP suggests happen without phasing.

>

> * Design a town as part of a LS map Episode (S4, Episode 4, for example).

> * Use the instancing tech to spawn off an instance of the town as part of the prior episode (S4 Episode 3; again for example, I know it's probably too late to do this now).

> * During Episode 3, the character gets to see the "normal" town, and meet some of the people there as part of the story.

> * Revisit the instanced town in crisis during the beginning of the next Episode. See the changes brought by the crisis and help do something for the people.

> * After the intro chapter, go to the new map where the town has been put mostly to rights, but the ongoing effects of the story are felt in the rest of the map.

>

> The "normal" town intro and the crisis are both story steps, in instances. Latecomers can experience the sequence at their leisure. Some NPC's on the map could even be programmed to react to the commander.

>

> Maybe too much work? I don't know, but it would allow for change to be felt while still preserving the experience for those who don't play it immediately.

 

Isn't this essentially what they did for chapter 2?

By tying several story instances back to back we don't get to see the actual map until right before the attack on .. what's it called again? Rata Primus?

[Donari.5237]

They did this with the town in Dry Top. We had it as an intact town for two weeks, then the mordrem attack on the town happened, and ever since it's been in a ruined state. But the initial story that takes you there still assumes it's a thriving town in terms of NPC dialogue and ignoring attack events, which is jarring.

 

Since then they've said they don't want to do a lot of work on assets that won't be around for very long, especially given the player feedback of dismay at having missed content due to RL issues such as deployment, illness, etc. And they've never wanted to separate the player population out between phased alternative versions of maps.