GW2 Needs Living Story Recaps

[Dahkeus.8243]

I came across an article on Massively.com recently which I think makes a really good point.

 

Full article here: https://massivelyop.com/2019/07/09/flameseeker-chronicles-guild-wars-2s-living-world-is-a-barrier-to-entry/

Tl;dr for article: The living story makes it hard for new players to get into GW2 because they start in the middle of a big, expansive story and it's hard to make sense of it all.

 

Personally, I've played GW2 since beta and have never missed a living story update. However, I can imagine that this is a pain for new players to make sense of. I mean, one of the reason I never got into comic books was that it was too much of a pain to make sense of the story arc when it's divided between a bunch of small issues, many of which have been published long ago.

 

So, I think ANet should consider two main ways to address this:

1) Create an intro cutscene for players once they hit 80. At the very least, it should give a recap of Season 1 since that's not replayable.

2) Whenever a player starts a new living story, they should give a prompt with the option to give them a recap of prior seasons. This could be like the dialogue boxes that are used for things like the portal scrolls where the player can watch a recap of any living story for any season before the one they're starting based on the selection. Not only would this help new players, but it would be a nice reminder of what's happened for current players that want a refresher on what happened in the last update.

[Poormany.4507]

> @"Dahkeus.8243" said:

 

> So, I think ANet should consider two main ways to address this:

> 1) Create an intro cutscene for players once they hit 80. At the very least, it should give a recap of Season 1 since that's not replayable.

> 2) Whenever a player starts a new living story, they should give a prompt with the option to give them a recap of prior seasons. This could be like the dialogue boxes that are used for things like the portal scrolls where the player can watch a recap of any living story for any season before the one they're starting based on the selection. Not only would this help new players, but it would be a nice reminder of what's happened for current players that want a refresher on what happened in the last update.

 

1 - Already exists in game from Ela Makkay at the end of the personal story (although I would like to have a more in depth recap and/or playthrough of LWS1 events than the current one)

2 - Seems like this would reduce demand for buying/playing through with another player the previous LW seasons and thus doesn't seem worth it for Anet to do. Less gem bought LW episodes would mean less money for Anet, so I find recaps of unplayed episodes very unlikely to happen, also since recaps already exist in the Story Journal for played episodes.

[zealex.9410]

I actually like the idea of having lw and expacs be self contained content, the way lw is set up rn its kinda meh for new players starting with an expansion to get a good grasp at the story.

 

Ff14 atm is having the same problem altho much more severe and the devs have said they are aware and will do smth about it but due to constrains (shb) they didnt have the time. If you ask gw2 devs about the answer would be "heh sucks to be you", ofc im not being serious but in a story based mmo where story updates are the main content telling ppl u cant experience the start of the whole story and nothing will be done about it is laughable.

 

I recently suggested doing what ESO did for its dlc, introduce an optional gem sub which for as long as you are subbed you get access to any lw episodes u dont have unlocked.

 

This would make the new players entry point at least (i dont see a fix to the xontent wall to reach current story) be as easy as buying one month of sub and playing the story without really spending gems to buy the story or farming gold for it.

 

First point exist but the second could be a fine solution to the content wall if ppl want to get to the current stuff and still have a general idea without putting possibly hundreds of hours into lw.

[zealex.9410]

> @"Poormany.4507" said:

> > @"Dahkeus.8243" said:

>

> > So, I think ANet should consider two main ways to address this:

> > 1) Create an intro cutscene for players once they hit 80. At the very least, it should give a recap of Season 1 since that's not replayable.

> > 2) Whenever a player starts a new living story, they should give a prompt with the option to give them a recap of prior seasons. This could be like the dialogue boxes that are used for things like the portal scrolls where the player can watch a recap of any living story for any season before the one they're starting based on the selection. Not only would this help new players, but it would be a nice reminder of what's happened for current players that want a refresher on what happened in the last update.

>

> 1 - Already exists in game from Ela Makkay at the end of the personal story (although I would like to have a more in depth recap and/or playthrough of LWS1 events than the current one)

> 2 - Seems like this would reduce demand for buying/playing through with another player the previous LW seasons and thus doesn't seem worth it for Anet to do. Less gem bought LW episodes would mean less money for Anet, so I find recaps of unplayed episodes very unlikely to happen, also since recaps already exist in the Story Journal for played episodes.

 

I doubt anet makes much from lw purchases and theres ppl which drop the game because of the amount of content they have to play/buy just to get tot he expac they bought and feel like the setting makes sense. Having season recaps makes perfect sense as well as a having better deals of getting access to lw to entice ppl to actually get it and play it rather than settling for the recaps.

[mindcircus.1506]

> @"Dahkeus.8243" said:

> 1) Create an intro cutscene for players once they hit 80. At the very least, it should give a recap of Season 1 since that's not replayable.

The fact that your first call to action is for something that is already in the game sucks any and all value from your post.

 

 

 

[Hannelore.8153]

> @"mindcircus.1506" said:

> > @"Dahkeus.8243" said:

> > 1) Create an intro cutscene for players once they hit 80. At the very least, it should give a recap of Season 1 since that's not replayable.

> The fact that your first call to action is for something that is already in the game sucks any and all value from your post.

>

>

>

 

Have you ever watched it? It covers like 1% of LS1, pretty much only the Battle for Lion's Arch, and poorly at that.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

> @"Dahkeus.8243" said:

> I came across an article on Massively.com recently which I think makes a really good point.

>

> Full article here: https://massivelyop.com/2019/07/09/flameseeker-chronicles-guild-wars-2s-living-world-is-a-barrier-to-entry/

> Tl;dr for article: The living story makes it hard for new players to get into GW2 because they start in the middle of a big, expansive story and it's hard to make sense of it all.

>

> Personally, I've played GW2 since beta and have never missed a living story update. However, I can imagine that this is a pain for new players to make sense of. I mean, one of the reason I never got into comic books was that it was too much of a pain to make sense of the story arc when it's divided between a bunch of small issues, many of which have been published long ago.

>

> So, I think ANet should consider two main ways to address this:

> 1) Create an intro cutscene for players once they hit 80. At the very least, it should give a recap of Season 1 since that's not replayable.

> 2) Whenever a player starts a new living story, they should give a prompt with the option to give them a recap of prior seasons. This could be like the dialogue boxes that are used for things like the portal scrolls where the player can watch a recap of any living story for any season before the one they're starting based on the selection. Not only would this help new players, but it would be a nice reminder of what's happened for current players that want a refresher on what happened in the last update.

 

There are numerous recaps throughout the game.

 

* Ela Makkay in LA has a recap for Season 1.

* The first instance of S3 has a recap of S2+HoT.

* Bloodstone Fen has a recap of the Forsaken Thicket raids for non-raiders.

* Early S4 has a recap of S3+PoF, iirc (might have been a trailer for S4 though, so I may be wrong here).

 

They're not ideal recaps, but they do exist.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> The living story makes it hard for new players to get into GW2 because they start in the middle of a big, expansive story and it's hard to make sense of it all.

I think you'll find that fewer people care about that than the author of that article assumes. It's a bit like insisting that people can't play GW2 unless they first read the books or played GW1, because those have important lore explaining a lot of what we see. (Only a bit, of course, because GW1 is 200 years ago and the books are "historical" not current events.)

 

Folks that want the full skivvy are going to play the personal story. They'll get the recap of LS1 from the NPC in LA, and move on to LS2. People who want to start with LS5 _and care about the background_ can (and will) visit the wiki or watch any of the recap videos on youtube or twitch. They aren't much slowed down from engaging in the story for starting in the middle.

 

****

The best recap in the game is done by the little kids who [play-act what happened in the books](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Setting_the_Stage#Optional_Dialogue), introducing us to Eir, Logan, Rytlock, Caithe, and, of course, the Crystal Dragon. It's short, pithy, and funny... and I didn't realize until I read wiki recaps how well it covered _what I needed to know_ from the books.

 

The worst recap in the game is the LS1 cutscene from the NPC in LA. It doesn't do a good job of introducing us to the members of the Commander's "team" or understanding the world view. It especially doesn't do a great job of setting up the reveals from LS2.

 

There's a substantial recap of the commander's accomplishments during PoF (to help bring back the commaneder's memory). I don't love it as story telling and it's not accessible easily and yet it still gets the job done. Similarly, Joko offers a form of a recap during LS4 for anyone who started there.

 

And of course, there's no recap of LS4, since that just ended. We don't know what they have planned for later.

 

****

I don't think it's as big a problem as the OP does. Even if I did, my solution would be relatively simple: get the "kids" from the personal story to play act and make that accessible to anyone who wants it. There would be one "play" for pre-GW2, one for LS1, etc. The pre-GW2 that exists already is not even two dozen lines of dialogue.

[Westenev.5289]

 

In-game Recap begins at 46 seconds, couldn't find another video on youtube.

 

LS1 Abridged Abridged

 

Once upon a time, there was a cabbage named scarlet briar. She made an army of mole people, was super evil and destroyed lions arch. Did I mention she was super evil? Oh, and a group of people defeated her (not sure who though - wait, give me a second, I have a list of names here...). But they were too late, for Scarlett had already done something SUPER evil, which would forever change the course of history...

 

... Anet really could have done better with this recap - espcially in regards to how we met the core characters of the current narritive or why we should even care about them. That way story elements like Taimi's illness and Braham's mommy issues wouldn't come completely out of left field for modern players.

[Game of Bones.8975]

As a human being, when you are born you begin with memories from that point onward. The only "recap" you get is the history you choose to learn in school or on your own time.

 

The same goes for long-story gaming systems; when you enter is where you start to learn what's going on.

 

I would like to play LS1 just for the experience, but like everyone has pointed out --- "No, you really don't want to."