Black Raven Dragoons

[Grimblast]

Joy, more living story

I'd be more interested in content that sticks around. I may update it though and just take a look. It's free but I'd still rather pay them for an expansion instead.

[Zancarius]

Supposedly the living story content is going to be made accessible through characters story panels, so you can replay it at a later date.

I don't know how they intend to have it work, or whether the old achievements will be made accessible again, but the one limitation is that if you weren't on during the 2 week period at all, you'll have to pay something like 400 gems to be able to "unlock" it.

The plus side is, it does appear they're listening to players. I'm actually really pleased with some of the changes thusfar: Account-wide dyes (I got about 120+ dyes refunded to me), unlockable skins once you salvage/wear an item (no need to grind Twilight Arbor again!) and a simplified talent system. I wasn't really pleased about that last change, because they changed a lot of things, but it seems to work out pretty well. And the "mega server" (marketing buzzword IMO, because it's basically no different from a cloud) stuff makes it so Arah is actually doable now without having to find a server with sufficient population. It's just a shame they hadn't enacted these changes earlier.

The hilarious side effect is that it killed the "world boss train," and apparently angered some of the member guilds who took substantial part in its operation. But they were (mostly) elitists anyway.

Oh, and there's a guild merger change on the horizon that I also read something about. Apparently influence earned by guild members on a different server will eventually be brought back to wherever "home" is, and those guilds will somehow be merged into one. They're sparse on the details, probably because of the need to iron out technicalities, but the plus side is that for those who left to go to more populous servers for PvP reasons, they will no longer be considered part of an on off-world guild.

Kind of a shame they don't have a Linux version--and never will. I do enjoy GW2, but I hate having to spend 1-2+ hours wasting time in it for various reasons when I could instead tab out and do something while waiting. Gone are the days where I can take substantial chunks of time and play something in one go since I tend to stop what I'm doing every 15-30 minutes to work on something. Oh well.

[Grimblast]

Those are good points. I didn't know about the access to past story content but if spending money on gems allows me to have full, repeatable access to past story, I'm ok with that. I'm not sure it will work that way but one can hope. That would be the equivalent of an expansion to me at any rate.

Arenanet, shut up and take my money if you do truly go that route!

[Grimblast]

More insight into what they are doing. Namely, the living journal. They have my attention so I'm going to update my client when I get home today and see what they've done. Now I'm interested in the living story more so since I can go back and experience content more at my own pace. I'm curious to see if they allow access to achievement items from the past events or not. I did do all of the living story save for the last Scarlett arc which I didn't really care much for since it was a bit dragged out with zerging.

I say we group up and knock this stuff out tonight! I'm not home until after 4:30pm so I'll be looking for yall in TS! I may even nudge you in steam if I see you. Get a 'Goon group going because we can!

[Elade]

FINALLY!! I'll bring the endless quaggan potions!

[Grimblast]

According to the patch notes:

Introducing the Story Journal

Located inside the Hero panel, the Story Journal gives level 80 players the ability to play and replay unlocked episodes of the Living World, starting with Season 2. Additionally, it allows players to easily switch between Living World episodes and the Personal Story.
Episodes of the Living World are permanently unlocked when players log in when an episode is the current live release. If players happen to miss this free period for an episode, it can be unlocked later for a small gem fee via the Story Journal section of the Hero panel.
Completing the story of a Living World episode will unlock skill-based achievements with unique rewards that can be earned when replaying the episode.

So, looks like only Season 2 and on will be in the 'Story Journal'. Still a step in sort of the right direction.

[Zancarius]

They'll probably add the old content. They've been changing things in that direction.

[Zancarius]

According to the patch notes:

So, looks like only Season 2 and on will be in the 'Story Journal'. Still a step in sort of the right direction.

Just found this:

Because story steps for your personal story contain choices that permanently alter your character, we will not be allowing the replay-story-step functionality for the existing personal story at this time. Also, because Season 1 of Living World was not built with the Journal in mind, it will not be available in the story Journal on initial launch when Season 2 begins. We do hope to add Season 1 to the Journal in the future. As I mentioned earlier, only festivals will continue to use the gold star UI. They will not be in the story Journal, and they will remain as temporary content that comes in each year for a period of time and then packs up and leaves when the festival has completed.

So it's an open possibility.

[Grimblast]

Now that is awesome! Looks like GW2 is going to be the sort of casual MMO experience I was hoping it would shape up to be!