It seems that every Monday there are some changes in the Living Story even if there is full on patch the next day. Not much has changed since my last update but I did want to update everyone no matter how small the change.
This week we see changes just to the refugee coordinator in Hoelbrak. The coordinator in the Black Citadel has not had any changes. Also as far as I can tell Wayfarer and Diessa also remain unchanged. Here is the coordinators new dialogue.
Looking around I was unable to find any evidence for who the mysterious benefactor might be. I also popped over to Lion's Arch to look for refugees and was unable to find any.
We also get our first confirmation that the Dredge and the Flame Legion are working together. I some how still think that there is more to this though and we do not have the full story. Other places I have looked for changes but found none are The Great Lodge, Sigfast and Skarti's lodges, Lion's Arch (all over), the dead merchant, the merchant body guard, the small refugee camp near Dolyak Pass, and the Burrows of Moledavia.
Since there were few changes in the Living Story I thought I would point out an NPC in Diessa Plateau that intrigues me. Her name is Zola Swiftstep and she can be found on the western edge of Diessa Plateau near Silex Castrum which is a POI just south of the Wurm's Gullet. This NPC has been in Diessa ever since I have been coming here daily for the Living Story. Silex Castrum is a small Flame Legion base that Zola has been keeping an eye on. Here is what she has to say,
I wonder if she will play a part in the upcoming story since she has had eyes on the Flame Legion. If the Flame Legion are involved it seems like she has failed in her duty. Otherwise it would seem like the Flame Legion are not involved. I am grasping at straws here though.
Slowly the Living Story moves forward. Reading what Colin Johanson had to say about the Living Story in recent interviews it seems to me that the Living Story was created as a solution to the problems seen with the November one-time event. A lot of people were not very happy about being forced into coming online at a certain time (especially if you weren't in North America) and the servers couldn't handle all the people anyway. Thus, the move seems to be to get away from one-time events and move towards content that players can access at their leisure. As for what is to come here is what Colin has to say,
You’re not going to see a ton of stuff in February, [it’s mostly about the story] more setup stuff. (When) we hit the end of the year and decided to really make that a big thing for 2013 and as a result [this didn’t leave us much time to] build a lot of stuff yet, so I think walking towards March and April we’ll get into the cadence of what a living story can be and then that will build from there as the year goes on.
This doesn't give us much hope for what to expect in the near future. Sounds like February will be about as exciting as January, but there is hope for March and April. Here is another quote from Colin,
I mean, take everything that happened in January, and condense it down to say, a weeks worth of content and then the next week there’s more story that builds on that. Is that something that would interest you guys?
It is hard to say if even that would be enough as this entire month has done nothing to advance things. As Bhagpuss stated in the comments to last weeks Living Story update, "If this were an actual story in a book we'd still be on the first page. If it was a movie we'd still be in the pre-credit sequence." And it is true. I would not put up with this on a weekly basis. The Living Story needs to be more real. Right now it is completely immersion breaking as the effects of it are not actually visible in the world. If an NPC tells you there are scouts somewhere then there should be scouts there. If an NPC says refugees are moving to Lion's Arch then there should be refugees in Lion's Arch. If there is a massive disaster that has destroyed the homes of hundreds then some where there should be evidence of destroyed homes.
On the other hand, if what Colin means is that weekly we would receive a couple dozen dialogue changes, new NPCs, new events, and new structures then I could get behind that so long as a story is actually told that I can interact with in the world. If the plan is to have a story told by NPCs that you can not actually see the effects of in the real world then they might as well just save themselves the time and just add a new book to the Priory Library.
What do you guys think? Do you have hopes for this story going forward? Have I missed anything that changed this week? Let me know in the comments.
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