149430-suggestion-episodic-zone-content

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While reading some of the news about Arcterra, a newly discovered and frozen-over zone, I had an idea.
 
What if Arcterra (just as an example) had multiple layers that unlocked over time? Not a massive raid unlocked by players like AQ, but a zone that starts off with a few specific objectives and then over time reveals new objectives, like caves with special loot stuck in ice fragments, hidden clusters of enemies guarding ancient chests, a frozen lake that thaws to reveal a nasty underwater boss, mountain peaks that only become accessible after constructing a launch pad, establishing trade agreements with secret villages to gain access to new rep rewards, etc. etc. These would form episodic events that could connect with each other in direct or indirect ways, and ultimately lead to a big bang type of conclusion.
 
This idea appealed to me for a few reason:
 
1. We start off knowing the content will be layered, so while the area is initially simple (and thus accessible), we can anticipate seeing more within a reasonable time frame. Thus the zone gains lasting value and becomes less like a page-turner you throw away the next day.
 
2. Nexus is supposed to be this new planet for both factions, but when I played it as that new MMO experience, it felt very much like any other MMO and after the initial landing I never engaged with the game like I was exploring a mysterious new world. However, with something like Arcterra you could play up the "undiscovered" aspect through the aforementioned special content unlocks.
 
3. You can tweak the layers to better reflect what players are asking for at a given time.
 
 
That's about all I can think of right now. Again, I don't expect any of this to be applied to Arcterra, it just seemed a good example.	
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Gated content is gated.  I agree from a story telling standpoint, but waiting for the zone to thaw out enough to get to the rich nougaty center would probably not be appreciated by the hardcores. :)    
 
I would love it...  for about 3 weeks...  then I'd be out there with an industrial strength hairdryer, a wetvac and a portal to Thayd.  :D	
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Gated content is gated.  I agree from a story telling standpoint, but waiting for the zone to thaw out enough to get to the rich nougaty center would probably not be appreciated by the hardcores. :)    
 
I would love it...  for about 3 weeks...  then I'd be out there with an industrial strength hairdryer, a wetvac and a portal to Thayd.   :D
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Played GW2 when it went full on world-story-mode.  Every 2 weeks, we'd get a new piece of the puzzle to take our characters through.... and a list of achieves to hit for a backpack cover or title :P    It was fun for a time, but you have to space it out enough where you don't have people needing to take time off from RL to walk through the content, especially when it requires lots of folks being involved (world bosses, limited time dungeons) and you want to get in there while people are taking their mains through :).   
 
Also, the story-telling sometimes suffers when you push too hard. *cough*scarlet*cough*	
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I actually wondered when I wrote this if it was just an unintended knock-off of the living world thingy in GW2. :P  I only played that game for a couple of weeks and never made it past level 24, so don't recall seeing the LW side of the game.
 
I guess what drew me to the idea with Arcterra was the 'undiscovered' part. It seemed really well suited to gated/episodic content, kind of drawing us into these unique discoveries of Nexus that no-one had seen before.	
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Played GW2 when it went full on world-story-mode.  Every 2 weeks, we'd get a new piece of the puzzle to take our characters through.... and a list of achieves to hit for a backpack cover or title :P    It was fun for a time, but you have to space it out enough where you don't have people needing to take time off from RL to walk through the content, especially when it requires lots of folks being involved (world bosses, limited time dungeons) and you want to get in there while people are taking their mains through :).   
 
Also, the story-telling sometimes suffers when you push too hard. *cough*scarlet*cough*
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Honestly...  and this is kinda out there...  I'd just love to see a vertical zone.  Its not very long or wide... but it extends very high up and very high down.  There are all kinds of logistical issues with this, unless we use rocket packs or some Eldan platform to move with us and catch us if we get knocked off.  Transport system is a must...  Maybe something like Bioshock 3's rail system to rapidly get through crazy directional and varied elevation areas.
 
Theme wise - gotta pull deep here from my natural science class that I took.....a number of years ago...  Like a "project mohole" deal, but Nexian, so MUCH more interesting and likely already "dug out" and accessible, but WAY the cupcake down there.   Stage it where each level down has a new "block" to keep us from going deeper requiring us to ferret out a response to the block using Eldan gear or our own side's inspiration to reach the next stage down.  Could easily be a raid zone that keeps going down and could keep having new raid bosses added... well, infinitely... or until the dev team gets bored and decides one last raid boss to end all raid bosses should inhabit the lowest level/core :P.  
 
Story can be zone lore, keep it simple narrative-wise as the hurdles to jump through to hit each next level alone should provide enough to grease the wheels of crazy challenging content :)
			
				
	Edited February 3, 2016 by Eidolon Zephyrhawk	
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The Living Story was what kept me playing GW2 once I hit level cap. I don't care about raids and stuff but having story based content that's accessible at most levels was awesome. It would be great to see Carbine do something like that but space it out a bit more like you said. One chapter per month would be fine. BUT that's not happening. If you're read the reviews at Glassdoor you'd see how their system is so screwed up that it takes forever to release even a small amount of content.
 
As for Scarlet, that was just bad writing from the start. They should have had her start out as an important and likable member of Destiny's Edge 2.0 (Jory's group) then slowly go insane form the dragon's influence so that the player would actually feel bad for killing her. Despite that missed opportunity, I still somewhat liked her as a character.
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