Feedback:User/Jaxom/In-Game Missives, Book and Tomes

Lore that is already present in GW1 mainly takes the shape of quest text and dialog by NPC during quest or mission (including the blink-and-miss ones that do not show up in the chat window), in-game events or spoken cinematic dialog. With the exception of metal and stone plates such as the various tablets which hold the scriptures of the Gods, most of the information that reveal bits and pieces of the GW universe to the player may be quickly and easily forgotten as, except for events and missions, most quests cannot be repeated.

Even before the introduction of the Storybooks in Eye of the North, several books such as the Tome of the Rubicon or the Orrian Tome (see Magical texts) were already present in game but none of them can be opened or red by the players. There are also tons of scrolls, letters, messages and missives that the player has to deliver to various places on the world but it’s the same: none can be red.

This is a real missed opportunity to create a much more interactive world and to introduce deeper lore of the GW world to the players, to link the world’s past and present history altogether or to give information about the relations from one NPC to create a rich tapestry of a somewhat living world. In GW2, there should be more interactive objects and books similar to the Zho's Journal or the Golem User Manual that may be opened and browsed to look at GW art and read lore text. In the same fashion scrolls, letters and such should be allowed to interact with to display text to the users:


 * When not sealed, encrypted or carried under secrecy, most scrolls, parchments, letters, missives, battle plans and orders, maps, etc. could be opened and should display a short content, an extract of a larger text, drawings or images so the player may learn more about the world, ongoing politics or simply relation from one NPC to another.


 * Player may sometimes find readable documents and books by interacting with NPC or items such as bookshelves. These objects cannot be retrieved from their container but the player can read their content while the container is opened.


 * As there seem to be plenty of historian NPCs in GW1 such as Symon the Scribe, Durmand and various scholars from Shing Jea, Vabbi, Rata Sum, etc., we would expect to find in GW2 lot of books signed by famous GW1 names. As implied by The Movement of the World, such documents should be accessible though the Order of Whispers’s libraries and bookshelves. Some of the content given within these books may cover lore information that was originally published in the various GW strategy books, website, game manuals, etc. For example: a compendium containing all the Halloween poems from the website, letters from Kormir from the Nightfall preorder pack, etc. There might be some art-books that contain winning artworks of past contests, etc. If needed, you may want to do some fan fiction contests on the official site or to ask winners on the various fan sites past contests to participate in creating books for the game (there is the problem of no-US/non-English i18n though). You may even want to put some extracts/chapters or references to the future real-life GW books to entice the player to purchase them.


 * Depending of the various “jobs”, craftsmanship or hobbies available in-game, player should be given readable recipes or scrolls that pertain to their job or hobbies and that would explain how such job/craft/hobby works. These documents could be destroyed to free inventory space but the player may reclaim them at the appropriate job/hobby NPC if needed.


 * All existing story books or readable books from GW1 should be available in GW2. Unlike GW1 where these books have game mechanics capabilities, in GW2 they should just be here as pure historical (unless ArenaNet wants to introduce some Mission Pack-esque feature that link GW1 and GW2 of course). Accessing such a book may be linked to the fact that the player’s account already have access to GW1 through its Hall of Monuments or it may be accessible to anyone. In such case, it could be some kind of hidden bonus content that the player may discover (and collect) if he tries to explore the world to find hidden lore.


 * If there are such things as skill tomes in GW2, they should use a more book-like interface instead of the skill window format actually being used in GW1.


 * The story book format from GW1 should continue to exist in some fashion, not for the benefit of grinding reputation points, but to add to the things a character or an account may unlock. The purpose here is NOT to fill the book and resell fast it to an NPC for some money and faction but simply to try to unlock every art pages, descriptions or even fun-facts (i.e.: the kind of information that is given about the pets by NPC at the Zaishen Menagerie is a good example). This would somewhat work like a world encyclopedia or personal journal that the player would fill/unlock when he discovers new thing (note: this is different from the suggestion to incorporate the wiki directly within the game). For example, a book may compile the list of available charmable pets or a description of obtained minipets and creature that inspired them etc… Like the strorybooks, the book is initially empty and new pages are inserted and filled only when a player discovers/unlock something new, etc. Unlike the current Storybooks from GW1, there should be no limitations in the number of page so new pages can still be added to the books later (i.e.: when a new series of minipet comes out or when a new pet is introduced in game). It’s up to ArenaNet to determine if such encyclopedia should span 1 or several volumes (creature volume, weapon volume, etc.) in order to take some player inventory space or even take no inventory space at all.