I think I've nailed down my specific problems with the story:
Drama is rooted in clarity. This is a mantra for many writers, and I personally believe in it. People will not be invested in a story unless they know, up front, why they need to be invested. We love heroes with goals, and we tune in each week to see if they'll reach them. Think about a lot of the best shows on television. Even if what happened each week was unclear, you almost always know why you're following the protagonist. You may not know
where it's going, but you know
why it's going, and that's what keeps you invested 5, 6, 7 years down the line.
All we've been told since launch is that the Dragons are the most important threats in Tyria, above all else. But the living story has decided to focus on other villains, which, while not a bad thing, will
always feel secondary to the major threat of the Dragons. It's not a problem that they feel secondary, but rather that they feel disconnected to larger threats within the world. You HAVE to foreshadow larger events, and in a more meaningful way. Then each arc can end in a way that ties each together, and you won't want to miss it.
WP used the analogy of Lost to describe a show that had weekly mysteries that people wanted to see solved. But the power of Lost, at least in the beginning, was the clear goal of "are they going to get off the Island?" But as the goal began to change, and worse, because
unclear, that's when people fell out. I think a great example of a long running story with tons of mystery is One Piece. While I know manga isn't everybody's thing, it's a testament to the power of clear protagonist goals that in the 17th year of publication, One Piece is at the highest readership it's ever had.(One of the highest readerships for a comic book ever, might I add!) And that's just a simple goal of finding a stash of treasure! But while each arc may not instantly connect with the overall plot, readers continue to follow them because they know that in some way, they're always moving to an
inevitable goal.
And this benefits all aspect of storytelling too. Characters become more fascinating as we slowly see their connection to the overall story. It's clear that Anet has goals with each of the characters we've seen so far. The problem is,
we don't have any idea what those goals are, or if those characters are going to be as important as we think they are. We do need some kind of larger arc with some kind of stakes for us to go "man, why did they introduce this person, what role is he going to play?" Sure, many of us might have those feelings already, but they're generally baseless; we have nothing to go off of.
I'm not saying that we need to know the conclusion when we start. Mystery is indeed a key element of drama. But we do need some kind of introduction to the
stakes. Something that lets us know beforehand, that yes, this is all tied together, other than simple speculation. Otherwise, it feels like a series of events, which is NOT a story.
Remember, the assassination of an Austrian archduke and his wife by a Bosnian Serb separatist lead to the greatest, more horrific war this world has ever known. Big things have small beginnings when you look back; the fact that we're seeing things unfold one small step at a time doesn't mean it's not all part of a bigger problem.
While that's true, those events were never viewed as part of a story until
after the war.
