Flame and Frost is over, but GW2's Living Story is just beginning.

Now that the first arc is over, what could this world see come to life?

The living story is not a collection of individual stories that exist separate from the rest of the game. After finishing the dungeon in this month's content, players were directed to follow up with Rox and Braham as they reported to their respective leaders. While with Rox, players had the ability to talk with some of the Molten Alliance that were taken prisoner. One of these prisoners mentions an outsider that brought the Dredge and the Flame Legion together into this devastating alliance; a prelude to a puppeteer that might continue pulling strings in more sagas to come.

The Living Story included not only these new story arcs, but any comes and goes to make a living world. This includes holiday content such as Wintersday, Halloween and the recently datamined hints of the return of the Dragon Festival (a summer festival at the beginning of July). In addition to holidays there are special events like the Karka event last November and the Super Adventure Box.

Another thing to consider is that each month doesn't have to be dedicated to a single Living Story component. The Super Adventure Box is a good example with it coming out in the middle of the Flame and Frost content. While Wintersday is a long lasting event, holidays like Halloween and the Dragon Festival are only going to be around week long events. With shorter events like these, other Living Story content could be added to fit in the time around and maybe even include these shorter holidays.

We could also see the inclusion of even smaller, weekend style events. This probably brings to mind the dreadful Karka Event of '12, but those familiar to these special holiday weekends from Guild Wars 1 know they can be fun little diversions. Events like Talk like a Pirate, Lucky Weekend (St. Patrick's) and Sweet Treat Weekend (Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies) are small events that can be fun but also add to this living world. These small events also have the benefit that, being a yearly occurrence, ArenaNet could feasibly create the content once and that weekend would be set for the rest of GW2's life (though adding a little something every year wouldn't be a bad thing either).

The likelihood of ANet focusing on these smaller events anytime soon wouldn't be very likely, however. First is the fact that we are already well past both St. Patrick's and Easter for those two weekend to be included this year. But even for events like Talk Like a Pirate in September, ArenaNet still has a lot of big event coming up. With the Dragon Festival typically starting in late June or early July, the content for this event is most certainly coming in the June content patch (like how the Super Adventure Box was put in the March patch though the actual content wasn't open until almost April). Two months after that patch is the August patch where we hopefully would get something cool for the anniversary of GW2! Another two months after that is October and the return of Halloween. A couple months after that? Wintersday.

So the likelihood of seeing the tier 2 holidays this year is looking slim (no pun intended about a lack of a Thanksgiving holiday event). But next year could be the year Tyria gets fat and drunk from all the pies, chocolate bunnies and grogs, ales and ciders.

“But wait!” You might be thinking. “We already had Halloween and Wintersday last year. Wouldn't they just bring them back and have time for things like Thanksgiving?” If you were thinking that, then you would be correct in all of that (if not then my mind reading classes aren't paying off). However, ArenaNet will not just be copy-pasting from last year. In addition to rehashing the old content not fitting with their ever evolving living world, they will want to add and improve. While there is more than one team working at ArenaNet, between expanding two major holidays, introducing two new ones, continuing the living storyline and expanding the Super Adventure Box all while still delivering core content in areas like sPvP and WvW (and maybe an expansion?) there is a lot left to be done.

With Wintersday, for example,Toymaker Tixx felt like a headlining act. Side attractions like the bell choir, snowball fight and jumping puzzle would most certainly be back, but the main attraction would probably change with a new headlining act. This doesn't necessarily mean that Tixx is forever gone. The last version of the Infinirarium (see Infinite and Terarium for Infini-rarium) was the Toypocalypse where players were protecting the gift-laden dolyaks from the menacing toys. While the rest of the Tixx build-up instances wouldn't be back, Toypocalypse could see a solo return as a side attraction.

But what about the actual Living Story arcs? -->