Guild Wars 2

Has anyone noticed this?

One of the things I like most about Asura is their attitude/outlook. I love the arrogance, superiority, insults, the witty writing, etc. Metrica Province has it in spades, and generally so does the 1 – 20 personal story.

However, once I join an Order? Based on how my Asuran speaks, you’d have no idea she wasn’t human. So respectful to everyone, kind, selfless, goody two-shoes heroic stuff. It is exactly the opposite of what I thought I signed up for as an Asura.

For example, I joined the Priory. Gixx is exactly the type of Asura I wanted to be, but I’m nothing like him. In fact, I seem to be the only Asura who isn’t like Gixx. Even Zojja gets to be more rude than me.

I have no idea who my character is in my “personal” story. It certainly isn’t the one I want.

There’s a race-specific phase and unfortunately the quality of the personal story just drops off after that period. Just be thankful you started with the awesome Asura storylines and didn’t meet Trahearne early on like anyone playing Sylvari would have done.

Basically, your race isn’t accounted for after you join an order. By then, you’re funneled into order specific dialogues, so they probably just gave the voice actors the same scripts instead of race specific ones per order, so 6 dialogue options instead of 30 (male/female times order vs male/female times race times order)

Yeah, I hate this too.
It was already irritating enough that my Asura main apparently uses inferior Charr weaponry rather than quality Asuran technology, now he suddenly starts sounding like a generic hero once I joined the Vigil (due to the Priory proving their incompetence during an introduction mission.)

I’m effectively finished with the personal story unless I end up needing some quick xp down the line.

Yeah. I was rather surprised they went to the trouble of hiring different voice actors, yet shoehorning the exact same dialogue into each.

I can confirm they are, my charr and my asura both say the exact same lines once they get onto the main arc quests with the exception of the occasional shout-out to returning characters (ie. Gorr) who they respond to differently if they knew each other in their personal events

That’s a bummer.

Don’t worry after the Order storyline it transforms into someone else’s personal story (Traehern’s story) you just become his lackey.

I highly recommend walking away and getting a drink or snack or going to the bathroom during the cut scenes during the post order storyline as it just falls off the cliff.

Drunken Mad King.8193:

Don’t worry after the Order storyline it transforms into someone else’s personal story (Traehern’s story) you just become his lackey.

Except for the dungeons and finale; which are a soap opera about a bunch’ve has-been adventurers still bickering about the good old days.

Between Trehearne, destiny’s edge and the fact the final battle is a team effort where you team is nothing more than bystanders in the wrong place at the right time to help it’s pretty clear this isn’t your story

I’d been happier if they hadn’t tried pretend it was, and just made it clear I’m another faceless pact soldier. I can dig war stories from the perspective of a grunt too

Yeah that’s one thing GW1 did well, it made you feel important. GW2 makes you seem like just some random dude following the zerg from one random encounter to the next (not that it isn’t fun, it’s just not a great story). I think they could have struck a better balance. I do hope Anet will learn from this and focus expansions more on that epic story experience that they did so well in GW1.

Agreed – I was kinda disappointed how ‘nice’ my Asura became beginning with that point >_>
And as much as I like Trahearne…yeah, this WAS supposed to be MY story. It is still nicely told, and I’m really happy about him finally completing his wyld hunt -and hunting down Zhaitan…but I’d like to be a little more important. Even though random NPC in the world are recognizing me as a hero from time to time

I believe I remember hearing that the problem with the GW1 story, is now we have no historical way to refer to your character. In my story, I know that Klawlyt lead the Ascalonians to Kryta and eventually took on the Titans et al, but now in GW2, we have no way of referring to a constant who did those things (though I’d be ok with letting Mehnlo and Eve have the credit). I think The World’s Least Exciting Plant was put there so that way, in the greater narrative of Tyria, we could refer to Trehearne as the one who took down Zhaitan.

That being said, yeah the personal story really did drop off after Claw Island. I love love love GW lore, have been 80 since 2 weeks after launch, and still haven’t bothered to finish my personal story.

The only story mission that spiced things up for me was the one you do with the Sylvari Reavers and Tegwen (?), or whatever their name was. Those guys kicked major a** its unbelievable . 2 Giants down before they had a chance to say “what the ..” dead.!
Too bad it wasn’t longer.

Anyway, as to OP, maybe Asura change is more noticable than other races? (Haven’t played charr)

I was again thinking – after watching TB’s final Mailbox yesterday – just how much depth and immersion was lost in RPGs when voice overs became the norm. There’s so few chat options (if any), so short and so simple lines, all because fully voiced dialogue is – understandably – horrendously pricey.

I played Planescape Torment again recently, and honestly – let my brain fill in the details again. Pretty please? I can take unvoiced text, I can read! And I thought this is still the norm among gamers!

:(

You have plenty chances to decide for one of two~three ways to continue, tbh.

Agreed. This is something SWTOR actually did kind of right. Giving us options! Some people don’t like choices however out of fear of missing “something” for saying “something.” I’m assuming this was Anet’s thought process on this subject.

Agreed. But to be Honest I really dont like Trehearne, I dont trust him and I just whant to kill him, but sadly it doesnt let me. They also should change the NPC talks, like the Norn in the starting zone from the Norn Race. (thats the only one I noticed that she talks agains an Asura instead to all races the same) btw, I think it would be fun to be able to join the Inquest;)

Every race becomes “human” and suddenly grows some hero’ish tuberculosis. Norn stop boasting about how great/strong they are; Charr stop being ferocious and militaristic; Asura drop all of their arrogance/evilness; I haven’t played any Sylvari past level 11, so I can’t say how this transition goes, they stop being “I love everything”?

Drunken Mad King.8193:

Don’t worry after the Order storyline it transforms into someone else’s personal story (Traehern’s story) you just become his lackey.

I highly recommend walking away and getting a drink or snack or going to the bathroom during the cut scenes during the post order storyline as it just falls off the cliff.

This is exactly how i feel, i’m the Hero i do all the work and this Traehern nobody that dies every mission is the main character, why do i even bother making a character if i’m the sidekick?

SkyCakeLight.3750:

Agreed. This is something SWTOR actually did kind of right. Giving us options! Some people don’t like choices however out of fear of missing “something” for saying “something.” I’m assuming this was Anet’s thought process on this subject.

It would be great if all MMOs could be as fully voiced with as many choices as SWTOR (and have the grouped dialogues too!), but that was a kind of one-off, and it nearly ruined the game (as in, it’s possible they spent so much money on the voice-overs that some other parts of the game suffered).

I’m in the camp who could happily have text-only for some kinds of dialogues, and some dialogue choices of one’s own.

It could be done like this:- you have the standard voiced-over stuff as is, but you have a “Lore” button you could press that would unfold more in-depth text, and text choices of one’s own, to add to the conversation.

Beyreva.8769:

Every race becomes “human” and suddenly grows some hero’ish tuberculosis. Norn stop boasting about how great/strong they are; Charr stop being ferocious and militaristic; Asura drop all of their arrogance/evilness; I haven’t played any Sylvari past level 11, so I can’t say how this transition goes, they stop being “I love everything”?

Sylvari are actually the only ones (besides humans, I guess? Wouldn’t know, don’t play humans) where it didn’t feel jarring. Since Sylvari are all about being noble and good and punching dragons in the face right from the very beginning, and also have the philosophy of letting whoever has the most experience lead (which makes Trahearne, who has spent years in Orr, the obvious choice), the storyline actually works fine for them.

(Not that that means it’s enjoyable… instead of feeling out of character, it feels like there is no character development at all.)

Frankly, from lvl 30 on, it goes steeply downhill in writing quality for everyone. The order representatives are the only saving grace for a while, but once you are done with Claw Island? Forget about it.