Guild Wars 2

Hey all, I just wanted to share my thoughts on the concluding part of the murder investigation that we received earlier today. Frankly, I was disappointed, not with who the culprit was but how we discovered her. I really enjoyed the cutscene introducing Delaqua and she seems like she will be a great character. I also felt the overall writing for the event was better but the lazy finish really annoyed me.

I was under the impression we’d be playing detective, as we tracked down and spoke to the suspects we would piece the truth together bit by bit. That’s not what happened, in fact the suspects stories had nothing to do with connecting Mai to the murder, they all clearly had contact with the Aetherblades and were tricked/coerced into the part they played but nothing they said could possibly connect to Mai. So how did we know it was her? Through that convenient little Tassi box, now I main Asura and a I love them to bits so I am all for Asuran ingenuity but this is just too convenient. Whilst I am running across Tyria tracking down the suspects, Marjory only has to fine tune a device that instantly identifies the only suspect to not run away as the culprit.

Physical evidence is obviously more reliable than testimony but you just completely ignored the other suspects. “Oh look, she’s glowing, she did it! Thanks for your help, see you later!”. There could have been a Poirot-esque ‘who-done-it’ scene to tie it all together and connect Mai to the part she played and what she actually did. In short, the ending really didn’t do the idea of a murder mystery any justice. I don’t know if this was down to laziness or just keeping it simple but it was disappointing and if we’re to see something like this again (which I would quite like) I just wanted to say that I hope it improves on this. I believe that the writing team is more than capable of producing a quality mystery for us and aside from what I have said here, I did enjoy this tidbit of writing so thank you for that.

There’s at least one other person I know who shares my opinion but I imagine there is quite a few others who found this conclusion to be somewhat lacking? I know the arc continues in a few days, but for all intents and purposes the murder mystery is over since we know who did it.

Agreed. I think that they are doing a much better job in actually telling the story compared to something like Southsun (Canach is the villain? Ok, let’s beat him up!) by having more connected story chunks. However, simply using Asura Device X to find the culprit and have her spill what her plans are without even a hint in the in game world kind of defeats the purpose of Marjory being a detective.

Agreed as well. Anticlimactic is the most polite thing I can say about the entire ordeal.

The opening cut scene was awesome, but absolutely nothing from that point on came with in a light year of being satisfying content in conjunction with the kick off. I feel bad for the writers and who ever put the cutscene together. They had an awesome concept, but the rest of the studio completely fell on their faces trying to implement content in conjunction.

Supposedly ANet isn’t working on an expansion yet. If that’s true, it’s hard to fathom how a studio that produced this game in five years, from scratch, suddenly can only manage to produce the most vapid of content. Think of how many Personal Story instances they produced for the five races in five years. They should definitely be able to produce 3-5 full story instances, with 5 to 15 minutes of action on top of the cut scenes, for each monthly event.

This event could have been and should have been incredible. Instead it was just one of the lamest fed ex style quest chains seen in the game to date and a sad departure from what one would expect from Arenanet and GW2.

Seriously, I mean seriously, what the heck is going on at Arenanet? The wheels seem to have completely come off over there and I think it’s time for management to figure out what’s going on and fix it.

I entirely agree. The cut scene, voice acting, art, and so on was fine. It was just a poor story and the scenes were not believable. Magic boxes? Enemies appearing from nowhere? I’m guessing there were supposed to be some flashing lights when using the box but they didn’t even show for me

“Fed ex style quest chains,” great description lol. I too was immensely intrigued at the beginning, both by the initial effigy lighting ceremony (which was more interesting than 99% of the personal story missions) and the cutscene with Marjory. But the ending was just weak.

Unlike you, I was disappointed by who the culprit was. During the effigy lighting ceremony, when Mai ran over to the dead guy, I immediately thought “she’s behind it all.” I mean, come on. She’s the only named NPC there who doesn’t have any reason to be there. Oh, random doctor on the scene! Yeah right. I had hoped that there would be a twist ending and my jaded prediction would be proved wrong, but instead there was just a Scooby-Doo-esque “and I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for your meddling magic box!” Very, very disappointing. Having the villain laugh manically and tell you their whole plan as they escape is SO cliche. There are really better ways to tell a story.

I’m assuming that Mai is supposed to be the “personal nemesis” we have heard so much about. If so, she’s not very satisfying. “Oh no, she killed a random councilor I know nothing about to try to get on the council herself! Ahhhhh I hate you…!…?” If she’s not, I don’t know where this “personal nemesis” is supposed to be (I thought we were supposed to meet her by the end of F&F).

Here’s hoping that the pirates patch isn’t just another bunch of grindy “press F” achievements and a story that consists of waypointing around starter zones, coupled with RNG box skins.

I agree with everyone else. In fact, I kept thinking I must have missed something. Was that the end? Who do I talk to next? I didn’t see any glowing for the suspect and suddenly it’s just the end. Makes me think of the stories my students used to write in 4th grade when they were in a hurry to finish. They suddenly wake up and it was all a dream. That’s how this felt to me. I was left wondering who this Mai Trin was and why she wanted a seat on the council. .

Agreed. I was also like, what? Why did you sent me all around the place to find the suspects, when you already had the culprit with you? We all already know Mai was the one the do Ashford in, because she was the one that volunteered to … kil…..heal…. him…… Marjory must be the worst investigator in Divinity’s Reach….. I do all the work, she get’s the gold that Logan game her? while I get a lousy journal and some silver? YOU SERIOUS????

i like how we got the journal. I wanted a way to watch that again. I hope they do that in the future. My only issue is I don’t want to carry around a whole lot of journals. Need a bank slot for them.

I also agree the ending was a bit lazy. I would of liked it if you received stories from each of the representatives and using that info piece together who it was. It did seem a bit rushed.

They could of done it so you picked a character when you were ready to accuse someone. If you got it wrong you could guess again but receive less reward (so there is a risk)

The cutscene was amazing and it all went downhill very quickly from there. Perhaps the writers are having troubles working in this gaming format. cutscene – brilliant! questing/instances – not so brilliant.

I have to agree.

The cutscene was really cool, and it got me pretty excited that ANet may have finally figured out how to get these Living Stories, to actually feel like stories…then, wut?

I sat there in the instance wondering what happened. I was pretty confused because I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do next, why anything happened, or why random “Sky Pirates” popped into the scene.

ANet really needs to slow down and flesh these out a bit more. I would have liked to see an airship fly in and drop pirates to give Mai time to escape. It would have made the next part of the story make more sense.

The most pathetic part bout this story is how the voice actor did the voice for mai. How she’s voiced gives IMMEDIATE suspicion it was her. Not only that but her role in the story obviously pins her as the suspect(it’s obvious none of the reps were involved because it’s way too obvious. most story writers think themself clever and introduce 1 character who’s played up to be nice but that’s only to throw off suspension it’s this character who’s the master mind).

My main issue is if they made mai sound skittish or afraid at all during the attack i would of been less suspicious it was her. But her voice just sound egotistical in her lines just points her as obvious. I find it sad when i figure out a “mystery” 2 minutes into the story. Take note if you’re gonna do the nice girl is actually scheming. Make her voice sound VERY afraid and almost close to mouse-ish. That way when she does reveal the curtain her tone can change and it gives a player the revelation it was her playing them up.

I agree with above posters ^

Mai Trin’s voice acting was over the top. Also, I would have created her as an NPC with no name in the first instance; then maybe her involvement would have come as a little more of a surprise.

However, all in all, it was still pretty awesome and a huge step up! The cultural representatives were particularly fun.

Pavees,

I agree. My girlfriend and I were like, “She’s responsible!” the second she started talking. It would have been forgivable because I didn’t actually know why, or what was going on…that was until, “Sky Pirates” was being plastered all over the forums and map chat.

Mai as the murderer is the worst kept secret in Tyria.

Yep I already posted my comments on this in another thread…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/dragonbash/Marjory-s-Journal/first#post2250304

Cant believe how poor the story was allowed to unfold and reach its end.. damp squib much…. I just hope there is another piece of the story still to land, and that this really wasn’t all we got.

from firework displays that either failed to display or couldn’t be viewed due to trash camera mechanics, a dragonball mini game suited to cheats, and time wasters forcing the achievements to be pulled from the bash totals, an RNG bird race aimed at reducing in game coin so that we would all feel we had to go play the “Press F” mini games whilst chasing the elusive special snowflake tickets. Of course ANET knew all the coin killing through gambling on birds, waypointing to locations and of course placing a fruitless grind of coffers would likely steer us all back to the gem store… and it has probably worked handsomely for them… least they could of done was actually put some effort in making the story more fulfilling and less anti-climatical imo.. but hey ho I await the next batch of RNG chest threads for the next event

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I agree with above posters ^

Mai Trin’s voice acting was over the top. Also, I would have created her as an NPC with no name in the first instance; then maybe her involvement would have come as a little more of a surprise.

However, all in all, it was still pretty awesome and a huge step up! The cultural representatives were particularly fun.

Well I am glad you found it enjoyable… but for me when a murder mystery is put in front of me the least I would expect is to actually have to go track down the suspects that fled the scene, investigate their stories and look for evidence … what we got was a few lines from some NPC’s that were already found and marked on our maps.. go speak give three options on how we want to ask them to come back to LA.. then…. well then that’s it.. the only reason it took more than 10minutes to finish is because ANET dragged it out over a number of days.. hell if you spoke to Lionguard Kiel she already told you where the last 2 suspects were before the in game mail/clue/map location were given to us.

Sorry but I seriously hope this Living Story thing improves massively because in theory it should be all encompassing to the PvE environment much like raids used to be in other MMO chain events…. so far this has been the worst one for me, unfortunately its beginning to feel like ANET’s creative juices are running on empty and are beginning to regret making such bold statements in their manifesto about going away from traditional questing/ raiding and drawn out grinding… cos tbh every update seems to push it back a little more towards the traditional.
I don’t mind a bit of grind or gear progression, but this Living Openworld idea sounded really exiting and provides the basis for so much creative thinking… someone back at HQ needs to bang heads though imo.

Bloodstealer.5978:

Yep I already posted my comments on this in another thread…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/dragonbash/Marjory-s-Journal/first#post2250304

Cant believe how poor the story was allowed to unfold and reach its end.. damp squib much…. I just hope there is another piece of the story still to land, and that this really wasn’t all we got.

from firework displays that either failed to display or couldn’t be viewed due to trash camera mechanics, a dragonball mini game suited to cheats, and time wasters forcing the achievements to be pulled from the bash totals, an RNG bird race aimed at reducing in game coin so that we would all feel we had to go play the “Press F” mini games whilst chasing the elusive special snowflake tickets. Of course ANET knew all the coin killing through gambling on birds, waypointing to locations and of course placing a fruitless grind of coffers would likely steer us all back to the gem store… and it has probably worked handsomely for them… least they could of done was actually put some effort in making the story more fulfilling and less anti-climatical imo.. but hey ho I await the next batch of RNG chest threads for the next event

When an event succeeds at creating significant cash shop demand, the exchange rate for gold/gems skyrockets, due to all the people trading gold for gems to buy the items. There was the usual spike associated with cash shop maintenance near the start of this event, (you can still exchange gems for gold, or gold for gems, but the ability to purchase gems with cash is offline during that period, which always drives the exchange rate up). However, the minute that was over, the prices plummeted pretty quickly and exchange levels have been where they were the week before the event for most of the event.

My educated guess is that this has been a bit of a dud for them. I certainly hope so, because the only way they will get off the RNG box exclusive skins and start also offering skins for direct sale will be if the RNG lotto/sucker boxes fail to drive revenue.

I think the RNG boxes and the flubbing of event content are finally turning people off. Most of us still love the game and would like to support it and the developers, but the disrespect for the player base they show with stuff like this is having a growing impact.

(Arenanet had such good will and such a high reputation with the launch of the game, that they would squander that before the end of year one would have seemed completely impossible to me last August).