Guild Wars 2

I love cut scenes and anything else that helps me feel like I’m part of a story and not just a grind.

Please also add a skip feature. I like to watch the cutscenes but only once. after that being forced is a hinderance

Just going to throw my two copper into this and say that I’m glad Anet brought back the cut-scenes as well, it adds that little something extra as compared to the close up dialogue scenes we had for personal story.

Agreed,i liked the cut-scenes too =)

Dranmarth.1982:

Just going to throw my two copper into this and say that I’m glad Anet brought back the cut-scenes as well, it adds that little something extra as compared to the close up dialogue scenes we had for personal story.

Two copper =D I lol’d on that remark

I really wonder why they even bothered with those weird dialog scenes to begin with, the cut-scenes are so much smoother and feel way more natural.

BobbyStein.2315:

Glad that people like these. We’ll do more in the future, perhaps.

… Perhaps?

ANET, I want you to read this comic:
http://nedroid.com/comics/2011-02-01-beartato-showdonttell.png

Show what happens. Don’t tell what happens.

While I’ll admit I’m one of the few people who likes the “dialogue” cutscenes, I believe they should be reserved for exposition. They have great potential for expository chapters, especially if you make extensive use of the art in the background. Let’s say for example Rytlock is telling the tragedy of Ascalon as he does in Ascalon Catacombs story. That made really great use of both the art and exposition for a “dialogue”-cutscene.

However for anything besides exposition, do not use it. Let’s use the Human’s “Lost Parents” storyline for example. If my character is overtaken with feelings of sadness after seeing his parents’ grave, he should visually bow down at his parents’ graves instead of standing there. And instead of simply talking, he and Logan should be moving around the remains of his original home as he tries to reminiscent about his true home.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

I like the cutscenes. However, I do have a few suggestions:

1. My character does not participate in the cutscenes, and instead only watches passively. Suddenly, I feel as if my character has been rendered mute.

2. The character animations in the dialogue cutscenes are beautiful, and even if the same animations are used in the more “dynamic” cutscenes, they are barely noticeable. This is a shame.

3. All those animations and lines of voice-over seem wasted if they are not replayable once the event ends. (It has been stated that replayability will end once Flame & Frost ends.) This double goes for the personal story cutscenes.
Even if it is not feasible to replay the personal story instances, would it be possible to at least replay the dialogue cutscenes? For example, by adding a replay button in the personal story log on the Hero Screen.

4. For that matter, would it be possible to create a similar story log for the Living Story entries? (Including a way to replay the cutscenes.)

I just want to second all of this, and add in a fifth point:

5. All the wibbly-wobbly-ness of the camera can be kind of disorienting. The Personal Story had some short cinematics and I found that they were trying to be too fast-paced which left them lacking (that and how some cinematics had text underneath for dialogue, while others didn’t, and some had odd timings – I’d love it if the team goes and improves the existing cinematics). We don’t need a constantly moving/rotating camera when it’s two characters talking – GW1 often had still or just slowly moving cameras, and this is lacking in GW2 which is the second biggest issue for me (the first being Jornophelanthas’s point 3).

Also, Point 2 can be solved simply by being more zoomed in on the talking individual (as opposed to the current constantly-moving-around-all-involved-figures angles).

And before people take my post as a negative view, I want to iterate that I love the heavier usage of this cinematic style. I just think they still could use improvements.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Oh, and when characters talk while walking during and between battles, THEY MOVE THEIR MOUTHS unlike the personal story, in which they seem to be telepathically talking to you like in old games with no mouth animations like Neverwinter Nights.
How awesome is that?

This was actually a feature added throughout the game in this content update. From the update notes:

Lip-flap has been enabled for all voiced lines on Players and NPCs in world.

This also occurs to non-cinematic speaking in the open world, as well as the personal story instances and even dungeon instance. Any spoken dialogue now has “lip-flap.”

Now if only they turn that lip-flap to having the movement be on par to the two-person dialogue cinematics rather than GW1-style lip-flap (that is, the jaw just going up and down).

And now if only they can improve on the non-playable races’ lip-flap too, since many of them hardly look like their jaws are moving when they talk (I’m looking at you, tengu and dredge! And the hylek are just as bad with those huge flabby looking flesh remaining still as it goes up and down).

I prefer the cutscenes by a vast margin over the existing in game scenes.

Cutscenes are SUCH an improvement over the sideways dialog chat windows in the personal story. It’s what made playing the story in GW1 so much better than the personal story in GW2.

I like these new cut scenes. My biggest gripe with GW2 was the story and how it was presented.

This is a step in the right direction but ideally I would love to see Anet create some machinima assets and add production quality to the cut scenes. If these is one thing Anet should learn from SW:TOR is how a story should be presented.

It has always felt off to me knowing that GW2 is a AAA title with story assets that feel hopelessly outdated and bad.

Take this new direction and run with it, expand on it. Wow us.

A bit off-topic, but why we do not have Cutscenes in World Bosses? As we have in the “tutorial” and some dungeons. I think this engine are able to show cutscenes only to ppl that are in event area, when boss spaw and dies, or even in the middle, when you have something in the battle (Laser shooting in Tequatl the Sunless). Cutscenes if some minor events fail (cinematic explosions ^^). All this cutscenes in the world are possible because players become invulnerable.

On topic: I like the way it was on Guild Wars, because I like to watch! I do not like the way how SWTOR or other BW games did, they interrupt things too much to player interact… These interruptions can break the mood. I just like watching and enjoy what the scene shows me.

Quick post to add my voice to those that are very happy to see proper cutscenes. I’m one of the relatively few who are okay with the usual face-to-face scenes, mostly because they are different from the usual. But, full-scene cutscenes are far and away superior in all important ways. I have voted, therefore it must be law!

Edmo.7159:

A bit off-topic, but why we do not have Cutscenes in World Bosses? As we have in the “tutorial” and some dungeons. I think this engine are able to show cutscenes only to ppl that are in event area, when boss spaw and dies, or even in the middle, when you have something in the battle (Laser shooting in Tequatl the Sunless). Cutscenes if some minor events fail (cinematic explosions ^^). All this cutscenes in the world are possible because players become invulnerable.

I’ve always wondered this too.

In the tutorial the cinematic plays only if you’re within a certain range, so it’s very much possible to include, and there are some of those personal story cinematics that play in the open world – as well as the scout ones; and within dungeons – that causes players to be invulnerable, so that could be added to ensure players aren’t killed while watching open world cinematics.

@Konig I believe they don’t because some players could get stuck on them for a bit depending on their computer/internet conection/number of people in that area.

Also, I agree with @Jornophelanthas points and your fifth.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

[…]

MithranArkanere.8957:

Oh, and when characters talk while walking during and between battles, THEY MOVE THEIR MOUTHS unlike the personal story, in which they seem to be telepathically talking to you like in old games with no mouth animations like Neverwinter Nights.
How awesome is that?

This was actually a feature added throughout the game in this content update. From the update notes:

Lip-flap has been enabled for all voiced lines on Players and NPCs in world.

This also occurs to non-cinematic speaking in the open world, as well as the personal story instances and even dungeon instance. Any spoken dialogue now has “lip-flap.”

Now if only they turn that lip-flap to having the movement be on par to the two-person dialogue cinematics rather than GW1-style lip-flap (that is, the jaw just going up and down).

And now if only they can improve on the non-playable races’ lip-flap too, since many of them hardly look like their jaws are moving when they talk (I’m looking at you, tengu and dredge! And the hylek are just as bad with those huge flabby looking flesh remaining still as it goes up and down).

Yeah. I noticed that later. And it’s awesome. It aways irked me seen all NPCs talking telepathically.

It might not be as detailed as during cinematic as they’ll probably have to code mouth movements manually for each line of text, or make some kind of auto-lip-sync code that does speech recognition, which may not work very well.

Non playable races like tengu, dredge, skritt, grawl and hylek have quite the bad lip-flaps, as they barely open their mouths, and when they do they look like muppets handled by someone with a bad case of carpal tunnel.
I think a quick fix would make them increase the max angle for their mouths opening animation few grades.

In the case of tengu, I wish they looked at talking parrots and birds that imitate human speech for their mouths movements.

As they do not have lips, they only close their mouths for some occlusive sounds, and the rest are done with they syrinx. Tengu would have to make wider movements with their beaks, and maybe the upper mandible would move too.

We’ll probably never see some kind of ‘smart’ speech recognition used to move the lips. Although it’ll be nice to see that working. Specially if they added internal voice chat support for parties.

It gave me serious GW1 nostalgia, with my pet nonchalantly standing on top of people or in front of the camera. I guess I should be angry about it, but it’s just so charming. I could never get mad at Ricky <3

I was going to make a thread about this myself until I realized how many people are for the old style GW1 cut-scenes.

Initially during the first cut-scene like the GW1 style, I knew something was off (and better) but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then, about half way through it, I realized people were talking like in the normal cut-scenes but the camera was moving about in the game world. I got super excited all of the sudden and somehow that brought me back to the original GW1 mission cut-scenes. This feeling of good and nostalgia came back to me. Overall, this is the direction cut-scenes should be going to. I’m sure your GW2 cut-scenes will have their place, but I really think ArenaNet should expand on what they have started with F&F cut-scenes.

I’m sorry, but I absolutely HATE the cutscenes. SW:TOR did it for everything, but then again the game is all about story every 5ft.

What I LOV( ED ) is Guild Wars 2’s unique art style and how their painted fact-to-face conversations wove well into a Victorian style living painting. This, which remains -for now- in the personal stories, is what gives the game it’s own persona.

The cut scenes in GW1 were one of THE defining points of the game that made the story really memorable.
I was SOOOOOOOO disappointed when they first announced the flat cut scenes they have in GW2.
The only logical reason I can think of that they even went that route would be that they could make the dialogue more easily. But I still don’t think it was worth it from my perspective.
Fewer GW1 style full cut scenes paired with straight text dialogue would even have been significantly better.
I recall reading once that part of the reason was so that the scenes could be shown easily outside instances when multiple people were triggering the same one, but I know for a fact that was unnecessary.
First of all, they still do it inside instances like dungeons.
Second, they could have CREATED a tiny “instance” on the spot in which to display the cut scenes. Sure there would be a short load involved, but these cut scenes have that as well.

What do I find memorable about the GW2 cut scenes? The various times when they vaguely mime out some important event that is supposedly occurring, but you can’t see. Like someone being struck down, and it goes something like;
Victim: “What are you doing?”
Attacker: “Die!”
Victim, now shown sitting: “Agh!”
Bystander: " Oh no, you’ve killed him!"

It’s like a horrible play.

Grimwolf.7163:

The cut scenes in GW1 were one of THE defining points of the game that made the story really memorable.
I was SOOOOOOOO disappointed when they first announced the flat cut scenes they have in GW2.
The only logical reason I can think of that they even went that route would be that they could make the dialogue more easily. But I still don’t think it was worth it from my perspective.
Fewer GW1 style full cut scenes paired with straight text dialogue would even have been significantly better.
I recall reading once that part of the reason was so that the scenes could be shown easily outside instances when multiple people were triggering the same one, but I know for a fact that was unnecessary.
First of all, they still do it inside instances like dungeons.
Second, they could have CREATED a tiny “instance” on the spot in which to display the cut scenes. Sure there would be a short load involved, but these cut scenes have that as well.

What do I find memorable about the GW2 cut scenes? The various times when they vaguely mime out some important event that is supposedly occurring, but you can’t see. Like someone being struck down, and it goes something like;
Victim: “What are you doing?”
Attacker: “Die!”
Victim, now shown sitting: “Agh!”
Bystander: " Oh no, you’ve killed him!"

It’s like a horrible play.

You, sir, have no appreciation for the artistic theatrics in the way those cutaways present the story as a book like affair.

It would be nice if we could have our characters talk, but nevertheless I do prefer this over the scenes in the personal story.

I really loved how they told the story for frost and flame so far. The simple dialog cutscenes instances were just great and I wish they were used more throughout the game.

Yes, please keep the new cutscenes from now on. They convey emotions better and are more aesthetically pleasing. The personal story scenes just didn’t cut it. People might be dying all around me and my character is standing there, idly swinging his arms and calmly discussing things. It completely ruins the story.

The cutscenes are a big improvement.