Guild Wars 2

Hey.
When the new Lore Video was uploaded i saw the two most upvoted comments were both revolving the communication of lore, and how people had to exit the game to get access to it.
This is of course a problem, because a lot of people do not see these videos and do not read the small lore blogposts. This means that to all those people the lore and story feels very chaotic and bad. They cannot really make sense of anything, and I bet a lot of people had no idea who Canach was (including myself).

I think a lot of people would agree with me, that we’d rather want the lore to presented ingame, and this is where I do not understand what has happened.
If you look at some of the content already in-game, most of the lore has been presented as a Concept Art Cinematic. The “Who am I” character creation cinematic, the Order cinematics and even the Foefire cinematic from the Ascalonian Catacombs.
These really present the lore and background in a very interesting way that fits GW2 really well.
A lot of the people I’ve spoken to really loved these cinematics, and to me it is what made Ascalonian Catacombs better than the other story dungeons (Arah had one as well, which was very nice).
Even the GW2 teaser trailer from before GW2 was even released had a cinematic in this style, but it has been 6-7 months since we’ve seen a new one. In fact, if i recall correctly there has not been a single new cinematic since launch, which is a shame.

With a new lore-based PvE event as Last Stand at Southsun i really believe having a Concept Art Cinematic explaining what you’ve said in the video and blogposts would solve pretty much everything.
I do realise however that they take time to make, but I’d say it’s definitely worth it.

For those of you who do not know what kind of cinematics I’m talking about, just check these links: (Warning; Can contain spoilers!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjCehYrEbO0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRUvqgz53c0 (The last part is mainly IG clips)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8RfulhINb8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDsJYWCHRP4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYTcWpjdIX8

Notice how the character’s are presented in the Order Cinematics (You can find the other on youtube). I think this would be ideal for introducing characters in the Living Story content.

If you agree with me and believe this would be a great solution make sure to bump the thread.

I have no clue what’s going on in the game, in regards to the storyline. As far as I can tell, there is no storyline. There’s just random, named NPCs spouting meaningless chat bubbles with absolutely no in-game point of reference for the average player.

Lore that makes sense to put in the game is in the game.
The information posted outside the game is actually not needed at all to understand the storyline.

People do however seem to want the storyline thrown in their face in order to be happy. The storyline is fully understandable by only playing the game, but people need to actually explore and listen/talk to NPCs in order to get all the pieces.

lordkrall.7241:

People do however seem to want the storyline thrown in their face in order to be happy. The storyline is fully understandable by only playing the game, but people need to actually explore and listen/talk to NPCs in order to get all the pieces.

This may be true, but reality is that a lot people do not find chat-bubbles and text very interesting and therefore do not pay attention.
“This not Anet’s problem?” In afraid it this. If people skip story/lore content it’s usually because it’s presented in the wrong way.
I for one do not read all the text bubbles and chat with NPCs.

ANet just needs to actually use their Personal Story window by adding new Tabs.
Right now it becomes useless once you´re finished with the storyline and isn´t much more useful during.

People tend to ignore all these special mails that flap by, as they´re just interested in the “heart quest spam”.
Pretty sure a good portion of the player base has no clue about the story of Destinies Edge either.
All those story dungeon mails just get buried and forgotten in the heart spam, let alone actual player mails. Why aren´t they archived under a new tab in that story window? Alongside the main chats of the story mode dungeons you visited even?

Same goes for the whole Living Story Background.

Again us players must fix ANet´s inability to create a polished product by creating our own content though the Wiki or GW2LFG.

KrisHQ.4719:

This may be true, but reality is that a lot people do not find chat-bubbles and text very interesting and therefore do not pay attention.
“This not Anet’s problem?” In afraid it this. If people skip story/lore content it’s usually because it’s presented in the wrong way.
I for one do not read all the text bubbles and chat with NPCs.

Of course. But that is an issue with people rather than the game.
People can’t really skip half the lore and then whine about not understanding the lore.

GW2 is not an Action FPS where all information is thrown in your face and you have a cutscene every 5 minutes. It is a RPG, and RPG usually require some kind of actual work to get information about what is happening.

The lore is there, people are simply to lazy to look at it. Some of us actually like the fact that we get information about current events by actually doing what is the most logical: Talk to and listen to people out in the world.

lordkrall.7241:

KrisHQ.4719:

This may be true, but reality is that a lot people do not find chat-bubbles and text very interesting and therefore do not pay attention.
“This not Anet’s problem?” In afraid it this. If people skip story/lore content it’s usually because it’s presented in the wrong way.
I for one do not read all the text bubbles and chat with NPCs.

Of course. But that is an issue with people rather than the game.
People can’t really skip half the lore and then whine about not understanding the lore.

GW2 is not an Action FPS where all information is thrown in your face and you have a cutscene every 5 minutes. It is a RPG, and RPG usually require some kind of actual work to get information about what is happening.

The lore is there, people are simply to lazy to look at it. Some of us actually like the fact that we get information about current events by actually doing what is the most logical: Talk to and listen to people out in the world.

In fact, people CAN skip lore content and then whine about not understanding it. If the lore content is based on text, and since most people do not want to spend their time reading chat-bubbles it is still a legit reason to “whine”

You bring up a fair point about people wanting to explore and find out about the lore themselves. Of course there should be something that caters to these people as well.
But a cinematic that explains the broader more basic perspective would not hurt that playerbase, as long as there is room more more in-depth knowledge if you speak to the NPC’s.

KrisHQ.4719:

In fact, people CAN skip lore content and then whine about not understanding it. If the lore content is based on text, and since most people do not want to spend their time reading chat-bubbles it is still a legit reason to “whine”

You bring up a fair point about people wanting to explore and find out about the lore themselves. Of course there should be something that caters to these people as well.
But a cinematic that explains the broader more basic perspective would not hurt that playerbase, as long as there is room more more in-depth knowledge if you speak to the NPC’s.

No, if people chose to skip the lore they have no right to come and whine about not understanding the Lore.

If I decide to watch a movie and start watching when half the movie is already over I can’t really whine about not understanding stuff since I skipped the first part, now can I?

So you simply want cinematics everywhere because some people are to lazy to find out stuff for themselves?

KrisHQ.4719:

But a cinematic that explains the broader more basic perspective would not hurt that playerbase, as long as there is room more more in-depth knowledge if you speak to the NPC’s.

A cinematic is entirely out of the question as it requires great resources to produce and do right.

But a simple text archive in your Hero window recapping past happenings, would be entirely doable and would go a long way towards keeping the player aware of the world.

Those who are interested, that is.

lordkrall.7241:

KrisHQ.4719:

In fact, people CAN skip lore content and then whine about not understanding it. If the lore content is based on text, and since most people do not want to spend their time reading chat-bubbles it is still a legit reason to “whine”

You bring up a fair point about people wanting to explore and find out about the lore themselves. Of course there should be something that caters to these people as well.
But a cinematic that explains the broader more basic perspective would not hurt that playerbase, as long as there is room more more in-depth knowledge if you speak to the NPC’s.

No, if people chose to skip the lore they have no right to come and whine about not understanding the Lore.

If I decide to watch a movie and start watching when half the movie is already over I can’t really whine about not understanding stuff since I skipped the first part, now can I?

So you simply want cinematics everywhere because some people are to lazy to find out stuff for themselves?

GW2 is a game, and games are meant to be fun. A lot of people do not want to spend their time in-game on talking to a lot of different NPC’s reading all the text.
That is just something you have to realize whether you think it’s being lazy or not.
So yes, people have a “right” to complain about the way the lore in presented if they’d rather see it a different way.

And no, i don’t want cinematics “everywhere” but having a one minute long cinematic to brief the players of the current situation on Southsun Cove as well as present Canach and his history seems like a very good idea to me.

HawkMeister.4758:

KrisHQ.4719:

But a cinematic that explains the broader more basic perspective would not hurt that playerbase, as long as there is room more more in-depth knowledge if you speak to the NPC’s.

A cinematic is entirely out of the question as it requires great resources to produce and do right.

But a simple text archive in your Hero window recapping past happenings, would be entirely doable and would go a long way towards keeping the player aware of the world.

Those who are interested, that is.

The Living Story content often come in themes. We had the Molten Alliance content that spanned over a 1-2 months and now we have the Southsun content that is going to be here approximately for the same amount of time.
This would give the Artists at least 2 months to create a ~1 minute cinematic.
I’m not really sure how difficult the cinematics are to make, but i’ve heard that layering concept-art and bringing it to life with simple animations is not that difficult (from friends that draw). It’s the drawing that would take most of the time I believe.
I’ve noticed some of the content already has voice-over as well, so i dont suppose that would be a reason not to do it either.
Nothing is “entirely out of the question”, it’s just a matter of priority. And fact is that many people do not really feel connected with the new story/living world content.

lordkrall.7241:

So you simply want cinematics everywhere because some people are to lazy to find out stuff for themselves?

Those are irrelevant to the discussion anyway.

But most people just can´t be bothered to read every single blurb that gets thrown at them.
Call it laziness, ADD or simply “Right now I got sh_t to do ANet! Stop Spamming me with all this generic fantasy carp I already read 4000 times in all the other CRPGs/MMOs I played.”

A good example for this are all those nice books in Ebonhawk. Very cool to go hunting for and read, but it´s totally disjointed as one can´t possible manage to get them in the right order.
Why isn´t this stuff a Tab in my Archive? The information obviously is already in my client, so why can´t I reread it when I want to?

KrisHQ.4719:

GW2 is a game, and games are meant to be fun. A lot of people do not want to spend their time in-game on talking to a lot of different NPC’s reading all the text.
That is just something you have to realize whether you think it’s being lazy or not.
So yes, people have a “right” to complain about the way the lore in presented if they’d rather see it a different way.

And no, i don’t want cinematics “everywhere” but having a one minute long cinematic to brief the players of the current situation on Southsun Cove as well as present Canach and his history seems like a very good idea to me.

Exactly, it is a game. Not a tv-show. A game, especially a RPG, is about doing stuff. Not about sitting around watching everything being shown to you without any effort of your own.
Of course, I never said people couldn’t complain about the way it is presented, I say people that actively skip the lore should not complain about the lore not making sense.

So getting the devs to spend hours doing something that will last just a minute or so instead of spending those hours actually working on the event is a good thing?
Anyone that even have a slight interested about the story can find out quite a bit about the story by simply talking to the NPCs marked with stars.

lordkrall.7241:

So getting the devs to spend hours doing something that will last just a minute or so instead of spending those hours actually working on the event is a good thing?

I guess we will never come to an agreement, so I’ll just go ahead and end the discussion with you here. Thank you for your input though.
As for the question in the quoted part, it is something that neither of us can answer.

If having a cinematic would please a lot of players, I believe that it would be worth the effort, yes. If you removed the dungeon cinematics as well as the Order cinematics, and put in text instead, I for one would have been very dissapointed and I honestly believe I’m not alone on that one.
So whether it would be beneficial compared to doing something else, i do not know. Just keep in mind that the Artists creating cinematics are not the same ones that are coding the content.
For more information about the people behind them, check this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAlf0-THkCU

lordkrall.7241:

So getting the devs to spend hours doing something that will last just a minute or so instead of spending those hours actually working on the event is a good thing?

Exactly, it isn´t.

Anyone that even have a slight interested about the story can find out quite a bit about the story by simply talking to the NPCs marked with stars.

Sure.
Until they are gone.

Again I have to stubbornly insist on a proper Archive, at least of the most pertinent convos we had with NPCs. In my opinion it´s simply the only viable way of solving this dilemma.

HawkMeister.4758:

Sure.
Until they are gone.

Again I have to stubbornly insist on a proper Archive, at least of the most pertinent convos we had with NPCs. In my opinion it´s simply the only viable way of solving this dilemma.

Oh, I agree with that.
I have no issue with some kind of archive which tells us some information about earlier stories and such. I would actually welcome it.

HawkMeister.4758:

Again I have to stubbornly insist on a proper Archive, at least of the most pertinent convos we had with NPCs. In my opinion it´s simply the only viable way of solving this dilemma.

That is great, but not a reason to completely deny the suggestion i proposed in this thread. Most of the posts you have written here up until this point, does not really bring anything to the discussion.
Assuming your opinion is objectively correct by saying “Discussing cinematics is irrelevant” and “I have another idea which is the only solution” does not really help in creating a discussion.
And if you’re only here to hijack the thread, i suggest that you just stop it now, since I will not have time to answer everything here.

KrisHQ.4719:

Just keep in mind that the Artists creating cinematics are not the same ones that are coding the content.
For more information about the people behind them, check this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAlf0-THkCU

I´d be surprised as hell if even half of these guys still work for ANet.
And even from that short flic(btw thnx for that link, was new to me) on can easily see how time consuming the whole process is.
No way can they pull that off constantly for these Living Stories.

That´s all I have to say to that, already said my piece in the above posts.

I am lore-interested and find the presentation of such lore in the game lacking, especially with southsun and the previous events that took place there in november (and Canachs involvement in them). Now I knew about it because I already owned the game back then, no problem for me in this case.

But I think if Anet places value on the lore of the world and history they created, they need to present it even more in game.

I would have liked some more dialogue with Kiel for example about the initital taking of the island months ago. Maybe bringing up details about Canach and the apparently fruitless hunt for him.

New, lore-interested players should be given the lion’s share of it in the game through books and journals, npc dialoge and the randomly occuring npc chatter. Anet already does that to a degree, but for living story chapters with a previous installment (or similarly here with the previous southsun events) they should put more in the game instead of relying on out-of-game methods.

For example the short story about Rhox was neat, gave a glimpse into her past. You cant put that into an in-game book and Rhox herself probably wouldnt tell you about it so vividly. But she hints at at with the mining comments, so maybe have an “incident report” summing it up from a neutral position lying around somewhere relevant. Same with Canach, and Noll. I was giddy when I met Noll on southsun a while back while they started rebuilding, it was the first hint at them actually involving npcs repeatedly in the updates. Even though he only had two lines, I liked that little touch.