Guild Wars 2

This question naturally arises – seeing how I find the story in GW2 beyond naive and predictable. It’s one huge cliche. At the same time, I see people intrigued by it.

So I wonder – am I too old for video game stories? Maybe they are tailored for the younger folks. I feel like I’ve heard it all before.

Is it time for me to start reading Dostoyevsky and Isaac Asimov in order to find “a challenge” for my intellect/level of maturity?

Keep in mind that the game is rated T.
That means the stories must be aimed at people at that age.

You are never to old to be a gamer…

Besides that, i agree with you that so far (i’m level 55) it has been very cliché. Being a geek that i am and reading all kinds of fantasy series that are way more complecated then the story in Guild Wars 2 does have an impact.

I’ve noticed this in a series of books i read from a age of 14 (Ranger’s apprentice) now i’m 19 and read series like A Game of Thrones and dont find the series like that exciting anymore. So i gues this is just a big part of me growing up :P (my parents will contest this statement).

I dont know your age, but i play GW2 because of epic events and slaying dragons etc. etc. etc. but also for the challange in gameplay it offers, good story’s i’ll get out of good books. I dont expect story’s to be good in mmorpg’s, i play this genre for the interaction between people (guild) and the gear , shiny!

AND PVP!!!!!

Raging Bull.5048:

This question naturally arises – seeing how I find the story in GW2 beyond naive and predictable. It’s one huge cliche. At the same time, I see people intrigued by it.

So I wonder – am I too old for video game stories? Maybe they are tailored for the younger folks. I feel like I’ve heard it all before.

Is it time for me to start reading Dostoyevsky and Isaac Asimov in order to find “a challenge” for my intellect/level of maturity?

your not to old you just have to acsept that this is kinda what gameing has alway’s been.

I Feel the problem is voice acting LOL. diolog could get away with being bad and cheesy why it was all in text to hear it just make’s us see how bad it actualy is

see games like bulders gate, Zelda, Final Fantasy. for exa

@ RaZaC

Wow, you are 19 and already feel you’ve overgrown the story in question. I am over 30… Guess I got my answer. It’s not me, it’s really the story.

Well, the story took a nose dive after the orders me thinks, some of the starter zones bit it and there’s a lot of filler because of how it’s spanned over 80 levels. It’s not the greatest thing, but it’s enough for me to try and see what happens before and and up to the end of the orders. (Because everything becomes the same after those arcs.)

Well i’m not sure if its “overgrown”, the story in games just never really has an impact on me. I’ve never really been able to care about the characters (trying to think of one argh) in (mmorpg)games. I do like the “cutscenes” they have created, the voice-acting is pretty good (generally speaking) and helps to emerge me a little more in the story.

Basically what I’ve gotten from the story so far (lvl 55):

For me this has not been immersive because it doest feel related (it does though, somehow). Also because of reading on the forums to much and just knowing your going to kill Zaithan first time you hear about him makes it less immersive.

I wouldn’t say that you are to old for gaming.

I for example enjoy the story for most parts. Yes it is cliche, yes it is predictable, but it is a fun little fantasy story, and to be honest I don not find books like Harry Potter less cliche and less predctable.

A few parts of the story are bad. I just played the Val-A golem story of the asura storyline and at the first quest I got this feeling that I know where the whole thing would be going and at the half way point my fears would turn out to be true. In combination that Zojja as well as my character acted stupid beyond believe, i was kind of disappointed.

Other parts are well writen and an overall good experience. This is by far no Hamlet or Faust, but is mostly good for what it is and what it is trying to be. That are my 2 copper on this part.

Well … honestly, how old are you if you haven’t read Asimov yet. Furthermore if you haven’t read it how do you know what maturity level it is for? This is of course besides the fact that I can’t remember Asimov having written a fantasy, I considered them all science fiction?

Just take it as light literature, same as those westerns where the first guy had to be shot on page 7, high-noon on page 32 – you know.

Please do define the “challenge” a bit more that you are seeking, I am intrigued where the bar is for that compared to a Dostoyevsky, in computer-game terms I mean.

Edit: Btw – just poking a bit of fun here, don’t want it to come across the wrong way. I’m at a stage where most stories don’t surprise me anymore, the medium (movies, books etc) does not matter. There are only so many core stories and variances off. As long as it’s told good (or the effects in the movie are good) I’m happy. Personally I don’t need to read a Kafka, but I’m not sure that part has anything to do with age.

No your not to old for gaming. Your just trying to get more out of the story then what is there. This is a huge problem for MMO’s and FPS games. You may find some intriguing stories in the odd single player games but they are few and far between.

The only purpose of the Storyline is to try to stand out from every other MMO out there with their static quests that every single player gets no matter their race/background/occupation ect. It’s also a tool to be used for the Role players to give their character a sense of their backstory, although they all end in the character becoming a superhero that saves the day. I guess the Role players wouldn’t like it at all if there character failed at slaying the dragon and ends the story as a nobody living in a back alley addicted to sniffing fairydust while having flashbacks of all the creatures/people they killed on their attempted quest for greatness .

Play the video games for the simple entertainment value they give you, and for the virtual “friends” you make along the way. When your in the mood for a deep story, go find a book.

There are only about 3 different story types anyway. Eventually if you boil everything down, it is all ‘cliche’.

Videogames are predictable because there is a player character present. he is obviously going to be part of the story until the end and not get killed off in the beginning in a surprise twist.

Additionally he will be a figure of some importance.

I think actually having him be a side-kick of the ‘real’ hero is a welcome change of pace, but people seem to hate that.

I would also be OK with a storyline that ended in ruin and defeat for your side instead of glorious victory, but I don’t know how well that would sell to audiences at large.

Well, there are stories that are less predictable than other, because they do a really good job in hiding the core story and also have a point to make.

Since I am German I naturally read German literature. Goethe, Schiller, Lessing.
But also ETA Hoffmann (The Sandman), Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front) and Carl Zuckmayer (Des Teufels General).
And things like the Nibelungenlied and the Edda, only to name a few things.

I like the greek and roman tales like the ilias or the metamorphosis and I do not really like Kafka except it is Ka-Fu-Ka (had to write it this way because of the profanity filter O_o) from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei.

But when it comes to Fanatsy or SF literature, Stanislaw Lem is the only auther I see as really interesting and exceptionally fun to read. And to get this out of the way: I do not like the Lord of the Rings. It was so boring that I couln’t finish it, but I have heared that the English version is much better than the German one.

Guild wars 2 is not in this class of books but I it ok fantasy novel.

lordkrall.7241:

Keep in mind that the game is rated T.
That means the stories must be aimed at people at that age.

Not necessarily. There’s plenty of games out there that touch on mature themes and intricate plot points without stretching the rating too much. There’s a lot of stuff in GW2 that could be considered pretty dark, though a lot of it is unfortunately not used to the extent it could be. I’d point to the likes of Vagrant Story, which had a number of pretty dark story elements throughout it.

So I wouldn’t say that the OP is too old for gaming, it’s just that most companies seem to insist on playing it safe and therefore offer heroic, generic or ‘funny’ plot points instead of embracing the more mature aspects as much as they could. Just look at how the target audience lapped up Tybalt. He’s tolerable, but there’s more fleshed out characters who fall under the radar because they’re not ‘funny’.

You just have to suspend belief. I like “Hamlet” however I did appreciate the movie “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” with everything predictable. I did not come the GW2 thinking it was going to be the next War and Peace storywise

If you want a game with a good story you should, for the most part, expect very little of MMOs, “AAA” games, the fantasy genre, and games with lots of graphic violence or “intense” gameplay. In general, games will be driven by either gameplay or storytelling with very few doing both well. edit: You might want to try out The Secret World.

Also, it’s never too early to pick up an author you consider challenging.

Rouven.7409:

Well … honestly, how old are you if you haven’t read Asimov yet. Furthermore if you haven’t read it how do you know what maturity level it is for? This is of course besides the fact that I can’t remember Asimov having written a fantasy, I considered them all science fiction?

Just take it as light literature, same as those westerns where the first guy had to be shot on page 7, high-noon on page 32 – you know.

Please do define the “challenge” a bit more that you are seeking, I am intrigued where the bar is for that compared to a Dostoyevsky, in computer-game terms I mean.

Edit: Btw – just poking a bit of fun here, don’t want it to come across the wrong way. I’m at a stage where most stories don’t surprise me anymore, the medium (movies, books etc) does not matter. There are only so many core stories and variances off. As long as it’s told good (or the effects in the movie are good) I’m happy. Personally I don’t need to read a Kafka, but I’m not sure that part has anything to do with age.

I’ve read almost all the books written by Asimov. Just that I wouldn’t mind reading them once again.

It was just for making apoint.

Vivisector.5680:

No your not to old for gaming. Your just trying to get more out of the story then what is there. This is a huge problem for MMO’s and FPS games. You may find some intriguing stories in the odd single player games but they are few and far between.

The only purpose of the Storyline is to try to stand out from every other MMO out there with their static quests that every single player gets no matter their race/background/occupation ect. It’s also a tool to be used for the Role players to give their character a sense of their backstory, although they all end in the character becoming a superhero that saves the day. I guess the Role players wouldn’t like it at all if there character failed at slaying the dragon and ends the story as a nobody living in a back alley addicted to sniffing fairydust while having flashbacks of all the creatures/people they killed on their attempted quest for greatness .

Play the video games for the simple entertainment value they give you, and for the virtual “friends” you make along the way. When your in the mood for a deep story, go find a book.

I wonder, why do companies like ANet even waste resources, for instance, on the story if they don’t intend to make it SOLID. Good, intriguing. It’s better to leave it out all together, than to have a bad one.

lordkrall.7241:

Keep in mind that the game is rated T.
That means the stories must be aimed at people at that age.

I am over 30 and still find often enough stories for quite young people entertaining. I love to watch My Little Pony Friendship is Magic for example. So that anything is rated T is no excuse. Most parts of the story in GW2 are just bad and ArenaNet should feel bad for this.

One can never be to old for gaming .However as far as "having heard it all before " anyone who’s well read or done some heavy RPGing ( note i didn’t put MMO in there ) pretty much has . There are only so many stories that can be told before you’re hearing the same one with different people in a different setting.

Now considering my previous statement i think ANET did a pretty good job with the story they’re telling

Raging Bull.5048:

(…)

I’ve read almost all the books written by Asimov. Just that I wouldn’t mind reading them once again.

It was just for making apoint.

Hehe. Understandable – but let’s lean back a bit and reflect on this. Is this really a fair comparison?
The medium for storytelling is totally different – most movies based on books cannot translate and capture the entire of the magic of the original story in the same way.
Similar to computer games – especially with limitations in a MMO environment.

Some examples:
- would you like long chapters watching events around other characters in an MMO?
- could our story span generations?
- you don’t get to chose the hero in the book

There have to be compromises.

This question naturally arises – seeing how I find the story in GW2 beyond naive and predictable. It’s one huge cliche. At the same time, I see people intrigued by it.
So I wonder – am I too old for video game stories? Maybe they are tailored for the younger folks. I feel like I’ve heard it all before.
Is it time for me to start reading Dostoyevsky and Isaac Asimov in order to find “a challenge” for my intellect/level of maturity?

YOU GROW OUT OF DRAGONLANCE AND UPGRADE TO MALAZAN.

As far as story goes anyways. For gaming, just tolerate the weaker parts of the story. Right?

For a RPG, it’s not all that good.

But for a MMO, the only better I’ve seen was in Age of Conan.

Different strokes for different folks and all that. I’m 57 and having a ball. By day I’m a software engineer at a small start-up working on products for encrypting wireless traffic; by night I play a charr Warrior.

This is just my second MMO; I started on SWTOR back in their November beta and December launch. GW2 lacks the story and setting of SWTOR, but the mechanics of PvP and PvE are much, much better.

It’s not just you. I’m 20 years old and every single quest so far has been predictable and, well… I miss Guild Wars 1 story writing.

Yes OP, you are too old.

If I were you I’d start thinking about buying yourself a rocking chair, sitting on your porch all day and complain about ‘them darn kids’ on your lawn; just like me…

:P

(I’m 37 by the way, so I am allowed to make fun of us)

I cant play for longer than a hour. My joints start to hurt. All those years of playing video games are starting to show.

Raging Bull.5048:

This question naturally arises – seeing how I find the story in GW2 beyond naive and predictable. It’s one huge cliche. At the same time, I see people intrigued by it.

So I wonder – am I too old for video game stories? Maybe they are tailored for the younger folks. I feel like I’ve heard it all before.

Is it time for me to start reading Dostoyevsky and Isaac Asimov in order to find “a challenge” for my intellect/level of maturity?

I completely agree with you, but I’m 19. I read constantly though, so I’ve been around the block when it comes to storytelling. GW2’s story is dull and immature.

I don’t think age or rating has anything to do with it. I know plenty of people in their 30s-40s who love children’s movies and books along with more mature novels. Many of which teared up during Brave, Up, How to Train Your Dragon, and the rest of the lot. Guild Wars 2 just happens to have less than good storytelling at the moment.

I’m 28 and for the last half hour I’ve been posting in threads about the bad story and scripting in the game. I just witnessed a man die for his friend and didn’t feel a shred of emotion, in fact I was trying to find a way to skip the whole scene.

I feel that although the story is cliche, predictable and at times utterly ludicrous, what really brings these problems to a head isn’t the problems themselves, it’s the execution of the story. Many times cutscenes have lasted for too long, NPCs have paused between actions for several seconds, and voice acting has been all over the place.

Compared to other games, even games in its genre, Guild Wars 2 seems to be between five and ten years behind in terms of cinematic quality.

I agree, nosleepdemon, but the biggest issue I have with the story is that it’s naive, not engaging, no intelligent twists… In other words, it’s for really, really young folks. The things you mentioned are a “bonus”, which doesn’t really help.

Honestly, why bother with an aspect of the game if you can’t do it really, really good. They should have left the story out all together, it’s better than having a bad one. If they wanted to implement the story so badly, then they should have made an AWESOME one.

Regarding naivety, I have to agree that the story is very unimaginative and by the numbers. I suppose it’s because I too have read my share of books, and it seems that ArenaNet simply did not employ a good writer. For example, the main antagonist is so obviously evil that it defies belief. Zhaitan is almost a comical villain whose lumbering hordes of undead are a pretty good metaphor for the game’s treatment of the storyline: laboured.

Like some said, you’re never too old for gaming. My grand father, who recently passed away at 99, never thought he was. Sure it wasn’t computer games, but that’s just a generation thing.
The story I thought started nicely, tried a bit of human, asura, and finished the Norn one. But it all goes downhill when you join the Trinity or what it called and start working for this clueless Trahearn. That’s when I switched off, and lsot interest for the most part.
As much as stories in game can be naive and predictable, sometimes I still get into it. Mass Effect2 is one, KOTOR is another. Ok not MMOs per say…

And yes it is always a good time to pick up an Isac Asimov, I am seriously considering a pilgrimage to the Foundations myself.

The fact that the three groups trying to save the world need the player character and the chosen one Trahearne to tell them to work together -- as normal behavior for them is to mock each other and fight/argue -- is really, really dumb.

The personal stories have a decent enough start, in my opinion, but lose their appeal once you get into the Pact territory.

I was actually thinking the same thing last night when I was doing my personal story. I was on my Sylvari Mesmer, level 24. I’ve done it with a Asura Elementalist and I’m at the end with another story with my level 70 Guardian.

Is it the game, the voice acting, the clichés? Have they thrown in the sections where you have to kill horde after horde of risen to cater to the younger players who seems to enjoy that? I’ve said it before, it sometimes feel like I’m playing Serious Sam. The mass-slaughter of risen usually appears around level 50 but now, on my Sylvari Mesmer, it started to appear already at level 20+ and I’m so fed up with it, not just the story itself and the voice acting (and Traherne !) that I’m actually thinking about skipping it completely.

But it would be nice, since I’m a completist, to finish a third personal story so I have all the paths.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m to old for this. Maybe my standards in story telling is higher then this. I want to be given tasks that involves more tactical thinking then mindless mass-slaughter, more brain then brawl.

Only thing I know is when I do PvE, Dungeons, WvW and SPvP I enjoy the game a lot – but when I do the personal story I’m mostly annoyed, frustrated and clicking “Skip to next” as soon as it appears just to be done with it.

I can’t speak for you, but for myself I find that what you’re describing is an inevitable fact of getting older. But the problem is not that you’re too old. Rather, it’s that you’re too experienced to be excited by something when you can already foresee the middle and ending of it. You’ve seen it before, and it holds nothing new or unexpected for you.

I just turned 39 and I love games. Always have. I loved games so much as a kid that when I grew up I made them my job. I became a programmer in the industry, and I did that for years until the overtime and the endless movie license games sucked the joy out of it for me.

I still love games but I don’t buy and play most of what gets released. In many cases I can try a demo or watch someone play a game for a while and feel like I’ve experienced all that I would get out of that particular game. The problem is not that the game is bad, really. It’s that the game is just not unique or surprising enough to show me anything new. I’ve accumulated so much experience that if you show me the essence of the thing, I can extrapolate the rest. And when that happens I don’t feel the desire to play through the minutes and seconds of it.

That also applies to particular parts of a game, for instance a story told through cut scenes. I pick games now based strictly on whether the premise and mechanics are fun for me. I love everything about MMOs – the long term character development, the always-on environment, the combat, etc. — so mostly I play them. But at this point it takes a lot for a story to excite me, because I’ve seen so many good, bad, and mediocre stories that it takes something really striking to make me care about that aspect of the game.

That’s the gist of it. If it’s not new to me, I just don’t feel like I care enough to sit through your cut scenes. I would rather just get to the clicky part because a story that’s only serviceable or adequate just doesn’t cut it anymore. If I know what’s coming then I don’t need to sit through it and watch.

And that’s not limited to games. I don’t know about you but I feel the same way about movies and TV shows now, and for the same reasons. I feel like I’m wasting time watching something that’s “just OK” or too predictable. Show me something new and interesting or I just don’t have the care to spare.

TLDR: We are a portion of the audience that is inherently difficult to please because we’ve experienced so many stories that it takes a really good one to turn us on now. Some people will simply read that as “jaded” but that’s not how I would characterize it. Jaded comes with negative connotations that I would not apply here.

@Katz, your analogy works as long as all flowers are lovely. But then the first part of your post seems to suggest that I should allow myself to believe all flowers are lovely, even if I don’t find a particular flower to be so. You make no allowance for a flower that I find unimpressive.

I don’t believe for a minute that I must “allow myself to be entertained” by things I don’t find entertaining. Why would I convince myself that a given thing is entertaining when there are other things that I genuinely find entertaining already? Or in your own terms, I don’t have to convince myself that the putrid stinkweed — or more to the point, the mediocre bloom — is lovely, because there are also roses in the world.

After you got the choice to choose a path between Vigil, Whisper or Priory everything went downhills. It became less of you and more of whatever bunch you decided to group up with. As the story progresses you might as well be a static in the background. Certain choices you get to decide for the story progression already seem thought out by everyone else but you. You are really only there to confirm which one choice, not plan them out eith the others

And then Trahearne comes in and ruins all interest i had in stopping Zhaitan. He takes the standard “I become a hero, not because i want, but because i need” deal that i have seen in so many stories prior to this. Now, i would have been okay with this if it was ME that took the leadership. Afterall, I am the one who rised to the very top, giving it all to stop the forces threatning Tyria. Why should Trahearne, someone who hasn’t even lifted a sword before in his life, lead us all in battle against one of the strongest forces in Tyria. Isn’t it MY personal story, where I get to be the hero?

Some of the writing makes it feel like a bad WoT spinoff, trying it’s best to build up to something epic and huge, and then just flops all over with uninteresting and incompetent characters taking the lead and half-assed battle tactics even a child could come up with.

This game has beautiful art with some of the worst voice acting I’ve ever seen. The story would be much more engaging if the characters actually had some emotions.

After seeing the personal story in GW2 I started appreciating the story of the D-title, which was one of the most naive and poorly executed stories I’ve seen during my life.

The voice-over was even worse than the story, so to answer OP’s question – no, you’re not too old for gaming. It’s not you.

TravisTrout.6803:

I can’t speak for you, but for myself I find that what you’re describing is an inevitable fact of getting older. But the problem is not that you’re too old. Rather, it’s that you’re too experienced to be excited by something when you can already foresee the middle and ending of it. You’ve seen it before, and it holds nothing new or unexpected for you.

I just turned 39 and I love games. Always have. I loved games so much as a kid that when I grew up I made them my job. I became a programmer in the industry, and I did that for years until the overtime and the endless movie license games sucked the joy out of it for me.

I still love games but I don’t buy and play most of what gets released. In many cases I can try a demo or watch someone play a game for a while and feel like I’ve experienced all that I would get out of that particular game. The problem is not that the game is bad, really. It’s that the game is just not unique or surprising enough to show me anything new. I’ve accumulated so much experience that if you show me the essence of the thing, I can extrapolate the rest. And when that happens I don’t feel the desire to play through the minutes and seconds of it.

That also applies to particular parts of a game, for instance a story told through cut scenes. I pick games now based strictly on whether the premise and mechanics are fun for me. I love everything about MMOs – the long term character development, the always-on environment, the combat, etc. — so mostly I play them. But at this point it takes a lot for a story to excite me, because I’ve seen so many good, bad, and mediocre stories that it takes something really striking to make me care about that aspect of the game.

That’s the gist of it. If it’s not new to me, I just don’t feel like I care enough to sit through your cut scenes. I would rather just get to the clicky part because a story that’s only serviceable or adequate just doesn’t cut it anymore. If I know what’s coming then I don’t need to sit through it and watch.

And that’s not limited to games. I don’t know about you but I feel the same way about movies and TV shows now, and for the same reasons. I feel like I’m wasting time watching something that’s “just OK” or too predictable. Show me something new and interesting or I just don’t have the care to spare.

TLDR: We are a portion of the audience that is inherently difficult to please because we’ve experienced so many stories that it takes a really good one to turn us on now. Some people will simply read that as “jaded” but that’s not how I would characterize it. Jaded comes with negative connotations that I would not apply here.

Hm, I can agree with what you said. Experienced, figures. But, isn’t their job to push the boundaries further, to be original and to satisfy THE most demanding crowd, instead of making stories/games for children who just stopped watching BabyTV?

That is, if their intention is to make a mark in the gaming industry, like they claimed. If you want to be a “legend”, you really must leave the world in awe. You must surpass expectations, not fall short on so many aspects.

It’s as if I’m claiming I want to be a world champion sprinter and dethrone Mr Bolt, but I show up sleepy, unprepared and without my running shoes at the race.

I’m sorry, but if you bragged you’re making THE game and are pushing the genre forward (!?), people have the right to expect “the impossible”. Instead we got mediocre level stuff, if even that.

Edit: I am sick of empty promises and overkill-marketing. We, the gamers, must put a stop to that and heavily criticize those who try to make fools of us and let them know they can’t gamble with our trust.

The point is that everybody claims that. Marketing is marketing.

I never believed that this game revolutionizes anything. But I expected it to be a good game, which it is.

Revolutions happen and you know when the revolution is there. World of Warcraft was a revolution. You don’t have to like this game, but it did so many things right at the right time, that it just happend. Final Fantasy 7 set a mark in gaming history. Valve did revolutionize the the industry with steam. At least these are thing which I consider a revolution.

Everyone has the intention do great things and to revolutionize the MMO genre is such a great thing. People will tell you this and tell you what they are planing, but it is not up to them if there will be a revolution or not.

As I said the story isn’t great but it is ok in my book, and I did expect that. The exploration is awesome, and this is alsoe exactly what I expected. WvW is much better than I thought it would be and dungeons are far worse. So I started to play PvP a bit, something I almost never do in a MMO. Was that a revolution? No! Was this a really interesting change of pace? Most certainly!

So yeah I am glad I bought this game.

You are telling me Sonic the Hedgehog and Pokémon have better stories than Guild Wars 2? Cause that’s some of the games I used to play when I was young, and I’m pretty sure they have stories way inferior to Guild Wars 2’s.
That said, GW2’s story is nothing great, but what do you expect from an MMO? If I want a story I play a single-player game, or better yet: read a book or something.

Milennin.4825:

You are telling me Sonic the Hedgehog and Pokémon have better stories than Guild Wars 2? Cause that’s some of the games I used to play when I was young, and I’m pretty sure they have stories way inferior to Guild Wars 2’s.
That said, GW2’s story is nothing great, but what do you expect from an MMO? If I want a story I play a single-player game, or better yet: read a book or something.

Perhaps you are right that stories can’t reach very deep in MMOs. But why have a story then? My point is – if you want to make a game no1 in the world, or at least want to be in the very top, only deliver what you can do really good. To make things even worse, this doesn’t apply to just the story aspect in GW2.

I’m 41 as of a few days ago, lol, and I so know what you are saying about video game stories being trite, cliche and derivative. Fortunately, there are lots of avenues out there for every genre where quality stories are being produced, the video game industry just isn’t the place to find it. I think some of it is a limitation of the media in general and it does have to pander to a huge audience and it certainly seems they choose the path of least resistance.

This storytelling thing has just been at the forefront more lately as I’ve seen it in star wars and guild wars 2. I think it’s early for us to decide how the genre will develop this and it does sound like an intriguing premise that you get to step into a character’s shoes and through a myriad of decisions change the outcome of a story, but as long as they’re trying to follow the rather trite main storyline, it is certainly predicatable. I mean as unique as anyone can want the storylines to be in gw2, they are all eventually going to end up at the same place with a few minor character changes b/c we all know that zhaitan is the big dragon threat and we’re propelled that way. This makes me less likely to want to do it again. Now in swtor the various characters actually had very different stories and some were better than others and they didn’t all end up at the exact same place. I think we should have detached the personal storylines from the main story line here in gw 2 so that it became more of a personal journey and less of everyone being the same. In years to come I expect we’ll have a solid story based mmo that really sucks you in with a quality story that’s truly unpredictable but right now all those choices have to be coded, artistically created, etc and it’s just a rather daunting prospect to offer any real choice b/c you’re designing for the masses and too many choices just creates too much work.

On the bright side, you can enjoy games for many things like exploring the world, experiencing the dungeons, belonging to a community, setting small or long term character goals for aesthetic or statistical advantage. The real power of mmo’s is in your relationships with other players and how your character relates to this open world. I played wow a lot longer than I probably would have because of the huge friendships i created and for a long time we got together 3 times a week and chatted and had a blast while also clearing content, but the magic of karazhan and the mmo in general had faded a long time before that.

Play games and read and seek engaging tv, movies, etc. Life is long journey and entertainment and intellectual pursuits should always have a place. I’m not sure you’re going to get dostoyevsky out of the fantasy genre, lol. I read plenty of escapist fantasy and have a good abilty to use a suspension of disbelief. If you’re after something in fantasy that’s truly different from the young hero on the quest, you might try Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy. It’s quite different from what’s generally being offered and I was swept away.

I can appreciate simplicity and I can deal with naivety and predictability. But that’s not what I find to be the problem with the GW2 personal stories. The problem is that they’re very nearly the most corny stories I’ve ever experienced, and the dialogue is unnatural and cheesy to the point that it makes me feel sympathetic embarrassment. I blush when I hear and read some of these lines. On top of it the voice acting is all over the place. Some of it is great (Tybalt, Rytlock, Zojja) while a lot of it is really poor. And I don’t mean poor as in not convincing. I mean stressing the wrong words in sentences so that they don’t make sense.

The norn are the masters of overwrought cheese. “I will do [minor thing nobody cares about] and my LEGEND WILL GROW!!!” I love Nordic stuff and I expected to really dig the norn, but they’re completely insufferable dorks instead of intimidating warriors. The norn personal story dialogue is not fan-fiction worthy. None of it. Every character. It’s all bad. And don’t even get me started on the decision to pronounce all Nordic and Nordic-flavoured words in an English phonetic way. It doesn’t sound more universal, it just sounds ignorant and hokey.

The charr story is far better, as is the acting. But then there’s Emer Whipmane, a well-written, flawed, and morally grey (see, it’s actually possible in this game) character whose voice acting completely ruins her. It stood out painfully.

Eh. Just cause it’s not taking itself dead seriously doesn’t mean it’s childish or naive. One of my issues with contemporary media is the whole “darker, bloodier and grittier = mature” trend. I mean, one of the biggest themes in GW2 is bigotry, a pretty heavy issue right there.

(If you do get around to reading Dostoevsky, I strongly recommend The Brothers Karamazov.)

@ ndrangles
Well, it doesn’t have to be bloodier, just bloody more intelligent, complex and unpredictable. :S

@ Azoetia
Hahah, well said, that too. And imagine, I’m playing a Charr (for which everyone says has the best storyline)! What on Earth would I be thinking if I played another race??

Yeah, spend 20 minutes to make a norn and do the very first part of their story. You’ll be very happy with your charr.

Well yes the story of GW is going to be predictable in that I doubt they are going to let the world be destroyed. I know of only one recent movie where they let the world be destroyed. However, I would like to point out that the personal stories of GW were not all created equal. Some of the personal story combination are just more enthralling then others. The Asura story had more shades of grey then 50 shades of Grey (I couldn’t resist!). The human and Norn stories were more generically heroic while the Sylvari too seemed a little bit more… nuanced.

It’s only because I have now had exposer to a number of different story combinations between Beta and release that I can appreciate how the whole outlook of the game changes for you when you play through different personal quests and how all the stories are interlinked etc. Not saying that the story isn’t predictable, as I said, they aren’t going to let the world be destroyed and you will do heroic things. But there is more depth then is evident from just playing one character and one story combination.

But I don’t think its a matter of age. More that by being around this long, you probably have seen the same story a few times. Plus not everybody has to like the GW 2 story. I do but that’s just me.

After the third “oh let me sacrifice myself in a totally scripted and unbelievable way for the team” friend/close officer I got terribly annoyed by the stupidity of it. These events arent even scripted well into the actual action and should not be done like that.

What annoys me A LOT is the fact that all the “undead” are totally undead-ish:
- they TALK (lots) … even though an undead doesnt breathe usually
- they are ALL on drugs and run around about 5 times faster than they should.
The worst part of the quest for this is the “Battle for Fort Trinity”.

The biggest mistake was the stupid idea to have everyone START as “the hero”, which makes the whole thing ridiculous. We ALL are the hero and thats illogical and doesnt allow for growth.