Guild Wars 2

One of the things I remember hearing is how much of an impact the Personal Story will have on the home instance. As of the present timeframe, I’m not really noticing much of this “impact”.

For reference, I am a Human Guardian with a Commoner and Unknown Parents background, and I eventually join the Vigil during the Order introduction. I have not gone past this point.

For the Commoner Arc, I was given the chance to either save the Hospital or the Orphanage. I opted to save the Hospital and was expecting the Orphanage to remain burned down and witness other consequences of my actions. However, upon revisiting my instance during other story missions or just plain visiting, the Orphanage was back to the way it was, standing tall and proud as a safe haven. It was like nothing ever happened.

In addition, I completed the Unknown Parents arc and noticed two generic Shining Blade members standing outside the tavern, remarkable similar to the two that helped the player during that story arc. However, save for the cameo, there were no other interactions with them. What about that drink my character promised, or is there any more information discovered about his parents? Small details like these can go a long way to improving a player’s enjoyment of Guild Wars 2. At least Andrew and Petra have generic dialogue, but it would also be nice to have them up to date as my character progresses in his story.

However, an example that had excellent impact and emphasizing that choices matter is when I was playing my Human Engineer (Street Rat) back in Beta and opted to save the townsfolk instead of Quinn. I remember walking back into that instance and hearing the fate of my character’s dear friend, furthering a desire for revenge. Even though this example is just a one time deal, it would be nice to see more of these – both as permanent changes or just one time actions of awesome. (I have a feeling if I saved Quinn he’ll probably just be a cameo or be generic like Andrew or Petra.)

I understand that there are elements of Guild Wars 2 that are not yet put into place, and satisfying everyone is an impossible task. I’m just wondering if there wasn’t enough time to fulfill all these small possibilities or if it was just “left behind”.