Guild Wars 2

Simple Question. After complaining so much, if you could go back in time and become the game’s lead story writer, how would you change it?

I would…

-Sack Trahearne: a pointless character that adds nothing to the story but takes away a lot. He’s a boring mary-sue glory-thief. Just make us lead the Pact(or don’t have one, see 2 below)

- Give the player fewer choices but make them more important. Having a bajillion kajillion billion choices doesn’t matter if none of them have depth.

-Make our choice of order affect more than one act. It should follow us all the way to the final battle. Heck, it would be cool if we never had a Pact and it was just our order. A Vigil invasion of Orr could just use the overwhelming might of a multi-racial alliance that you would spend the the second third of the PS gathering (the first third being your racial story and the last being the invasion itself.) The OoW could invlove sneaking through Orr and sabotaging the risen army and Zhiatan himself. The Priory could technological might to take down the beast’s army with golems, laser cannons, airships and more, while also finding ancient artifacts to utilize. Can you imagine how epic any of these would be?

-Don’t throw Norn and Humans under the bus.

Well, I would just add a new storyline related to the awakening of the 6th elder dragon and focus more on character development. For instance, fleshing out the NPCs and characters more to be more relatable to the players (Even though the order Mentors are already awesome).

P.S. I don’t really find Trahearne pointless, but that’s just imo tough

You know, the problem with having the storyline branch out so much is the sheer cost of the voice acting. For each story mission there’s . . . I dunno, about two dozen voiced lines. Multiply that by as many as you would like to add, and if there’s a divergence where one mission might have several different characters in a spot count it separately for each one.

Now look up, and this could take a while, what voice actors charge for their work, especially ones like Felicia Day or Steve Blum.

This price tag is why voiced games tend to be rather narrow in options.

Give a finer description on human descendants for the dead sister storyline. Now I have a Canthan thief and an Ascalonian Seraph for sisters.

They’re totally blood related. Honest.

Arikyali.5804:

Give a finer description on human descendants for the dead sister storyline. Now I have a Canthan thief and an Ascalonian Seraph for sisters.

They’re totally blood related. Honest.

It’s okay, we know the Seraph was adopted.

I don’t think there’s anything that can realistically be done about the “personal story”, because it is neither personal nor a story, so it’d have to be completely reworked. Who’s going to pay for all the writing, scripting and voice acting? So, yeah, they irrevocably dropped the ball on this from the very beginning.

In order to have a story, we’d need continuity — connections between the individual arcs, people recognizing our characters and remembering their actions, something changing in the world (even if it’s just an instanced area like the “home” which is currently as worthless as the story overall). In order to make it personal, we’d need the ability to actually roleplay, and most of all the game would have to start treating our characters as characters instead of featureless blobs with no past, no species, and no individuality.

As I have said many times, the early species-dependent chapters are decent and fun enough, but it all goes downstream without a paddle afterwards because every PC acts and talks and thinks and is treated EXACTLY THE SAME and even your own mother doesn’t recognize you, nevermind the people you helped before.

What I’d wish for is a story that diverges based on species, character creation choices and decisions made during the game. The puerile kitten contest between the Orders has to go, just make the mid-game about helping to bring everyone together — including calling squabbling morons out hard and fast if they put petty personal nonsense before saving the world. Something like an extended version of the charr/human peace talks for every species, organization and conflict. Settling past grudges, leadership disputes, infiltration and sabotage problems. All with a strong species-based influence: the Wyld Hunt and dreaming for sylvari, the warband for charr, and so on.

In short, who we are and what we do needs to matter.

Chadramar.8156:

I don’t think there’s anything that can realistically be done about the “personal story”, because it is neither personal nor a story, so it’d have to be completely reworked. Who’s going to pay for all the writing, scripting and voice acting? So, yeah, they irrevocably dropped the ball on this from the very beginning.

I would agree. However, you are correct about the cost problem and that cost is probably why things . . . well, were very minimal. It’s also possible it was written to be three different acts joined together rather than one story with three acts going on in it. Potentially written at different points in development, which would explain the disjointed effect.

(I’ve been there personally, I know how easy that is to happen.)

On the other hand, I don’t know if completely tearing it out and doing it over would work. Nor the idea of splicing into the middle.

If I had to change something in the personal story . . . it’d be very simple in statement but very hard in execution.

“Make the home instance matter.”

Give it the polish to reflect what’s going on for the first half of the story that you spend coming in and out. Someone mentioned the one human story part (of six) and that’s a very valid choice. Deborah on semi-permanent leave until they clear up what happened with Falcon Company, a minor celebrity due to being among the survivors. She can even get a conversation about how horrible it was until you rescued her. If you have people on the street, they wave as you walk up, or bow. Maybe there’s a kid who wants your autograph or to be shown how to use a toy sword.

For the charr, have your warband hang around and take questions about themselves so you can either refresh what you “already learned” or learn new things about their pasts. They have a background same as you, right? Learn it! And later when you pass over command to your sparring partner, you can come back and they’res training rookies. Heck, have them snap to salute as you walk up to talk. You earned that.

For the norn, have friends or rivals drop in and chat with you about moots long past. “Hey, this last Great Hunt was fun, but you know what I remember? When you were chasing that stag and you wound up disrupting some dredge.” “Say, you remember the time Johan drank too much mead and wound up in an argument with Svelna over why Raven would lose to Wolf?” “Did you know Loka tried taunting an asura and wound up running for Bear Lodge with his pants on fire?”

Chadramar.8156:

I don’t think there’s anything that can realistically be done about the “personal story”, because it is neither personal nor a story, so it’d have to be completely reworked. Who’s going to pay for all the writing, scripting and voice acting? So, yeah, they irrevocably dropped the ball on this from the very beginning.

In order to have a story, we’d need continuity — connections between the individual arcs, people recognizing our characters and remembering their actions, something changing in the world (even if it’s just an instanced area like the “home” which is currently as worthless as the story overall). In order to make it personal, we’d need the ability to actually roleplay, and most of all the game would have to start treating our characters as characters instead of featureless blobs with no past, no species, and no individuality.

As I have said many times, the early species-dependent chapters are decent and fun enough, but it all goes downstream without a paddle afterwards because every PC acts and talks and thinks and is treated EXACTLY THE SAME and even your own mother doesn’t recognize you, nevermind the people you helped before.

What I’d wish for is a story that diverges based on species, character creation choices and decisions made during the game. The puerile kitten contest between the Orders has to go, just make the mid-game about helping to bring everyone together — including calling squabbling morons out hard and fast if they put petty personal nonsense before saving the world. Something like an extended version of the charr/human peace talks for every species, organization and conflict. Settling past grudges, leadership disputes, infiltration and sabotage problems. All with a strong species-based influence: the Wyld Hunt and dreaming for sylvari, the warband for charr, and so on.

In short, who we are and what we do needs to matter.

Totally +1 for this.

If I could I’d hop in the Delorean and tell Anet to take a page from Bioware. That would be my advice as I enjoy their ability to make games that allow you to develop your characters personality to your choosing. (with the exceptions of DA2 and the last 15 minutes of ME3)

OH and make sure dyes stay accountbound and not soulbound!

Recently, there’s been changes in the game that ended up making the personal story quite a bit more difficult at certain points. However, the rewards for those particular segments remain the same.

A pass should be made to re-evaluate the difficulty level of all the PS segments, and make sure the rewards are up to date with the difficulty. Few things are as frustrating as a paltry reward for effort put in.

-I would have liked to see some of what we learnt in EotN about the elder dragons be referred to in gw2.

-Seen more of Destiny’s Edge

- Have you as the character lead and Trahearne be your right hand man if the dev’s really felt he must have absoloutly been a part of the story…

- Have a more epic battle with Zhaitan

- Demote Trahearne to Orr expert and adviser.
- Have the Destiny’s Edge be in charge of The Pact, with your racial mentor taking the role of Trahearne. I don’t mind playing second fiddle to Eir, nor would my character. rawr.
- Change the end fight with Zhaitan so that I actually get to swing my axe at his skull.

First things first. Every choice made by the player should matter. Even if they are only small changes, they should be constant and consistent small changes. If I chose nobility and regretting to join the circus then I expect to go through the circus story with whomever my best friend is, have at least one circus member and the bbf follow me in joining the Priory and then have both and my Priory mentor be my personal guards while working for the Pact. My choices from then on could get one or all of them killed.

With that said, there needs to be a lot less deaths around the Orr story arcs. Characters die off so quickly that players don’t even care about them. However, if they have been with you for a while then there will be a lot more emotional investment.

Personality should effect how our characters speak during the storyline. If we choose to be charming then every like should have some level of charm. Even if the npcs will pretty much say the same thing, they should react in different ways to at least give the impression that the choice mattered. In fact, I feel that would be the most cost effective way to go about it. You still go from point a to b but you get to choose if it’s a smooth, bumpy or uphill ride.

Trahearne needs to be revamped completely. I feel he should be killed off early in the Orr story and with his own sword. Though this would make many players happy, it’s not out of spite. Instead, he will then buried but during his funeral, it’ll be revealed that he used the sword’s power and the fact that he’s sylvari to plant himself and become a sort of “Pale Sapling”. From then on he could use his necromancer abilities to tract the risen movements while talking to the player character in an incorporeal form. In this way, he would easily be the most logical choice to lead the pact but it would make sense to have the player do all the “heavy lifting” as he wouldn’t be able to do anything physically.

I also feel that, for someone whom spent most of their life studying Orr and the risen, he should well-versed in most of Zhaitan’s abilities instead of just finding out as the player does. He also need a serious personality change. If he’s going to lead the pact, he needs to be more charismatic. I personally would lean more towards Lelouch from Code: Geass. Something less boyscout and more pragmatic would fit his physical appearance.

Finally, there absolutely needs to be some interaction with Zhaitan before the final battle. Going with the earlier instance, I would give the same character a chance to talk to the dragon. When they are summarily telling Zhaitan that he is evil, he could reply with, “So are you humans evil for chasing inferior creatures out of the hills and forests you built Divinity’s Reach on? Are necromancers evil for using the parts of their slain enemies to make servants? Is your precious Priory evil for confiscating ancient, mystical artifacts from past civilizations to power their present mechanizations? Or do you all simply deem me ‘evil’ because I’m doing it to you? Oh, and in case you haven’t noticed, I was here long before any of your races even existed so it is YOU that are intruding on MY home!” Basically players should see things from the dragon’s perspective instead of them just being an anonymous big bad that they have to be because it is righteous and just.

The story also needs a grandiose reward for completing it. I personally say there should be 2 “Gifts of Lore” that can be used to purchase any named exotic that can’t be forged. Yes, this should include precursors. This gives everyone a fair chance to get any weapon they want. They just have to go through the entire story to get it and can only do so once on any character they create. I consider that more than fair. If you’re wondering why 2 gifts, it’s because many classes can swap weapons and every class has at least one different underwater weapon. One isn’t enough to cover all of that.

Frankly I would scrap the whole “Become the commander of the Pact” stuff. It seems most people enjoyed the Personal Story until you join an order. I think the story would be better if you stayed with your friends from the beginning. Doing it this way lets you learn about your companions and become connected to them as you progress onto Orr.

Take the charr story for example, maybe have it so you stick with your warband and help Rytlock with assignments assisting the Pact, not only do you get to spend more time with your warband and get to know them, you also get to see Destinies Edge interact with each other and their constant arguing and as you progress through the story until they eventually get past their issues with assistance from the player and their companions.

This could also help improve the story mode dungeons, instead of it being, “I hate you” “I hate you to” then suddenly in Arah they become friends again, you get to see how things played out for them between dungeons.

I am not a huge fan of playing games where you are some hero everyone is in reverence of. I didn’t like it how everyone addressed me as “Commander” and would have liked it far more if we weren’t thrust into such an important position.

It’s too late to make it this way and maybe not a lot of other people like the idea of not being the big hero but even if we revisit our friends from the beginning, they will address us as the Commander and I feel that may dampen our connection with them.

Just my two cents, but I’m not a fan of being the legendary hero everyone and their grandma know about.

More Destiny’s Edge in the PS, not only in the dungeons!
In general, I think the early part of the story was a whole lot better. More depth, and better characters than in the higher level parts (yes, I’m looking at you Trahearne).
But what I’d change first, is probably the last battle. Why I need a party to do my personal story still confuses me…

" The puerile kitten contest between the Orders has to go, "

QFT. And I would add to that the sophomoric attitudes of the Destinies’ Edge members nursing their petty little grudges. And I don’t like that DE is constantly referred to in the main story line, but to play out their story you have to go through all of the dungeons, and mostly in order. If you just play the PS line, keep hearing about and seeing the DE people but not witnessing their actions or developing story, then suddenly they’re there at Arah, it just generates a wth reaction.

As for Trahearne, I didn’t mind his role (the main needs someone to tell him or her where to go and what to do), but he’s as wooden as his origins, and needs some spice.

Also, why is a member of a species that has only been in Tyria 25 years the “expert” on Orr history and knowledge? I would expect a Charr or perhaps an asura scholar to fill that role.

Tough question.

First of all, i would put in more similarities with the gw1 stories. I truly felt myself a capital “H” Hero in GW1. My story in GW2 as a Norn Warrior becoming a hero quickly turned into something like “squire of the allmighty and wonderful leader, Trahearne, son of Kormir” I would write something where the player is the main character in its own story, not a kitten npc who pops out of the blue, and have no capabilites of leading a whole army into battle. I think the most enjoyable quests are those before joining an Order. I would keep the atmosphere of the quests. When I actually feel i am what i chose to be, and my decisions actually made some impact. That feeling totally lost later. It was no matter if I am son of Bear or son of Wolf, or son of a Kitten.

Also, i wouldnt kill all the loveable characters during the story, keeping only the annoying, or dull ones. I know it has to be dramatic for more impact, but you can achieve that another way.

Last for now, the last battle has to be the most epic fight in the story line, since you going to kill finally an Elder Dragon! Instead that goes for the one when you clear the Artesian Waters, and the fight with Zhaitan is the most Boring, and Disappointing battle in the whole story. Dont know the current stage of it, but when i did it, not even music was played for the fight. That would made at least some differnece.

1. Linear story – writers can make a more epic story if they have control over the choices made. I’d rather follow a great story, than control a poor one.

2. Consistent characters – Characters are dropped off and forgotten left right and center. This leaves very little character development.

3. Longer missions – each mission is spaced out far apart and are very short to complete, which made the story often forgotten and lessened my immersion.

The main problem I had was when we were presented with false choices. For example, the human/choose an order defending the queen from Kellach forces you to choose one of three plans. However, the Priory’s plan can be executed alongside the Vigil’s or the Order of Whispers’ plan. So, why not do both the Priory’s and Vigil’s plan at the same time? Indeed, you could combine elements of OoW’s plan by having them hide the queen and replace her with an illusion. This is a prime example of a false choice. It would be easy to fix, too. For example, a single pice of dialogue: “The undead have been attacking outlying settlements to draw the Seraph away from Divnity’s Reach. They have snuck two forces into the city. Two of the orders will deal with those forces while the third protects the queen.” Ta-da, false choice gone.

The end of the Norn storyline against the dredge weapon was a similar false choice. Recruiting the quaggans against the dragon had another false choice. Most PS choices were not false choices.

In short, pretty much everything! There are far too many characters who come and go, very few memorable characters, many of the quests are not very exciting, and the story is just far too simple and riddled with cliches. I mean, the stories in GW 1 weren’t the greatest but they were way more engaging than this. I wonder if they hired a third-grader to write it, but then I think at least a third-grader would be more imaginative.

everything. It is pointless, repetetive, not in the least “personal” and I really, really, really hate Trehearne. If there would be an option to kill him, I’d chose that ASAP. Even if that would mean that Zhaitan wins.

-Eliminate Trehearne.

-Make the Pact less rich – seriously, how can three NGO’s afford to field a massive army with the most advanced tech there is?

-Make your order mentor come back as an undead leader and make the ending third of the storyline a much more personal kind of Star Wars-esque redemption quest. Remember playing KotOR 1 for the first time? Everyone liked at least one of the mentors a lot more then any other npcs, and harnessing that would have made the storyline gold.

-Shrink the level ranges of some of the earlier arcs
-Use the extra space to have an additional race chapter after the battle for claw island. The player character interacts with their race’s central government in an attempt to get support for the pact. The player’s actions during the first race arc are used as leverage in this negotiation
-Have the last arc before Arah significantly affected by the player’s order, in terms of mission styles (the player character, being Commander, has some influence on planning, and they’d naturally plan more towards their order’s style)
-Make the final Zhaitan battle more epic in nature, with each of the races contributing. The Sylvari’s incorruptible nature is studied by the asura, who manage to perfect some method of preventing Zhaitan from corrupting the players mid-battle; Professor Gorr’s anti-dragon weaponry is upsized by the Charr; the humans and norn call upon the gods and spirits for their blessing, and the player group is upsized to the point that they can fight Zhaitan on even footing, using the weapons produced by the Charr (which somehow conveniently match the player’s regular equipment perfectly in terms of functionality). The final battle is thus reached by the orders working together, and won by the races working together.

…and the racial sympathy chapter still has no long-term meaning. I really don’t know what to do with that.

I don’t think any changes to the PS are realistic at this point and it’ll probably be better just to add better stuff later, but if I had to change stuff:

- (I might get some hate for this.) I love Trahearne, but it took an effort outside game to get to know the character better to see him fit better in the story. Considering the background information that is either obscure or locked into multiple playthroughs, he is hardly any more of a mary-sue than the player character and much more qualified as Marshall. But this needs to come out in easy to access play, not through scrounging up whatever information one can from various sources. The story could use some serious bulking out with a lot more fleshing out of various important characters, especially Trahearne. It saddens me how much undeserved blame he gets for supposedly “ruining the story” when it’s really the presentation that’s killing the story.

- Because people are going to whine about him taking the credit, maybe take out the people praising him for seemingly trivial things? Not that he seems to be aiming for glory but he’s going to be considered a glory hog anyways. I mean, not that it wasn’t hilarious in a way for random praise to be thrown his way and he seeming completely oblivious.

- Make it obvious when the “personal” part of the story end and when the main storyline takes hold. Of course you impact the main storyline but it’s not longer really personal at that point. Claw Island is a very solid marker but it seems like just another fight-lots-of-dudes quest that hasn’t split from personal story. Not that I mind out personal story ending at 20-30 but a really obvious sign might make players less confused at to why suddenly they are less of the main character. (Again… not that I mind, being second in command is fine with me. Do you guys really want to do Trahearne’s paperwork?)

- I’m hesitant to say this, because making dungeons solo content does go away from being an MMO, but it would be nice to have the storymode dungeons be soloable. I did Arah to finish my story and had almost no idea what was going on with the Destiny’s Edge (other than ~Friendship is Magic~ or something along those lines) because you don’t need to do the other story mode dungeons to finish the story. Also it’s very annoying to have to scrounge up a group so you can do a personal storyline and can be annoying for said party if you want to sit through all the cutscenes. Personal cutscenes would be nice too. For ALL story dungeons, on that note. Since there seems to be no dialogue directed specifically at you outside the cutscenes, I would think this would be fairly easy?

- Expanding on the previous topic; having the Destiny’s Edge storyline in dungeons that require parties makes the storytelling very jagged for me. Doing them out of order because you couldn’t get a group together for an earlier one just jumbles the story up something fierce. I feel very disconnected from that story arch and it really took the bite out of Zhaitan’s fight to have little lead up on that front.

- Please, dear goodness, fix getting double introduced to people I already know. As a sylvari, Claw Island to Forging the Pact felt very off. Being presented as friend-of-Trahearne to my own mother is a little jarring. It really took me out of the story and I didn’t pick up from Forging the Pact until I was 80 for quite a few months.

- Having race and/or class being noticed would be nice too. Doing the Priory arch felt a little odd when my sylvari didn’t ever get annoyed by Gixx’s snide comments about Seiran and it was even odder than he never made any at me. Asura in the sylvari quests before the orders’ arches have no shortage of terrible plant based jokes for my characters. :I

- Either make choices feel meaningful or remove them. I don’t feel like the dignity/charm/ferocity has much of impact other than a bit of flavor here and there. I’m not against some flavor here and there but they’re so few and far between and their levels so meaningless. It would be interesting to see actual impact on the missions depending on how you act towards npcs. Ones you’re mean to are probably not going to be so likely to listen to you no? I do like being able to pick what missions I get to go along on in Orr, but the role playing is pretty thin on the ground elsewhere. I’m not really playing my individual character, I’m pushing a template down various routes.

- More of a chance to mourn your mentor and/or all the friends you’ve lost along the way. My dude seemed to get over his mentor’s death with a disturbing quickness. I was still pretty sad and wanted a funeral or something.

Edit: Also, can we not have this thing where any remotely amusing minor npc is slaughtered two missions later? It was getting to the point that I could pick out who was going to be dead in a mission or two.

Ba air.1372:

- I’m hesitant to say this, because making dungeons solo content does go away from being an MMO, but it would be nice to have the storymode dungeons be soloable. I did Arah to finish my story and had almost no idea what was going on with the Destiny’s Edge (other than ~Friendship is Magic~ or something along those lines) because you don’t need to do the other story mode dungeons to finish the story. Also it’s very annoying to have to scrounge up a group so you can do a personal storyline and can be annoying for said party if you want to sit through all the cutscenes. Personal cutscenes would be nice too. For ALL story dungeons, on that note. Since there seems to be no dialogue directed specifically at you outside the cutscenes, I would think this would be fairly easy?

This.

110% this.

The personal story should be personal. If it is about me, then I should be able to complete MY story without being forced to group at any point during the telling of MY story.

That isn’t a slam against the MMO part of an MMORPG, it’s merely a bit more emphasis on the RPG part of MMORPG.

It’s too late to go back and fix the storyline with Zhaitan so that it can be experienced solo if the player chooses to do so, but for future updates, expansions, etc. I hope ArenaNet will reconsider that decision. If the game really is all about you, then you should be able to finish your story without having to group when at no point previously were you required to do so. The option to group is dandy, but the requirement to group so you can see the epic conclusion of your PS is kinda crappy.

I would:

• Make the player character the main character of his/her personal story
• I would make the player character have a personality. If a player has high ferocity, I would have the character be ferocious every now and then… and not boring and friendly.
• I would kill off Trahearne.
• I would make no further reference to Destiny’s Edge, they are just as bad as Trahearne.
• I would not kill of the few likable/funny characters that you meet, especially not in some contrived way where they have to make a suicidal last stand.
• I would add plot twists. Good guys are bad guys. Bad guys are good guys. Or are they? Shades of gray. Things would never turn out as you expect. If you expect to ambush the White Mantle, the White Mantle ambush you. And the brave good knight that would lead the charge, would end up being the one that betrayed you.
• I would give motivations to the bad guys, and the good guys as well.

Euryon.9248:

Also, why is a member of a species that has only been in Tyria 25 years the “expert” on Orr history and knowledge? I would expect a Charr or perhaps an asura scholar to fill that role.

Because the Sylvari as a whole are the worst kind of Mary Sues, ever. Why would a Sylvari blacksmith be able to even be compared to the best blacksmiths of the other races? Because the writers gave the Sylvari “The Dream” where they gain Matrix-like knowledge of everything.

Lots of good suggestions.
If I could only make one choice—don’t force me to play with a group, you should be able to finish the personal storyline solo.

Oglaf.1074:

Because the Sylvari as a whole are the worst kind of Mary Sues, ever.

Challenge accepted, and we start with two words: Bella Swan. I dare you to find someone worse outside of fanfiction.

Extra credit: Sarah Kerrigan is almost the next contender, but Kathryn Janeway in certain episodes beats both hands down several times over.

Why would a Sylvari blacksmith be able to even be compared to the best blacksmiths of the other races? Because the writers gave the Sylvari “The Dream” where they gain Matrix-like knowledge of everything.

Why would any single blacksmith be good at anything? Because of something the writers gave them. Come on, you can do better. Especially when Occam is the one who made that sweet armor for the Green Knight, er Green Huntsman.

I don’t consider Bella Swan a legitimate literally character. You have to draw some sort of line somewhere when it comes to quality…

Urgh.

Oglaf.1074:

I don’t consider Bella Swan a legitimate literary character.

I consider her one because I have seen worse. I have held it in my hands and stared uncomprehendingly at the pages, wondering if I fell into a Lovecraftian nightmare.

Anyway, final comparison here. Tolkien’s elves still are worse as a race than the Sylvari . . . unless you can actually read the Silmarillion.

Simple, I’d make it so there is more quests as you need to level up between personal quests which I dislike. I’d rather feel more of a sense of purpose in the game then doing alot of random exploring or side quest completing.

I gotta say there alot of reasons out there and that i agree with as to why the PS doesnt work, but i think one reason people dont see (because its been buried so deep beneath all the PS story crap) is the fact that Anet disregarded each races fundamentals beliefs (and yes I know they had to unite to fight the elder dragon) but what the hell ever happened to an Asura not taking orders from a bookah or any lesser race?? what happened to Norn not needing armys?? the PS sucked because it denies the races’ core beliefs.

what wouldve made the PS so much better was if the races didnt like each other and had theyre own way of doing things, not just shoving you into an order that strips your races’ values.

I honestly think they need to highlight the individuals races coolness in future stories, if they just give us another ‘races unite to defeat the dragon’ story it will suck!

I would not get rid of Trahearne. I’d simply make him less needed for the story. I’d give him better voice acting and let him fit the role of passing on lore that the player can’t know, but without him suddenly becoming the leader and taking over the fame.

I would get rid of most of the branching, and instead give the story more depth. All of the human arcs, for instance could easily be combined into a single storyline that, like Mass Effect, has extra bits or dialogue based on bio choices. The chief failing of the story is that it is shallow. We meet people, but don’t get to know them; we see places, but don’t learn about them; etc.

What I would like is simple, and that’s to not need to take a break and level up between stories, rather to go from start to 80 purely by doing these.

first I was following the storyline and tried to find that immersion feeling which in fact did arise…very briefly tho.. during the first missions (new game, excitement….)

but then, after having thrown another character into the story with whom I couldnt connect because those characters tend to disappear as fast as they appeared, i started to loose interest in them.

the turning point was TRAHEARNE where i was just shocked how bad not even that character story (yeah, im firstporn blant, all bow to me…zzzzz) was but also the voice acting (i could feel sorry for the actor but i guess he got his money for that so….).

my first playthrou I picked (as many did) the order of whispers and there was the o.n.l.y. character I liked, my mentor. but hey….we got rif of him too in an clichee scene where he hold off the risen so we can escape. yeaaah, suuuuure. how long did he hold them off? 2 seconds? IF that would have been MY personal story with MY choices i would have send trahearne outside that door and grab my mentor to escape.

well to sum it up, I completely lost interest after the battle of claw island and the very anticlimatic final battle with zaithan just added to this feeling “omg, when is this finished”.

its very sad, because there are some very good aspects in the story and some interesting characters and mission, but you can count them with one hand.

so what would i change?

get a good story-writer AND in addition a good cutscene-dev as many cutscenes (i mean those where the camera swings around) are very, very badly done and sometimes even the music/sound is missing (remember how you left claw island after that battle in that silent ship wobbeling around without sound like, you know, a ship sailing in water-sound).

oh and i would integrate all dungeon story parts into the PC-line, because now (as already described perfectly in an post above) the dungeon story is too detached.

somehow i feel the PC isnt a main aspect of the game, its just to have some kind of lore and story…like “here player there you are and oh thats zaithan. please press that one button 100 times and we’re done.”

thats the bottom line

Tybalt- eventual leader of the pact

Trahearne- thrown to undead dragon at Claw Island.

That would make my day.

No seriously, I like a lot of what I have read above and echo a LOT of the sentiments.

Even on my main character- my lvl 80 engi… I still have not done the Zhaitan fight. I figure why bother. I rarely do dungeons anyway, and the entire way along my PS I did it solo, so I am done. I have had a more enjoyable experience exploring every nook and cranny of the world, finding every jumping puzzle, dive site, etc etc… than actually completing personal stories.

Continuing the PS I would love to see more emphasis on ME as the hero, less on people like Trahearne. Since “This is MY story”, I want it to matter more to me. I want to go back to my home instance and see some of the people I have met and helped along the way, and have them remember what I have done… I want my personality choices to determine how they regard me…

and where is that danged statue they said they were going to make of me???

- Want Trahearne to sacrifice himself to get the Caladbolg – which you then use on multiple branching quests near the end of the storyline.

- Have whoever was your mentor, become a fully fledged partner – diverge off the “Me-me-me” stuff and help them with a personal quests of their own. Perhaps right after the end of the PS. (Just like we look for details about our history in the first part of the PS related to the choices we made when making the character)

- Make Zhaitan actually more scary and troublesome than he appears on the final battle. He just stands still and rawrs a little. Why is he not swooping to attack the airship. Why is he not directly flying by and picking off allied NPC’s from the airship?

First step; Kill Trahearne off.

No its nothing personal against the character or how its portrayed. However this is exactly the same “issue” that City of Heroes had early on in its life. That is players were left second best.

What do I mean by that? Well its simple, Trahearne is the “chosen” numero uno head honcho in the storyline with the player relegated to a subordinate role. That means the players character is never the center of the story post Claw Island. Its always in relation to what is required for Trahearne to succeed as Leader of the “Pact”.

What that means for the general feeling of the plotline is that the player (after the initial personal story) isnt required in any substantial way. Sure we get “choices” of actions but they are always someone elses idea’s that the player has to go along with one way or another. And they all lead to the same conclusion in the story, with little concequence of the players “choices” along the way. Basically it doesnt make the player feel special in the game world. Infact it makes the player feel decidedly generic.

Simply put; The story should revolve around the player character and not Trahearne. Kill him off, reword the story to place the player in Trahearne’s former position so that our “choices” are those of a leader presented with options. Rather than as a suboridinate being given mission statements. Include those options in to the climax of the story (eg Orges turn up near end and make part Z easier).

Come on Anet you have done it before its not like you dont know how. You did it with Factions, where the players choices of companion in later missions changed the path to the boss making specific sections simpler.

Everyone wants Trahearne dead, and yes he was a boring, uninspiring character in the PS but what needs to be recongnised is Trahearne is just a symptom of bad story telling decisions, he is not the cause. The cause is being forced into an order, why? because as soon as that happens it doesnt matter what race you are, none of your personal experiences mean anything on the story, it just becomes a matter of you pushing a template character down a set story path. – even if they kill Trahearne and then push us down a path that doesn’t connect with how the player envisions their character the story will not work.

an example, my alt is an asura, i wanted to experience the world through the eyes of an asura, but i didnt get that, all i got was my characters race hardly made any difference – and it shouldve made a huge difference, thats one of the root reasons for me why i never connected with the PS.

To me the single biggest change I could make would be the voice acting. It absolutely frustrates me to no end in any form of media, that characters don’t act like real, plausible human beings (or effectual humans if required).

I’d be perfectly happy I’d think with the current, unchanged story if only the voice acting would make me feel like things were actually happening. Not to kick him while he’s down, but the biggest offender in this is Trahearne. In the most robotic and un-enthusiastic british leaning voice, he leads the Battle of Clor Islan, appoints himself leader of the Pact, and then acts as if he’s not worthy (all with as much inflection as Bella Swan has faces). I mean, if I went around claiming I was Commander because some wench tossed me a falchion from a tree, they’d put me away (though I’m sure I myself could make that more fitting than its current state). Before I go off trying to fit in more stylized movie quotes…

Voice Acting. Nigh all of the characters don’t ever make me feel like anything’s important. The random chatter from inside LA or any of the other large cities will usually have more feeling than the lines used to actually move the story along.

When not playing GW2, I try to get Skyrim to not crash. Comparing the two, Skyrim’s voice acting is par and beyond GW2 in terms of personality. Each important character at least (and many not as important) has a personality derived from not only their written lines, but by the inflection and purpose of the voice, voicing said lines. Running through the intro a few million times, Ralof has quickly become one of my favorite characters because you start to know him as a person(ality)(and that amazing accent).

Each time I watch the GW2 cutscenes, it looks like the scene was done by an either bored highschool drama student, or a really active middleschooler (also in drama). Not in offence to the writers for these scenes, cheap way the characters sound, its as if the characters are… in a roleplay, instead of actually playing the role, so to speak. They literally sound like they’re reading the script, and have no idea how they should actually feel or sound while doing it. As far as I can recall, the characters that are the closest are Zojja, Seiran, and Tybalt (I might’ve mentioned the vigil mentor, but apparently he made so little impact that I don’t remember. He might’ve been norn or something).

If we actually felt the emotion of the Npcs we talk to, I’m sure we could be more forgiving of any other perceived story pitfalls. Maybe we’d like Trahearne a bit more, because we could connect with him better. He’d have more of these Npcs that we remember as fondly as our mentors, because they actually developed to us, even in the short amount of time we see them.

I harp on the voice acting so much because I know for a fact I would give more effort (or at least, “visible” effort) into something such as this. As an actor, I wouldn’t settle for anything less than genuine emotion felt through the script, despite what it would say. I’d want to have as much flow as possible. As the lead in charge of the voice acting, I wouldn’t settle for anything less than a cohesive sounding cutscene. If it felt unnatural, and we weren’t going to change the script, then we’d voice it again (“this time, with emotion…”).

Other small changes I’d add to enhance the flow:
-Introduce Trahearne earlier into each story, as to allow time to get more buddy-buddy with him.
-Either introduce, or make it more easily known, other “secondary” Npcs so as to develop a stronger bond with them. Secondary Npc in this case refers to those inbetween “main” (such as Trahearne, Destiny’s Edge, Mentor) and “tertiary” (Big Nose Ted, one offs, extras etc.).
-Make a stronger connection between 1-20 and those beyond, or even between all level ranges not otherwise “connected” by theme. Ideally it would create a more unified feeling of story, and a feeling that each character creation choice and beyond mattered until (and possibly through) the very end.

In short, …rewards.
not the money or xp or that stuff.
but the physical rewards.
….just don’t even bother, your doing it wrong.

Some of the items i can’t even use and then you warn me that im about to salvage a useless, unwanted probably non-replaceable kitten that has the only purpose of taking up precious inventory, and making me question what to do with it.

If the story is suppose to be so unique to your character, WHY are you rewarding with items that CANT be used.
At least give us stuff we can use, DuH!

Sorry about the spelling , I’m SuRe it’s Horriblesss as HecK! =)~

I would add more to your mentor in the order, either they are rescued after Claw Island, escaped or whatnot. Also make either team or solo story missions in the other dungeons before Arah to just make the lore more dense of how you fit into all the going’s on. Also there’s been plenty of the later missions where you only have yourself & Trehearne or maybe a squad of 6 which just doesn’t quite fit with common sense of what you are doing where you’d probably need more. Also just having more story missions that are non combat stuff but affecting different races or in your own city that just throws you into more of the lore of the game. Wouldn’t mind also where certain characters you had would get titles based off certain story choices where you have to pick.

That one fear where you don’t want to be humiliated and deals with Syska.

At first I was like… So I killed risen? Right? That Mesmer just made the dead bodies look like allies? Oh no. I really did kill allies. Right? Or was it ALL just a mesmer trick.

I was left to wonder for 20 mins straight if I killed risen or not. It was all just a bunch of confusion to me.

I would change the cutscenes, making them more like in GW1. The current animation style is stiff and pulls you out of the world. If that means more limitation about where cutscenes may happen, then so be it. You are directed to specific places for your personal story anyway.

I would get a better voice actor for Trahearne, feature him less often and make your character feel more like the hero, but not too early. You are built up way too fast in some stories, particularly Norn.

A cast of fewer recurring characters but make them matter more and make sure they interweave with your story in a cohesive manner. People who were supposed to be important to the player character in the personal story don’t count after a certain stage and aren’t mentioned again. You could have the occasional message from home giving a sidequest to visit them for a specific reason, or if a character is capable of combat, they could join the Pact later.

I would give the player more choice in answers to add more RP potential and flavour. Even if it led to the same quest conclusion I’d rather see a small range of answer choices than three persistent tones. A charming person might be having an off-day, or an aggressive person might have moments where they tone it down for an individual.

I’d keep the mentors on and see how their own stories and relationship to the player evolve within the Pact. I would allow for interpersonal conflict with some NPCs with the player able to choose to go down that path.

quickthorn.4918:

I would get a better voice actor for Trahearne, feature him less often and make your character feel more like the hero, but not too early. You are built up way too fast in some stories, particularly Norn.

This is something I noticed, and it’s peculiar.

In the norn story, you’re the Slayer of Issormir before you actually really get started. I get that norn culture places huge emphasis on notable hunts and this is just a sort of rite of passage . . . but it still seems like that deed overshadows the rest of what you do for a while.

In the human story, you’re the Hero of Shaemoor. Of course, fighting that last battle got you knocked out and you spent some time recovering. So you’re known, respected by those who know you were there, but you’re not truly as awe-inspiring as a norn character is. It’s not until you get deeper into the chapters you start to garner attention.

Meanwhile, over in the charr who start with Blood Legion? You have to earn your stripes in a very real, very messy fashion. You don’t really become a hero of any worth until you finish that first personal story chapter. Sure, you’re notable but since your warband was pretty much destroyed you don’t have a place in the charr culture.

Sylvari don’t seem to have anything really interesting other than having Firstborn cluster around them offering advice and aid. It’s really weird people want to make them out to be Mary Sues when the player character sylvari seems to fade into the woodwork (pun intended) far too easily. They’re too community-focused to actually seem to hold “heroes” individually higher than others, I’d say.

. . . and moving down the ladder . . . asura. I hate the asura, so someone else can talk about that. I don’t like them, the bickering between them gets on my nerves, and the infallible genius acts make me want to punt them across the Sea of Sorrows.

Get rid of the suggested level system, getting interested in the plot, then being told you have got to go and feed some cows is annoying and takes away any motivation I have to keep going.

1. Make DE more mature, so far they act like a bunch of kids, do nothing, cry all the time etc. Seriously, average joe in real life is more mature than them, and they are supposed to be heroes. Mhenlo and co. were better.

2. Get rid of Trahearne and other pointless, unmemoriable characters. Everytime somebody mentions cool and memoriable characters they mention mentors. Yea, they are cool, but 3 for the whole game?

3. Our choices should matter more. Orders too. Get rid of the Pact.

4. Bigger control over what my character is saying/make less cutscenes and more dialogues with choices even if they have to be silent. Seeing my battle-hardened charr going around and acting like an idiot or licking butts of DE or Trahearne wasn’t very fun.

5. Dragons being more dangerous. I really have hard time believing that this is the world on the brink of destruction. The only Dragons’ victories we see in PS are Claw Island (which we quickly retake) and some small village of some minor race (and even then it’s said that most escapes). Also killing some pointless and boring guy I won’t remember in 5 minutes once in a while is NOT how the supposed-to-have-the-power-of-gods creatures should act.

6. Less light-hearted content please. I’m all for laughing and usually laugh at kids that want everything to be “super-emo-dark-evil-bullcrap”, but come on! Orr felt like a picnic, full of jokes, cheesy one-liners etc. And I like Tybalt or Sieran, let me tell you.

Have fewer characters so that we don’t see new faces for one or two missions then never see them again. Many of characters/artifacts are seen in the early personal stories and reappear later but there’s seemingly only a low chance that story lines cross each other and when they don’t it all seems too bitty. An example would be the two pacts soldiers who help rescue the archaelogists from the dig site. As soon as you find out who they are, you never see them again.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

You know, the problem with having the storyline branch out so much is the sheer cost of the voice acting. For each story mission there’s . . . I dunno, about two dozen voiced lines. Multiply that by as many as you would like to add, and if there’s a divergence where one mission might have several different characters in a spot count it separately for each one.

Now look up, and this could take a while, what voice actors charge for their work, especially ones like Felicia Day or Steve Blum.

This price tag is why voiced games tend to be rather narrow in options.

youre right…. they should just get stephen hawking to narrate everything!