Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone
I have been reading posts about the Personal Story and its lack of quality. I completely agree with this but have not seen too much about its necessity. I have a level 80 Thief who is just before the Arah mission, I think. I have done a bunch of stuff in Orr and need to talk to Trahearne in the Fort to continue. I just can’t be bothered. The story is bland and inconsequential. I have a level 42 alt who needs to do the first mission for the Priory (level 31). Is it even worth finishing the story? It seems the rewards are not that great. What do you get? An achievement? What would happen if I just skipped the story? I can’t do Arah?
Any advice would be appreciated. I dread doing the story instances. It is the one part of this game that I don’t like.

I don’t think the personal story is required at all.

It’s simply an idea to personalize your experience in this MMO. It sounds like you really don’t like the idea of doing it, so I’d recommend you don’t.

You can always try it at a later time if you change your mind.

Also, you should be able to skip your personal story and do Arah just fine.

I’ve read that people have done the Arah dungeon before getting to the part of the personal story that sends you there.

I liked the concept of the personal story. I really felt more connected to my character as a result.

I played another MMO for years and felt much more connected to my character here as a result of both the personal story, and the personality he displays in game.

I don’t remember ever getting a piece of gear which was useful (there was also xp, karma, money, etc.), but I didn’t care about that at all.

I liked the effort to make my character stand out. I liked their effort to provide multiple paths, as it adds both a sense of importance in your choices, as well as replay value with alts.

I also liked the personal story, as it gave me a structure for this game. There is so much freedom to explore and quest in various zones, that my personal story anchored me to Tyria.

You are rewarded with the best back item currently in-game for completing the quest before Against the Corruption (each Order has a different one). The only reason I’m aware of for finishing the whole Personal Story is making the little reminder in the corner of the screen go away.

Good point about the back piece, forgot about that one.

That was a very welcome upgrade :)

Thanks for the replies.
I got the backpiece from the Halloween event which was a slight upgrade, IIRC. But I get what you mean; if you didn’t have access to that, it would be a good idea.
The first few levels of the PS were kind of interesting but it just got to be a drag as the levels wore on. I wish they would have made the first few chapters about your class and race. I know that is a lot of combos but you don’t necessarily need one quest for a Sylvari thief, for example. But some quests that actually force you to use your class’ skills and abilities would have made the immersion much better, I think. But too late now, I guess.

I think it’s the game mechanics and the type of mobs that make the personal story irritating at times. Risen are so stupidly overpowered that they’re simply no fun at all in wave after wave after wave spawning right on top of you. At lower levels, it’s the same thing with the endless bandits who are obviously wearing superman costumes under their tatty clothes.

In answer to the question, you don’t need to do the personal story but there’s a lot of useful exp there…

I can’t understand playing the game at all if you aren’t going to do the personal story, but for me, at least, the stories are what make games fun.

I also appreciate the little bit of Guild Wars lore that I get from the stories. I never played GW1, so the things I find out in game are really all I know. (I have looked up a few things on the wiki, but wikis are only really useful if you already know what you’re looking for. If you don’t even know the names of things, then it’s really incredibly hard to get useful information from a wiki.)

Don’t forget you get a gift for your legendary weapon.

The thing is the story is really linear with no flavour, boring characters, endless mob fights and not personal at all, because there are no choices that affect the ending.

It’s hard to understand for me to read positive comments about personal story… Anet should look at games like baldur’s gate or even world of warcraft in order to see not only how to make an interesting story, but to learn how to tell it right.

In my oppinion the difference between a good and a bad game is the story. I will not remember the story of gw2, it’s not memorable in any way, lacks in rithm, good characters, meaningful choices, world change, and many more things.

I hope anet reads all of this posts and rebuids the personal story in further expansions.

lunawisp.2378:

I think it’s the game mechanics and the type of mobs that make the personal story irritating at times. Risen are so stupidly overpowered that they’re simply no fun at all in wave after wave after wave spawning right on top of you. At lower levels, it’s the same thing with the endless bandits who are obviously wearing superman costumes under their tatty clothes.

In answer to the question, you don’t need to do the personal story but there’s a lot of useful exp there…

Once my personal story turned into just a fight against the risen, I stopped caring about the personal story. Maybe it was the fact that we were fighting hordes of tanking risen. As well as the fact that the Risen (or undead) is such an overused enemy, that I felt, personally, bland.

I liked in GW 1, it was fighting against the mursaat and the lich with their lackies, the white mantle. They had character.

You don’t need it, maybe, but I do like it. (flaws aside)

When I get bored with whatever I am doing I do a chapter or two of the story. Breaks things up nicely.

I hate the personal story, not because of the plot, but the fact that I have been stuck at the same point of it for several weeks now and I am unable to finish it.
I wasn’t fortunate enough to rush through game content in first couple of weeks so by the time I reached the last step, I cannot progress due to having to rely on a population in Orr to clear the DE’s to open the gates of Arah, and then having to rely on getting a group to do the dungeon. I don’t have that much of a one instance time sink to hang around in Orr in the hope people are there doing DE’s and then hanging around to group to do a dungeon that apparently takes a while too.
And unless something is done to get the playerbase attracted back to Orr, this will always seem to be the case of being unable to finish my “personal” story.
This is pretty game-breaking for me, I cannot enjoy endgame stuff knowing I can’t complete the “personal” aspect of the main storyline part of the game due to relying on others.

The first part of the story is very well written and intriguing. I really like the human,
Charr and Sylvari stories. Also the orders are pretty nice, especially the Whispers (apples!). Puppies hit the fan when every well-written character commits suicide so the extremely bland Trahearne can steal the spotlight.

What happened, and arena.net confirmed this at one point, was that at a certain moment the last half was rushed and didn’t go through iterations like the first part.

I want to finish it but I just can’t be puppied. Not only is the story unoriginal, to me Trahearne is actually repulsive to the point I’d rather not play the PS.

My story, well it started out as my story then rapidly became this Trahearnes story, then at the end everybodies story because of the Victory or Death grouping, said it before will say it again, killed the game for me, may return to to do map completion.

Thanks goodness personal story isn’t necessary, as I have to say I’ve really disliked nearly every aspect of doing it.

I hate that all your companion NPC’s are merely canon fodder that die in nearly every fight. I hate the jump in difficulty from fighting regular PVE mobs to Personal Story mobs, where even the lowest common street thug is a lot tougher than he would be in PVE for no apparent reason(I acknowledge that they have toned down the difficulty of many of the personal story missions, but my initial experience with them was unpleasant enough that I still dread the thought of doing them). I hate that the stories seem to be cliche “You are the savior of the universe!”-type stories with little subtlety to them. I cringe at some of the dialogue as well as the voice acting.

In short, even though the personal story was one of the things I was looking forward to most of all in this game, my experience with it has caused me to simply abandon it altogether.

Linu.8920:

Don’t forget you get a gift for your legendary weapon.

From the personal story?

marnick.4305:

The first part of the story is very well written and intriguing.

I agree with you. I was having a lot of fun doing the personal story for a large portion of it. However, it went downhill after I got paired up with Trahearne.

marnick.4305:

What happened, and arena.net confirmed this at one point, was that at a certain moment the last half was rushed and didn’t go through iterations like the first part.

I’ve heard that before, but never read it from the source. It would be interesting to read if you remember where you saw it.

zwei2stein on guildwars2guru.com made a flowchart for the personal story:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/69977-guild-wars-2-storyline-flowchart/

I was surprised how extensive it was, and how much work was put into it. The flowchart does show it begin to converge quickly towards the middle.

To be fair, if we are going to do the same things at the end, there will be a lot of convergence.

Overall, I liked the personal story and appreciated their effort to do this.