Guild Wars 2

Dear ArenaNet,

I followed the news of Guild Wars 2 for nearly two years before its release, and now that I have the game I’m enjoying it very much. However, I feel that in order for anyone to truly enjoy or call themselves a fan of something, one must be critical of it. There is something in this game’s design that has done nothing but annoy me; something that puts a big black spot on this otherwise fantastic game, the execution of the personal story. I personally am a gamer that likes to focus on the narrative of a game’s story, and the idea that my choices would influence how the narrative unfolded made me giddy for this game. Now I find the same thing that I would have cited as one of my top things to be exited to see in this game is my biggest gripe.
I dreamed of how the smallest of choices could shape how the story unfolded, to see how the events at the beginning of the game would intertwine with later events to create something spectacular. This sadly is not what I have seen. What I have seen are instance chains that take no influence of anything outside that section of the personal story. As I play to the “lost sister” storyline, the game doesn’t care if I was a noble, commoner, or street rat. My character is no different whether or not my best friend Quinn was brutally murdered. To me that puts real flaws in the narrative when every ten or so levels feel like an episodic TV show with my character being the only connection.
Another aspect that put me off is the presence of choices that have no influence in the story or even in the home instance. I had high hopes for what the choice of what god blessed me as a child would translate to in the story, but sadly it does nothing. There are also numerous times that an NPC will ask a question in the personal story, like what human kingdom I am from, that will have no effect on anything as though the game doesn’t care about my answer. These kinds of choices that are only in the game for fluff give false hope that there will be some kind of payoff later on, they are deceptive by nature and they leave a bad taste in my mouth.
I really had high hopes for the personality system. When I first saw it, countless ideas passed through my mind about how it would influence the story and your relation to the other NPCs in the game. I had thought that it would be the deciding factor of your character’s influence in the storyline. I believed that in the climax of the story that it would influence your character’s final speech to Zhaitan before charging into battle, ~

“We will never allow an evil like you to exist and we will always stand together to strike you and the other dragons down. Your reign of tyranny ends here, FOR TYRIA!”

-for Dignity

“If you think I would let you live after you caused so much pain, so much agony, then I’LL JUST HAVE TO RIP THAT FOOLISH IDEA OUT OF YOUR SKULL!”

-for Ferocity

“I’m sorry Zhaitan, but I can’t let myself die just yet. There are just too many people waiting for me to come home. They would all be pretty sad if I died, so it looks like I’m gonna have to TAKE YOU DOWN!”

-for Charm

~ but it’s just a meaningless little gauge shaped my meaningless choices that only effects the text interactions with a few NPCs with no influence on anything else.
Please know that I am loving the game, I think it’s the best MMO experience out there. There is so much of this game for me to love, and I plan on playing it for a long time. You did good work here ArenaNet, but it seems to me that you could have done much better.

Thank you for your time-
Kurodius

There’s something my boss once said to me when I requested funds for a project. “Sounds like a great idea; budget is spent. Which current project shall we scrap for it?”

Let me first say, I agree with EVERYTHING you said, however…also note that literally every single word and letter that is put into this game costs money. For them to create as many branches and such as you’re talking about, including voice acting and such, would have cost a LOT of money in both resources, and delays to release….or….something else that you loved in the game making it the “best MMO experience out there” would not have been in there….because the budget is spent, and ya gotta scrap a project to do another.

Ramaset.5260:

There’s something my boss once said to me when I requested funds for a project. “Sounds like a great idea; budget is spent. Which current project shall we scrap for it?”

Let me first say, I agree with EVERYTHING you said, however…also note that literally every single word and letter that is put into this game costs money. For them to create as many branches and such as you’re talking about, including voice acting and such, would have cost a LOT of money in both resources, and delays to release….or….something else that you loved in the game making it the “best MMO experience out there” would not have been in there….because the budget is spent, and ya gotta scrap a project to do another.

Then in that strain of logic, why put in the hollow questions? They seem like they were tossed into the game only for the sake of fluff that has no effect on anything, which by the logic of everything in the game costing something, why waste money on something like that? I also find a well done narrative to be priceless, so if they took money out of the budget to put in a story with all these different branches at the cost of making the WvW mode to have 3 maps in stead of 4 or remove a few lines from the ambient npc voice acting, I would find worth it. Not that the WvW maps aren’t beautiful.

They promised a lot, tried to do a lot and failed.

Ultimately a better use of the PS budget would have been to cut down all the hollow choices and focus on one storyline that was coherent and had actually fun missions in. A solid single player RPG basically.

Sure every player would have had a similar story but at least it would have stood a chance at being good.

Turgon.8625:

They promised a lot, tried to do a lot and failed.

Ultimately a better use of the PS budget would have been to cut down all the hollow choices and focus on one storyline that was coherent and had actually fun missions in. A solid single player RPG basically.

Sure every player would have had a similar story but at least it would have stood a chance at being good.

I actually think the story that’s there is just fine within the individual story arcs. I just feel that the execution of the personal story, as a mechanic and as a storytelling tool, failed to live up to my expectations.

I think people had a too high expectations for the first part of the Personal Story to be a single story with a absolute ending that gives no “to be continued” feeling. Act 1 (Zhaitan Act) seems to only set the stage for future Story Acts rather than being one single story that has people appear only once then never appear again (or seen only once and never seen again) in the future Story Acts.

EdwinLi.1284:

I think people had a too high expectations for the first part of the Personal Story to be a single story with a absolute ending that gives no “to be continued” feeling. Act 1 (Zhaitan Act) seems to only set the stage for future Story Acts rather than being one single story that has people appear only once then never appear again (or seen only once and never seen again) in the future Story Acts.

You bring up and interesting possibility, for the future expansions to have stories that equal the release content story’s length. But my issue is not with the content of the story, but more the means of delivery.

curious, i just posted a thread about how the sylvari story kind of remedies that indirectly.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/story/Sylvaris-have-the-most-consistent-cohesive-story-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things

BrunoBRS.5178:

curious, i just posted a thread about how the sylvari story kind of remedies that indirectly.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/story/Sylvaris-have-the-most-consistent-cohesive-story-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things

It does seem like the Trahearne heavy segments would feel more natural as a Sylvari, but that doesn’t ultimately fix the issues I have. I have no doubt that there are good stories in the personal story, but my issue is more about the mechanics of it than the content specifically.

Kurodius.7463:

BrunoBRS.5178:

curious, i just posted a thread about how the sylvari story kind of remedies that indirectly.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/story/Sylvaris-have-the-most-consistent-cohesive-story-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things

It does seem like the Trahearne heavy segments would feel more natural as a Sylvari, but that doesn’t ultimately fix the issues I have. I have no doubt that there are good stories in the personal story, but my issue is more about the mechanics of it than the content specifically.

i think the real issue, which i addressed on that topic, and which i thought was the issue you had, was how disconnected everything feels. no matter what i do now, it won’t matter once the next story arc starts. nothing is ever brought back, nothing ever sticks around, and nothing feels like it matter because it won’t change anything.

BrunoBRS.5178:

i think the real issue, which i addressed on that topic, and which i thought was the issue you had, was how disconnected everything feels. no matter what i do now, it won’t matter once the next story arc starts. nothing is ever brought back, nothing ever sticks around, and nothing feels like it matter because it won’t change anything.

Well Bruno, what I find to be the issue is indeed how everything in the personal story is disconnected, but I hoped for the events that happen prior in the story would somehow affect something later on. I had hoped for the decisions that you make would intertwine into what would be “your story.” To me it feels like more of a mechanical issue with the game, which leads to the issue that you focus on, which is the narrative itself.

I just finished the story and I absolutely adored it from beginning to end. I am one of the few people who actually likes Trahearne. And Zhaitan has obviously taken a lot of cues from Sauron as he also never interacts directly. He always works through servants or his presence can be felt as a driving force but he is never engaged directly.

I found the fight leading up to the big laser cutting Zhaitan in half to be the big finale and then the final bit is just fluff so you get to blast him. His health pool at this point could be dropped a bit, but all in all a very enjoyable experience and I look forward to the next dragons.

Manifoldgodhead.2356:

I just finished the story and I absolutely adored it from beginning to end. I am one of the few people who actually likes Trahearne. And Zhaitan has obviously taken a lot of cues from Sauron as he also never interacts directly. He always works through servants or his presence can be felt as a driving force but he is never engaged directly.

I found the fight leading up to the big laser cutting Zhaitan in half to be the big finale and then the final bit is just fluff so you get to blast him. His health pool at this point could be dropped a bit, but all in all a very enjoyable experience and I look forward to the next dragons.

Two things:

1. SPOILERS DUDE, NOT EVERYONE HAS PLAYED THROUGH IT ALL YET

2. Again, I have little issue with the story itself. I too like Trahearne as a character and I feel the hate on him is less because of the character himself, but more due to the issues I mentioned with the personal story as a game mechanic.