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