Guild Wars 2

I believe the personal storyline is one of GW2’s most disappointing aspects, considering everything it could have been. I would like to go in details about why it’s so lacking:

1. The modular design doesn’t work. The story is roughly divided in chapters, with each one corresponding to 10 levels intervals. The chapters have a modular design – they have been designed so all stories can mix and match, allowing for example both the Sylvari and the Charr to join the same order and have the same storyline later on.

There is a clear advantage to this design: it allows the players to make choices, and still tell a coherent story taking a bit from all possible options a player has.

It simply doesn’t work, though. The price we pay for the modular design is that a given chapter has no impact on what happens later on. If you are a human noble? It won’t ever be mentioned again after the first few chapters. Have you rescued a family member? Forget about him/her. Those NPCs who recruited you into an order? Gone, and won’t return.

There are almost no recurring characters in the game (and ironically the single exception is incredibly annoying). All those choices we make are irrelevant, since they have no long lasting impact beyond at most a couple chapters. The Manifesto claimed the storyline would be about the players, but in the end it isn’t – what we choose doesn’t matter.

The personal instance was meant to address this issue, but it fails at that. Not only it’s irrelevant – there is little point in going there at all – but the NPCs we meet through the game either don’t appear there, or they appear and just don’t say anything.

2. ArenaNet cut too many corners. Now, I know Guild Wars 2 has a lot of voiced dialogue, and that voice acting is expensive. Yet, there are many moments in which it’s clear ArenaNet was cutting costs. When you play the order mission to help a lesser race, you will notice that our characters never say the name of the order itself – only “my order”. This was clearly made to cut costs – so instead of having to record the line 30 times (once for each order and race and gender combination), ArenaNet could simply record it 10 times. Does that save money? Sure. Is it incredibly cheap and a way to rub in our faces how our choices don’t matter? Sure, too.

Then we have Traheanne. In almost every game, the player character is the protagonist – and that’s because, due to the way most games are designed, our characters have the active role in the world. We don’t play as the king who asks the knights to go kill the dragon while we wait doing nothing in a castle – we are either the knights, or we control the entire army in the assault. In Guild Wars 2, it’s the same thing – our characters are the heroes. But Traheanne takes the credit – he is the leader, he gives the “this is the final battle” speech, and so on.

I have a strong feeling that part of this is just to have less voice acting in the game. If our characters were the ones telling the army to go fight Zhaitan, those lines would have been recorded 10 times; with Traheanne saying them, they were recorded once, and that’s it.

IMO, the other issue with Traheanne is…

3. Our characters don’t have personality. They are blank. This has two huge impacts on the game:

• Our characters don’t really grow over time. We don’t really get to have emotional attachment to their personalities since there isn’t anything there. Compare this to Shepard’s story in the Mass Effect trilogy, Tera’s story in Final Fantasy 6, the Witcher’s story in The Witcher and so on. Those characters change over time; they have a journey and said journey changes them. Even when we can control some of their personalities, like in Mass Effect, they are still characters with their own personalities.

“But that’s how all MMOs are! You are comparing them to single player RPGs!”. No. I’m comparing poor and overly glorified excuses for Skinner boxes with RPGs that actually happen to tell a good story. MMORPGs are mediocre, but that’s not because the genre cannot improve, rather because the current MMORPG community is willing to settle for mediocrity.

“But people like to think their characters are them, so our characters cannot have a personality in game!”. That is, well, ridiculous. I remember the guy here furious because he met a lot of men playing as female characters, and he had assumed all those were girls he could hit on. The “role” in “role-playing game” doesn’t mean “tank/healer/DPS”, it means playing as someone who is not you.

• Our characters are clueless. They never know what to do, they don’t have their own plans, and as a result we spend the entire game taking orders from NPCs. This is an old issue with ArenaNet’s writing: Prophecies had a lot of that, in Factions we spent most of the game following Mhenlo around, in Nightfall we were just taking orders from Kormir. In GW2, our character is just obeying our racial mentor, then our order mentor, then Traheanne. We are never the ones making the choices or the schemes, we just do as we are told.

4. The story missions are too bland. The individual steps in the personal storyline are very short and simple affairs most of the time – “go there and kill enemy X” being the most recurrent theme. This is good when designing content that can be played through casually, such as when someone only has 10 minutes of free time; it’s also simple to implement considering how many story steps have multiple possible missions (we are often told we have more than one way to deal with a single issue, so often the missions branch).

The issue is that what the game gains in accessibility and economy, it loses in quality. The missions are not memorable, nor particularly interesting, with very few exceptions. The irony, then, is that despite having multiple different missions available, this actually hurts replayability – almost all missions feel like the same thing, so even when picking different paths, it doesn’t feel like something new.

The mission system in the original Guild Wars, despite all its flaws, was far better than this due to how it could create more complex and interesting scenarios.

5. The story mixes different kinds of content. The last story mission is a dungeon, while everything else are solo missions. This is bad, by changing the way the content works at the very end – someone who likes solo missions does not necessarily like dungeons, and someone who likes dungeons does not necessarily like the solo missions required to understand the story behind that final step.

More importantly, though, the last story mission actually takes something that has not really been a part of the story and shoves it into the players’ faces. The entire Destiny’s Edge situation is something external to the personal storyline (no, a few mails from the racial mentor don’t really address this issue), but reaching the end of the game without bothering to do all the story dungeons is like reading the third book in a trilogy without reading the second. The entire Destiny’s Edge content should have been kept apart from the main storyline and given its own conclusion.

6. Quality is low. Dialogue in the personal storyline is terrible, which is odd considering how the world dialogue heard when exploring or doing dynamic events is often much better. The Destiny’s Edge dialogue in particular is horrible, as bad as the “Edge of Destiny” book – it reads like a child writing how other kids talk.

Cinematics are bad, too. I don’t have issues with using the “concept art background while two characters talk” approach in the open world or in the tutorial – it’s far better than just showing the world itself, with the NPCs talking to half a dozen player characters. However, there isn’t any excuse to use it within the personal storyline instances. Even the few in-world cinematics we get during the story are incredibly bad, like the cinematics we saw in Prophecies and Factions. Where are the extremely polished cinematics we saw in the Bonus Mission Pack, when Turai Ossa defeated Palawa Joko or when Gwen found the Ebon Vanguard?

Lastly, the more cinematic pieces of concept art, such as in the first Guild Wars 2 trailer or right after character creation, are incredibly missed through the game. They appear once in a while, but that’s not nearly enough for something so unique to Guild Wars 2 and ArenaNet. I understand most of the team who did them no longer works at ArenaNet, but still, the company should do what it can to recreate this style.

My suggestion to ArenaNet: I see two paths they could take:

• Give up. Let’s be frank, the GW1 community cared about a storyline, but the GW2’s community doesn’t; it’s far more interested in farming, grinding and exploiting than in actually enjoying the experience of playing the game. A poor storyline surrounded by a lot to grind (aka the Southsun event, with horrible storytelling but a 200% buff to Magic Find) is more than enough to keep this community busy.

• Stop using the current model in future installments. The personal storyline would have been better if, instead of being a single road with a few detours here and there, the game had five different paths. In other words, if instead of a single storyline with multiple small and pointless choices, we got five full stories – one for each race – without any of the choices but with completely different developments.

For example, the Charr storyline could have been about a Charr recruit of the Iron Legion who fights against the Ascalon ghosts with his/her warband, then later joins the Order of Whispers still together with the rest of the warband, deals with all the issues about working with a gladium (Tybalt), helps to build the flying ships that will be used against Zhaitan, and whose final mission is aboard one of those ships, fighting together with the entire warband and Tybalt while ground troops attack the dragon.

The human storyline would be about a young noble who reveals a conspiracy against the Queen, later joins the Virgil, defends Lion’s Arch against a Risen attack, suffers the loss of his/her order mentor, and becomes the Vigil representative in the Pact. The final mission here would be a ground attack together with the Pact forces, while other troops fight from the sky.

The Sylvari storyline would be about a newly born Sylvari who joins the Durmand Priory, meets Traheanne, later collects allies of all races against a Risen invasion of the Pale Tree, and follows Traheanne at the birth of the Pact. The final mission in this storyline would be an attack against Zhaitan inside the Dream, while other troops fight against the monster in the “real” world.

And so on. Five different stories, one for each race, all ending at the fight against the dragon but each from a different point of view. We would lose the branching structure we currently have in the game, but we would get instead a full story, in which elements of the beginning continue to have impact all the way through the end.

The Destiny’s Edge story would run parallel from those five, being completely based on group content, but never directly interacting with the personal storyline. They would be a sixth point of view in the fight against Zhaitan.

This rigid structure would allow for more complex missions, similar in scope to those in the original Guild Wars, only modified as single player content. Likewise, the lack of variations within a single of the storylines would make it viable to employ more of the full animated concept art cinematics, rather than using only 3 or 4 during the entire game.

the second one of your suggestions would probably be the best one to pick, frankly i havent touched the personal story on any of my alts….unless im looking to level outside of exploring.

The personal story was easily the most disappointing aspect of the game. I was hoping for something similar to the Mission structure from GW1. Instead, they were few and far between, had little impact on anything, very short and simple in scope, and weren’t particularly epic or interesting, and didn’t give you any real choice in how your character developed (they were just a generic supporting hero). Even the occasional interesting character was dropped off to limbo after a mission or two.

Ugh, I agree 100%. I was so disappointed with GW2’s storytelling. I felt no connection to my character because she acted so differently from what I envisioned her to be when I was creating her. I also really hate the fact that I practically became Trahearne’s sidekick in HIS storyline.

I do agree the modular design hampered the entire story telling process. I see why they did it, but it doesn’t make for better story telling, that’s for sure.

Fantastic. Simply and utterly a fantastic read. Thank you for taking the time to write and post this.

I Agree. plus, once the story lines converge they are especially repetitive and boring (and there’s even more Trahearne).

I know the story isn’t perfect, but it has been something that I’ve enjoyed in GW2. Is it totally personalized and immersive? No. Does it always portray my character the way that I would have it? No.

But compared to other MMO’s personal stories, it has been a breath of fresh air. It does get dull when repeating it with multiple characters, but the first time through I had lots of fun.

The story I did not like as well. I stopped doing it the moment I joined the vigil. So stupid and boring (I play the human race). My character is like a stupid, slow, un-intelligent guy who happens to made some heroic choices. I find it hard to believe that he would ever be any help of the world. Doesn’t feel like I made any “impacts” with my actions at all.

One of the many criticisms I’ve seen regarding the personal story is that you don’t get attached to any of the characters, and for the most part, I agree. There are a few characters who I would take a liking towards, but once they disappeared out of my sight to never be brought up again, I felt extraordinarily disappointed.

Now, playing through the game, especially on my first and main character, I loved my personal story. Yes, it has its wide multitude of flaws, but I liked it because it was a breath of fresh air from what felt simply like grinding. I like a bit of a roleplay aspect to my games, so I spent my time levelling my character in order to level up and become high enough to do my story without dying too often. As I scaled up the level ladder, I found more things to do, and therefore didn’t dabble in my story as much (although it was still a major overarching theme for me and I did return to it as often as possible, since I still found it enjoyable). Now, at level 80 and with the very final step left to do, I find myself procrastinating. Not because I don’t want to do it, but because the final step is a dungeon, when I have done most of my story entirely alone. This part of the design, like you mentioned, is pretty terrible; I can see why they did it, of course—it was to make the final step of your story more interesting, more involved even—but when the entirety of the story was solo missions without a hint of needing another person, it comes off as a harsh surprise.

I disagree with what you have put forth, though, as I greatly enjoy the freedom I have to pick the way of which I move forth in the story. What I have always thought would be better, if not perhaps more costly and confusing, but that’s what happens when you really mess up personal stories, is if Anet decided to instead change it for future characters, and perhaps make it so that you can replay your story as such through your old character. Of course that is a bit much, but I think that it would be better because you are not constricted to one set linear plot, and you also still get to do a story that you enjoy, if not on a new, different character.

One of my thoughts during the personal story was that I hoped to have my character make some friends and real relationships (not necessarily romantic ones) through the plot. That didn’t happen, aside from my order mentor, but we all know what happens to them. Maybe a solution to this would be to introduce instanced (if necessary) side-stories that can be completed by interacting with certain NPCs you encounter during your story, kind of like side-quests, except that they are tailored to the choices you have made during your story. And you would be able to have different outcomes depending on what you do during the story: perhaps you could end up making or breaking friendships through this.

Just a few thoughts. I never did a lot of roleplay, but when I did indulge in it I’ve had a lot of fun, and I enjoy having a heavy roleplaying aspect in games that I play. That’s probably my main source of disappointment for the personal story in GW2: it promised a roleplaying aspect that was there, but missed being successful by such a large margin that I wonder why it was implemented at all.

Great post. The personal story is amateurish. I wish that in future patches and “living story” content, the actual content is stressed, and the story—-such as it is—-simply fades away. I do not care about ANY of the NPCs in this game, and I am tired of not feeling like a hero because all of the NPCs get the attention.

Simon.3106:

My character is like a stupid, slow, un-intelligent guy who happens to made some heroic choices. I find it hard to believe that he would ever be any help of the world.

I think some of this is due to how our characters lack any initiative. They never make plans of their own, try to find a situation before it finds them, or take the first step into solving a conflict; rather, through the entire game, we are told what to do by some NPC.

I would have loved to see a story in which our character actually makes plans without telling us about it, revealing it only when everything has fallen in place.

I’m not sure what game she’s talking about but it sounds great! Even the quests you get when you start out in Northshire are far more superior than what we got here… Least the old ones anyway.

OP is right and posted things that didn’t even occur to me earlier. I decided to try sw:tor to check storylines and because it’s free. And oh boy, I won’t comment about its MMO elements, but the storyline simply outclasses gw2’s. There is no need to read dumb blogs, stalk the forums or use other outgame sources to understand what’s going on. The story is mature, full of drama and plot twists, characters are interesting, villains are dangerous and have motives other than “I’m evil cause good is dumb”, my hero isn’t an idiot who just follows orders etc… People cry that mr.“Diz wunt end wel !!!11” steals the credit, but in fact he is actually thinking instead of your character. “Commander” of the Pact actually lacks skill in… commanding and the only decisons are about how do I prefer to get something done. Your character serves no other pourpose than to be a stupid bodyguard.

What angers me the most in personal/ living story is that I see a great universe being butchered by the bad story. The story of gw1 wasn’t super awesome, but it was good, here I believe writers spend more time thinking about another “clever” jokes and pop-culture references than actual story. And stupid deus ex machinas like Glory of Tyria (omg dragons are like super dangerous but no problems we haz now a super duper ship that one-shots dragons u just have to press 2 to finish them off). The last story was just as bad: a James Bond parody + Scooby Doo reference + another deus ex machina (super powder that does stuff!!). I really am afraid of seeing mursaat in this game, because they will probably get reduced to MLP reference.

Erasculio.2914:

My suggestion to ArenaNet: I see two paths they could take:

• Give up. Let’s be frank, the GW1 community cared about a storyline, but the GW2’s community doesn’t; it’s far more interested in farming, grinding and exploiting than in actually enjoying the experience of playing the game. A poor storyline surrounded by a lot to grind (aka the Southsun event, with horrible storytelling but a 200% buff to Magic Find) is more than enough to keep this community busy.

I believe that’s what they decided to do. I don’t blame, because this community is one of the least interested in lore I have ever seen. Farming is all that matters here.

Erasculio.2914:

Where are the extremely polished cinematics we saw in the Bonus Mission Pack, when Turai Ossa defeated Palawa Joko or when Gwen found the Ebon Vanguard?

Lastly, the more cinematic pieces of concept art, such as in the first Guild Wars 2 trailer or right after character creation, are incredibly missed through the game. They appear once in a while, but that’s not nearly enough for something so unique to Guild Wars 2 and ArenaNet. I understand most of the team who did them no longer works at ArenaNet, but still, the company should do what it can to recreate this style.

I believe Anet said some time in the past that they’re not going to do more of these because it’s too expensive.

This has been said many times, but I don’t think it could be said too many times. The personal story is a colossal letdown because it is neither personal or a story. In the end, our characters do not actually have any more personality, agency or impact than in WoW, a game that doesn’t even try to pretend to have a story other than fawning over its handful of writers’ pet NPCs. Hell, I felt MORE restricted here than I ever did in WoW because at least that game didn’t constantly dictate my characters’ every word.

I really wish there had been a separate storyline for each species. It would have done wonders for both immersion and replayability. Ditch the inanity of being forced to pick between three “orders” who squabble like spoiled brats — only to have that choice become irrelevant and forgotten a few levels later. When I make a sylvari, I want to feel like a sylvari. When I make a charr, I want to feel like a charr. I very much DO NOT want to be some featureless generic “hero”-bot who thinks, acts and talks in exactly the same way as every other featureles generic “hero”-bot, without any option for input on my part. The ridiculous personality system doesn’t even begin to count because it does not matter ever — just like nothing else in the not-personal not-story ever matters.

I don’t mind taking orders, I don’t mind being part of something greater, I don’t mind helping someone else build themselves into an important character — as long as I get credit for what I do, get to make real choices, and have some kind of actual impact on what’s going on.

Hello!

What I feel they should do is have monologue where it opens up to multiple selection and can branch you out. I’m saying to exclusively use that but blend it in. Taking orders is fine but you need a feel that you’re generating the solutions, that you’re the active thinker.

For example… you enter a personal story instance and your character stands at the top of the hill. You see 3 possible ways to get through the hill. Instead of the characters giving you a choice, your character thinks out loud: “hummm, if I go through path 1, I’m in it for a long fight. If I take path 2, I better be ready to swim, if I take path 3, it should be easy but that Orgre at the end may pose a problem…” – Then you make the choice.

It’s just a very simple twist that would greatly personalize the storyline. Perspective is important!

I couldn’t possibly have said it any better myself, this was well thought out and well said. The so-called ‘’personal story’’ has really got to be the most irritating thing in this game to me, and that may not seem like saying a lot because there is a lot to like about this game. But really, for what I shelled out for this game, I think yes, I should play the ’’hero’’ of my personal story, the main protagonist, not the protagonists ‘’side-kick’‘. This was really frustrating to me and made all the more obvious when even Trahearne himself, in my Engineer’s personal story made it clear that it was ‘’Clear that he is the enemies primary target’’ Like, wow, gee, thanks, so all this hard work I’ve been doing is for nothing? Obviously I’m agitated about this and sorry if it comes through in my post. I do like to be constructive in my criticism, but as some one who values good story-telling, this to me, unintentional or not, was a slap in the face by Arenanet.

Much love and thanks for putting this out there.

I think sylvari get both a better and a worse deal in the “personal story” than the other species. For a sylvari, Trahearne isn’t this random weirdo stranger who pops up out of nowhere and suddenly becomes #1 — instead you meet him earlier during the cultural story arc, and I liked him well enough then. And as a sylvari, you have a closer connection to the main plot because it’s literally the task you were born to do, not something you stumble into for no reason at all.

The abysmal downside is, of course, that NONE OF THAT MATTERS after the first few levels. Your Wyld Hunt? Utterly forgotten and never mentioned again. You being the Herald of the Pale Tree? Utterly forgotten and never mentioned again. The fact that it was you who reclaimed Caladbolg, avenged its original bearer and then wielded it in battle? Utterly forgotten and never mentioned again.

There just is ZERO continuity and coherence in the story with regard to our characters. In my opinion, that is the root of most of the problems. It’s not Trahearne or Destiny’s Edge or whatever — they’re only symptoms. The real issue is the fact that the character we pick is not allowed to be a character. It’s only logical that she or he has no actual place in the storyline, because a non-person who has neither a history nor a personality cannot carry a story.