Guild Wars 2

Hey Guys

I am a little disappointed with my personal storyline and my character herself.
My character is a human Mesmer and I like her appearance and the gameplay.
But what I really hate about her, is her personality.

Here is my point: Even though we have a lot of decisions during the storyline itself, every single one seems to lead to the same result for my character.

Most of all: My character seems to admire queen Jennah and Logan, two characters I can’t stand… Jennah is some kind of a social activist which you are forced to love… and logan is a with love blinded coward.

The lack of ability, to chose my characters reactions really depresses me in this game and every move my character makes is a total different, than I would have made.
In most MMOs your Character does’t say anything. He/She just accepts quests and finishes them. You don’t really know how he/she thinks, what gives you the ability to make your own personality.

But in Guild Wars 2 its like: This is how your character thinks! Deal with it!

Wors of all is are the things the character says when completing an achievement: Pure arrogance and narcissism (This is just one more confirmation, how great I am -.-)

I stopped caring about my personal storyline and started to jump dialogues… It is well made and exciting, but I just can’t stand my character.

So enough of my whining and over to you guys! xD

What do you think about your storyline/character?

It makes me sad to say it as I had been looking forward to this game for 5 years, but I feel exactly the same as you.

In addition to that I feel the human storyline (haven’t tried the others yet) is quite flat – much more so than, say, the GW1 Prophecies storyline -, in my mind my human ranger girl is very much different from how she presents herself during the missions and dialogues. She would NEVER ever admire royalty and the authorities in general, and yet, storyline forces her to do so.

While I have a soft spot for Logan (in human storyline, he seems to be the only character with rough edges), I don’t like Queen Jennah. Imvho, she’s the worst Mary Sue I’ve ever encountered in an original story (= outside of fanfiction). She’s sooo beautiful and sooo good that everyone MUST love her. And those who don’t are just the despicable bad guys.

I must say I have expected more. :-(

I agree completely. It’s the same problem like in Mass Effect 3 actually, where many if not most dialogues were mostly pre-set and you got to choose what to say once or at best twice per dialogue. Here your dialogue is pre-set completely even if you don’t agree with what comes out of you character’s mouth.

Generally, the cutscenes does the exact opposite of what RPG is supposed to do. I’m supposed to feel invested in what my character is doing like I’d be doing it myself. I have control (within boundaries of pre-set options the game offers) in written dialogues, but lose it comletely in the cutscenes. That not only makes my feel less invested in the story but also detaches my from the character, making it someone else’s story, not mine because the character does not act like me or like I want him/her to.

So yeah, there were many occasions during which I had to facepalm at the way my character is acting.

Now, I know that everyone is different so it’s impossible to create perfect match for every single player, but to limited degree it can still be achieved. That however belongs to the Suggestion forum so I’m posting it there.

PS: I think the link won’t properly because of how the topic opens, but whatever, it’s not like anyone’s gonna click on it anyway.

This is why role-play is such a brilliant thing to invest in, since you get to choose how your character reacts to pretty much any given situation within the constraints of the canon lore.

I agree that pure role-playing offers all this, however there is one thing it misses in video games and that is world’s or game’s reaction. It’s only in your head and your friends’ heads. Possibly custom emotes and what you write among each other as dialogues, but the game doesn’t provide you with any kind of feedback to this, nothing changes.
In GW2 you can incorporate dynamic events in it but even then you are limited within boundaries of said event.
I don’t like RPing much in games because of that element missing.

Anyway, since ANet decided to present us with implemented storyline in the first place I think it would be nice to help them improve it.

I have to agree on one point about the human storyline. I love a LOT of it, and have no interest in playing another race (the human story overall and the human lands are just breathtaking and inspiring), but from what I’ve seen so far (up to level 58) I really don’t like Queen Jennah. I mean, where’s the hundreds of years of human history riding on her shoulders? Where’s the burning drive to see her kingdom survive? One of the few quests I did that directly involved her had her diving for cover in her chambers when a risen minion master came after her. -insert blank, disappointed face in her direction- Where’s my warrior queen? Countess Anise feels more to me like what Queen Jennah should be — still regal, very poised and noble, but ready to kick some serious butt if the time comes! I do like Logan a lot, though. He’s blinded by his feelings for her so I understand his decisions, plus his reactions to events all seem so appropriate for his character (basically anything that goes wrong, he beats himself to death over out of guilt).

To be honest, I think humans are a bit oversued. Probably the very most overused thing in any and every kind of art, games included. Same goes for their locations, they just seem too… Well, human.
But Divinity’s Reach is at least epic and unlike Stormwind or Dalaran, in one very well-known game, it is an actual city.
The story doesn’t seem bad though, still have my thief ready and waiting. If possible though I’ll probably withdraw from most of my characters except my main to wait and see if the story interaction gets improved.

Urgh. This is also my only gripe with the game. The human storyline is just bad videogame writing at it’s worst and my character is an insufferablekitten

I might be being a bit harsh on him… but there’s something about the prince charming perfect hero character I hate – probably because it’s one dimensional as hell, blind in how much of a total RPG cliche he is, and has no grounding in the world whatsoever. And no, the crappy sister side mission that makes little sense does not ground him (or her) in the world. urrghhhhhhhhhh

Garenthal.1480:

This is why role-play is such a brilliant thing to invest in, since you get to choose how your character reacts to pretty much any given situation within the constraints of the canon lore.

Right until you do personal storyline and the character you’ve made with your friends collapses around you into a nodding idiot?

I dunno. I actually rather like the personal story lines …except for humans. Human noble, at least. It just seems so…blah. I’m not very engaged in it. My character is just so uppity all the time – even my Sylvari had his serious moments where he actually sounded serious.

As for the “pure arrogance and narcissism”, I don’t really see it like that. I think that’s just the characters having fun. I know I say stuff like that all the time and I don’t mean it.

riku.2091:

As for the “pure arrogance and narcissism”, I don’t really see it like that. I think that’s just the characters having fun. I know I say stuff like that all the time and I don’t mean it.

Well but thats the problem. Not all people (including me) like this continuous self-praising, even if it’s meant for fun. Some people prefer to remain modestly.

And THAT is the problem with the personal storyline.. For some people, the personality created by Anet is just fine (For you for example), but for some it’s just the complete opposite of the personality they’d like to have.

I guess RP would be a solution for this, but I don’t really like RP. All my friends wouldn’t play along and the possibilities with emotes and stuff are IN MY OPINION just too few.
Thats why I prefer to think for my character and develop a personality with my mind.
Well that works fine until my character says something like: “I’m so fabulous I could be the prince of Belair!” or starts to kiss Jennah’s boots, and begging her to marry me.

“Most of all: My character seems to admire queen Jennah and Logan, two characters I can’t stand”

If it makes you feel any better Zojja can’t stand Logan either. I picked an Asura just because I’d know I’d like the personality since playing an insufferable genius looks fun =) I’m also a scoundrel (ferocity + charm) if that has an effect on anything.