Guild Wars 2

Once you get started with the Pact, the story becomes so biased towards Sylvari characters it sickens me. First you have Trahearne that almost literally falls out of the sky and takes over everything your character and his/her faction tried to do. My Norn Warrior was like “Who is this stupid vegetable hogging all my glory? I did all the work, I don’t even know him!”

Of course, in cutscenes my Norn was all chummy with him which felt out of place. Then I got to a 79 mission which involved one NPC heroically sacrificing herself. I don’t remember her name because I’ve not seen her before (My character acted as if he had, of course, bemoaning her tragic fate and what a brave soldier she was etc etc).

Then I find out that these things are much more fleshed out if you play a Sylvari character. Apparently you meet both the random NPC and Trahearne in your story as a Sylvari! Why make ALL characters act as if they were all chummy with these NPCs? It makes no sense! My norn would’ve slapped Trahearne in his monotone expressionless face for hogging all HIS glory and ruining HIS legend.

Now I realize that the story needed it’s deux e machina but why make it so painfully based on a Sylvari character’s perspective?

Humbug.

I have the feeling that the Sylvari race is a little like the “babies” of the story writers and character designers: they built a whole race from scratch and they seem to like it a lot. I remember a lot of blog posts and interviews about them before the game’s release. (Compared to other races.)

So I’m not really surprised that they get a lot of exposure in the game’s main story and that the heroes are almost all Sylvaris. It doesn’t really bother me though, the writers should write stories for the characters that inspire them, and if that means tons of Sylvari heroes then so be it.

What bothers me is not the Sylvari race as a whole, it’s a particular Sylvari called Trehearne, but that has been discussed through and through in other topics.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

There are also NPCs from all the other 4 races that show up later, though unless you did their story branch, you won’t recognize them.

I’m not sure if that was supposed to alleviate the OP’s concerns or something, but since when did that become good writing, introducing a bunch of characters way into the 3rd act and hoping the story still makes a semblance of sense?

I think the main issue with Trahearne is that it feels like he is in place so our characters wouldn’t have to speak a lot. With five races and two genders per race, if our characters talked a lot ArenaNet would have to record a lot of dialogue. Trahearne solves this by saying most of the things it should be our characters saying, such as rallying the Pact army for an assault. The issue, of course, is that is very much feels like he is doing something our characters should have done instead.

Erasculio.2914:

I think the main issue with Trahearne is that it feels like he is in place so our characters wouldn’t have to speak a lot. With five races and two genders per race, if our characters talked a lot ArenaNet would have to record a lot of dialogue. Trahearne solves this by saying most of the things it should be our characters saying, such as rallying the Pact army for an assault. The issue, of course, is that is very much feels like he is doing something our characters should have done instead.

This actually makes a lot of sense, especially when you factor in the cost of voice acting. Still, yeah, it’d have been nice for it to be handled in a way that doesn’t make him seem like a total spotlight hog.

neon.4863:

Erasculio.2914:

I think the main issue with Trahearne is that it feels like he is in place so our characters wouldn’t have to speak a lot. With five races and two genders per race, if our characters talked a lot ArenaNet would have to record a lot of dialogue. Trahearne solves this by saying most of the things it should be our characters saying, such as rallying the Pact army for an assault. The issue, of course, is that is very much feels like he is doing something our characters should have done instead.

This actually makes a lot of sense, especially when you factor in the cost of voice acting. Still, yeah, it’d have been nice for it to be handled in a way that doesn’t make him seem like a total spotlight hog.

I used to think this was the case, but just look at all the VA they had to do stuff that could’ve been cut completely from the game. So many choices that amount to nothing, the dialogue time for that could’ve been put elsewhere.

There is definitely a strong racial bias in this game. I won’t play a sylvari character in protest.

I also don’t like salad.

face it, not a personal story this is guildwars 2 the rise of trehern

So it’s a story featuring mostly Sylvaris. And the problem with that is…? You are still the race that you chose and that’s all that matters.

theonewhoknocks.8641:

So it’s a story featuring mostly Sylvaris. And the problem with that is…? You are still the race that you chose and that’s all that matters.

The problem is that my character is written as if he was Sylvari, despite being Norn (or any of the other non-salad races).

As mentioned, my Norn acts as if he knew all these characters as if he had played the Sylvari storyline!

I would not mind Trehearne or other Sylvari characters being so prominent in the later parts of the story line where it not for the fact that it feels like playing Trehearne’s personal storyline.

I have no objection, and actually I even like, being ‘’second in command’’. What does not make sense though is that Trehearne follows you around everywhere you go as if he has nothing better to do. The commander of the Pact, who needs to take care of all 3 orders and countless individuals who joined the war effort just follows the person around who he delegates his orders to.

The other objection is that after playing the entire story line the only npc character that I felt like I really knew was Trehearne. This to my big regret cause there were plenty of other characters who had an incredible amount of potential. If you ask me now, a month or 2 after completing my storyline, which characters I still remember? Tybalt, cause he is amazing, Shashoo cause Quaggan and my (dead) sister whom I never saw again except for a very brief encounter in Orr where a lot happened with characters I should have known better so that I would actually care a whole lot more about someone’s death.

Of course with all the branching story lines from different races you are inevitably going to have to try and tie them together at one point but Id rather have less choice with better characters. Preferably not only Sylvari. Gw2’s story line is very good and I really enjoyed playing it. Just make it more personal next time.

Isn’t Zhaitan the main Elder Dragon villain for Sylvari ?

Once expansions come out:

Jormag for Norns
Primordus for Asura
Kralkatorrik for Charr
Water Elder Dragon (Bubbles?) for Humans