Guild Wars 2

This mission frustrates me, not because of the combat content, but because of the actual story behind it. You walk through a marsh killing a hundred undead or so, and then you set up some mortars, you look down into the marsh and see a hundred undead, and then you order the mortars to fire. Apparently none of the other troops are even looking at what they’re shooting at, and apparently when it turns out that somehow the undead made you see undead when you were actually shooting pact troops is your fault. Everyone turn around and says “Jeez, look at that mistake you made!” and other such gems like “Not your day’s best work!” and the like.

Seriously, what is the point of this? To make the commander “make a mistake” even though he didn’t make a mistake? Everyone, Trahearne included, outright blames the commander (player character) for this “atrocity”, and you have to go dive into some volcano to “make it right”, yeah okay.

This component of the story is weak, and the pact reacts to it naively. The player character does exactly the right thing, and some plot and character massaging is done to make the character look like a bad guy throughout the whole ordeal, as though you have to earn back into the graces of the pact. If you wanted to make it appear that the character can make mistakes, you should give that choice to the player. Every commander is forced through this story step as it stands, and nothing can avert the “error in judgment”. This just highlights that the player needs more control over their own story. There is some splitting of paths, but no paths within the story steps that allows the player to make their own decisions. It would also be nice if the characters were not so one-dimensional, and did not bandwagon against the commander as if he is some sort of pariah after this situation. (Sure you go after the illusionist later, but that barely makes up for how the player is treated by the NPCs inbetween)

Anyway, that’s pretty much all I had to say. Maybe someone else will agree with me, and better yet, maybe this will inspire some better storytelling in the future and maybe more spliting paths.

I think what I hate most about that part of the story, is how in the end it turns out it was all an illusion made by a mesmer. So it wasn’t your fault after all. Allowing the player to make a mistake, and it actually being a mistake would have been a strong point. But this plot point is totally undone by them explaining it away as not being your fault after all.

The fact that it is not actually the player making an error in judgement, as you mentioned, is another weak part of this story section. It would have been so much better if the player would have been given the freedom to make that mistake, -or not! Because when it is actually you making the decision, you feel responsible. But if it was the only option, then you don’t feel responsible.

And how much better would the story have been if Trahearne set the whole thing up, to rise to power, and get rid of the player’s character?

Oh, too dark?