Guild Wars 2

It really is a fat middle finger in your face.

It is as if Anet waits until the very end to drop the facade and show how run-of-the-mill MMO they actually are, after all.

As of about ten minutes ago, I have joined the ranks of people going “Why is the Personal Story’s capstone a dungeon?”

I gave it a shot anyway, just to see if maybe it had been set up to be soloable, like the rest of the Personal Story quests. Turns out, hey, it sucks to try to go through alone just as much as any other dungeon, except this one is the kitten end of the Personal Story.

Good job, Anet. There’s yet another person who’s Personal Story is going to sit at Victory or Death, because you just had to make it a dungeon.

That’s not my issue with this mission.

My issue is that we’re forced to group for this quest. MMOs and RPGs are supposed to be about player choice, allowing the player to complete content at their own leisure, providing a multitude of ways for somebody to experience the game. The problem is that Guild Wars 2 really doesn’t have enough to do for ArenaNet to get away with forcing somebody to do this quest in a way they don’t want to. For a game that has so little actual choice to it right now, making this important of a choice for the player is a colossal mistake.

There’s also the matter that it’s not consistent with the design values of the rest of the game. Up until this point, the player has been allowed to complete this story on their own, to experience it in a completely personal manner. Then right at the last mission, ArenaNet throws their entire design philosophy out the window and gets rid of the one reason why everybody thinks the GW2 is better than other MMO stories (generally speaking).

I just want to run Arah and finish my personal story…totally agree with OP. The problem with ANet forcing a group for last dungeon, is that harldy anyone wants to run a dungeon story more than once…so when everyone finished Arah in story months ago…i’m left trying to find a very few amount of people who MAY still need to do Arah Story…i really wish i could do it…or any of the last 3 dungeons in story…everyone just wants to run the exp paths and i don’t blame them…it’s where all the loot is.

/bump

I have 5 characters of varying level, all about 40. New Years Eve got my first one to 80. The last “Personal Story” (that is really Trehearn’s Story and nothing to do with me anymore) that won’t let me finish it without a 5 man group almost killed the entire game for me.

Anet WTF!?

Now, in looking to work on some of my other toons, I almost can’t stomach it. First of all, the story after joining a faction becomes instantly linear and the same for everyone. That right there makes me not want to do it again. With the jipped ending… Not sure I can level any other toons… or even play anymore for that matter.

I agree with bullets. This leaves me with an unfinished story. It doesn’t even make sense from a storytelling point of view. Why would my character develop respect and friendships with NPCs along the way and then go on an important epic quest with a bunch of strangers that she has never met before? Why would I continue to play knowing that none of my characters will ever finish? Very disappointing.

IndigoAK.5982:

That’s not my issue with this mission.

My issue is that we’re forced to group for this quest. MMOs and RPGs are supposed to be about player choice, allowing the player to complete content at their own leisure, providing a multitude of ways for somebody to experience the game. The problem is that Guild Wars 2 really doesn’t have enough to do for ArenaNet to get away with forcing somebody to do this quest in a way they don’t want to. For a game that has so little actual choice to it right now, making this important of a choice for the player is a colossal mistake.

There’s also the matter that it’s not consistent with the design values of the rest of the game. Up until this point, the player has been allowed to complete this story on their own, to experience it in a completely personal manner. Then right at the last mission, ArenaNet throws their entire design philosophy out the window and gets rid of the one reason why everybody thinks the GW2 is better than other MMO stories (generally speaking).

This ^

Well said.

Well, honestly, if you went in to face Zhaitan with just Trahearne, then Trahearne got mortally wounded and you took up his sword in the last, desperate struggle and finally killed the dragon over Trahearne’s broken body – honestly I would find that ending far, far more epic than the way they did it.

And you could do it solo.

Agreed with OP. A lot of good ideas in this thread, actually.

I have completed all of my personal story that I can, up to the final step: the obligatory five-player dungeon that is oddly not in keeping with how I played the rest of the personal story. In reality, I’ve already completed the story mode dungeon and helped kill Zhaitan with some friends. However, my personal story wasn’t up to that point yet, so obviously it didn’t count. I’m not opposed to doing it again for “real,” but I have my doubts that anyone at this point is going to be slumming around Arah, looking for people to do Story Mode with.

And what the heck is going to happen when an actual expansion comes out, and the Personal Story actually gets continued past Zhaitan? Are they still going to make people complete a five-player story-mode dungeon when they hit 80, before they experience the new content? Good luck getting help for that!

I am near the end of my personal story and am dismayed to find I need to find a group to complete it and after reading this thread it is looking likely I never will be able to.

Letting players make a choice to either play solo through to the end or do it with a group would be a great idea. Having a variation of what you do within that depending on that choice could be interesting and creative and allow people to try for a satisfactory ending to their personal story even if it means staging a solo journey in sections to complete it.

I am definitely not a fan of having to gather a group especially with the difficulties people are saying they are having doing that much less getting into the dungeon itself.

Wow – what a letdown. No need to repeat what so many have said – I just want to add at least 2 more voices (my duo partner all through the story and myself) to the choir of disappointed people not able to finish their so-called personal story.

All the freakin dungeons in the game is 5-man. No way a duo/trio can do them. Alright I have to live with that – but this final part of MY personal story too? That’s just too dumb. Many good things in the game – and some not so good. THIS issue is my biggest disapointment.

My husband and I played Guild Wars together, we duoed everything. (With the help of henchies and heros, we miss you Cynn, Mhenlo, and Koss’ Hair.) Him being in the military and being deployed and stationed overseas, this is what we did on our “dates”.

We’ve enjoyed the game so far, although a bit dismayed that we are unable to do dugeons and experience that storyline together.

But this was ok, maybe, after all we could do the personal story together, right?

That’s when we started hearing rumors that the last mission was in fact a dungeon and we would not be able to complete the game together. (and let’s not forget, it also completes the story for the dungeon storyline as well, nothing like jumping in on a story at the end) Jumped on the forums and found out this rumor is in fact true.

Well that’s a bummer.

I just really can’t understand it. The personal storyline scales up, until that point (as do the dynamic events) to the number of player characters you have in your party. (or in the case of events how many are in the area) So why don’t all storylines (including dungeons) do this? Now I’m not saying all dungeons should do this, only the story part should.

It’s just that after playing the first game, and the way they had it set up for groups, this seems like a giant step back and I really hope that by the time we get to the end they will have fixed this.

I can’t believe I spent all this time getting to this mission and now it will most likely never happen. I put up with so many bugs and glitches IN THE STORY LINE so I could at least see how the story ends. If I had known this would be how it ends I never would have bought this game. I feel more ripped off from this game than any other I have ever bought.

kazi.6438:

To all you people whining about having to form a group:

In GW1, it was REQUIRED for you to have 6-8 people for every mission. (You could fill the party with NPC henchmen, but you’d fail high level missions miserably with them). If you couldn’t complete the missions, there was NO WAY to progress without paying a runner 3k+ to run you to Droknar’s Forge.

GW2 requires only 5 players for the last mission. This is less than the requirements at any point for the GW1 story, which was considerably more limiting (and bugged, in many cases). I don’t understand the griping. GW2 is a MASSIVE step forwards for the genre.

And finally, my server is filled with people like you (posting in this thread), who never participate or want to form groups for anything. (Understandably, we always lose in WvW…). All they care about is “completing their personal story” like this was a single-player game and then once they finish, they start playing a different RPG. GW2 is NOT an RPG. It is an MMORPG, which is an entirely separate genre.

You might actually learn to enjoy the game if you simply played WvW, did a dungeon, or chatted with the other gamers you’re with every time you log online (it’s pretty easy to make small talk about anything with random strangers). Try it, then come back to this thread.

/end rant

Ummm! Being almost ‘forced’ to group in GW1 was one of the reasons I stopped playing it.

I’m not anti-social by any means in MMO’s and come from a background of 8+ years of City of Heroes. I grouped most of the time but also soloed a few chars to 50. I spent a lot of time soloing because of time zone issues and RL – just as I do here.

I would love to group more than I do but am put off applying to join a lot of groups because most of them broadcast looking for exp members – I assume exp means experienced in this instance and I do not consider myself experienced yet. I did inquire in chat if exp meant experienced and got the reply ‘yet another total noob’ sighs deeply

Yes! I too want to finish my ‘personal’ story and be able to solo it like the rest of it, it ticks me off that I won’t be able to unless I join a pug and have a couple of hours to spare without RL interruptions.

Supasilvafoxy.1247:

Ummm! Being almost ‘forced’ to group in GW1 was one of the reasons I stopped playing it.

I’m not anti-social by any means in MMO’s and come from a background of 8+ years of City of Heroes. I grouped most of the time but also soloed a few chars to 50. I spent a lot of time soloing because of time zone issues and RL – just as I do here.

I would love to group more than I do but am put off applying to join a lot of groups because most of them broadcast looking for exp members – I assume exp means experienced in this instance and I do not consider myself experienced yet. I did inquire in chat if exp meant experienced and got the reply ‘yet another total noob’ sighs deeply

Yes! I too want to finish my ‘personal’ story and be able to solo it like the rest of it, it ticks me off that I won’t be able to unless I join a pug and have a couple of hours to spare without RL interruptions.

I completed all of the story content in Guild Wars (including the Beyond content) solo, using only henchman and Heroes, so Kazi’s claim that you’re required to use groups is false.

I also love how his rant ignores the larger problem with the way that this last mission plays out: that it ignores all of the design principles of the game that came before it. As I’ve said in other posts, my main problem with this mission is that it isn’t consistent. GW1 is an amazing game because it’s consistent. It knew what it wanted to be and ArenaNet had a very focused plan for making it the way it was.

Guild Wars 2 is all over the place. There is no focus. Is it WvWvW? Then why does the personal story get so much screen time? Is it the personal story? Then why does it fall apart in the third act? Why do the last three zones fail miserably at telling a cohesive story, something the previous zones managed despite the Heart Quest system? Is it structured PvP? Then why is there so little interface real estate assigned to making it visible? ArenaNet seems to have no idea what they want this game to be or where they want it to go, that much is clear, though this isn’t altogether surprising because GW2 is a traditional MMORPG while GW1 was an action role-playing game with online co-op multiplayer when you wanted to use it.

(Edit: Probably shouldn’t have edited out Kazi’s nested quote, but I’m replying to him mostly and Supasilvafoxy secondarily.)

To the Kazi … dude. I don’t get it. Why is it so important for some people to require that everyone play the game like YOU do – and want the same from a game as YOU want. That is intolerant and frankly ignorant.

Obviously there are a lot of people who like dungeons and WvW and PvP, etc – and GW2 does a lot to make stuff for them. Great. Fine. Just dandy – MORE POWER TO YOU. When a few (apparently) of us simply wish to be able to complete the ONE thing that otherwise is soloable/duoable – the “personal” story – you really feel the need to voice your oppinion about how YOU want us to play the game??? Nope – don’t get it. Go back to your dungeon!!!

GW2 in many ways tries to have something for everyone – very small groups (1/2/3) and bigger groups (5 or larger guilds). THIS personal story thing group requirement is simply a fail – and a big one. GW1 gave players of all sorts the opportunity to enjoy the game a very long time. It seems to me that GW2 caters a lot to the group-type people (dungeons only for groups, now this personal story fail etc). I just wonder if GW2 will have the same longevity as GW1 … for some people.

I agree with op if you read my personal review of the game that was my grip of the game I don’t think you should ever be forced to join a group there were a number of story based dungeons i would have liked to go though but i am “Locked out”of unless i “join a group” . I hope the dev’s makes the Story dungeons easier and soloable and take the forced grouping out o the game

While I too find this annoying it took only about 15 minutes for me to find the group, however the whole ending was very anticlimactic, also I didn’t like how I couldn’t see my character during the cut scenes + I had to fight mouth of Zhaitan again for some reason, despite me beating it just few quests before.

I agree. The end is very disappointing to have a group to finish. Takes away the immersion and ease of access that the rest of the personal story had to offer.

I just want to add here that my husband and I are very disappointed with the way the final personal story quest is constructed as well. There are a lot of things to like about this game and so far we’ve been pretty happy, but we got to this point last night and not only was it initially not clear that it wasn’t a solo quest because there was no story transition, Trahearne (whom I find totally unlikable) gets sorted with his Wild Hunt and then the next thing is this—go slay the dragon! …Er, okay? But it’s a dungeon, so we’ll never do it; we work long hours and have to stop playing at short notice frequently. We don’t have a guild and we know one other person, eight time zones away, who plays the game.

Since we duo, we have sometimes been quite lucky with what we’ve been able to accomplish with an Elementalist and a Guardian; we had been planning another duo to 80 with different class and story choices but last night when we sat down at our machines, we both patched SWTOR. I guess that speaks for itself.

I didn’t mind the last quest so much, but luckily I have some nice guildies who were happy to join me.

They probably should lock Arah up until you’ve gotten to that point in you personal story and dungeon stories and increase the reward quite a bit, though.

I agree with many people here. I was infuriated by this and utterly shocked. I soloed all of the personal stories and was looking forward to “beating” the game. Now I need a full party and just don’t have time or resources to make this happen very easily. I’ve avoided all the dungeons up to this point for this very reason. Why oh why would A.Net do this? I would understand if other dungeons were “required” to work up to this, but no.

Extremely disappointing and will prevent me from finishing my final storyline! A.Net should be ashamed!

I agree with many people here. I was infuriated by this and utterly shocked. I soloed all of the personal stories and was looking forward to “beating” the game. Now I need a full party and just don’t have time or resources to make this happen very easily. I’ve avoided all the dungeons up to this point for this very reason. Why oh why would A.Net do this? I would understand if other dungeons were “required” to work up to this, but no.

Extremely disappointing and will prevent me from finishing my final storyline! A.Net should be ashamed!

Why doesn’t a dev or community manager (someone with power) have the guts to come in and address this issue , admit they were wrong about this design for the completion of the personal story and a give us a timeline for the revamp??? Or just a ‘suck it up we got your $$ the heck with you’ post.

You don’t have to run your entire personal story “solo” until “Victory or Death”.
You can have a team of 5 through the whole story if you so wish it.
But, that’s what a guild is for right? Your guild mates?
OHHHH DARN …. what an oversight !!

Lechtrixx.1053:

You don’t have to run your entire personal story “solo” until “Victory or Death”.
You can have a team of 5 through the whole story if you so wish it.
But, that’s what a guild is for right? Your guild mates?
OHHHH DARN …. what an oversight !!

Not sure what you are attempting to get at with this comment (not an insult, I’m simply confused). However the point of this topic is that throughout the Persona Story we have always had a choice. You could run with a team (guild mates if you will) or you could run solo. The choice was yours and it was viable either way. With the final completion of it, the choice was taken away and you are forced to go at it with a team.

The problem is the removal of the choice, making it so those of us with limited time or limited guild mates who want to help have to stop just before completion. This greatly cheapens the experience for us.

Make suggestions on ways the devs can make the end story better and playable – lot of good ideas have been put out in the thread so far. The current end story doesn’t work for me re the mandatory group but, still, I finished everything up to that point with my first avi and will get my alts there as well in the hopes the devs decide to change how we can do the end stories so that we have a choice of doing it solo one way or with the group the current way. I think as a community, we can put forth a lot of really great ideas and encouragement to make this happen.

We can complain but should give ideas on what we want to see that makes the end story viable for us to do.

It would be nice if the NPCs who tag along in story mode dungeons were buffed up a lot for those who want to try and solo/duo them. That would probably makes things less painful for everyone doing story mode dungeons.

It’s something about that final battle where it seems important to have thinking people covering each other’s backs. But, I agree that the NPC’s should be buffed a bit more and capable of “aiding” each other as well as us. (I’ve seen it in some places in Orr for real where an NPC revived me when I was downed and no other person was nearby).
In one part of a story line, we got to use Caladbolg in battle, but in the long run relinquish it to Trahearn for his wyld hunt.
Shoot … we’re given the title of “Champion of Orr” by King Riza himself after defeating the Eye of Zhaitan. Why aren’t we given that Champion attribute that we often face with those bosses. Yeah, I know .. the word “zerg” comes to mind, but in reality for the story line … it should be a given (even if only a temporary one).

Seems that this topic has been raised in this and about 7 other sections of this forum as well as forums and discussion groups outside of the official gw2 forum … enough to say this has upset a lot of people.

Does anyone know if there’s been any official response on the subject from ArenaNet ?

Have to add my voice to those complaining about the end of the personal story. So unfair that it requires a group to finish it. To those who suggest that guildies should be able to help, yes that is true, but imagine over time, having to run that same dungeon over and over and over again whenever any guild member gets to that point. Terrible end to an otherwise enjoyable event and will definitely stop me recommending this game to other people!

If you don’t want to group, don’t play an MMORPG. Simple.

I keep checking on this issue and the right-click targeting suggestion and I’m continually disappointed in a lack of response from Anet.

In a game with auto-grouping and shared resources, it seems like a huge oversight to hobble the personal story with a grouping requirement at the very end. It’s doable, but it’s not fun – it’s spoiled when you have to accommodate a random group or helpful guildmates just to “get through it.”

Vasham.2408:

If you don’t want to group, don’t play an MMORPG. Simple.

Keep in mind, the entire personal story is soloable up to the end. Only the final mission requires a group, and even then someone else might get to be featured in the cutscenes. Hardly personal if you ask me. Out of all the things Star Wars: The Old Republic got wrong (a LOT), one of the very few things they got right was that the personal story/class quest could indeed be soloed the entire way no problem so long as you kept yourself moderately geared up.

Vasham.2408:

If you don’t want to group, don’t play an MMORPG. Simple.

That would be lovely if this game actually promoted grouping, which it does not. Majority of PVE is done solo, all of your personal story except the last mission is done solo. There really is no incentive to group up at all in this game except for dungeons and those have become repetitive activities.

Was enjoying the game until I got to the final task of my "PERSONAL" storyline and found out I need other people to complete my "PERSONAL" storyline.

What a let down...I bought the game to play Solo and I cant even finish it...

"PERSONAL" - Done in person without the intervention of another; also : proceeding from a single person.

Obviously your developers need the definition of PERSONAL.

Arsenic Touch.7960:

Vasham.2408:

If you don’t want to group, don’t play an MMORPG. Simple.

That would be lovely if this game actually promoted grouping, which it does not. Majority of PVE is done solo, all of your personal story except the last mission is done solo. There really is no incentive to group up at all in this game except for dungeons and those have become repetitive activities.

No excuse. There is nothing preventing you from finishing the personal story except you. You don’t want to group, so it’s your fault that you can’t complete the story. When you buy a game in a genre called “Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game” then you should not be surprised or offended when you are required at some point to play with other people.

As people far more eloquent than myself have said in the past: QQ moar, l2p

Vasham.2408:

Arsenic Touch.7960:

Vasham.2408:

If you don’t want to group, don’t play an MMORPG. Simple.

That would be lovely if this game actually promoted grouping, which it does not. Majority of PVE is done solo, all of your personal story except the last mission is done solo. There really is no incentive to group up at all in this game except for dungeons and those have become repetitive activities.

No excuse. There is nothing preventing you from finishing the personal story except you. You don’t want to group, so it’s your fault that you can’t complete the story. When you buy a game in a genre called “Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game” then you should not be surprised or offended when you are required at some point to play with other people.

As people far more eloquent than myself have said in the past: QQ moar, l2p

You would have a point if this particular MMO didn’t go out of it’s way to accommodate solo play with its auto-grouping for dynamic events and world events, but it does. That’s kind of its thing – to not be a typical MMO.

And, though you don’t want to acknowledge it, it is a salient point that you can solo the entire personal story until the end. It would be unreasonable to expect to solo it to completion if you were required to complete dungeons throughout the storyline, but that’s not the case.

Frankly, you come across as high and mighty for the sake of internet points. Snotty retorts and talking down to other posters doesn’t do much to sway anyone to your opinion, it just creates a toxic environment.

Jeffrey, why respond here only to direct people to a thread where there is no dev response? I’ve seen many people talking about this issue, but I’ve never seen a single dev response as to what the thought process behind this decision was (apologies if I’m wrong and have simply missed something).

Rather than simply telling everyone where to go to continue to ask questions into the void, would you or one of your colleagues be able to issue an explanation? I think it’s been long enough. The avoidance of the topic is starting to look bad.

Vasham.2408:

When you buy a game in a genre called “Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game” then you should not be surprised or offended when you are required at some point to play with other people.

As people far more eloquent than myself have said in the past: QQ moar, l2p

“Massively Multiplayer” only refers to many players being on a given server at the same time. It does not inherently refer to a playstyle that requires forced grouping.

There’s no need to be so snide and dismissive, or to act as though the way you prefer to play the game is superior to anyone else’s preferences.

Enikuo.9205:

Vasham.2408:

Arsenic Touch.7960:

Vasham.2408:

If you don’t want to group, don’t play an MMORPG. Simple.

That would be lovely if this game actually promoted grouping, which it does not. Majority of PVE is done solo, all of your personal story except the last mission is done solo. There really is no incentive to group up at all in this game except for dungeons and those have become repetitive activities.

No excuse. There is nothing preventing you from finishing the personal story except you. You don’t want to group, so it’s your fault that you can’t complete the story. When you buy a game in a genre called “Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game” then you should not be surprised or offended when you are required at some point to play with other people.

As people far more eloquent than myself have said in the past: QQ moar, l2p

You would have a point if this particular MMO didn’t go out of it’s way to accommodate solo play with its auto-grouping for dynamic events and world events, but it does. That’s kind of it’s thing – to not be a typical MMO.

And, though you don’t want to acknowledge it, it is a salient point that you can solo the entire personal story until the end. It would be unreasonable to expect to solo it to completion if you were required to complete dungeons throughout the storyline, but that’s not the case.

Frankly, you come across as high and mighty for the sake of internet points. Snotty retorts and talking down to other posters doesn’t do much to sway anyone to your opinion, it just creates a toxic environment.

There’s nothing unreasonable about expecting people to group up for some content. However it’s very unreasonable to want maximum reward for zero effort. Wanting a solo experience 100% of the time is the latter. No effort? No reward. That is the price you pay.

Vasham.2408:

However it’s very unreasonable to want maximum reward for zero effort. Wanting a solo experience 100% of the time is the latter. No effort? No reward. That is the price you pay.

Come on, Vasham. You’re saying if someone completes ALL of the story missions — except the very last one-- that they’ve expended NO effort and deserve NO reward? With 95% of the work done?

And despite what you claim, most people aren’t saying that they should be able to have a solo experience “100% of the time”. For example, it’s perfectly reasonable to assume you will have to group with others to do a dungeon. I wouldn’t ask to be able to solo a dungeon.

It is not unreasonable to be able to expect to solo something that is referred to as a personal story.

Oh for pete’s sake, this is an MMORPG or “Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game”.

“Personal stories” without any “intervention of another” would be the most boring story (if you could even call it that) ever conceived.

However, whilst I see OP’s point, I think the OP’s demand is unreasonable, given that the other 99% of the personal story is doable entirely alone.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

Rather than filling the forum with multiple posts on the same issue, I’m trying to keep them consolidated. Frankly, the decision to make the final step a 5-man dungeon was made before I joined the story team, so I cn’t provide any insight to the reasoning.

Understood, and thank you for at least acknowledging this, Jeffrey. It is appreciated. But surely someone must be able to address/explain this, or acknowledge that they see why many people find it irksome? I can’t believe that there is no one presently working with the dev team who is able to address an issue that many have been expressing dissatisfaction with for quite some time? I’m getting this mental picture of a roomful of devs looking at each other in confusion, shrugging their shoulders saying, “…I got nothin’…”

If there’s one thing I hate in MMOs is inconsistancy in quest/storylines.

In EQ2 and LotRO, I frequently started up a solo questline, only to end up needing a group to finish the questline at the end. Leaving me no choice but to either forget about the questline, or wait until I am vastly overleveled for it to stand a chance on finishing it solo (LotRO, at least, fixed this by making the entire Epic questline soloable in a later update and will keep it soloable from that point on).

Sometimes I would get lucky and find player or two working on the same step, but more often then not, I have to let it sit. Not to mention I do not like asking for help, as I only want to worry about myself. That’s not to say I won’t group at all, I just prefer not to….and I do want to do all the story mode dungeons eventually (done TA and AC so far). However, I want to do them for the story and I’ve heard of people getting kicked for watching cutscenes, so I am wary of attempting the others.

Anyway, my main point in this is that there should be consistancy in the ‘difficulty’ of quest/storylines, player number wise. If it starts solo (like…our personal story), it should stay solo throughout the whole quest/storyline! If you want it to be group required, make it group required the whole way through, not just at the end!

That said, I really do wish there was solo-option (lessened rewards are fine with me, as the story itself is reward enough) for story mode dungeons, Arah included. In fact, I refuse to do Arah Story Mode to finish what’s supposed to be my personal (read: solo) storyline until it has a solo option!

Pure Heart.1456:

Oh for pete’s sake, this is an MMORPG or “Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game”.

“Personal stories” without any “intervention of another” would be the most boring story (if you could even call it that) ever conceived.

However, whilst I see OP’s point, I think the OP’s demand is unreasonable, given that the other 99% of the personal story is doable entirely alone.

For the eleventy-billionth time, “massively multiplayer” indicates a game that has a large number of players on a server at the same time. It does not indicate a playstyle of forced grouping, no matter how many times people cry “OMG, it’s an MMO!”

Yeah, see, that’s kinda the point, I think. The whole bait and switch philosophy of this game. Oh, we want you to TRY grouping up with people, so we’ll trick you into doing almost all of your personal story and then FORCE you to make a group. Or we want you to try our WvWvW zerg fest, so we’re going to let you do all of the world exploration except that last little bit where you have to go into the mists to finish exploring the world of Tyria (how THAT makes sense is beyond me).

Sorry, but it feels forced. If WvWvW was so freaking awesome, you wouldn’t have to force PvE’rs into it. If grouping up with people was just as awesome, you wouldn’t have to trick people into it to complete their personal storyline. They would do it ON THEIR OWN, because they want to.

I know some people love these aspects of the game, but some of us absolutely hate them. Until I ran into these bait and switch aspects, I loved Guild Wars 2. I recommended it to people. I bought copies of it for friends who I thought would enjoy it, but I don’t feel I can recommend it to anyone else.

Here’s the thing, when you feel you have to trick people into playing portions of your game, you have weak portions of the game. I’m sure there are people who love the whole zerg rush crap of WvW, but I’m not one of them. I wouldn’t even be one of them if I was on one of the highest ranked servers that controls all of the WvW maps so that getting my 100% map completion would be a breeze (I wasn’t on one of those servers, but that’s beside the point).

I’m sure some of the WvW players have complaints too. If they don’t want to PvE, they shouldn’t have to. They should get good enough drops that they can afford to massacre each other to their hearts’ content without ever stepping foot into the world of Tyria. I’m all for them getting a “Mists completion” achievement for exploring every nook and cranny of the Eternal Battlegrounds, borderlands, or whatever, but I shouldn’t have to go there for world exploration.

A MMO should be like a good buffet. You should be able to pick the parts you like, and leave other parts for those who do like them. Not a big fan of General Tsao’s Chicken (WvW)? That’s ok – grab a big serving of Chow Mein (PvE), and some Shrimp Fried Rice (Dungeon grouping) if you want. Like a buffet, these things should all be available to you, and you should be able to mix and match them to suit your own tastes. If the restaurant staff mixes everything together and tells you “This is the way you have to eat it. The chef worked hard on the General Tsao’s chicken, so you have to eat some of it, even if you don’t like it,” you’ll quickly find another restaurant. Everything thrown together regardless of personal taste isn’t a good meal – it’s pig slop.

Maybe it is silly of me to still care. I really did enjoy Guild Wars 2, but I got as far as I could progress my character without having to start joining pick-up groups to finish my personal story or going into WvW to get the last few percentage points for World completion.

Heck, I’m just one dude. I doubt A-Net cares that they’ve driven me from the game, after all, they’ve already got my money. Still, I would guess that there are other people who think the same way I do. The first Guild Wars was good enough to make me want to play Guild Wars 2 – and there are parts of the game I still love, but I won’t be logging back in. And, unless I hear of some radical changes, I won’t be back for Guild Wars 3.

Vasham.2408:

If you don’t want to group, don’t play an MMORPG. Simple.

FYI, the ‘G’ in MMORPG doesn’t stand for GROUP