Guild Wars 2

So I just completed the Personal Story after the Gates of Arah were finally working again and wanted to give my opinion on what was lacking, as the PS is one of the “big things” of GW2.
I played a Sylvari Ranger and joined the Priory.

Obviously, some of the things I suggest would require significant rework of the PS, so my feedback is rather something for future expansions or games.

WARNING: PERSONAL OPINION, SPOILERS AND WALL OF TEXT AHEAD. You have been warned.
There is a TL;DR at the end.

Completely isolated story parts – the racial, Guild and Pact story lines feel like they are completely separated and don’t have anything to do with each other, even if the previous storyline didn’t really conclude. My Sylvari just found out there is another Pale Tree, and the plot is completely dropped when I join the Priory, so I expected it to pick up again after some time – but it seemed to me that as soon as you reach the Guild part, the Race you chose doesn’t matter at all anymore.

The same with the Pact part – as soon as you reach the Orr plot, your Guild choice becomes irrelevant, you are suddenly commander of every guild. This not only feels off, it also drastically diminishes replayability – if the racial story ends at 30, there is little reason for me to continue the PS unless I chose another of the 3 guilds, and when reaching Orr I might as well stop playing the PS all together, as I’ve already seen/did everything of it.

I’m not asking for vastly different plots depending on choices, but the story lines could have been mixed up more without branching any of them – let the main Orr plot go on hold every once in a while for a Race and Guild specific intermezzo quest all the way to 80. For example, send my Sylvari back to the “other” tree to recruit them to the war effort (after some small subplot) and just place some NPCs of them in the ending battles, or send me to a Priory-exclusive special mission once in a while, just to keep those fundamental choices relevant.

Lack of interesting characters. The GW2 storyline is (imho) not very original – good heroes kill bad dragon, BTDT. But then again, neither was Mass Effects, for that example. But Mass Effect had interesting subplots and characters that drove the game, and Guild Wars 2 lacks the former and has nothing to offer on the latter. The only characters that actually stay for more than one or two quests are killed off – in a rather bland way – and then the Story expects me to have an emotional investment in them.

Take the Priory Mentor for example – the only thing I remember her for is flying around laughing while I climbed stairs, and then she wants to single-handedly hold back an army? Her sacrifice was so bland and generic that I lost the little bit of interest I had in her character, and had to think hard who the hell the Eye of Zhaitan meant when he dropped her name. Again, the writers thought I had any attachment to this character who was killed off a long time ago before we even got to know her? Same with the asura demolitionist, same with the charr pilot. Are there any other side characters besides Destinys Edge and Trahearne?

Characters like Garrus, Thane and Tali from the ME series didn’t have that much screentime either, but they were around (long enough to be relevant) and you could talk to them. Let us have some companions from our Race choice and our Guild, give them a story to tell, send them with us on missions instead of generic faceless punching bags “Vigil Crusader”, “Order of Whispers Agent” etc. , let them drop some hilarious one-liners that other characters respond to – nothing sophisticated or expensive, but enough to make us care for them. For a game that strives to revolutionize the MMO part of the genre, the writers did little to keep up with the standards Bioware set for the RPG part.

You can go even further and let us send them on the alternative missions in our stead. Right now, all the binary mission choices feel like “attack/defend generic fantasy location #1 or go to generic kinda important fantasy place #2 to get generic ancient artifact #3 or perform generic fantasy ritual #4” and the other part will be miraculously done by someone else you don’t know or care about. But if we had to send one of our companions on the other mission, worrying about their survival and get a funny comment when they return, the entire branching quests mechanic becomes a lot more interesting. Make them part of the last stand, and if you really want to add drama – kill off a (randomly chosen?) character at or near the end, when we care, in a non-cheesy way. Look at how Mass Effect 2 did it at the end, I was grieving for poor Mordin (before I loaded a save) more than I would if every single GW2 character died.
(I heard that they tried to do something like that with the Charr warband, but are those actually companions through the Guild and Orr parts?)

Dialogue system Why are the interactive and spoken dialogues separated? It makes our character personality mostly irrelevant, and just feels strange, dropping out of the cutscene to make a choice.. why not combine them for the personal story, and keep the text-based stuff for world NPCs? It would have a lot more impact if our character actually says our response, and see/hear the other person react, at least once in a while.

Destiny’s Edge – they have no relevance in the Personal story past 30. We only receive occasional love letters from them, telling us how they’ll return soon, but don’t actually see our mentor outside of the dungeons (which I mostly skipped while leveling for reasons better discussed elsewhere), why not let our mentor join us at least occasionally, or let us talk to them, get their advice, or let them save our kitten in an ambush, so that we actually admire them and lighen up when they appear (besides the poor humans who are stuck with Logan)?

Caithe is the only Sylvari with the same Wyld Hunt as my character, but we don’t fight together even once against Zhaitans minions, she is nowhere to be seen in Orr, and only fights at the end in Arah as regular punching bag, with the completion of our Wyld Hunt not even mentioned after Zhaitans death?
Let them show up more often and interact more with our characters, and keep the reunion/issues of Destinys Edge for the Dungeons.

Trahearne – We Sylvari at least get to know him as a character before Orr, and his “Impossible Wyld Hunt” made me interested in his character – but I can see how other races don’t like him “stealing their show” because they have no idea who he is. He desperately needs more of a personality, more interaction, and some explanation of where his powers come from along with him actually being powerful in combat. Let us talk to him besides him giving orders and some “personal missions” or something. He feels rather bland for being so important, and my character being second in command.

The Source of Orr
As said above, having companions we care about guarding our back would have been so much better than the bunch of generics.
At the last stand, make us actually form a line of defense and have the mobs attack us instead of running to Trahearne – chasing mobs around is not really a compelling final battle.
I heard some sort of music playing during it, but could not figure out what it was over the combat sounds (with default audio settings) – it would have been epic if the combat sounds fade into the background, character boon/condition responses get muted (“I’M FEELING FURIOUS!!”) and the music plays clearly and loud (I guess it was the Sylvari Theme?)
Also, some more weight on the final cutscene would have been great, like showing some of the land slowly transforming – just seeing some roots in the middle of the lake is an unsatisfying visualization of cleaning the entire corruption of Orr.

And please tell Trahearne that shouting “MOVING ON!” (his standard phrase when dropping combat) in the middle of the cutscene ruins the mood.

Aftermath
The dialogue after Zhaitans defeat was oh so cheesy, it made me cringe. Let us have a meaningful personal talk with our mentor and Trahearne, show the other Dragons react to Zhaitans death, a memoriam of the losses we suffered and tone down the “Friendship defeats everything” a bit please.
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That was rather exhaustive, but I was disappointed with the PS since the rest of the game is great, and wanted to let the devs/writers know why.

TL;DR:
Storyline should be more mixed up instead of three separated parts.
Lack of interesting characters that actually live up to the end and accompany you on missions (and/or get send on that other mission in your stead)
Spoken dialogue system should be more interactive.
Destiny’s Edge mentor lacks screentime.
Trahearne needs mor echaracterization for being so important.
Source of Orr could be more epic with music in the foreground and your companions at your side.
Aftermath should be more serious and less cheery.

Feel free to post your thoughts/comments, I’d like to hear what others think about the stuff I mentioned. Troll posts will be personally ignored of course.

Act 1 of Personal Story, for me, felt like all it did was set the stage for the future Personal Story they have planned for GW2. Basicallly Act 1 only set the stage for what the Personal Story will be in the future which is why it feels incomplete because it is just the first chapter of the countless others to come. Like the second Pale Tree you mentioned. We most likely will see is later in GW2 story as a import part for that part of the GW2 story.

Trahearne felt like how they introduced Eve in GW1 Prophacies (Prophacies being Act 1 of GW1). Half-way into the story and suddenly Trahearne is introduced with little background like Eve was. Heck, Eve didn’t get any love until Act 2 of GW1, which was Factions, with her funny dialogues and stuff. She was, from the beginning before Faction even existed, “who is that character and why is she important?” type character while Trahearne is “Who is that character and why does the story focus so much on him?” type character for now.

For now I’m holding off judging characters since Act 1 seems to be the introduction of a long story that is to come like a essay where they will have to go back and refer to the points they made in the introduction paragraph.

I agree with the Trahearne part as an Asura. What in the game is supposed to make me care about this individual? His entrance and importance feels disjointed. I found it off putting that the Ausra story starts off so funny, and then after about level 40 gets really serious and loses any humor it once had. It strays into the melodramatic. I just want to make one thing clear though: The humor in the first 40 levels or so is hilarious and exactly fits Asura from GW1. It’s classic. It’s too bad that thread couldn’t be kept.

I did however stop playing my story for my Sylvari at level 6. The dialog is spoken as if it’s read off a page. By that I mean, the dialog that was written, doesn’t seem written for a voice actor, but written like a book. Almost like if a playwright directs a movie for stage actors acting as if they are on a stage. It’s a style thing. Actors on a stage have a different sort of acting where they project on a stage as opposed to portraying a real life scenario like in a movie. The writing is different and when you mix the two mediums and it feels odd when you see it.

The only thing that interested me about Trahearne is around the Orr campaign, it occurred to me he might eventually fall victim to his Necromancer origins – not become a pawn of the dragon, but just falling to the “Dark Side” in a future story. I don’t think that’s actually going to happen.

I haven’t played a Sylvari, just human, Norn, Asura, and Charr, so I’ll need to try it just to get a better bead on Trahearne. As presented on Claw Island, he confused the hell out of me: Necromancer expert on Risen. I get that. Oh wait, now he’s wielding a legendary great sword. O…kay. I was fine with his status as co-leader with me (I don’t care what he fronts, he all but tells you “Yeah, they trust you more” and asks me for every important decision, even when it’s “his plan”), it’s just how he came to get it that falls down for me. We definitely needed a little more lead in or interaction time with him – it’s been noted before that around Orr he’s totally stolen the stage, which I’m alright with…he just never did anything to earn it. Any of Destiny’s Edge I understand and can fill the blanks in with, but Trahearne has nothing I can work with. Why does everyone cool owe him favors? Why does he always have a plan (like Batman!)? What drives him?

As a character, he reminds me of some bad Roleplay I’ve done before – you can throw 18 Charisma on the character sheet, you can write about how witty and loveable and inviting your character’s personality is, but if you can’t actually SHOW and DO it, don’t do that.

Any future content with him is going to have a struggle for my interest. I wish I had more groundwork with him, because I already roll my eyes at him.

For the personal story, I mainly play Humans, so I’ve done every option (Not in every combo). I thought all three origins were well done, although some of the stories don’t pair as cleanly as others. Luckily my Thief was a street rat who wanted to join the Circus (Tim Drake and Jason Todd were the first two thoughts to come to mind, don’t ask me), and that worked.

I think the Sister and Parents stories fell the flattest, on their own. The circus sort of wrapped up, while the other two drop some great ideas and then it cuts out and throws you into the general story – I’m hoping there’s future content about these choices.

Completely agree on most points.

The personal story fell flat on its face. AND it was a rip off of the recent Bioware games, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, ESPECIALLY Dragon Age.

Compared to GW1 Prophecies… I can’t even believe they were conceived by the same company. Such a shame.

I really had high hopes for the story.

The 4 GW1 plotlines were all solid, Prophecies being the best and Factions the worst. Hard to say which was better between Nightfall and Eye of the North…