Guild Wars 2

BobbyStein.2315:

Greyfeld.7104:

Garrus.9803:

Actually I disagree. I admit that some of the dialogue isn’t that great but overall I think it’s pretty good. Tybalt Leftpaw (an Order of Whispers character) had some of the best dialogue I’ve seen in an MMO. If you came into this game expecting Mass Effect quality dialogue you’re going to be disappointed. But if you take it for what it is it’s good.

If by “Mass Effect quality dialogue,” you mean “dialogue that’s natural and believable,” then yeah, I did.

Nobody TALKS like this. That’s my point. It’s stilted and extremely campy and sounds like something you would expect from amateur hour at your local community theater.

For the record, it’s not the fault of the voice-actors, it’s the script that’s the problem.

In what content is the writing/VO problematic for you? The ambient world stuff? The personal story? The dungeons? They were all handled differently. The more specific examples you give, the better we can understand your feedback. I realize that this post is in the personal story section, but I want to know if your criticism is limited to that.

Thanks!

It’s problematic for me in the context of when characters have conversations that make no logical sense whatsoever. Some of the dialog sounds like it had bits cut and pasted from multiple revisions of the script, as if it was hastily finished just so that there was something there.

No, I did not type the speakers wrong there. Yes, I was at first quite confused at that dialog and thought I had missed or misunderstood something.

There were worse examples than this. This was just one I happened to have remembered to take a screen shot of.

I

Ahhh yes, the children in Lion’s Arch explaining what went wrong with Destiny’s Edge…I just loved that! Such a perfectly fun and intriguing way of telling a bit of background story. But then, I love basically all the NPC-children interactions you can see out in the world…

All in all, I am VERY happy with having chosen an Asura main upon launch. Their behavior and verbal expression is a perfect fit with their archetype and never fails to make me smile – without really getting boring and repetitive. And oh how I loved the real world references!
I agree though that there are more than a few instances were the voice acting is really lack-luster; the emotion supposed to be portaied often just can’t be found in the voice acting used for the scenes.

On a side not concernng the “weird” character and actions of Destiny’s Edge:
I agree that Eir’s idea to reunite Logan and Rytlock by giving Logan a matching sword was stupid. The only way to reconcile those two starts with Logan admitting he might have made a mistake and saying he’s sorry. Snaff deserves that much.
This is also the explanation for Zojja’s bitterness – she was always ‘snippy’, but since Logan (and, to an extent, Eir) caused her beloved mentor’s death, she has become bitter.

All in all, I mostly agree with TheGHammer, though I might not see it all that harshly. However, the dialogue out in the world really is much better executed than the one in the cutscenes. At least situations involving more than one participant might work better if they dropped those visuals.

Here’s the thing. I agree with everything said here, but it’s not that big of a problem for me. SWTOR spent many, many, many millions of dollars on story and voice acting. What paid off was some awesome, entertaining, AAA quality main storylines, but boring quest dialogue. I always just went into “WoW mode” after talking to an NPC. I immediately forgot what the story was and I just went and did my objectives. Eventually I started spacebarring to level 50, with the exception of class storylines.

What I would really like from ANet, assuming they have the resources and time, is a patch that changes all the Personal Storyline dialogue in the game into a cinematic cutscene similar to that of SWTOR. All the voice acting is already done, just make it feel a bit more realistic.

And in a couple of years when the first expansion comes out, give us some dialogue options for our personal storyline. That will make the game so much more immersive and interesting.

Lucazzy.1709:

Here’s the thing. I agree with everything said here, but it’s not that big of a problem for me. SWTOR spent many, many, many millions of dollars on story and voice acting. What paid off was some awesome, entertaining, AAA quality main storylines, but boring quest dialogue. I always just went into “WoW mode” after talking to an NPC. I immediately forgot what the story was and I just went and did my objectives. Eventually I started spacebarring to level 50, with the exception of class storylines.

What I would really like from ANet, assuming they have the resources and time, is a patch that changes all the Personal Storyline dialogue in the game into a cinematic cutscene similar to that of SWTOR. All the voice acting is already done, just make it feel a bit more realistic.

And in a couple of years when the first expansion comes out, give us some dialogue options for our personal storyline. That will make the game so much more immersive and interesting.

The problem with SWTOR is that they put voice acting on EVERYTHING. And every single quest turned into a stand-around-cutscene (very similar in structure to GW2’s current Personal Story cutscenes, now that I think about it).

The fact that the in-the-world dialogue is more interesting than the cutscenes is no coincidence. Seeing characters act and react in real time is just more immersive than standing around, watching them look at each other with 100-yard stares.

But all that doesn’t really change the fact that a lot of the personal story dialogue is just… horrible.

The problem is that nothing feels believable. For example the mission where you are supposed to ambush the two Krait caravans carrying the orb (and the fake one).

Do you really expect me to believe that splitting up and attacking both caravans at once is something the Norn (can’t remember her name) never thought about? Because when my character mentioned that, it sounded like an outright revelation to the Norn.

I’ve been trying to find a word that describes it but the best I can think of is cheesy as hell. Constantly trying to portray my character as a hero is NOT more important than making the dialogue believable.

The Divinity Tour Guide for the Ossan Quarter, my god that woman’s voice is horrible.

1. She isn’t even Elonan
2. She sounds like Susie from Idaho trying to speak Elonan. Hey, I understand that the game isn’t about voiceovers but can the Elonans sound like Elonans? Can they look like Elonans? Harlan Fromahj has a terrible voiceover, he sounds like as if he is mentally slow and doesn’t look Elonan at all! Its just the same reused npc of the scholar walking around. Ironically there is a black woman in the crowd that looks more Elonan than he does.

3. Minister Zamon looks and sounds nothing like an Elonan, he might as well be Ascalonian, the only thing Elonan about the man is his name.

The conversations felt very forced and always proceeded in such a patriotic way of “I am the best!” “we must save the world!”.

Compared to the conversations in GW1 it was really cheesy. Atleast in GW1 characters felt believable and had a purpose. The only part of the story I really liked was the history of Orr, but isn’t this your PERSONAL story? I didn’t really get the feeling that my character had any character at all. I liked the group based story in GW1 much more, everyone wants to be part of a group! Sole heroes are better spent in comic books, hence why the GW2 personal story very much feels like a comic story.

First off, I want to make it clear that I find the dialogue neat or even great at times (The Caladbolg arc) and somewhat cheesy at others, I really do enjoy this game quite a lot.

I think though the Voice Acting stumbles now and again. Somebody put it together pretty well on the Guild Wars 2 Guru forums: the Voice Acting ranges from good to great, none of the voices are grating or dull and many are full of life, but the problem lies in the direction. It feels like there was no director for the voice actors sometimes. No one giving them context for their statements or a clue as to what they should be feeling when they read a line. Some characters say things like “I’m scared that Tegwynn might be harmed!” in an upbeat and cheery, bubbly voice. I… am actually not going to be too useful for specifics, because I have a bad memory. So I guess I’ll just stick with the two examples I do have.

Bad/No Direction: The VA for Carys (a Sylvari NPC in the Orrian Mirror lvl 10-20 arc) was extremely good at making Carys stand out as a bouncy, excitable, and optimistic Sylvari warrior who didn’t always think things through. The voice was engaging, believable, and enjoyable. The problem is that Carys never really expressed any other emotions, and while at times this was in line with character and text, at others, it sounded like she should have been speaking with dismay. Tegwynn, her mentor, gets sucked into an ancient undead mirror, and Carys is constantly saying things like “I’m so scared for her…” or “What if she’s dead…” or “We need to find her!”. Only every single time, she is using the same “I just love picnics! 8D” tone, so its hard to tell that she’s taking any of it seriously, and there seems to be a disconnect between the written dialogue and the verbal attitude. I can’t place any specifics right now but this kind of thing has constantly bothered me throughout the game: judging by the writing and context, it would appear that a line should be spoken with a specific tone (ruggedly/angrily/sadly/humorously), but the actual vocal tone seems disconnected from the emotion you would expect. This might fall under subjective judgments at times (if I were speaking the line, I would say X with a casual confidence, not flippant humor, dangit!) but I truly do feel that sometimes the VA is not getting across the emotion the writer had in mind.

Good Direction: The Caladbolg arc. The Caladbolg arc is the 20-30 Sylvari arc where one is exposed to the three orders. I have to say this was my favorite story in the entire game so far and the first time I was actually hit with a bit of true pathos, instead of just entertainment. Characters expressed more than just light hearted goofiness, light hearted heroism, and light hearted confidence (EVERY character constantly being agreeable is another problem, its unrealsitic lol): they were able to express doubt, remorse, anger, toughness, and vengeance. They always felt like they were expressing an emotion proper to the moment. When they discovered something or achieved a victory, they exalted. When they witnessed the death of a hero, they were sad. When something happened in the story, the characters actually sounded like they were emotionally responding to the situation instead of just trying to read a bunch of lines.

I have to wonder, when you guys were recording VA for the personal story steps, did you gather all of the voice actors in a given story step and have them record a given conversation together? Or did the VAs record individually, separate from one another? Because sometimes it sounds like the characters aren’t talking with each other so much of vaguely talking at each other. To pull a random hypothetical, lets pretend Zojja and Logan have a conversation. It seems that having Logan and Zojja’s VA’s in the same recording session and talking to each other would allow them to build the mood for the scene together and constantly play off of each other. If you had one come in and record all of their lines on Monday, and the other come in on Friday, then they’re not two people having a conversation. They are two people taking turns monologuing to each other, no matter how it is written.

TL;DR: I feel that sometimes the VA miss their mark and read a line with a tone inconsistent with the intent of the text/context/writer, and sometimes it seems like the characters are taking turns rambling instead of having an organic conversation with one another. I believe the problem lies in lacking direction and coordination between writers and Voice Actors/Voice Actors and other Voice Actors in a specific scene. Of course I don’t know the underlying process, but those are my guesses.

Gab Superstar.4059:

Constantly trying to portray my character as a hero is NOT more important than making the dialogue believable.

I’ve noticed this as well, and it extends beyond just the Personal Story.

Sometimes I feel that the game is just outright condescending to me.

From the ad campaigns to the blog posts to the way NPCs react to you to the narcissistic little voice snippets your character says when you level up, I feel that everyone, always, will not shut up about how great/amazing/incredible I am. The story is ABOUT YOU! You are a SUPER HERO! YOU play this game YOUR WAY! I JUST KEEP GETTING BETTER AND BETTER! A HERO LIKE YOU IS JUST THE BEST.

I keep expecting to get a little gold star sticker on my report card, because I’m just such a special little child. D’aww.

I just find it weird that absolutely everyone is just filled with awe and praise just from being within inches of you. I find it weird that every single character you meet is either 100% inoffensively agreeable and respectful towards you, or a villain. And while I understand that it is interesting for players to have story branches, its odd that people who far outrank or out-experience you are leaving their Very Crucial decisions up to you. (I like the branches better where the NPC basically says “Hey we’re sending one group to do Plan A and another to do Plan B, which would you like to join?”: it implies that while you are important, the NPCs don’t just blindly put say the fate of the Priory in the hands of a new recruit).

It just seems, like the quote, that the story (and as I mentioned, every single force ArenaNet can muster, anywhere) constantly goes out of its way to remind you how absolutely special and unique and amazing you are and pat you on your little head, and it kind of makes you want to throw up a little.

And for me, it sounds like I’m being treated like a child. I don’t exactly think our fragile little egoes will shatter of you go one second without telling us we’re amazing.

Fox.1054:

Compared to the conversations in GW1 it was really cheesy. Atleast in GW1 characters felt believable and had a purpose… I liked the group based story in GW1 much more, everyone wants to be part of a group! Sole heroes are better spent in comic books, hence why the GW2 personal story very much feels like a comic story.

A thousand times this. In GW1 (I loved all four campaign stories) the story was not specifically about you: it was about nations, about cities, about small groups of survivors, about the NPCs. You were not the focal point of the story. However, at the same time, you were crucial to the plot, because you were the muscle got the NPCs from Point A to Point B: the only one who could, and did help them. You got several extremely interesting stories about apocalyptic gods, rogue spirit guides, and the death of a kingdom, and you were the one that saved it all, even though the story was not zoomed in on you. I feel like the ArenaNet writing team is just far better at this type of writing, and that they just kind of fall apart when it comes to trying to write a story centered on the player characters. The scale is smaller and more uninteresting: its about some human politicians hiring thugs, instead of the destruction of Ascalon. And when the writers try to focus on the Player Character, they go way overboard with the condescension. We didn’t have to sit through every NPC we met telling Prince Rurik how amazing and manly he was. Kormir didn’t get worshipped until after she became a goddess. And the writing, and the game, was better for it.

That being said, this isn’t always the case, and I am still really enjoying the game, just an observation. >_>

The game overall = great

Personal Story and dialogue stuff = sub-standard

I’ve been a vocal supporter of Guild Wars 2 and have followed it since the initial announcement while playing original Guild Wars. I believed in Anet, I truly did.

After seeing personal story writing, voice-over and plot, it pains me to say, I’ve been bitterly disappointed. I never thought I could say that, but personal story for me is worse than in the ‘D’ game, which had some terrible writing and execution.

The amount of shortcuts taken in the personal story is almost comical. I was expecting to be blown away by the experience, to feel like watching a quality movie, to be touched by the immersive story. Unfortunatelly I couldn’t go pass lvl 70 quest, Alt+F4’ed and intend to never come back.

There are a number of flaws in the personal story. Let’s list them for ANet. Feel free to add to this list.

-No dialogue choices
-Dialogue cutscenes look bland and unrealistic. Make it cinematic!
-Quality>Quantity. Too many boring subplots and uninteresting characters.
-Voice acting needs better directing, as a poster above me put.

Anything else? Add to the list. Let’s make this easy on ANet so that they know what they can do to make the game even better than it already is.

The voice acting and jerky personal story progression is really my only significant problem with GW2 at the moment. Don’t get me wrong, the ham and cheese sandwich that is the Sylvari dialogue has not stopped me from rolling three of the fakebrits, but the word “beloved” should be purged from their vocabulary. I think the poor sap in the green knight’s first appearance mentioned something about being in love with his boyfriend a good three times.

I will say that I loved Sieran. I know she was a little flat but she was a nice breath of fresh air from the other Sylvari. She really seemed to have that curious nature and the lack of forethought I expect from them. Sure she nearly got me killed several times but her lines are some of my favorites in the game so far. (Up to level 50)

I feel that the lack of dialogue options for players in the personal stories really limits how personal it is. All I’m really doing is driving around this “Herald/Valiant” guy from point to point in these missions. This is so much more noticeable if you play another of the same race, even if they’re a different gender and story path. My scholarly elementalist and my loner ranger have the exact same reactions to most of the storyline. It really doesn’t feel like there’s much of a point of picking different cycles for Sylvari if it doesn’t impact them. Sadly, I know that having different voicing for all the different choices in the game would be an insane task and that ANet would likely not be able to deliver something like that. Which is reasonable but it does take the bite out how personal these stories are supposed to be.

Also, I will never forget (or forgive) the male Sylvari player pronouncing “sword” as “schword”.

Schword.

Ba air.1372:

Also, I will never forget (or forgive) the male Sylvari player pronouncing “sword” as “schword”.

Schword.

Maybe he was trying to say Schwartz. As in, “Use the Schwartz.” xD

I’m frankly quite impressed with the amount of text going into intelligently and (mostly) calmly critiquing the voice acting in a game.

Now without repeating too much of the same things that have been mentioned a dozen times in this thread, I’ll point out my biggest complaints in extreme punctuated shorthand:

1. Lack of Conversation Options/Inability to have even a SLIGHTLY sinister or ruthless character. No choices other than which paths to take:
e.g. Character is street urchin cutthroat thief suddenly elevated to a positions of power, first thing he does: “Yes sir! I think the strategically best option is to send the troops to confront the enemy at the monastery and ask him nicely to surrender!” HWHAT?

2. Whether they are or aren’t, I get the feeling there were TONS of shortcuts used to reduce the amount of voice acting. I understand there’s a huge amount of money involved with voicing every last thing, but the shortcuts shouldn’t feel so blatant and abrupt:
e.g. While my character is talking to another character during a cutscene, the NPC will (seemingly out of the blue) say something like “Think it over and come talk to me.” “Alright check in later [actually now is great too.]” or better yet, the conversation just ends with no rhyme or reason. I then need to click on the NPC so we can finish our conversation in totally unvoiced text chat.

3. The cartoony cutscenes really detract from immersion. Instead of walking up to a person and engaging them in conversation, you’re suddenly floating in front of a mural of stylized shifting and floating backgrounds, standing totally still, save for the occasional gesture or facial twitch. Again, to me this seems like it would have been a method to cut animation costs, but again, it feels too obvious. Even a cinematic pan up to the characters’ faces would feel more appropriate than the current system. I strongly dislike it in general.

Remember devs, we only take the time to nit pick because we love the game so much! <3

There are a number of flaws in the personal story. Let’s list them for ANet. Feel free to add to this list.
-No dialogue choices
-Dialogue cutscenes look bland and unrealistic. Make it cinematic!
-Quality>Quantity. Too many boring subplots and uninteresting characters.
-Voice acting needs better directing, as a poster above me put.
Anything else? Add to the list. Let’s make this easy on ANet so that they know what they can do to make the game even better than it already is.

Yeah, I think people in this topic have made it quite clear of the biggest and the lesser problems with personal storyline. I’ll add a bit to your list, based on my observations:

Top Priorities (The issues that really need to be improved):

• Dialogue
• Voice Acting
• Character Development

Lesser Issues (Problematic, but not as much as the issues above):

• Cutscene cinematics.
• Players have a choice on the actions to take, but not any (meaningful) choice on the reactions their characters should have.
• Subplots should be unified by/ within the main plot, instead of being completely unrelated to each other and unrelated to the plot at hand. + (More on that bellow).

Things to consider

• One or two extra plot twists in the main story.

I wanted to add “more grey morality” and “less ego flattering” in there, I really wanted, but I believe those are necessary ingredients for better dialogue, for better character development, and can even function as fuel for more twists in the main plot and more interesting options the player’s avatar can make. Naturally, quality > quantity is also an important factor to achieve most of that.

+ Example for one of the points above: When you create an human, there’s this really awesome cinematic about the centaurs, and feels like something epic and important is going to build from that. But then the human storylines ignores it most of the time, and only the background story and the hearts/ events of the game are left to narrate the war with the centaurs. What if all the subplots were part of the bigger treat, and what if all of them helped to build up for a big climax against the centaurs? That would have been more exciting, and would have made each subplot more interesting.

The thing that bugs me is when the story brings back things or characters that we may have met before, but doesn’t acknowledge when we have met them before. As a sylvari having Trahearne introduced as if for the first time at Claw Island is jarring, and later when Caladbolg is reintroduced as if the two characters there hadn’t stabbed a lich in the face with it not so long ago, and later still when Occam shows up again without so much as a how-do-you-do.

Also the pronunciation of Lich got on my goat (it’s like ‘Lick’, not L’itch).

The thing that bugs me is when the story brings back things or characters that we may have met before, but doesn’t acknowledge when we have met them before. As a sylvari having Trahearne introduced as if for the first time at Claw Island is jarring, and later when Caladbolg is reintroduced as if the two characters there hadn’t stabbed a lich in the face with it not so long ago, and later still when Occam shows up again without so much as a how-do-you-do.

Very much agreed. That was really the turning point of the story becoming just strange to me. Especially as Trahearne remembers you and then two dialogue lines later forgets who you are and starts calling you magister instead of herald/valiant. It was a very obvious and clumsy shift from personal story to main story.

The general lack of recognition of your race/class in cutscenes after a certain point comes off as very odd in general. Being a Sylvari in the Priory made me wonder why my character was never bothered by Gixx berating Sieran. Wouldn’t he be annoyed by the Sylvari specific insults after a while?

I also think that there should be some way to ‘reset’ the personal story, perhaps as part of a character re-customisation. I’m sure I’m not the only one who went with a particular story route under the belief it’d turn out differently. Of course, for many of us it’s too late to re-roll…especially just for a few minor changes.

The feedback on this post is probably good for ANet to take in to account, however in my Sylvari storyline I’ve been confronted with plenty of moral ambiguity and to top it off, I like and hate some of the characters. So, to me, the story has been very fulfilling and amazing. Perhaps those that think otherwise aren’t playing a race or making choices in character creation or during the story that match their personalities or preferences.

….Something to keep in mind. Points that I do agree on, however: more character animation/facial expression is needed. Voice-overs being broken are ridiculous – should be a top priority fix. Story decisions should be made in-line while the backdrop is still up, no popping back to normal view.

Tybalt’s dialogue was awful. Why is this idiot in one of the most secretive orders in Tyria? And why does my character not get that its a secret order when she tries to join: “HEY I WANT TO JOIN DA ORDER R U DA AGENT?!”.

Otherwise personal story dialogue is a mixed bag. Some of it is done well, some mediocre and some bad.

StealthKK.7086:

The feedback on this post is probably good for ANet to take in to account, however in my Sylvari storyline I’ve been confronted with plenty of moral ambiguity and to top it off, I like and hate some of the characters. So, to me, the story has been very fulfilling and amazing. Perhaps those that think otherwise aren’t playing a race or making choices in character creation or during the story that match their personalities or preferences.

It’s not just about moral ambiguity (Although this lacks quite a lot as well; when you get a choice, it’s usually either attack group A, or attack group B, and neither decision is presented as being morally questionable, since all enemies are Capital-E Evil. Some of them should really come with a mustache they can twirl.), it’s mostly about having no say-so in your character’s personality development.

I recently created an Asuran Thief. My vision for this character’s personality was an introvert who got his dirty work done in the shadows. A little sleight of hand and a lot of humility belying his ability to be one of the biggest movers and shakers in the technological world.

Instead, I get the same brash, loud, boakittenl, vengeful Asuran that every other player has.

There is only one character personality for each racial storyline, and no matter which branch you choose during character creation, there’s nothing you can do to change it. That’s what the major problem is, concerning choice in the personal story.

Yes, I also kind of miss choosing what my character would say, instead of he/she speaking by him/herself.

Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by Mass Effect/Dragon Age but it WAS what I was expecting. Even though all my answers leaded to the same “quest”, sometimes I would like my character not to be that cheerful or dignified -specially when you ask us how our character deals with problems.

So, what does exactly the Personality System stands for? Right now it’s just a beautiful icon next to your character’s profession icon, so that means… nothing?

Lucazzy.1709:

Here’s the thing. I agree with everything said here, but it’s not that big of a problem for me. SWTOR spent many, many, many millions of dollars on story and voice acting. What paid off was some awesome, entertaining, AAA quality main storylines, but boring quest dialogue. I always just went into “WoW mode” after talking to an NPC. I immediately forgot what the story was and I just went and did my objectives. Eventually I started spacebarring to level 50, with the exception of class storylines.

They spent a lot of money on animating the cut-scenes and giving us very high quality VA, but they must have forgotten to pay the writers because the script was about as memorable as a MacDonalds meal. It’s not that the writing was terrible, just that it was instantly forgettable. The characters were generic as was the dialogue they delivered. I actually only watched them in the end because I liked listening to the VA actor who voiced the female operative – she was dreamy!

The only thing I remember from my storyline in SWTOR was that I choose to side with Darth Barras. The rest of the time was generic “we need more supply”, “blow up those towers”, “kill 10 wamprats”.

If you want a recent example of a MMO which has truly excellent dialogue, voice acting and great cut-scenes then check out The Secret World. I can remember huge numbers of their characters, the missions, and even throw away lines on NPCS you pass “Grab your surcoat, you’ve pulled!”, “That outfit needs more red.”

The two children in Romania who are bragging about which monsters they’ve seen are endearing and amusing in one. The French girls at the windmill are unforgettable as one monologues while the other goes to town on monsters with a chainsaw. Let’s not forget that stoic old lady in Kingmouth with the shotgun and a bonfire for burning zombies on.

There’s a good middle ground between the very cheap route AN have taken (talking heads with mostly stock animations, cliche dialogue, reasonable VA talent but with little direction and poor delivery and low emotional content), and the path SWTOR took (massive VA budget, awesome voice direction, kitten script). TSW has it’s flaws too, but the writing is not one of them, nor the voice work.

This post contains spoilers. Read at your own risk.

As much as I love Guild Wars 2 and its vision, it’s hard to get over the faults of the personal story. I didn’t come into the game expecting J.R.R. Tolkien or G.R.R. Martin, but I had hoped to see some growth from Nightfall and Eye of the North, both of which were some of the better MMO storylines out there. Instead, Guild Wars 2’s story felt clumsy and watered down.

It’s worth noting that I played an asura and picked the Priory path. From what I’ve heard from others, those have some of the stronger story elements. This makes me reluctant to see what the other paths have to offer. The following are my thoughts and criticisms of the story I experienced.

- None of the characters have ulterior motives. There is a scene early on where an asuran councilor lies to you, but it’s painfully obvious, and it’s the only lie I can remember in the whole story. Everyone else is so honest that they come across as utterly and hopelessly naive. Even the Order of Whispers is this way, introducing themselves as spies and assassins, then asking if you want to join. These characters don’t feel real. They feel like they only exist to further the main character’s story.

- None of the characters have much depth. I love the scene where the player is introduced to the game’s main heroes (Rytlock, Eir, etc) in Lion’s Arch. These characters have a past, there is tension, and things seem a little hopeless. The problem is, this scene then repeats in every dungeon and every scene in the personal story again and again like a broken record. There’s just no sense of growth or depth to them. This happens for just about every character along the way except perhaps Trahearne, who is the games strongest character.

- There’s no sense of hopelessness in the game, which is odd, considering that the plot seems to be so focused on finding hope. There is never a time where the players or the characters are really defeated in any meaningful way. There is a moment, which is nearly comical, when Trahearne attempts to purify Orr for the first time and fails. He loses hope for one line of dialogue, but restores it again after your character responds with one more line of dialogue. I almost laughed then, but didn’t until later, when Trahearne remarks at how he almost lost faith in a later scene. At this point, I wasn’t sure if the game was being serious or it was satire. The ending is entirely undermined by the story’s lack of giving you a point in which you feel you cannot win. I always felt like the game was handing me victories on a silver platter, even if the mission was actually difficult.

- There is something to be said for grit and dark fantasy. Guild Wars 2 is all rainbows and puppy dogs, and this really clashes with the game’s themes (undead rising from the ocean threatening to swallow the world, dragons eating finite supplies of magic, etc). The story just needed a little more darkness to round it out, like shadows round out a painting. I felt that this was probably intentionally left out to reach out to as wide an audience as possible, but it just went to far. I just can’t bring myself to believe this world. It’s too bright, even in the ruins of Orr.

I should take a moment to say that the game’s dialogue has some good moments. These generally happen outside the personal story. NPC chatter in towns and around explorable areas is fantastic. My favorite lines are all from random NPCs. The same is true for some of the non-verbal dialogue in the story missions. Some of it is so good that it clashes with the spoken dialogue. I’ve tried reading these lines out loud, and there’s a noticeable difference in quality. The writing in Guild Wars 2 seems to be all over the board. Some of it is exceptionally good.

There were some good parts and some parts where, in my opinion, the writing/story fell flat.

I’ll mimic comments I’ve read here already, but …
Good Stuff:
- ‘flavor’ chat between NPCs is often comical, or at least interesting. Those kids playing Divinity’s Edge were really good. I never played the first GW, so no idea who any of these people were (if they played a part there) and those kids actually summed it up nicely for me.
- Everyone’s favorite Charr w/ a fruit fetish was a good character and voiced well.
- Early personal story stuff feels decent, at least from the Norn, Charr & Asuran stuff I’ve played some of. Human I don’t enjoy much, it feels kinda’ “blah”.

The Bad:
- Characters feel ‘flat’; little to no growth; many seem 1 trick-ponies or 1-track-minds.
- Very little emotion expressed in much of the voice acting & dialogue.
- Big chunks (for me at least, probably 1/4th) the spoken dialogue being bugged and not working in the cutscenes.
- Disjointed story at times; I’ve read that buggy bits along the way are giving people bits of reference in further cutscenes of stuff they didn’t choose (never went after artifact QRS, or met XYZ character, but NPCs act like that is what the player chose).

… and then frankly, chunks of the later story feel rushed to me. I know little about the GW world (again – never played the first one) but it just feels like “and suddenly, zombies!” happens. Like there was a writers meeting and someone said “oh crap, we’re 1/2way through this game and we need a big bad” … and some dude looked up from his burrito and was like “zombies” and everyone shouted “brilliant!”

I felt like there was no build-up to the big bad. Just .. BLAM .. suddenly I’m kittens deep in this war I didn’t know was going on at all.

Maybe it is my fault for doing a few solid evenings of WvWvW (and getting like 30 levels doing it). Maybe because I returned to the story quest and did a bunch of it back-to-back? I dunno’, it just feels chucked together. My Norn spends what feels like forever completing the first part of her story quest, then I go from me wondering what is up with centaurs being so kitten’ish and everywhere, to BLAM zombies are the biggest threat to the world, and “hey lets build a fort” to “fully functional fort is awesome” in a heartbeat.

Along those lines, the game is just throwing story characters at me, and honestly I couldn’t care about any of them.

Generic-Fighter-Archtype-with-Officer-Title #15 just got sacrificed for some reason or another? Why should I care, I never saw the person before 10 minutes ago. If I had seen them before, they were completely forgettable and that is an even worse sin.

Oh … while we’re on the “lets get sad because XYZ sacrificed themselves” trope: if the player is in scene with 50 generic people “Soldier 1-20” & “Thief-Agent 1-15” etc … and EVERYONE DIES, why aren’t we upset about that? Why is Lt. Whats-her-face more important than the other 49 people that just died? Maybe that is just more of the emotionless voice acting thing getting to me; there is little to no reaction anyway. “Oh noes, like everyone died and stuff” about sums up the emotion felt in some scenes.

Trahearne, being a huge part of the story it seems, was the worst with this. I’ve said “I’ll have a medium root beer with my combo meal” with more feeling than he has delivered a “oh noes, kittenloads of people just got slaughtered and its my fault” style lines.

Obviously the game was written/designed to appeal to the broadest audience possible, and especially a younger one, it feels like, but it could have been come across better.

Cliche characters can be done in ways that are still interesting. At times, this happens (Char & Asura characters often), yet other times falls apart.

Think of some of the better known & considered ‘epic’ stories we’ve had in our lifetimes. The early Star Wars films? Very cliche main characters, stolen from previous classical works even, but we love many of them. They were fleshed out.

Someone else mentioned LotR. It is the basis for many of the common cliche fantasy characters, and yet many love the stories and movies. Why? It was done well. You felt for the characters.

In GW2 I didn’t even really like my main character, let along 9/10s the NPCs I met.

My favorites so far have been “Death…good…” from zombie NPCs and the king in AC actually saying “Hahahahahahahaha!”

Even Robotnik didn’t say hahahahahaha.

Coming from the mindblowing monologues of Secret World, it’s been a little painful, yeah. Or…agonizing. I still remember every single NPC I ever spoke to in TSW, everything they ever asked me to do, lots of the jokes and little references they made, the way their voices sounded. In GW2 I never even know what I’m doing at a heart.

Sometimes GW2 pulls off cute, but the problem with being all "epic"y is that you need to take yourself seriously sometimes, and then…stilty stilt stilts. It makes me rull sad.

Maybe part of the problem are delays. Especially when 3 or more NPC’s are talking. Before one character dissapears and another one appears there is huge pause. This is often in the middle of dialogue and such pause is very unrealistic and breaks immersion.

It’s definitely a mixed bag. There’s a lot I like in the personal story, particularly the political intrigue going on behind the scenes for humans. With that said, I’m a little disappointed that Tybalt was forced on me. Some people like him, though why is such an incompetent comic relief character associated with what is meant to be a pretty serious, ruthless and efficient organisation?

I’ll admit, he was entertaining at first. Then I realised I was stuck with him for pretty much every Order of Whispers mission, which automatically gave them a much more light-hearted theme than I would have liked.

Worse yet, my character instantly buddies up with him. At least with Forgal there’s a lot of initial tension before his frigid exterior thaws a bit. As a role-player and lore fan, I’d love to see more options to play someone who isn’t so…well, nice all the time.

I disagree with OP for the most part, however EndlessDreamer.6780 soon after posted some very valid points: I too felt like the Norn were all too similar in their demeanour and after a little while the story kinda seemed forced, and the characters grew a bit repetitive and tedious.

Having said that for the most part I give them a thumbs up, there is a TON of content that has just been made up and it all cant be perfect, for the most part I really enjoyed the Charr story (or however far in it I am) and most of the others were ok from what I have seen so far.

HUGE thumbs up for some of the lesser content tho, I cant stress how much enjoyment and laughs I got from the Iron Legion showing up during my friend’s Norn story, suddenly the place is packed with cats and the leader is telling my friend that he is her b%#ch now to make up for that time he and some Charr got blitzed one night and took her… charr war machine/dune buggy thing? for a spin! Holy crap I couldn’t believe the lolz, and there were 2 of us following him at the time, hilarity ensued.

AMonkey.2385:

Tybalt’s dialogue was awful. Why is this idiot in one of the most secretive orders in Tyria? And why does my character not get that its a secret order when she tries to join: “HEY I WANT TO JOIN DA ORDER R U DA AGENT?!”.

Garenthal.1480:

IWith that said, I’m a little disappointed that Tybalt was forced on me. Some people like him, though why is such an incompetent comic relief character associated with what is meant to be a pretty serious, ruthless and efficient organisation?

You two obviously didnt listen to the banter MoW was saying in nightfall, here is a quick combat line “there are million ways to kill a man, this is number 362”
The order of whispers always takes everything seriously, but that doesnt mean you cant make jokes about such stuff. Also Tybalt > Rytlock, its official.
Who wouldnt wanna be friends with a big fuzzy iron engie who lost his right paw and loves apples and at the same time is a ruthless assassin who can solo 5 pirates?
The only bad thing with Tybalt is that his role was so short!

Personally, I think a good comparison lies here. Compare this video from Dragon Age: Origins to the scene in The Battle of Claw island.

Ignoring the actual content of the video, what do you find engaging about it? Well, for one, the music in the background perfectly compliments the dark, foreboding atmosphere, while during the charge, you get the awesome Dragon Age ‘hopeful’ overture.

There is nothing nearly this environmentally immersive in the Battle of Claw Island. Maybe my game glitched and didn’t play the music or something, but I heard no music as I played through the battle. During the character dialuages, there was absolutely no indication that ‘Hey, were are fighting for our LIVES right now to retake this island’. Nope, they could have been sitting around a table drinking tea and you wouldn’t have noticed the difference. You couldn’t hear the background din of swords clashing against shields, of the catapults firing, none of it. Nor does your characters or Treas OR the other NPCs emotions reflect this; they are fighting in a battle for life and death, but are they out of breath? Do they have to shout in order to be heard over the noise of the battle? Nope! The characters look exactly the same as they always do too. Never any wounds, never any gore splattered armor. Hell, the only time I think I ever saw any NPC reacting to what happened outside of the scene was in the final scene where you have to cleanse Orr, and Trea is kinda slumped over in the classic ‘Im exhausted’ pose.

Do I expect an MMO to be on the same level as a Single Player RPG like Dragon Age? No, its a different type of game, aimed at a different type of content, for a different type of gamer. However, there are just certain things that draw you into a storyline, or into a world, or into a scene that are just… missing. Which is a complete shame given the amount of well written lore and history there is written up for GW2.

Tybalt has easily been the best set of dialog I’ve run across in the game (so far). The rest.. meh… I just fast forward through it if I find it particularly annoying.

the really sad part is that some of the incidental dialogues really are kinda funny, if mostly in a sweet deliberately-antihumor kind of a way. I grinned when I was interviewing the experiment skritt in Whatever Province. I don’t think the people who were writing Guild Wars weren’t good at their job; it just seems like somewhere along the line the marketing department decided, “Okay, we’re gonna play this one as safe as possible.” it’s a lowest common denominator thing.

and the really REALLY sad part is that if you lament this kitten in mapchat you’ll get shrieks of “THEN QUIT THE GAME.” really, Guild Wars 2? there are things about this product I don’t like, so I must hate it? sigh.

Garenthal.1480:

I’ll admit, he was entertaining at first. Then I realised I was stuck with him for pretty much every Order of Whispers mission, which automatically gave them a much more light-hearted theme than I would have liked.

But this is the problem with the whole game, isn’t it? It tries to present this really epique!~~ tone, but then undercuts itself constantly with cartoonish buffoonish characters and plot elements. I mean…Star Wars quote jokes? Seriously? Not just one, but three in gradual succession? From the Order of Whispers plot character? There’s nothing WRONG with Star Wars quote jokes, inherently, but GW2 doesn’t seem to divide clearly between the moments when it’s taking itself seriously and the moments when it isn’t.

Again, the comparison to Secret World is apt: almost every character in TSW is funny, but it’s with a very dark, dry wit that the character is sometimes unaware of himself (look up Andy’s Kingsmouth monologues if you need an example). It’s not the banana peel slipping that seems to pervade Guild Wars. It’s not that it’s -bad,- as such, but it’s -childish,- and the game hasn’t set itself up to get away with being childish. If you wanna be childish and doofy, embrace it, the way Warcraft has (uh, mostly). Don’t pretend you’re some big involved plot one moment and then have exaggerated characters saying “Aren’t you a little short for a pirate?” the next.

Karther.7481:

Continued from the above post —->

Onto Asura again, the only race I’ve played beyond level 10 so far, they’re filthy little criminals. I broke the law several times, whether tracking down people framing me or simply smashing my way through government property and people. And it’s done so casually. The Snaff Savant attends… illegal gambling fights, participates and wins? All for the greater good? Murders many government security officers on a hunch? And wait. You’re tracking down the people who altered your golem. You check what each of the gambling fighters changed and the councillor, those were the three people. It’s blatantly obvious its the councillor, but you can only choose one of the two fighters even after looking over all three plans as part of the previous quest. Alright. So you do that, blah blah blah. OH! Suddenly you realise it must of been this Council woman all along! And she admits it, it turns out the evidence against her was the blueprint she gave you in the beginning. Duhh! But wait! Whilst you speak to her she’s had her secret ninja army retrieve the blueprints she gave you so you now have no evidence! Dun dun DUN! So you go on to save the day since you know her plans and what she’s done etc. So why did she ever give you the blueprints, just to take them away again, when it obviously lead to her whole plan being ruined? This story follows no logical path. What’s weird is the other Asura Councillors she tried to assasinate take it so casually after 20 giant killer golems almost slaughtered them, and arn’t even going to take action against the evil Councillor woman.

So I’ve broken into government facilities, beat up their secret security, got arrested, blasted my way out of their jail and killed some more of them there, starred in an illegal event where I was announced by my real name (not that I was ever dsgsuised at any other point anyway) and just seen the Council not care about assasination and act so casual and make out it’s common. Yet Asura being filthy criminals is not mentioned or explored otherwise. It feels so accidental and bad, like some sort of grand mistake. And those were just the ones from my low level character creation starting stories and order choosing missions.

Yeah, pretty much this. I thought the Asura personal story was pretty bad. In a different way from the human one. That one was bland, this one is just.. wtf. my storyline was somewhat different because i chose a different invention. nonetheless, it suffered from the same issues you voiced. I felt like I was just running around, murdering and destroying stuff for no good reason, and there were hardly any consequences for doing so.

TheZoobler.8073:

Sometimes I feel that the game is just outright condescending to me.

From the ad campaigns to the blog posts to the way NPCs react to you to the narcissistic little voice snippets your character says when you level up, I feel that everyone, always, will not shut up about how great/amazing/incredible I am.

This. Thank you. Every time one of my characters undertakes the incredible feat of gathering a bunch of carrots and says, in a gratingly smug fashion, “Is it just me, or am I AMAZING?”, I want to punch teeth down throats. Especially when it’s a character I’m trying to roleplay as a very serious and self-effacing person who wouldn’t say “I’m totally awesome” even when standing atop a mountain of centaur corpses slain single-handedly with a sword big enough to require its own ZIP code. Good-bye, immersion; hello, aggravation.

And yes, something is definitely wrong when I’m walking away more affected by random NPC conversations than by “important” dialogue scenes. I ran across one of the most unexpectedly thought-provoking in the Great Lodge of Hoelbrak, where a man was talking to one of the Bear priest/shaman types. He said that there was an “enemy” he hadn’t been able to slay, and went on to describe a situation with a drake broodmother wherein he’d been severely wounded, and it was THE WOUND, or rather its aftermath, that he considered the unslain enemy—it rendered it him unable to hunt or fight as he once had. The Bear shaman spoke of the seasons of a year as seen through a bear’s eyes, the point ultimately being that although one part of the man’s life had ended, it didn’t mean his entire life was at an end. It was one of the most genuinely moving things I’ve ever seen in a video game. And then I had to go listen to Eir Stegalkin and the Snow Leopard shaman natter about the Mists or some such thing, which I wouldn’t remember at all if it hadn’t been for the sharp contrast between that bombastic garbage and the far more interesting conversation that had just gone on downstairs between two nameless NPCs.

Metadigital.9426:

- There’s no sense of hopelessness in the game, which is odd, considering that the plot seems to be so focused on finding hope. There is never a time where the players or the characters are really defeated in any meaningful way. There is a moment, which is nearly comical, when Trahearne attempts to purify Orr for the first time and fails. He loses hope for one line of dialogue, but restores it again after your character responds with one more line of dialogue. I almost laughed then, but didn’t until later, when Trahearne remarks at how he almost lost faith in a later scene. At this point, I wasn’t sure if the game was being serious or it was satire. The ending is entirely undermined by the story’s lack of giving you a point in which you feel you cannot win. I always felt like the game was handing me victories on a silver platter, even if the mission was actually difficult.

- There is something to be said for grit and dark fantasy. Guild Wars 2 is all rainbows and puppy dogs, and this really clashes with the game’s themes (undead rising from the ocean threatening to swallow the world, dragons eating finite supplies of magic, etc). The story just needed a little more darkness to round it out, like shadows round out a painting. I felt that this was probably intentionally left out to reach out to as wide an audience as possible, but it just went to far. I just can’t bring myself to believe this world. It’s too bright, even in the ruins of Orr.

I think this is another key. I for one fully support the move to make Guild Wars 2 bright and optimistic, because I like optimistic stories just as much as gritty ones, and they put me in a better mood lol. But if there is never any danger, sorrow, loss, or fear of failure, then the message isn’t “finding hope in dark places”, which is deep and meaningful. It comes off more as “yeah don’t worry things are basically okay. Great even.” The world is covered in monsters and death, but I don’t think anything brings that point across other than the implications of the character creation cutscenes.

The state of the world has no impact on the personal story steps. The dragons appear to have zero impact on the side character’s lives, and our initial story steps have nothing to do with the dragons. When we do start to level up, the characters treat everything like an adventure (like for example Seiran from the Priory arc, dear god), a thrill ride, instead of anything to be taken seriously, so we don’t take it seriously, so it has no impact again.

I have to say that I would give up entirely on fantasy as a genre if it was all written in GRR Martin’s style. It’s good, and I love Game of Thrones, but too much grit would make for an uninteresting genre. Snarling space marines anyone? Besides, sometimes you want to be cheered up and hope for a brighter world, instead of get drawn into a darker “more realistic” setting. There’s nothing inherently unrealistic about hope and pragmatic about pessimism.

Edit: This is why I believe the Caladbolg arc stands out above all others I have witnessed so far. It involves loss and failure (the Sylvari lose one of their all-time heroes due to the guy putting his trust in someone who turned out to be a selfish coward), it involves a real and believable villain instead of just a cartoonish evil (a guy who starts out as a scared kid you can almost sympathize with but has grown into a remorseless and brutish man), and a player character choice made out of an emotion other than “ADVENTURE 8D” (in this case, revenge). It provides contrast to the rest of the game in ways no other story has, and it actually transports us for a moment into a world where things can go wrong, so the victories you earn and the lives you save are actually meaningful. That said some of the dialogue was absolutely painful to sit through (some stuff about how the fallen Sylvari stood for LOVE AND BRAVERY AND FRIENDSHIP or some such, and the ways the kid expressed his fear, I forgot specifics by now) but as a whole the Caladbolg arc I believe worked, and if there were more story arcs with its tone and sense of writing, I would chalk this game’s story up to Great.

Still love the game guys! Just being analytical about the plot :X

First of all: Tybalt is one of the best characters I’ve ever encountered in a game. You guys got him -absolutely- right. Not only was he a non-typical Charr, but the fact that he hides behind his insecurities using humour, but still eventually reveals that they are there made me warm to him instantly. I was throwing ALL my AoE at -that door- like “COME BACK!”. Heartbreaking.

Things I felt were absolutely right:
- The Charr flirting during the Orrian mission at Kitah Manse. Absolutely perfect.
- The Asura flirting during the Orrian missions involving a fleet of ships.
- Trahearne’s earlier development, where he’s still a scholar and not a general.
- Much of the Sylvari early story (before you join the orders)
- Tybalt (entirely)
- That one Sylvari NPC that says “seize the bloody moment!”

Things that need work:
- Missions after Forging the Pact forget who you are and where you came from. I was repeatedly re-introduced to NPCs that I not only already knew but had saved. When two wardens turned up with a mirror I was given an awkward introduction and the whole time I was like “yes Trahearne, both of us were there. I know I am wearing a mask as part of my awesome whispers armour, but shirly you can’t be sirrious.”
- As a fellow sufferer of a somewhat mono-tonal voice I could identify with Trahearne’s inability to emote overmuch. I can see why people complain though. His dialogue after he forgets who I am though, is somewhat jarring at times. I like his moments of exposition, as we don’t get enough lore in the dialogue to be completely honest, but I don’t like that he forgets he’s already told me some of this. I mean, I know he’s under a lot of stress lately but-

Things that were a bit irritating:
- Norn accents! I know they follow on from the original game but they don’t sound as “big” as Jora’s did. It doesn’t make much sense to me why if the Sylvari and Asura sound kind of English/mid Atlantic, despite their proximity to humans, why the Norn sound exactly like the people in Divinity’s Reach do. Similarly it seems that they have lost nearly all their mysticism, and speak with one voice.
- More male v/o for Sylvari please? I cannot honestly say I can identify more than three. Theres the guy who sounds like he’s over fifty, and also doubles as a Norn voice. Theres the really deep baritone voice used for Occam, and then theres one that’s sort of mid tonal and constantly bemused. I like the male character’s voice for Sylvari, and the fact that only Trahearne sounds like Trahearne but… :I
- Human voices. There are no accent deviations in-spite of the fact that we know Canthans sound different to Ascalons who sound different in turn to Elonians. I live in the UK and we have in recent years been subjected to a social experiment by our politicians at creating a multicultural society, and I can confirm that fifty years is not enough time for accents to change in that manner. Especially the Elonians. Where’s the rich baritone of the Nightfall Intro/Outro? Wheres the Melonni and the Koss, or the Kormir for that matter? Diversity amongst the humans is even more important particularly as you are trying to emphasize that the real world demographic is supposed to be all inclusive.
- No dialogue what so ever for personal instance NPCs that I have supposedly saved.

For the most part I enjoyed the personal story and the dialogue, I played the first game into the ground so I was familiar with the concept that from a missions perspective at least, I wasn’t going to be calling the shots on what came out of my Sylvari’s mouth. There were a few occasions where I was like “noooo-” but it isn’t anything that hasn’t already been covered in this topic.

Half Tooth.1867:

The way cutscene dialogue is done, it still feels like it has that ‘work in progress’ sticker on it that it did in the Betas. The way the ppicture floods the screen and the characters appear, it’s like sitting down in a theatre, but watching the rehersals not the final show. Possibly this is part of the problem.

I have found the speech bubble dialogue to be so much better, it always comes out more believable somehow, I especially liked the children you bump into before you meet with Destiny’s Edge. Their exchange actually told me considerably more about the characters than I got from watching the characters themselves conversing. It also felt a bit more real and there were no pauses between the exchanges.
In missions I prefer the speech bubble dialogue because you are actually running through a tunnel when someone says “it’s caving in… run!” sort of thing. Watching meetings between characters also feels more lively because you can see what’s going on, you can walk around the space, you can see who is talking to who and the surroundings give context to what is being said.
The way it is done currently feels like we’ve been taken out of context, and we have nothing else to concetrate on except all the things people have picked up on here.

This, this, THIS! While the face-to-face theater-type scenes have a place in telling the story, they are way overused! They interrupt the flow of missions and the dialog in scenes is very stilted, with overly long pauses between each character’s speech. Watching the dialog when a character cuts off another one is just painful.

And yet, I know the timing can be more precise than that because characters realistically cut each other off and have genuine-sounding dialog during dynamic events! It’s frustrating to know the audio engine is capable of doing entertaining dialog, but completely booches it in the face-to-face scenes.

When the scene is a cinematic, it’s GORGEOUS, and that’s exactly what the scene engine SHOULD be used for. But the simple face-to-face stuff really doesn’t need to be there at all. It could be just as effectively delivered as in-world dialog.

I have to add my voice to one particular voice over. Deputy Mira has to go through some quality of life changes. There is a huge battle going on and she speaks with no sense of urgency. I thought I had heard the worst until the last stage of that story event where she suffers a war injury, quite a severe one, and she doesn’t shriek in pain or anything. She addresses it like one would minor inconveniences. I was aghast at how bad her voice direction was at these lines.

I sadly have to agree that the voice-acting is often sub-standard; mostly this is obvious in the actual cutscene-like dialogues, not so much when NPCs are just talking in the open world (some of those are great).

The fact the characters use absolutely no body language when talking this way doesn’t help and a lot of the dialogue and delivery is rather wooden or just… oddly written, feels unnatural. Honestly, as someone else said, the text-based stuff is often a lot more natural, so oddly enough, I may have actually preferred just text many times.

Except for Zojja. Because she is awesome.

I played human necromancer, order of whispers.

Tybalt: LOVED. Wish he could’ve stayed longer.
Trahearne: Needs more emotion. His voice was just kind of the same tone, no emotions, nothing.

I do love the part of the human storyline where you have to outdrink everyone, and you’re still sloshed while rescuing the girl. More emotion like that in different parts of the storyline. It engaged me a lot more than the long cut scenes of talking in the same tone of voice.

I think some more movement in the animations in the cutscenes would perhaps help it a bit better. At the moment, everyone is standing around. Oh look, a giant dragon is flying at us. Lets stand perfectly still. Perhaps some pointing, ducking or animation type like that could help.

Spoiler!!!!!

Also human storyline with the missing sister.
What happens? You save her, and never see her again? Where does she go? Does my character ever speak to her again? Does go back on duty, drop out of the seraph?
Same with Quinn. I didn’t feel much in common with some of the characters. It’s like they drop out as you progress. I think maybe if they popped in again and helped fight the dragon or something there would be a better connection.

To me it seems like here’s segments of the story.

Human – Quinn, Pete etc.
Order -Tybalt
Trahearne – Dragon. END

What happens to Quinn etc? Perhaps put them in somewhere, to help or do something.

I still love GW2, but the personal story needs some work.

crawlkill.6174:

Garenthal.1480:

I’ll admit, he was entertaining at first. Then I realised I was stuck with him for pretty much every Order of Whispers mission, which automatically gave them a much more light-hearted theme than I would have liked.

But this is the problem with the whole game, isn’t it? It tries to present this really epique!~~ tone, but then undercuts itself constantly with cartoonish buffoonish characters and plot elements. I mean…Star Wars quote jokes? Seriously? Not just one, but three in gradual succession? From the Order of Whispers plot character? There’s nothing WRONG with Star Wars quote jokes, inherently, but GW2 doesn’t seem to divide clearly between the moments when it’s taking itself seriously and the moments when it isn’t.

Again, the comparison to Secret World is apt: almost every character in TSW is funny, but it’s with a very dark, dry wit that the character is sometimes unaware of himself (look up Andy’s Kingsmouth monologues if you need an example). It’s not the banana peel slipping that seems to pervade Guild Wars. It’s not that it’s -bad,- as such, but it’s -childish,- and the game hasn’t set itself up to get away with being childish. If you wanna be childish and doofy, embrace it, the way Warcraft has (uh, mostly). Don’t pretend you’re some big involved plot one moment and then have exaggerated characters saying “Aren’t you a little short for a pirate?” the next.

Yeah, I guess. It’s just bitterly disappointing since I ended up leaving WoW because it relied so heavily on silly pop culture references. Arena Net promised they wouldn’t go down that route, though they have even if they try to brush it off as subtle. When I read through the game’s lore and played GW1 I found it to be pretty dark, yet GW2’s insistence on a PG approach is pretty irritating at times.

Then again, I’m a role-player so I tend to try and invest in a particular setting as much as I can. I guess immersion is an afterthought even in a game that prides itself on it.

There’s some pretty good stuff to be found, it’s just a shame it isn’t used more.

I’m not entirely sure on where to post this, but this seems to be as good a place as any. I just wanted to mention that there’s a particular dynamic event that you can encounter in Kessex Hills, where you escort a guy around the ruins of a town that’s mostly been flooded and overrun with krait. The first time I did this event, I didn’t really know what he was doing there. By the end of the DE, you come to find that he went there to visit the ghosts of his wife and daughter. He exchanges words with them briefly, interacting with them as if they’re still alive and he’s still living a normal life with them.

This single dynamic event drew a stronger emotional reaction from me than the entirety of the personal story. It was incredibly touching, and it really made me feel for that character. It made me proud to have protected him from the krait, and I actually felt like my character made a difference in this NPC’s life.

I haven’t read this whole thread, but I wanted to give an example of what I found to be really GOOD dialogue and VA. I’d love to see more stuff like this. I also recall hearing a story that didn’t make it into the game about a skritt learning about the ways of the Kodan, and it being the “GW2 version of ‘Flowers for Algernon’.” It sounded great, and the writers at ArenaNet are obviously capable of great stuff.

Unfortunately, the personal story felt like it missed more than it hit. Based on some of the dev posts I’ve seen, it doesn’t sound like they’re entirely satisfied with how it turned out either, which is hopefully a good sign for the future.

Greyfeld.7104:

But I kinda feel like I’m the only person that feels this way. Am I?

You’re not. I disagree with one of your statements, though. This one:

Greyfeld.7104:

Even the personal stories aren’t that bad

They are.

They seem written for (and possibly by) 8 year old children. Which seems an odd target market for a game supported by a cash shop, but maybe kids are getting credit cards sooner, these days.

This is how I’ve felt so far about dialogue in many instances.

Side NPCs (not at all related to Personal Story) – Neat, interesting, engaging, well done

Personal Story Dialogue – bland, bland, bland, either emotionless or overly cheery/happy, completely out of place for scenario.

Take for example your relationship with Vigil Warmaster Forgal Kernnson

Yes, I understand that you end up creating a relationship with the guy, but it seems like that from too early on you’re treating him like he’s your drinking buddies from the past two decades. He is your superior (until you reach Warmaster, but even then he is the senior member) in a MILITARY organization, yet you talk to him like “oh you gruff old dog, you”. This bothers me. ALOT. I never talked to my superiors in any way even close to that, even the ones that I felt close to (Sr. Enlisted). It just seems extremely out of place. I understand the game wanting to show you you are a prodigy in the Vigil, but really, even prodigies learn the proper courtesies and discipline. And since we are talking about the Vigil (this probably is the same in the other orders), I feel like advancement was too fast. “Hey look, we gave you two missions, here is our highest rank”. I can understand receiving Crusader quickly, but I wouldn’t have minded at all if I didn’t become Warmaster in the personal storyline but rather through a (potentially long) series of sidequests. That way there’d be a) more content and b) would make me feel like I actually EARNED that title. Right now, it was just something that I had to do anyways and the quickness with which it was conferred on me cheapens it. I’d been looking forward to doing a lot of stuff with the Vigil in order to advance ranks, but now I see that it was just some mere attempt at making me feel good fast.

Which leads me to the next point. It appears as though the majority of the dialogue was scripted with the goal of making you feel good at all times, lauding you for everything that happens, and everything being covered in perfume and flowers and kittens (not a filter replace BTW). This just ends up cheapening the story and just feels like everybody being like a “yes man” and it just feels extremely faked and forced. The story itself isn’t bad, but the dialogue is lacking. There is potential, but it is not even reached for. Where is the dramatic tensions, the sorrow (apart from your mentor dying), the feeling of desperation, the hopelessness? Its not that I’m saying make a world full of gloom, but rather have something to contrast the happy moments. Make me cherish those happy moments. Make me feel like all hope is lost, that no, we cannot defeat this evil, that all will be lost, but then, at the very end, give me some hope, a sliver that I can hold on to. And from there, let me build this hope through action and carry this through the gameplay. Let me be the one that brings hope to others. And let others bring hope to me. But for the love of the Six-Gods, don’t do it through simple one-liners.

(sorry for double posting, length limit)

A couple quick side-notes I wanted to make: At first I didn’t really like Forgal. I couldn’t really place it. (Aside from some of the dialogue text). But then, he started to grow on me. SPOILER When he died defending Claw Island, I was actually kind of sad ENDSPOILER. But I started to hate my own character. The way he talked, the way he was flippant to this old rugged veteran, just bothered me. The always, “ohmaikittens! everising is going to be alright doncha worri!” bothered me.
Another section I found lacking was in the mission following the loss of Claw Island (at least with the Vigil), when General Almorra is addressing the troops for the defense of LA. Whomever recorded that, it felt like they were in a recording studio situated in the middle of a LIBRARY. There was an attempt to raise the volume of the voice in it a little bit, but it was weak. The voice was weak. It did not have passion nor did it have assurance nor did it have command presence. The leader of the mighty Vigil, whilst addressing her troops before combat with large number of undead in order to defend their homes and families, sounded like a MEWLING KITTEN (yes, pun intended). I was not inspired at all to do anything. In fact I was like, “alright, so the motivational speech is going to be given at the beach then? Once we are about to face the undead menace? yes? yes???” NO. I was tempted to be like “uhh, I think I hear a dragon roaring and that has more passion and motivation than this, think, uh, I’ma go join him for a bit”. When addressing soldiers who are very well contemplating a future where you do not return to your home, where you do not see your loved ones again, where your friends and comrades may not come back with you. Even these tropes managed more emotion and passion in their speeches. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY5-fTb5cek.

Anyways, I think thats all I’ll say for now.

Love the game though, and keep up the good work. The potential is there, it just has to be achieved.

Cheers!