Guild Wars 2

Ok, so I’m going on a rant about the personal story-line in this MMO and why it’s poor story-telling and poorly designed.

This is from the POV of an Asuran Thief, currently level 80 and on the final stretch of his personal story.

- So far the personal story has made me rage more than any other aspect of the game. At times, it’s pure frustration because of some idiotic design decisions.

1. Getting swarmed by Risen. Before the Risen came into the story, this was less of an issue. But it became a lot more apparent once they became the prevalent enemy. Their speed and erratic threat behaviour made them very annoying enemies to fight. At times they’d switch targets on a whim and then practically one-shot you. That, or they’d chase you across the map while you hope some NPC will finally get them down or draw their attention.

2. Mostly unrewarding: I can’t recall a handful of times where I actually ended up with a useful reward from a story mission. Most of the time it’s just some blue gunk that doesn’t even have the stats you need. That, combined with the poor Karma gear selection while leveling resulted in often playing with gear 10-15 levels below my characters level.

3. The amount of enemies I’m expected to fight is obnoxious. I’m talking groups of 3-4 mobs here that require either cheesy builds or aeons of kiting to defeat.

4. If you’ve ever wiped on a boss you were fighting with a group of NPCs then you’re in for a world of frustration when you’re trying to get the group back to its feet, only to see the rezzed ones charge the boss instead of rezzing the rest, resulting in another wipe.

5. Some missions are too long: As long as you have stuff going on, it doesn’t really matter. But spending 20 minutes running into a cave, just to spend the next 20 minutes fighting your way out again so save some useless and never mentioned again artefact is just boring.

The best part is when you get disconnected just before the end are are allowed to do the whole thing over again. Yay…-_-

But now to the actual story and how it’s told.

This is recalling from the top of my head. So bear with me in case I skip some details.

For an Asura it starts out with meeting Zorja and someone stealing my invention. I forgot who was stealing it and why, because I seemed to go through at least 3 or 4 different antagonists before that plot line was seemingly resolved. I don’t recall what the conclusion was, I assume I stopped the Inquest from weaponizing my invention or something along those lines.

Anyway, around that time Zorja introduces the Destiny’s Edge plot-line, and how their unification is apparently crucial for defeating Zhaitan, a evil dragon who wants to do….evil things because….he’s evil. Or something like that.

The thing is, up until level 30 I don’t think I hear the name once or even see why and what’s so evil about him. Even now at level 80, just before the finale, I’ve yet to see Zhaitan or understand why he’s evil (aside from the fact that he uses monsters). What happened to the Hollywood principle of “show, don’t tell!”? Over the course of the game I have dozens of characters tell me that Zhaitan must be defeated and yet I still don’t know why.

As for Destiny’s Edge, it seems like their plot just disappeared before it even started. Could it be that their story is only told within the dungeons? It would seem so because they haven’t turned up in the personal story ever since. I don’t know the reasoning of introducing them…only to have them completely cut form the reaming story. It just doesn’t make sense.

At some point we then get to select our order and go chasing after artefacts or something else in the case of the other orders. In the end though, I don’t recall any of those Priory artefacts making much of a difference in the plot. I mean I remember chasing after a hilt for a Sword fored of Dragon Blood but I forgot whatever became of it or why it was even needed. Overall though, this was probably the most flawless part of the personal story. Eventually this calmantes in the battle for Claw Island.

I don’t remember exactly when and where Trehearne is introduced but that dude becomes the knew Mary Sue and I his minion. Until we finally get to Fort Trinity the plot can best be summarized as “stuff happens”.

There’s a weird and unconnected subplot about a Rogue Mezmer….which forced me to run across a previously unexplored map for about an hour. Then there’s a dream sequence with the tree lady. And some assisting of somebody, somewhere …..whatever. It’s not until we get to Fort Trinity that we finally get a tangible goal and a visible enemies. Although not Zhaitan….still haven’t seen what he’s about…

But even now that I’ve played through most of Orr’s story….I still feel like I’m missing something. I’ve seen a number of “noble, selfless sacrifice” scenes by characters I never really knew and never had any connection with. Why would I care about a character that was only just introduced 5 minutes prior with 2 lines of dialogue? Am I missing something? were they important to the other races story line? To me it just sounds like cheesy writing.

In fact cheesy writing is a pretty good summery of the plot so far.

We have:
1. Countless disjointed plot-lines.
2. Mary Sue character
3. Countless “selfless sacrifices”
4. “…because he’s evil” explanation.
5. Countless Fantasy clichees/tropes.

Anyway, I’ll edit this once I’m through but unless you pull off a real eye opener I don’t think much will change.

As good as the regular world questing is, the personal story is just lackluster.

PS: Despite the rant, I do actually enjoy the game.

On item #4, Zhaitan is evil, it’s hard to write meaningful backstories for massive forces-of-nature that exist solely for their own benefit. Plus, as an Asuran researcher points out for you during the “order selection” quests, the Dragons are consuming the natural magic of the word at a disturbingly fast rate. It only makes sense to destroy them before what is pretty much the in game version of oil is drained out by giant, world destroying sponges.

Yes, the story of Destiny’s Edge is told through the dungeons.

The show don’t tell you’re looking for is the Risen killing and corrupting everything in their path. Necromancy is about raising the dead and binding them to your will. All those risen attacks you had to fend off were because Zhatian willed the armies to attack.

Phrixscreoth.6895:

Necromancy is about raising the dead and binding them to your will. All those risen attacks you had to fend off were because Zhatian willed the armies to attack.

Which I find amusing, because nobody seems to mind when 1/8 of the “heroes” running around are also necromancers. You’d think there’d be some sort of club or cult running around, committing hate crimes against necromancers, in a misguided attempt to “purge the world of Zhaitan’s minions.” But nope, there’s no misunderstandings or any semblance of bigotry in the world, so everybody’s cool with it.

There’s already a long thread that I started a few days ago about the horrendous dialogue in the game, that you can read here, but the OP brings up another aspect of the personal story that really needs to be looked at.

The fact is, quite a number of the plot lines that intersect later in the story only make sense if you played a certain race. Most notably, Trahearne for the Sylvari. I know that this would require more work, but if the story is going to intersect like that, the other races need some sort of background and introduction to the NPC, instead of just having them dumped in their character’s lap, and told, “This NPC is more important than you, so you’re compelled to follow orders and do exactly what he says.” It’s too abrupt, and the lack of buildup is jarring, if not completely off-putting.

Also, is it so much to ask that we get a set of characters that has a longer continuity than 2-3 cutscenes?

Painking.4703:

On item #4, Zhaitan is evil, it’s hard to write meaningful backstories for massive forces-of-nature that exist solely for their own benefit. Plus, as an Asuran researcher points out for you during the “order selection” quests, the Dragons are consuming the natural magic of the word at a disturbingly fast rate. It only makes sense to destroy them before what is pretty much the in game version of oil is drained out by giant, world destroying sponges.

Well, I never really felt that the “consumes magic” aspect was really a compelling reason to wage war on them.

First, it seemed like this was just a side-effect of being an Elder Dragon and not something Zhaitan chose to do. Standing in Rata Sum I can see that the world is dependent on magic but if this is supposedly the main reason to fight him, then it needs to be fleshed out more.

It’s still not good story-telling though because in most stories you have at least 1 or 2 evolutions regarding the antagonists motivation.

Ok and the fact that he raised undead to pursue his goals is obviously “evil” but to what end? What is his goal….why is he doing all of this? He must pursue a greater goal than “killing everyone”.

If this is something that’s expanded on in other races story-line then that’s just sloppy. While it’s ok to have an intricate plot spelled out across multiple races and classes (like SWTOR) elemental story parts should always be in every personal story.