Guild Wars 2

The personal story has been bothering me quite a bit.

1. The choices we make don’t really make any difference to what goes on.
Early in the game I noticed one time in my home instance something that changed due to a choice I made.

Later in the story when you are given critical choices.. it doesn’t really mean anything since you will never hear about the other choices you didn’t pick, it’s like the story is being rushed forward so there is no time to even find out what might have happened.. if there is no consequences to these massive choices you make later on in the game then what is the point really?

2. Trahearne pretty much hijacks your ‘personal’ story.. it’s as if you hit level 50, head to claw island and from then onwards it’s no longer a story about your character.. you are just a sidekick to this mary sue of a character who has about as much personality as a potato.

I really feel like Anet missed a beat with how they handled the story.. while it is long and full of different locations/lore/characters and such, the mechanics behind the way it is told are flawed in my eyes.. it felt rushed and very forced past level 50.. and even before that the ‘choices’ were already pointless.

The choices don’t seem to really matter. The results certainly don’t register.

Example: In the Sylvari story, my gal ended up choosing to try a new-fangled, unfield-tested battle golem for a fight (I clicked the wrong dialogue button). I tried using these spangly golems, decided they were not only silly and out-of-character for a Sylvari ranger but ineffectual overall, and did things the old-fashioned way —- strategy and skill. Cutscene was all about how wonderfully the golems worked and how they had completely saved the day. Uh, no.

Story dialogue continued about how well the golems did. The AI doesn’t recognize the golems didn’t do a darned thing except sit on the hill with the Asura and the dingleberry story NPC because it is expected for the player to sit and tinker with the ignorant things rather than make field decisions on how better to handle the situation.

(Personally, I as a player and I as a character have little time or patience to finagle poor planning and game mechanics when faced with a ‘battle’ situation when there are viable alternatives available.)

We are expected to act and interact but there does not seem to be either game mechanics to enable this or a measurable way to tell if it even matters in the end. I realize that in a vast game such as this, it is difficult to code in so many variables. I also realize that five years (plus) and a team of very good developers have gone into this effort. It is almost as if the team who created the world environment and events and the team who worked on the rest (story line, personal and over-arching) did their individual things and at the last minute got together and smooshed the two together without testing to 1) see if they merged well or 2) make sure they actually worked at all.

At this point, I’m avoiding the Sylvari personal story altogether. It is boring and nonsensical to me. Norn isn’t much better. Guess I’ll see about the Human one next.

Again: overall game = great
Personal story = sub-standard

Every story in Guild Wars has you playing second fiddle to someone. In Prophecies it wasn’t as noticable, but Devona, Mhenlo, Aidan, Cynn and Eve were the ‘real’ main characters. In Factions the game was all about Togo. In Nightfall? Kormir takes the lead. Eye of the North focused on whatever story specific hero you had at the time between Ogden, Vekk, Gwenn and Jora.

I really hate to throw out the accusations here, but I don’t think Arenanet actually can write much of a story anymore without making you sit in the back seat of the car their newest hero is driving. Hopefully the next iterations of GW2’s story help the heroes feel like they’re actually important.

In fact, let me tell you what I would have loved to see in the story – a late game mission that’s profession dependant. As a necromancer you hear from an Orders agent who found a relic in the Temple of Grenth that could supposedly enhance the powers of those who control the undead. Cue you going to get that artifact and raising a group of minions that put Trahearne’s legion of flesh golems to shame.

Engineer? The Iron Legion pact members just had a squad of their tanks ripped apart by the Risen due to a critical design flaw in that model. You go and the NPC defend YOU while you go through the motions of utilizing the scrap left behind to build a warmachine you then drive through the ranks of the Risen like a hot knife through butter.

Just one group of missions like that would have made the story so much more memorable, really.

In regards to the GW2 personal story I think the problem lies in the fact that there were too many choices and it makes for a less developed story in the end. It reminds me of those books called choose your own adventure or twist a plot that came out a few years back. They have the same problem. In order to provide more choices you have to sacrifice in depth treatment of plot and characters.

I don’t feel like I played second fiddle to the characters in GW1 and here’s why. They seemed more like friends and we were a team fighting together. The characters we started out with followed along with us throughout the story; so there was an opportunity to develop their personalities… like the relationship between Cynn and Mhenlo. Prince Rurik in one quest needed a birthday present for Althea. I’ll never forget the scene where King Adelbern renounces Prince Rurik as his son. These are the little things that make the characters seem real. So for me I never felt overshadowed by any of them.

I’ve gotten used to Trahearne now. Although I don’t feel anything towards him. He’s just a character I have to interact with to complete the missions. His character should have been developed a bit more since he was to be an integral part of the storyline. Then I think people would have seen him more as a comrade rather than someone who took over their personal story.

Trahearne feels just tacked on to the plot. Like we’re supposed to be buddy buddy with him like he’s Thrall or something, beucase he’s apparently important, and apparently well respected by the Orders head leaders or something.

It feels like less a backstory and more an excuse to suffer this monotone leafy bore for the entire rest of the plot. Meanwhile, The Warband I made personal investments into just ceased to exist-even as standalone characters in my home instsance. They quite literally vanished. Without a trace. Never to be seen again.

Seriously. Screw this guy I never even knew about till partway in the plot and was handed a tool of plot significance and give it to Rissa or something