Guild Wars 2

I don’t want to be that guy that claims he can do so much better than the writing team Anet already has, so I won’t. That’s essentially the point of this long ramble I’m about to go on. It’s not that I think I can do better, but I think that they can do better, by showing that they already have! One thing that I’ve come to the conclusion on when playing the game during the BWEs and post-release is that the Charr simply have the best personal story. In order to illustrate this, I will be comparing their stories to the Norn stories for convenience, since Norn are the other race that I’m most familiar with. Most of what I say will apply to the other races as well, however.

It goes without saying that this will include spoilers for the 1-30 personal story steps. Without further ado, a list, in no particular order, of reasons why the Charr storylines are simply better:

1. Cohesiveness. One of the first things that you are greeted with once you’re out of the tutorial is a greeting by your warband member. Talking to him/her will get mention of Howl and his amulet, and you may wonder what this has to do with anything. Then, lo and behold, that point is suddenly brought back up again in your third story arc. That’s not really the only point, either. The truth is that the Charr storyline just feels much more cohesive than the others. Things that you do in the first arc have an impact on the following, due to the warband members that you recruit staying with you in the second and third arcs.

Compare this to the Norn storyline, which has three arcs that feel incredibly disjointed. The only unifying theme here is the growing friendship with Eir, which…has its own problems that I’ll get to shortly.

2. Meaning. Right from the get-go, the Charr personal story has things that actually impact the character and shape how he grows as a person. The first arc has you learning about your legion and building up a stable of friends that will be with you for the rest of your racial story arcs. In the second arc, you have your warband dealing with your character’s father in some way. In my opinion, these arcs have some of the best writing present in the personal story. Even if they don’t really go too in-depth, these stories end up covering some interesting and deep themes, like the meaning of family and what one would do for that family. When you chose to side with your father in “Sins of the Father” (Sorcerous Shaman) and believe that, despite once being a Flame Legion shaman, he’s truly repented and wants correct his past mistakes, there’s something powerful and personal there. When you choose to trust your father despite his deception against his own warband in “Thicker than Water” (Honorless Gladium) you have a character weighing in on the importance of family versus the importance of his duty. (Also, I don’t normally care one way or the other about voice acting in video games, but props to the guy who was voicing the male Charr PCs. He was definitely channeling something during the end of “Thicker than Water.”) That can be some pretty powerful stuff. Then the third arc comes and you have to deal with the risen corpse of your former leader. That’s definitely personal.

Compare this to the Norn storyline. The first arc introduces us to the Sons of Svanir, so I suppose it does the job the first arcs usually do in introducing us to the racial enemy, but that’s about it. The first Norn arc has no real meaning as to who the Norn is as a person. All it is is some crisis that the Norn PC comes in to save the say with. That’s fine and all, but at that point it’s not really a personal story, and just becomes an event with cutscenes. The second arc is selectively okay. The “Blacked Out” storyline has some witty writing, but ended on a fairly lackluster conclusion that really didn’t have the comedy that carried the first parts of the arc, nor introduce any sort of meaning for this arc for the character in question. The “Lost a Fight” storyline is basically just the Norn PC going through some fights so he can win a grudge match, and the attempt at making it hold a deeper meaning comes off as fake (did the Norn PC really learn about when fights should be fought, just from fighting in a tournament? Really?) The best arc was probably the “Lost an Heirloom” arc since it provides some nice meaning in the ruminations of what it means to honor a legacy. Then the third arc comes in, which is just to stop some dredge for reasons that never seemed adequately explained to me.

3. Depth. One thing that I have to say that made the Charr storylines so enjoyable for me was the sheer number of characters that you could recruit into your warband. They’d still stick with you and you could keep talking to them, learning more about them, and so on.

What really helps the Charr here is that their third biography question has a real impact on their story. Not a huge one, not one that changes your missions, but it does impact the writing in a meaningful way. Your sparring partner sticks with you for thirty levels of personal quests, and you can actually get attached to the guy. It also helps that they have some of the best writing as far as NPCs go. Dinky is wonderfully dumb but lovable, Maverick is hilarious in his showboating, and Clawspur is suitably direct and insightful.

It really would have helped the Norn storyline if the choice of your guardian spirit actually had some impact. This is something that should be one of the most important things defining the Norn PCs life and personality, but it’s not even mentioned. Even just one scene during the third arc where the spirit in question speaks to the Norn and advises him to go fight the dragons would have been wonderful.

4. Mentors. I hate to say it, but Rytlock is the best of the five racial mentors. He’s got some of the stronger writing, being the very definition of badkitten while also being flawed enough to not be overly Mary-Sueish. He carries a deep grudge, but he’s the sort of superior that understands when rules need to be bent and when fun should be had. I think the only mentor that probably matches Rytlock in terms of sheer personality is Zojja, and I want to say half of that is due to Felicia Day’s voice acting. Caithe is, thankfully, also given a pretty good story arc, so she’s in a pretty good place, too.

Eir and Logan, on the other hand…

Eir suffers from failing the “Phantom Menace test.” Try to describe her character without resorting to talking about her role in the story, her occupation, or what she looks like. It’s really, really difficult because she has few definable character traits. When I talk to most people in my guild, the answer I get is that most people think she’s a little stupid due to her goal in Ascalonian Catacombs.

Logan is…Logan. I don’t know if this is the same everywhere, but among my social circle, we use Logan as the butt of jokes because everyone hates him.

This is already unfathomably long for feedback, so I’ll end it here. Thoughts?

Mhh. No sorry, I can’t agree when it comes to a certain rating of quality.
I’m not saying this is not true for you – but as “stories” go there is simply a different premise.

Here the “official” descriptions:

The norn are a valiant race of huge, shape-shifting barbarians that hail from the frozen north. Strong-willed, passionate, and brave to a fault, the fiercely independent norn swear fealty to no single being. Guided in this world by their Spirits of the Wild, which embody the virtues of the mightiest beasts, the norn see life as a grand adventure.

The history of the norn is full of heroes, spirits, and impossible deeds. (…)

Vs

The charr—an aggressive feline race—have perfected the bloody art of war. While they are ruthless, relentless terrors to their enemies, charr are also brave allies who can form unbreakable bonds of loyalty.

Centuries of endless war have molded charr society into the most advanced militaristic and industrial race in Tyria. Their culture is dominated by the High Legions, which are in turn composed of smaller warbands of charr who live and fight together. Every charr—from the fiercest legionnaire to the humblest farmer—sees themself as a soldier.

I personally like them both so far – of course I have to chuckle sometimes listening to the boasting and the impossible deeds of my Norn (not to mention that mine seems to be cross-eyed in the cutscenes).

How do you like the asuran story?

I prefer most of the aspects of the human story, particularly everything surrounding Ebonhawke and the political intrigue and power struggle between Minister Caudecus and Queen Jennah.

I just can’t get into the charr no matter how much I try. They reek of some of the same special snowflake tendencies and lore team favouritism that made another token beast race (namely orcs) in a certain other setting get far too much unexplained power, prowess and focus despite the existence of numerous other races.

Funnily enough, both races where initially villains and failed to make a smooth transition into ‘ally’ territory due to the insistence on preserving their nastier side whilst ensuring every other race mysteriously becomes meek around them.

It’s not that the other races are ‘boring’ but rather that the charr seem to be getting too much attention and focus. Whether that’s from the community itself or the development team, I’m not entirely sure. Though I am getting weary of seeing them praised as the best and most original race in the setting.

I have to agree with you. I’ve dabbled in every race but Human so far, and I liked the Charr storyline the best for a number of reasons.
1. Rytlock is by far my favorite mentor.
2. Dinky and the other members I recruited were much more memorable than the helpers in the other storylines.
3. I thought the gameplay was more balanced than the other races. There were less instances of so-called “benny hilling”. While the warband members didn’t do great damage, they actually seemed to be effective tanks/distractions.
4. My Charr was an engineer, so building ghost-killing turrets and rifles fit right into my character’s class from the get-go.

Garenthal.1480:

I just can’t get into the charr no matter how much I try. They reek of some of the same special snowflake tendencies and lore team favouritism that made another token beast race (namely orcs) in a certain other setting get far too much unexplained power, prowess and focus despite the existence of numerous other races.

This is off-topic and so I don’t want to get off on too large of a tangent, but I think this over-simplifies the issue and misses a few big points.

Orcs in Warcraft are the main race for the Horde, so it makes sense that a lot of Horde lore ends up focusing on them (for the same reason that a very huge chunk of Alliance lore focuses on humans.) However, and this is important, this is not necessarily a good thing, even for those that like orcs. The lore-writers at Blizzard found that perfect little niche where theykitten off both camps. Those that hated orcs got them thrown in their faces because they were the main military force of the Horde (which makes sense, numbers-wise.) Those that loved orcs got frustrated because the lore for them starting around the half-way point in WotLK just completely sucked. They became mustache-twirling villains for no adequately explained reason and with no fore-warning, completely disarming all of the character development that they got in Warcraft 3.

Charr aren’t suffering that same problem. They’re not being jerks for the sake of being jerks, and their lore makes far more sense than the orcish lore in WoW.

That said…

I couldn’t get into the human storyline, mostly because of how badly the writers flubbed the characters of Logan and Jennah. Part of that may simply because I had the misfortune of reading Edge of Destiny which completely ruined those two characters for me, but there you go. I don’t want to comment on the Asura story too much because I didn’t have too much experience with it.

The point being: the charr have the best personal story in terms of its construction and cohesiveness. If you take out the personal biases of which races you like or you hate, the charr have some of the best stories. Their arcs are more cohesive with each other and are tied together much more nicely than the other racial arcs. I don’t know if this was just a quirk with who was writing who, or the charr got more time spent on their stories than the other races, but that’s how I’m seeing it.

Well, I think it’s great that you enjoyed it.

I consider myself happy that I am enjoying the Charr, Norn and Asura storyline thus far, my human storyline has to wait a bit and eventually I’m sure I will enjoy the Sylvari as well.

I was very much impressed with the Charr as well. Dinky felt silly without being annoying, I liked how Fyron the Wraith complemented my warband (though the other blood member, Shredskin, wasn’t as good for some reason). I kind of want to go back through the Blood route and try the other warband member, because it was a good story. I liked also how my warband felt like a group of friends during my father quest line, offering insights and caring about my struggle.

Well give whoever did Dinky’s bits a medal because his lines were great.

Any chance in future personal story content, we could have more interaction from our warband members at higher level? I am really sad to leave them behind to join my Order.

Also give the person who designed Tybalt a medal too. I now eat an apple a day in tribute to his royal appleness.

Norn story is decent, and im really enjoying the Sylvari as well. human – too much cheese for my liking, and too many white people (im white, but white shouldnt represent humans as a culture, which it totally does in GW2). havent tried the Asuran story yet.

Norn story is decent, and im really enjoying the Sylvari as well. human – too much cheese for my liking, and too many white people (im white, but white shouldnt represent humans as a culture, which it totally does in GW2). havent tried the Asuran story yet.

White skinned people are not very common at all in Tyria, they are much more common in Elona though.

For instance in Scandinavia if you see a black guy your eyes melt because it’s a terribly rare occurrency, yet in Italy (which is closer to Africa) you see many of them.

They haven’t left them out, it’s actually the lore that places the big majority of dark-skinned people in Elona, their continent.

BobbyStein.2315:

Grakor.3450:

I don’t want to be that guy that claims he can do so much better than the writing team Anet already has, so I won’t. That’s essentially the point of this long ramble I’m about to go on. It’s not that I think I can do better, but I think that they can do better, by showing that they already have!

The writing team as an entity didn’t write or design the personal story content. The personal story team, which was made up of many designers (including a lore and continuity designer and one writer from my team) were responsible for generating that. My one embedded writer helped write or revise dialogue in many of the story arcs, but there were a lot of people on that team who contributed voiced and unvoiced text.

The writing team mostly serviced the personal story team in an editorial capacity up through launch. We’d copy edit scripts as they came over, and were involved with voice-over recording sessions (fielding questions from the voice director, providing context, etc.), but we/I didn’t create the characters or plan out the arcs. Thanks for the kind words, but I want to make sure the personal story team gets credit for that. I like to think that the writing team helped polish up the dialogue where we could, but our involvement was mostly supportive.

The writing team was mostly responsible for writing ambient scenes and dynamic event dialogue, and copy editing or revising everything else in the game that came from the other teams generating content (personal story, dungeon, WvW, etc.).

This is going to sound extremely rude to the efforts of your personal story team, but maybe the personal story should be handed over to your general writing team. Because the dialogue for the ambient scenes and dynamic event dialogue was far and away the best dialogue in the game.

If the writing team handled the editorial duties, does that include making sure that all of the branches a player could choose tied in logically? Only reason I ask is because on the sylvari side, sometimes it seemed like a choice I made in the previous story step or a few story steps back didn’t actually happen from the perspective of the world/dialogue.

Meeting a character a few quests back, then being reintroduced to that character as if we never met….credit for what my character did being given over to another character, etc.

Is there any chance of these issues being reviewed and taken care of later on, or is this a case of “we’re fine with how it is” and then you’ll surreptitiously do better in an expansion?

I can’t describe how sad I am that when I recommend this game to friends have to say “The story is pretty good, but there are issues with how they tied the different choices together,” instead of saying “The story is amazing and they managed to keep things pretty consistent for an mmo,” like I want to.

As someone who has only played through with humans, I’m interested on trying with a charr due to the TC’s points. I felt human’s story was a bit bland and unpredictable, it was basically white-and-black politics, which made it quite dry. If you’re going to give political tones to your narrative, you need shades of grey, some kind of humanistic drama or thought-provoking issues, to be any interesting, imo.

I also felt human’s story archs were disjointed from each other, and the characters weren’t given proper time to stick with you and develop. If this is any different for charr’s story, I’ll want to try it out.

In regards to the political intrigue, it’d be quite nice to see a ‘wildcard’ or two that causes some subtle difficulties for both Queen Jennah and Minister Caudecus. Perhaps it could even be done in a way to highlight Caudecus’ better side, assuming I’m not mistaking in believing that although prone to scheming, he does care for Kryta in his own misguided way?

On a more shameless note, I’d like to see more of Demmi Beetlestone, Countess Anise and Logan Thackeray. Opinions may differ, but those three stood out quite a lot during my personal story (especially since as a human who joins the Order of Whispers they can be perceived as constantly being involved in the ongoing politics strangling Kryta).

If Mr Stein is still keeping an eye on this thread I’d like to ask:
Was the writing in this game mainly done with a pre-teen/young teen demography in mind? I bet you have some really good writers on your team as well as being one yourself, and I understand the necessity of writing on the same level as the target demography but… please tell me you guys wrote this with crowd pleasing marketing in mind

Thanks for the answer. Yes I’ve noticed a large variation in the… theme of writing. Both the more mature parts as well as the comic parts.
My grief was mainly with the main quest, because of the inane behavior of the destiny’s edge, because we don’t get to know the characters that were killed off enough to really care (Well maybe Tybalt a bit because he was a rather well written comic relief character), the sudden and anticlimactic rise of Trahearne which in himself feels like a very neutral and low profile character.

As someone who prefers mature tones, was there ever subjects you wished you could have brought up or delved further into? I mean the setting is ripe for more complex issues, you have an industrial revolution, an imbalance in technology that would affect social classes, politics and black market trade more than just a few bandits living in cool looking tree forts, plus you have exploitation of tribals and wast amounts of alcohol consumption.

edit: Oh yes and as for the ambient scene dialogue, I haven’t memorized to many of them but they do make the world feel more lively and often give some more personality to npcs that aren’t vital to the story.
Such as the Charr pup with his mother outside the tribune(?) quarters in the black citadel, I enjoyed that one among others.

Mr. Stein,

I didn’t realize that there was a separate team for writing the story. Thanks for clearing that up, so the props can go to them!

And I want to make sure that I want to keep this positive. I know it may sound like I’m criticizing the Norn story, but that’s not what I was trying to go for. Less “Man, the Norn story sucks, what were they thinking?” and more “Man, the Charr story rocks, they need to do more of this!”

Also makes me quite happy to see you posting here. Thank you!

BobbyStein.2315:

Psientist.4732:

If Mr Stein is still keeping an eye on this thread I’d like to ask:
Was the writing in this game mainly done with a pre-teen/young teen demography in mind? I bet you have some really good writers on your team as well as being one yourself, and I understand the necessity of writing on the same level as the target demography but… please tell me you guys wrote this with crowd pleasing marketing in mind

I prefer a more mature tone where appropriate, which is why the dynamic event and ambient scene dialogue (hopefully) sound that way. My team didn’t set the tone for the personal story, which is why you may notice a difference in voice.

I really appreciate you weighing on this, as the lore and story really drive me in both this game and in the previous game. If anything, I think more communication between you guys (Anet as the devs) and us as the players on here would be invaluable. I cherished the blog posts for that reason and I am really liking some of the posts in these threads. At the same time, I think they are a bit scarce and a little more dialogue from the devs would do much to calm people down.

I just want to know why the story team has made some the decisions they did. Cause really, when I met Trahearne I was expecting Rurik or Togo and I got Kormir again. I know you guys can pump out some great stuff and there are even bits in the Trahearne segments that I liked a bit. It would just be really great to here a bit more from those who wrote it and also if the possibility is in there for the story to be revise in a major way that would be very heartening to see at this point.

I won’t lie, I’m really more psyched to level my charr character both for his personal story and to see Tybalt as I did Priory on my Elementalist. I don’t want to level my Ele anymore purely because of how the later story quests feel like a step back.

All in all though, I am really happy with a lot of things in this game and many of the little lore touches, environmental things, and dialogue is fantastic.

Grakor.3450:

Mr. Stein,

I didn’t realize that there was a separate team for writing the story. Thanks for clearing that up, so the props can go to them!

And I want to make sure that I want to keep this positive. I know it may sound like I’m criticizing the Norn story, but that’s not what I was trying to go for. Less “Man, the Norn story sucks, what were they thinking?” and more “Man, the Charr story rocks, they need to do more of this!”

Also makes me quite happy to see you posting here. Thank you!

True, amidst the criticism, sometimes we forgot to mention things we enjoyed. Even for the human’s story, I enjoyed the overall character archs and the mystery/ looking-for-the-truth plots. I would like to see more of Captain Tervelan, Riot Alice, Petra and Lord Farren, personally. Tervelan intrigues me especially, I sometimes question how this character would interact with the hero in a new context, especially considering the man wanted the best for Kryta afterall (if I did not miss any detail).

Wait… the story wasn’t even written by your writers? One just sat in to editorialize it? That’s… okay…

Wait. So, if the writers didn’t do the writing, what do the writers DO exactly?

My best feedback is, writing is best done by one person. Understandably you need to consider game design in this case, but generally, the fewer the people involved (and especially minimizing the teams involved) results in a more cohesive story.

My impression (and others) with GW2’s story is that the focus was on the mechanics of progression and leading players from one idea for a mission type to the next, and not necessarily that the missions flowed naturally from an original vision or narrative.

The most success you had with the story, IMO, was with the secondary characters. (Apples, etc.) Without going into a very long analysis of the events, those were the moments of real connection with the universe, as they were the most basic and human of experiences in the game. I don’t know who was responsible for those characters or what they were in the timeline of creative input, but… yeah, more of that. Give that guy the keys.

4. My Charr was an engineer, so building ghost-killing turrets and rifles fit right into my character’s class from the get-go.

Ohnoes.
Does that mean every class invents the Ghostbore?
Thanks for the warning. My 1st Charr was an engineer too and I was debating to roll a Charr Warrior or Necromancer next. Guess the Necro is out, as he can´t even use a rifle which to me it would just break this whole storyarc.

Hope you guys polish up inconsistencies like this.

Was anyone else disappointed there was no love interest in the personal story at all? After playing through A Light in the Darkness and seeing the 3 choices you had to pick from, I thought a love interest would have been a good part for a personal story. Would have made the PC seem more….human. I guess, instead of a warmachine

I picked the top choice “death of an innocent” and I’ve yet to find out if it actually happened yet and I’m on level 80 story quests, yes I’ve had quite a few people die….but none seemed to impact me in any way, as the player i was just like. “Oh another died. huh…ok where’s the next quest.” The only NPC my character grew close to was Forgal I guess, and he died before the Pale Tree vision.

Dunno, just seems like a personal story should have some kind of love interest and inevitable lost of said love interest, or a huge personal loss in some way, that helps drive the character even more.

I was also half expecting to meet an undead Forgal again, but that hasn’t happened either.

I rolled a human, because it felt like the natural transition after years of Guild Wars 1.

I’m level 80 and I barely ever do story missions anymore, the dialog is underdeveloped and my character so bland and souless I stopped having any attachment to it. On the other hand all my friends who rolled a charr are having a blast. I don’t understand what editing was done in the Human Story when there is even a decent amount of spelling mistakes. I love this game, but after Guild Wars 1 which had at least a decent story line in almost every expansion the Human Story feels like watching the next installment of Power Rangers where every Ranger is defined solely by their color.

When the Exotic Bags thing is fixed I’ll surely roll a Charr too…

Please, give us more of the good or decent stuff in future expansions and if possible please improve the dialog a bit. Please.

Ohnoes.
Does that mean every class invents the Ghostbore?

Only if you’re Iron Legion.

One of the things that annoyed me most about the story is the feeling of powerlessness that it causes unnecessarily.
Trahearne is not the big issue. He’s the head of the Pact, he should be giving orders. The problem is that the player is the second in command, and yet in nearly every mission at least one of the NPCs will order you around. It’s not, “Commander, they’re pinned down! We need to help them! What do we do?” choice: “Charge the ridge line” or “Sneak around via the orchard.” it’s “Commander, they’re pinned down! Charge the ridge line!” “Commander, I, random subordinate #4826, order you to personally lead a mission behind enemy lines, with no backup.”
If you were trying to make me feel like my character is a spineless wimp, you’ve succeeded.

HawkMeister – Like vonBoomslang said, your 1-20 plot is determined by your legion and your father. Blood Legion and Ash Legion can all fit pretty much any class. Blood legion uses spellcasters occasionally too, if they use magic in a front lines blow kitten up style. Ash Legion still uses warriors and elementalists and such in a more tactical manner, and apparently has a lot of necromancers too. Even iron legion works decently well with thieves and warriors, both of whom can use guns as well.

I have 4 charr and 1 Human. I love Charr they are great. They are animated well and just look awesome.

My main Charr is a 56 mesmer withkitten Warrior backing up the rear the rest are just small time alts.

I liked that the fact that Guardians, Warriors, Engineers, Thiefs, and Rangers fit into the storylines very nicely.

What I don’t like is the fact that if you choose any light armor class aside from maybe the Necro, he could fit into ash quite or blood, They feel tottaly out of place.

I hope in the future they add a 4th option for a Charr storyline as Norn did get 4 that adds the 4th legion of “Flame Legion Retribtuon” (Or like, you can make up a good name, it’s not my job!)

That would suit light armor perfect. A legion setup to bring justice to the flame legion.

It’s quite an easily write able story line, It could just be about gaining the other legions trust.

I’m going to have to agree that I enjoyed the Charr stories from 1-30 best as well. It feels more plausible you might say, due to the military nature of all the stories. You get a set of orders, you complete those orders, you’re dismissed, you get some more orders, you never think “why would my character be doing this, what’s to be gained?”. The recruiting of warband members was also something I just really liked, along with the male Charr voice acting (seriously yes, Mr. Yuan did a great job, I feel like a badkitten every time I play and hear my character). The fact that I had choice in my company was a big step towards enjoying the story. I do kind of wish all of our warband members were in our home instance… 1 is missing for me.

I did Ash Legion, I chose Dinky, so he’s there (and I miss him being in the rest of my story, I’d have enjoyed the rest of the story more if my whole Warband was with me in the order rather than just me), I have Yahuk Fellstrike, and I can find him.. my turncoat father got pardoned, and I can find him.. as welll as I can find the “blacksmith” that recruited me to the Order of Whispers…. but in my Ash Legion storyline, I recruited a chatterbox Engineer, Samona Ironclaw.

I can’t find her anywhere in Hero’s Canton… and she didn’t come with me on missions either. I recruited her… then she disappeared…

Oh well, no storyline is perfect.

But anyway I liked that I was recruiting people to back me up.

Love interest? Try playing human and listen to Logan and Jenna. That is teeth-gritting telenovela right there.

I also think the type of cutscenes and the length of missions have done the writing a disservice. GW1 was way better in that regard even if it had only a fraction of cutscenes. Due to the cutscenes, there is a total lack of establishing shots and it shows. The open world has at least vistas for that now, but personal story and characters do not have that luxury.

Logan needs a bit more of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itmNiTwHOsM
ok, maybe a little bit less uber-macho, but you get the idea.

For the most part, I think personal story missions struggle with their short length. There are so many missions which only consist of one fight and a short story frame.

I always point to the mission “A Light in Darkness” as an example for a mission which does it right. That is an all around awesome mission. Right amount of length, every character, every location is properly introduced. You fight your way in. There is a small plot twist, then some more fighting and you exit this mission with a good outlook on what is to come.

Compared to that, most other story missions are just small fights which can be completed in one minute and two short dialog scenes. There isn’t even room for character development in these few lines.

For future expansions, ArenaNet has quite the challenge ahead of them.

ArenaNet needs a guideline in which spots NPCs have to stay before a cutscene.
ArenaNet needs an automated TV director who then correctly shoots the NPCs
The background can still be substituted should it become necessary.
Add a few more different idle animations while you are at it.
Add a few talking animations
Characters need to know where to look.
Locations and characters need establishing shots (same pan over and over anyway)
Missions need more length, so they can at least have three semi-proper micro-acts

If that happens, the current writing will be the smallest issue, because it is far from being as bad as it often looks in that particular cinematic style of GW2. Then sprinkle the result with a few GW1 style cinematics and custom camera work and you have a winner.

I gotta be honest, the best thing you could do is take out all of the conversation cutscenes. They’re clunky, they have awful timing (with several-second gaps where one person is supposed to be interrupted, while their interrupter fades magically into view, or worse, a few seconds’ gap and then laughter, which just sounds awful), and they artificially restrict conversations to two people at a time – and telegraph who’s going to say what next. They make absolutely clear that this is no conversation, it’s people reading a script.

GW1 style in-game cinematics were infinitely better. I understand why you can’t do them for some portions (particularly in the new-character zones, where other characters could interrupt things) but for any instanced story step, the “two folks talking against concept art” should really go.

I am currently at college studying Creative Media and next year I intend to go to university to study Games Development and hopefully have a career within this industry and right now I am torn between developing my skills as a writer or an artist. I don’t mean to suck up to the Arenanet team, but some of the writing and dialogue in this game has inspired me recently and made me think about different writing styles.

To get myself more on topic, I agree with this threads author to an extent. I’ve only seen a decent portion of three personal stories, two charr and one human.

The First I saw was when I was watching my friend play the game as a Charr Necromancer. He picked Blood Legion and a Honourless Gladium as his father, with Euryale as his sparring partner. The story saw him disgraced for getting his warband killed and repeatedly being insulted by his commander Steelbane until he got the opportunity to prove himself in the arena and eventually having a duel with Steelbane. As he found himself getting the upper hand over Steelbane, Steelbane surrendered and he was given the choice to kill him or let him live. Being a no second chances kind of guy, he decided to end his former commanders life, only for Steelbane to decide he’s not going down without a fight and knock down the poor Necromancer and send him into the Downed state in a matter of seconds. What ensued was tense and epic; the rest of the fight played out with my friend on all the floor hanging on for dear life, somehow managing to drain 1/2 of Steelbane’s HP without being defeated and just managing to defeat him. To this day, this was the greatest moment of personal stories in this game, as it was a duel with a hated authority figure that was won by the skin of his teeth. His then rewarded for his success and promoted to Legionnaire, and set the task of rebuilding his warband. After this I haven’t seen much of this storyline.

When I created my Charr Engineer I chose Iron Legion and honourless gladium, with Clawspur as my partner. Despite having the same result as my friend and having my entire warband wiped, I am praised highly and promoted to legionnaire instantly and already have plans for a new weapon to counter the ghost probelm. From the get go my personal story is a lot more positive and feels different. I recruit an engineer into my warband and perfect my weapon, and am then given the choice to use it with Blood Legion or Ash Legion technology. From the testing, I preferred the Blood Legions use of the technology by far, but as always I ask my friend Clawspur for his opinion, who prefers Ash Legion. Due to my respect for him (he has some amazing dialogue in my opinion) I choose Ash Legion despite my own opinions. We coordinate an attack on the ghosts, all goes well and I find myself another member for my warband. In this storyline, I am yet to advance further.

Now for my Human Guardian, who never knew his true parents but was adopted to Nobility and raised happily. Having defeated a great stone elemental and earning himself the title “Hero Of Shaemoor” a party is thrown in his honour and I meet Lord Faren for the first time, who is quickly kidnapped and leaves me having to rescue him. Now I really like Lord Faren, he’s cheesy and pompous but his dialogue is very entertaining but I am confused that when we discover that the bandits are holding captives in a nearby cavern and decide we must intervene, despite Lord Faren being portrayed as pretty much useless in the last mission, he decides to join me and take on the same bandits that dragged him away kicking and screaming. Discovering there that the bandits are gaining assistance from someone high up and leaving me to find out who, Lord Faren then seems to disappear for a portion of the plot. Eventually discovering Minister Zamus as the culprit, I am given the choice to investigate his house or attend a social gathering to eavesdrop. I choose to investigate his house and after finding some evidence take him to trial. On arriving at this mission I’m excited as I believe that this mission will be about clever use of words and evidence to prove Zamus guilty and I thought I’d be given a lot of choices, but the trail quickly descends into “Trail By Combat” and I am given the choice of who shall be my second in this duel. These choices seem rather pitiful, seeing as I can choose between:

Lord Faren, Who apparently has gone through a lot of mental training seeing as he’s gone from being helplessly dragged away by bandits to willing to fight a nine foot Norn warrior.

Countess Anise, a noble who up until this point I wasn’t even aware that she could fight.

Or lastly, Logan Thackerary, former member of the legendry guild Destiny’s Edge, fought against the dragons beside some of the world’s finest warriors and is also captain of The Seraph guard.

This entire choice seemed very bias as there is no logical reason my character would pick Faren or Anise, I was tempted to pick one of those just to see what happened but in trying to make decisions through my characters eyes I had to pick Logan because he is without a doubt the most suitable partner in combat.

Having won the duel, I receive a letter for “The Hero Of Shaemoor”. The Charr storylines linked together very well in my opinion, but having this letter only mention my battle at Shaemoor and seemingly unaware of any my of exploits for the last 8 levels really breaks the illusion that this my own ongoing story and that I’m not just being dragged out of one plot arc and into another. The only choice I get in this entire plot is HOW i wish to assault a base of White Mantle devouts, with stealth or pure aggression. As always, I choose to undergo a full frontal assault. After winning this battle, I then discover the last known site of my parents alive and visit to find their gravestones, which have loving messages to me written on them. This was a very satisfying end to the storyline, but the story arc up to that point did not really impress me. After that I proceed to go into the same story arcs as all humans and eventually join the Vigil and get the same quests as all Vigil characters, so I won’t really go into detail with them.

The Charr Storylines are better simply because the first had a clear villian for me to despise and eventually overcome, the second felt like it was giving me the choice on which Legion i should implement my technology with whereas the human storyline never really asked WHAT i want to do, only HOW should I do it. Do I eavesdrop at a party or investigate a house? Do I use stealth or aggression to attack the white mantle?
As mentioned on the start of this rather large post, I really respect the Arenanet and especially the writers and don’t believe that I could do any better but it really feels the Charr personal story got a lot more attention then the humans…

I don’t know if my post will ever get seen by anyone in ArenaNet, but this is my honest opinion.

A lot of valid points have been mentioned in the previous posts, but I really think what the story is missing is cohesiveness and depth. I think it was a huge misstep to introduce the personal story as a branching storyline where your choices act as branches. I also think it was a misstep to introduce the cutscene system as it ruins immersion and takes out the opportunity to use the environment or bodily expressions. This is a flawed system for several reasons:

• Players do not receive a consistent story – In branching storylines, it is easier for players to gather different opinions due to the fact their experiences are so different. One story arc may be very cleverly designed while another story arc may lack the emotional depth a satisfying story needs. This can cause problems when trying to pinpoint problems in the plot and delivery. It also causes confusion when other players use word of mouth to spread the word about the story.

• One, strong, epic storyline is better than five mediocre ones The story needs depth. IMO, the story in its current state does not make you feel like a hero. I feel like that elements that made the first Guild Wars story so memorable are missing. Because of the depth and scope of the story, events like when you carry the Eye of Janthir to Maguuma, only to discover the White Mantle is murdering the Chosen stay imprinted in the viewer’s mind. Or the trials of the Crystal Desert. Or the moment you take back Thunderhead Keep from the Mursaat and you set sail to Perdition Rock. These moments stand out because of the way they were designed: it contains depth. You missed the opportunity to create these types of memorable experiences for newcomers to the series by creating these convoluted storylines. The only memorable experience I will take from the personal story is following Trahearne into the vision of the Pale Tree to see your future in Orr. I hope your team takes this as a learning experience and vastly improves the story. I really wish I liked it :\.

• Longer development time due to design choices Although most ends were tied well in the personal story, there is room for error. This causes development time to become much larger than normal and can introduce future errors. It also creates a mess when dealing with future extensions to a story. Also, introducing a cutscene system where characters are placed to a backdrop abruptly cuts the actions and there are many missed opportunities

Other complaints are things like elements of the story are very childish and do not seem to cater to an older audience. For example, Destiny’s Edge sounds like a bunch of a whiners and they all act childish. I don’t understand how the writing for this game could’ve let this happen?

I haven’t played the Charr but I wanted to give some feedback on Sylvari.

I am really liking the Sylvari storyline so far. And I love the Sylvari themselves. I’ve also played with the humans and the norn and they just aren’t as interesting as the Sylvari. Even the female idle animations are adorable. Whoever worked on the Sylvari did a wonderful job with them. Thank you.

Agreeing with most of the criticisms raised above, though I’ll state it more strongly – the lack of narrative cohesion between story chunks and the lack of introduction for even important characters (much less incidentals that you may or may not have met previously based on your choices) makes the personal story missions unpleasant to play even in those instances where the gameplay mechanics are actually novel and engaging. It’s like trying to read a book where 60% of the pages are missing. The “high level” is visible, but the details are vague or missing altogether. I know ArenaNet is interested in feedback on this front, so here’s mine – I don’t think the personal stories are going to be salvageable as a complete experience without doing a lot of the existing work over again. Even tacking additional high quality content on to it in the form of expansion branches will still require new characters to muddle their way through the existing story, at least in part. I love the game, but the personal story is by far the weakest element.

HawkMeister.4758:

4. My Charr was an engineer, so building ghost-killing turrets and rifles fit right into my character’s class from the get-go.

Ohnoes.
Does that mean every class invents the Ghostbore?
Thanks for the warning. My 1st Charr was an engineer too and I was debating to roll a Charr Warrior or Necromancer next. Guess the Necro is out, as he can´t even use a rifle which to me it would just break this whole storyarc.

Hope you guys polish up inconsistencies like this.

It’s determined by Legion.

it can be assumed, that when the teams were writing the stories, they had classes in mind for them.

Blood Legion: Warriors, to a lesser extent Guardians, and to a lesser extent well, any class CAN fit into this storyline without feeling out of place. You’re a front line soldier, it’s straight forward enough.

Iron Legion: Engineer, every other class will feel a little odd as an “inventor” in the storyline. However for Engineer this storyline is tailor made and is the most fitting story for an Engineer (the Asura ones falling in second). You’re jury rigging specially made rifles from scrap metal, then your idea is expanded to other applications, and you perform testing on these weapons. What else could an Engineer want?

Ash Legion: Thieves are the primary draw here, however Rangers and Mesmers will also fit in this legion without missing a beat. You’re intelligence, you’re spying, and while thieves are the obvious stealthy spy type, Mesmers can also fill the same role just as well. They have stealth and they also have the “silver tongue” needed for espionage (think of James Bond, part of his job was being undetected, and part of his job was socializing and mingling and getting people to talk by trusting him when they shouldnt… with that in mind I think Ash Legion soldiers should be charmers). Rangers are a slightly lesser fit, however rangers are commonly scouts and independent operatives (aside from their pets) so they also fit in well.

Charr Necromancers and Elementalists are the hardest fit, as none of the stories feel like it tailors to their profession. Charr don’t really trust magic, they use it, as they’re pragmatic, but your storyline will never center around it.

dimgl.4786:

I don’t know if my post will ever get seen by anyone in ArenaNet, but this is my honest opinion.

A lot of valid points have been mentioned in the previous posts, but I really think what the story is missing is cohesiveness and depth. I think it was a huge misstep to introduce the personal story as a branching storyline where your choices act as branches. I also think it was a misstep to introduce the cutscene system as it ruins immersion and takes out the opportunity to use the environment or bodily expressions. This is a flawed system for several reasons:

• Players do not receive a consistent story – In branching storylines, it is easier for players to gather different opinions due to the fact their experiences are so different. One story arc may be very cleverly designed while another story arc may lack the emotional depth a satisfying story needs. This can cause problems when trying to pinpoint problems in the plot and delivery. It also causes confusion when other players use word of mouth to spread the word about the story.

• One, strong, epic storyline is better than five mediocre ones The story needs depth. IMO, the story in its current state does not make you feel like a hero. I feel like that elements that made the first Guild Wars story so memorable are missing. Because of the depth and scope of the story, events like when you carry the Eye of Janthir to Maguuma, only to discover the White Mantle is murdering the Chosen stay imprinted in the viewer’s mind. Or the trials of the Crystal Desert. Or the moment you take back Thunderhead Keep from the Mursaat and you set sail to Perdition Rock. These moments stand out because of the way they were designed: it contains depth. You missed the opportunity to create these types of memorable experiences for newcomers to the series by creating these convoluted storylines. The only memorable experience I will take from the personal story is following Trahearne into the vision of the Pale Tree to see your future in Orr. I hope your team takes this as a learning experience and vastly improves the story. I really wish I liked it :\.

• Longer development time due to design choices Although most ends were tied well in the personal story, there is room for error. This causes development time to become much larger than normal and can introduce future errors. It also creates a mess when dealing with future extensions to a story. Also, introducing a cutscene system where characters are placed to a backdrop abruptly cuts the actions and there are many missed opportunities

Other complaints are things like elements of the story are very childish and do not seem to cater to an older audience. For example, Destiny’s Edge sounds like a bunch of a whiners and they all act childish. I don’t understand how the writing for this game could’ve let this happen?

I disagree strongly. The branching nature of the early part of the story is quite simply the best part, people have different experiences, because they chose differently. It also gives replay value as when you make someone of a different class, you make different character creation options and have a totally different story.

The problem lies in the 50+ story content merging together to have a single story. That ruins it. It makes you feel like your choices no longer matter, and takes away replay value.

Let’s be honest, while the story in the original guild wars was alright…..

the first time you did it.

On subsequent characters everyone spammed “SKIP CINEMATICS”

So this time, I’ll end up playing through each character paying attentiion to the first 30 levels of story, and for 3 characters I’ll pay attention to the 30-50 story.

But on every character from now on since I already did 1 character….

I’ll be skipping cinematics because it’ll all be the same as my first character.

If I might add something, if there are changes or improvements to the various storylines, I hope there is an option to replay them again, just to see what’s up and to avoid re-rolling and re-leveling characters. Kinda like a new game + but only because I want to replay the story or make different choices because I like the plot… Even at least for the level 1-30 personal story plot. The only problem area I foresee though would be the final order choice. Anyway, played the Norn storyline, and I really liked the “blacked out at a moot” branch. It’s the Hangover GW2 style.

I agree with the OP, Charr storyline is fantastic.

Asura storyline is pretty good as well. I love the voice acting for Zoja.

I don’t find the stories all that bad. I’m OK with the presentation, dialogue and voice acting for the most part. However, I don’t find them all that engaging. I never really feel invested in them and always play through them as kind of a detached observer. This is because the stories seem to be written in a very PG manner, which is not something that is generally going to command my attention. They don’t grab me by the throat and drag me into them, which would be my preference.

For instance, my favorite story from Guild Wars was about Lady Althea, primarily what happened after the Searing. And it’s not because I enjoyed but because it kicked me in the gut and made me angry. I still hold a weird grudge against the charr because of it, but that’s because the story bit deep. I don’t find the ones in GW2 are capable of evoking the same level of emotion, so are far more forgettable. Years and years later, I still remember Lady Althea.